Gimme Ten!

The challenge posted at Flourishes' blog today is to create a card in 10 minutes. In my world that would be considered a 'miracle'. This challenge really intrigued me because I usually can't get anything done in ten minutes, but I sure would like to speed things up a bit. So, I picked a paper pack and a couple of stamp sets, started the clock and this is what I came up with. The card actually took me closer to 15 minutes to complete, but I have to say I really surprised myself.

I am also entering this card in Julie Koerber's 5th Anniversary challenge at Out To Impress.



Supplies: Card size is 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

Paper - Mocha Morning (SU), Black CS (SU), Colonial White CS (CTMH)
Stamps - Butterfly Blossoms (Flourishes), Gratitude (Flourishes)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Magnolia Wedding/Anniversary Card

Good Morning everyone. Hope you had a good weekend and to our neighbours to the south - have a great Memorial Day holiday. I recently purchased some new stamp sets and Spellbinders and have been anxious to start using them. This weekend I created this Anniversary card - although it would work equally as well as a Wedding card using my new stamp set from Flourishes called 'Magnolias'. Love this beautiful set. I didn't have the right paper in a cream colour for colouring with Copics, but managed with what I had. Didn't turn out too bad, the paper just didn't blend that well. The Timeless Tuesday challenge at Flourishes was to create anything with flowers (that was easy) and I used the Week 5 Verve skectch. I also entered Frosted Designs 'Fabulous Friday' challenge which this week is Weddings.

Supplies: Card size is 6 1/2" x 4 3/4" Paper - Mocha Morninng (SU), Crumb Cake CS (SU), Colonial White CS (CTMH) Stamps - Magnolias (Flourishes), Birthday Sentiments (Just Rite), Say It In Style (Waltzing Mouse) Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics - E0000, E40, E42, E44, Y21, Y35, YG93, YG95, YG97, W00, W3 Accessories - Mocha Opaques (CTMH), 1 1/2" silk ribbon (May Arts) Other - Floral Ovals, Classic Ovals Large, Labels 10 (Spellbinders), 3D Foam

Random Stamping on Kraft

The other day Ally Cope posted a tutorial on Flourishes blog on how to incorporate Kraft paper onto a layout page - 'Let's Get Krafty'. I loved it so much I decided to give it a try and created a card with it. Basically, you random stamp on Kraft paper with Memento ink, making sure not to leave large open spaces and then colour in around the stamped images with a Copic marker, I used Black. To help avoid large open spaces, I stamped the smaller flower on scrap, cut them out and used them to help space where I placed the large flower. Seemed to work. I love the look and versatility of this technique.

I used this week's sketch at Clean & Simple #191 and also entered this week's challenge 'Beautiful Butterflies' at Tuesday Alchemy Challenge blog.

Supplies: Card size is 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" - All supplies CTMH except where noted Paper - Kraft, Colonial White, Black cardstock Stamps - Card Word Puzzle, Tage Lines (Flourishes) Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Black Copic Accessories - Licorice Pearl Opaques Other - Beautifu Wings Embosslit (SU)

Easy Baby Card - Graphic 45 Little Darlings

I have been struggling to craft for a while now (as I am sure has been obvious with my lack of posts), so I purchased some new supplies in the hopes that it would kick start my creativity. I fell in love with the 'Little Darlings' paper collection from Graphic 45 and have created this sweet baby card with it. I also used one of the new stamp sets that I ordered from Flourishes called 'Baby Love'. The card was based on an old Mojo Monday sketch - #151 The beautiful velvet ribbon, which I thought went perfectly with the feel of this card, was from a stash of ribbon that I won on Sharon Johnson's blog 'No Time To Stamp' - Ribbon Inspirations blog hop that she hosts every Saturday. You can check it out here, along with her store 'Stamp Simply Ribbon Store'.

Supplies: Card size is 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" Paper - Little Darlings - Graphic 45, Colonial White CS (CTMH), Brown CS (Bazzill) Stamps - Hello Baby (Flourishes) Ink - Brown Bag (CTMH) Accessories - button, waxy flax, Mocha Opaques (all CTMH), brown velvet ribbon (Stamp Simply Ribbon Store) Other - Embossing folder (Crafts Too), Border punch (Martha Stewart), Labels 4 - Sm & Lg (Spellbinders), 3D foam

Card Patterns #162 Guest Designer and Dotty For You

A couple of weeks ago I entered this card into Card Patterns Challenge #159 and it won. My prize was the opportunity to be Guest Designer for week #162, which I am very excited about. You can check out this week's challenge here. I created the card below showcasing some of the fun papers in the special paper pack 'Dotty for You', available exclusively from Close To My Heart until the end of May.

And here is the sketch from Card Patterns:

Supplies: Card size is 4 3/4" x 6 1/2" - All materials CTMH except where noted
Paper - Dotty for You, White Daisy cardstock
Stamp Set - Happy Birthday
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Lagoon re-inker
Accessories - Bitty Sparkles, Clear Sparkles, Binder Clips, Baker's Twine, Seam Binding Ribbon (May Arts), metal flower (unknown)
Other - Cricut Art Philosophy, Bone Folder, 3D foam I thought I would also share the card below, which was the first card I created for this challenge, however when it was done I wasn't 100% pleased with it so decided to have another go at it. I like this card, just wasn't happy with the way I stamped it.

Supplies: Card size is 4 3/4" x 6 1/2" - All materials CTMH except where noted Paper - Dotty for You, White Daisy cardstock, Neena Classic Crest Solar White Stamp Set - Poppy Patch (Flourishes), Enjoy Every Moment Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers, Lagoon re-inker Accessories - Bling Button, Bling Pins, Black Waxy Flax, Seam Binding Ribbon (May Arts), Rhinestone brads, Dimensional Elements tag

Cricut Art Philosophy Fairytale Roses Tutorial

Hello all. It has been some time since I have posted here. Life has been pretty busy, so I haven't had as much opportunity to craft as I would like. In my last post I showed you how I made paper roses using CTMH's exclusive Cricut cartridge - Art Philosophy. Today, I would like to show you how I made the little cardstock roses on the card below.

As I mention in my video, this is not my original idea. I watched a couple of You Tube videos on how to make Prima Fairytale Roses using a punch from EK Success. I created this video to show you how you can make these roses using one of the images found on our Cricut cartridge.

I used Card Patterns sketch #159

See my video tutorial below.

Supplies - All materials CTMH except where noted - card size is 6 1/2" x 4 3/4"
Paper - Cherry-O (retired), English Rose (Kaiserkraft), Colonial White, Black, Baby Pink & Sweet Leaf cardstock
Stamps - Gracious Greeting (retired)
Ink - Memento - Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko), Bamboo, Sweet Leaf
Accessories - Black wrinkled seam binding (MayArts), Natural Hemp, Black Opaques, lace (fabric store)
Other - Border punch (Martha Stewart), Cricut Art Philosophy, Spellbinders Small Ovals, Spellbinders Labels 10, 3D foam tape

Cricut Art Philosophy Non-spiral Paper Roses Tutorial

The new Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge has some great cut images for creating 3-D spiral flowers. However, for these roses I used a different method. I created the three larger roses on this card using the 'Flower3' image on the cartridge. These roses are similar to the roses that I have been making for years that are completely hand cut. You can find a tutorial for them here.

The sketch I used for this card is 'The Deconstructed Sketch #39' found here.

I love how this card turned out. You can find out how I colored the seam binding here. Love the new 'Thanks' stamp set - very elegant. I cut the Grey Wool circle at 3 1/4", the Colonial White circle at 3".

Please see my video tutorial below to see how I put the roses together. I love the little knock-off Prima fairytale roses also and hope to put together another tutorial next week. You can learn how to make these by going to You Tube and searching for Prima Fairytale roses. After watching a couple of these videos I came up with a method that is basically the same with a few minor differences.



Supplies: Card size is 5" x 5" - All products are CTMH except where noted
Paper - Lucy B&T, Colonial White, Olive and Grey Wool cardstock
Stamps - Thanks -A1125
Ink - Jet Black Staz-On, Grey Wool, Creme Brulee, Olive, Tulip, Cotton Candy, Cotton Candy re-inker
Accessories - Color Ready Seam Binding, Pearl Opaques, Bitty Pearl Opaques
Other - Cricut Art Philosophy, craft knife, 1/2" flower punch (EK Success), 3D foam, rubbing alcohol, heat gun

Cricut Art Philosophy 3D Petal Flowers

Love the new Cricut cartridge - Art Philosophy - from Close To My Heart. There are five awesome cuts on the cartridge for making 3D rose-like flowers, but you can also make some great flowers from some of the petal shapes. Here are a couple of very simple 3" x 3" cards that I quickly made to showcase the flowers.

The six petal flower above was made using six of 'Petal 1' cut at 1 1/4" and one base 'flower 7' cut at 3/4"

The seven petal flower above was made using seven of 'Petal 2' cut at 1 1/4" and one base 'Flower 6' cut at 3/4"

Check out the video below for details on how I put these flowers together.



Supplies - Cards are 3" x 3" - All supplies CTMH
Paper - Pemberly B&T, Colonial White & Indian Corn Blue cardstock
Stamp - Thank You
Ink - Outdoor Denim, Creme Brulee
Accessories - Opaque Pearls
Other - Cricut Art Philoshophy cartridge

Moose Hunt

Someone sent this to my husband - too funny!

Several guys from Peterborough Ontario dressed up their truck with a guy tied to the roof.

The driver and passengers put on Moose Head costumes.

As they drove down the main street of Peterborough they caused about 6 accidents.

They were charged with Public Mischief and having open beer in a vehicle, Peterborough cops have no sense of humor.

Stella Valentine's Card

I love the simple elegance of this Valentine's card using one of the new paper packs from CTMH and my Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge. I like the look of using the negative space and tried my hand at machine stitching on my art for the first time (it was almost my last when my thread snagged six stitches in). The bow was made with our new baker's twine.

I used the current sketch at Card Patterns

The hearts were cut at 3/4" high. I used repositional dotto-dots on the left half of each heart to lay out the pattern and then sewed through each column of hearts. I then folded up the left side of each heart and removed the adhesive with a rub and remove eraser. I wrapped the ribbon around the top of the white layer and then adhered it to the red printed layer using 3D foam tape.

I've had some questions about the word LOVE on the card. I cut them at 1" high. I manually moved the blade on my Cricut to about where I thought I wanted the letters on my card (cut the card front larger than your finished piece - it is easier to cut off the excess afterwards than to position the blade exactly where you want it). I cut out the L and the O first, taking note of the positon of the blade given by the measurements on the screen. After cutting the L and O, I manually moved the blade back to the appropriate measurement so that the V would line up with the L, leaving about an 1/8" between the bottom of the L and the top of the V. Cut out the V and E and then use the negative space.

Supplies - Card size is 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" - All supplies CTMH
Paper - Stella B&T, White Daisy & Black cardstock
Stamp - Mad About You (for inside sentiment)
Ink - black
Accessories - black & tulip grosgrain ribbon, black baker's twine, pewter mini-medley
Other - Cricut Art Philosophy, sewing machine, 3D foam