Saturday, May 28, 2011

Button Bear

It's time for another challenge at Our Creative Corner! Our hostess for the next two weeks is Sharon Wheet. This week she has a fun one: a baby card using kraft card stock, some kind of trim (ribbon, lace, crochet, etc.) and at least one button. I love making baby cards, so I had a great time with this one!

I used the Nursery Suite designer paper as the inspiration for my colors: Regal Rose, So Saffron, Chocolate Chip (oops, or is it supposed to be Early Espresso?) and white. The basic layout was CASEd from a card I saw in Paper Crafts by Stasia Sloma. I had to use my favorite (retired) bear from Cute & Cuddly, paper pieced of course. The scallop circle stamp comes from the Homemade stamp - I just colored only the outside edge with a marker. The rose scallop border was made with the Tasteful Trim die, and for my trim I added some narrow white lace out of my stash. The buttons dress up the top corner (the flower is SU retired, the others are random ones I found). Last came the sentiment from Something to Celebrate (level 2 hostess set).

OK, now for your daily cuteness quota, go check out the rest of the team's baby cards - they are adorable! And be sure to play with us and share your creation so everyone can see!

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Something new?

Today I'm showing you the technique card we did at my club. I wanted to do an embossing resist technique and I came up with a variation I hadn't seen before - but I don't want to claim that I created something new unless you guys tell me I did! So let me know what you think - is this a new idea, and if by some chance it is, what should I call it? I will say that as I predicted, this card was hard to capture in a photo. IRL it looks really cool, if I do say so myself!

I first took glossy card stock and embossed the foliage image from Fabulous Florets with black craft ink and EP. (Don't forget your embossing buddy!) Next I mixed Poppy Parade reinker with champagne shimmer paint. Using a foam brush, I brushed it over the whole image, then used a paper towel to buff the whole thing. Finally, for more depth of color I brushed another coat of the ink/paint mixture on top and let it dry. I wanted to see the brush strokes - kind of like lacquer, maybe? - so I made sure all the strokes went the same direction and the color was even. With this second coat make sure you don't use too much ink or the brush strokes will disappear as it dries. This will also take a while to dry - in retrospect, probably too long for club unless we had taken the heat gun to it. My gals ended up taking the embossed panel home separately to put the whole thing together later. Once the panel is completely dry, the very final step is to buff it with a clean paper towel, just to make sure no ink is left on the black embossing.

OK, now for the finishing touches - I embossed three flowers with gold EP on black card stock and cut them out. The sentiment from Happy Greetings is also gold embossed. To stick with the gold I used gold card stock as a layer, and two gold brads in each corner give the card just a bit more elegance and shine. Since I featured some brads as my only embellishments, I'm entering this in the Pals Paper Arts brad challenge.

Thanks for stopping by my blog - I hope you'll play around with this technique and tell me what you think. I'd love to see the variations you come up with!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Father's Day Frame

It's time for another challenge with Our Creative Corner! Where does the time go? This week our hostess, Linda Coughlin, is challenging us to incorporate a 3D frame on our projects. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, then I saw the Father's Day frame in the summer mini and decided to CASE that idea, but with my own paper frame. We'll be making this at my club this weekend.

To make the frame I cut two 3/4" x 4" strips and two 3/4" x 5" strips from Early Espresso textured card stock. I mitered the corners by trimming off each of the ends and fitting them together - and seeing that it was tricky with paper, I don't think I'll ever be doing it with wood! LOL! It's probably hard to see but I sponged all around the frame and mitered corners to give it more dimension, and the fram is popped up from its background. I made the shirt with Pear Pizazz designer paper and card stock, then added one of the ties from the Best Dad Ever set. This is a big card - 5 x 7 - which it had to be with the size of the frame. The background is simple - white card base, a strip of pear card stock wrapped with baker's twine, and a sentiment from the same stamp set with a row of piercing underneath.

Don't forget to stop by the OCC blog and see what everyone has made for this challenge - and then make your own frame and join us! Thanks for visiting and have a great weekend!

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Natural Elements

For this week's challenge at Our Creative Corner our hostess, Linda Coughlin, has a recipe challenge: use light neutrals as your main color(s), dark neutrals as accent color(s), and both lace AND buttons. I played around with different ideas for a really long time - which is probably not evident by my CAS card. You'll just have to take my word for it! ;)

When I saw the challenge I immediately gravitated toward my favorite neutral color combo: Very Vanilla, River Rock and Basic Black. If lace and buttons were going to be involved that made me think of something pretty and vintage-style, so that led me to Elements of Style. I didn't do anything to the image except sponge the edges with River Rock. The lace was the hardest thing to incorporate - it's not something I'm usually drawn to. I was digging around through boxes of old stuff and nothing was grabbing me, and then I remembered that SU had black lace in the holiday mini last year. Jackpot! After experimenting for a while I ended up just using a couple strips as accents over the streamlined striped background. I also looked and looked for the perfect buttons - these little guys from my stash finally made the cut, and I threaded them with matching embroidery floss. The sentiment didn't come easily, either - I tried lots of punches and nothing looked right, then I realized - duh! - I could just stamp a little sentiment right onto the image. This sweet little saying is from On the Grow (in the summer mini).

I know you will want to visit the OCC blog to see what the rest of the team has come up with - their creations are always fabulous! Then get out your neutrals and play along with the challenge - it's a fun one!

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Woven Hydrangea

This week our hostess at Our Creative Corner, Jen Rzasa, asked us to incorporate weaving into our projects. I admit this daunted me - I didn't really know what I was going to do. Thanks to Google I found a book that described weaving ribbon through punched borders (click here) and although I'm sure my take on the idea is much simpler, I like what I ended up with.

I took a 4" square of Concord Crush card stock and wove 1/8" Marina Mist taffeta ribbon through the holes of an open-weave border punch (non-SU). The center panel is very simple: the hydrangea from Because I Care, colored with Marina Mist, Concord Crush and Pear Pizazz, stamped on Whisper White and layered on Basic Black. I brought in the pear with a designer paper background then added the sentiment from Hodgepodge Happiness. Behind the punched label is a 1 3/8" black circle, and under that I put a trimmed rectangle of Concord Crush and added pearls in the corners.

Be sure you visit the OCC blog to see what the rest of the ladies have created for this challenge - and we hope you will wow us with your own weaving ideas!

Thursday, May 5, 2011

A new card kit!

It's been a while since I did a card kit, so I decided it was time to offer a new one. With this card kit you’ll receive complete instructions and all the consumable supplies needed to make 5 of each of these card designs – a total of 10 cards. The price of this kit is just $15, including envelopes.

If you purchase the monthly kit, you will also have the opportunity to purchase the coordinating stamp set, Party Hearty, at 15% off (tax and shipping not included). This set is already on sale for 30% off this month, so you're getting an even better deal!

Party Hearty wood mount, on sale for $18.87, with purchase of kit $16.04


The rest of the products used in making these cards are given in the list below. Supplies from Stampin' Up! cannot be sold on my blog; please contact me if you'd like to purchase the stamp set or any other supplies. You can also use the kit to make your cards with the supplies you already own. Please note designer paper patterns may vary depending on availability.

This kit will be available through May 31. You will receive your kit within two weeks of your purchase (probably less if no order from Stampin’ Up! is required).

Customers who live local to me and do not need shipping, click here to purchase your kit:
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If you are elsewhere in the U.S. click here to purchase the kit plus shipping:
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Sorry but kits can only be sold to customers in the U.S.

Lori Rider
loririder (at) verizon (dot) net

Additional product list:

• Early Espresso Classic Ink pad
• Poppy Parade Classic Ink pad/Stampin' Write marker
• Tempting Turquoise Classic Ink pad/Stampin' Write marker
• So Saffron Stampin' Write marker
• 1¾” scallop circle punch
• ¾” circle punch
• 1¾” circle punch
• 2 3/8” scallop circle punch
• Paper snips
• Bone folder
• SNAIL adhesive
• Stampin’ Dimensionals
• Tombow Mono Multipurpose Adhesive
• Mini glue dots
• Crystal Effects

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Happy Cupcake

I just loved the colors for this week's colourQ challenge: Daffodil Delight, Peach Parfait, Tangerine Tango, Tempting Turquoise and Very Vanilla. They made me think of summer! I just had to play along. I also really liked the SCS sketch challenge posted today so this card is for both challenges.

For my center panel I used the cake stand from Happy Everything and the Create a Cupcake stamp set and matching punch. The flower accent was made with one of the bitty punches and the retired 1/4" circle punch. I thought a rhinestone would look cute in the flower center and then I decided to bling it up more by putting rhinestones on the scallops of the cake stand. The curly label sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes, and for the background I used turquoise, peach and daffodil DPs with tangerine card stock layers and a bit of daffodil taffeta ribbon.

Mmm, now I want it to be a nice summer day - with a cupcake! Thanks for visiting today!