Cardmaking :)

I've made a few more cards over the last week.  I've been enjoying working with my Big Shot and Cuttlebug machines. 

For this first one, after embossing the background with an Anna Griffin folder, I proceeded to use watercolors to outline some of the flowers, leaves, and, of course, the bird.  Then I used Stickles to make some of the elements pop.  CTMH ribbon, Big Shot die for the sentiment, which is a stamped CTMH sentiment. 

 

 

 

For this next card I used my favorite color. :) The background is embossed with a Darice embossing folder and the scalloped half-circle and butterflies are Spellbinders dies. I used Glimmer Mist paint for the edge around the perimeter of my background, as well as on the butterflies.

 

For the smaller butterflies I cut three and layered them, leaving the bottom one the plain purple, embossing the middle white one with a Cuttlebug folder, and then using the same Glimmer Mist paint on the top one, and then I only glued along the middle of each butterfly so the wings could be popped out. The swirls under the small butterflies are the cut-outs from the bigger butterfly's wings.  :)

 

The sentiment is CTMH, after I sprayed some lovely purple Glimmer Mist on the scalloped circle. Ribbon is SU! and bling is CTMH.

　

 

 

Next, I made this beauty.  I think it's my favorite of the bunch.  It came together VERY easily. 

 

 

The background is embossed with Cuttlebug's Swiss Dots (which is one of my go-to favorites in case you haven't noticed! :) ).  The note part is a SU!/Sizzix die, which I embossed with another Cuttlebug folder.  "Strong" and "Brilliant" are Simon Says Stamp dies.  The small "you are so" tag is just hand-cut, and it's a CTMH stamp.  Buttons are from stash and the jump ring too.  Stamps are CTMH. 

One little detail shot.  :)

I won't ever get tired of saying it:  STAMP THE INSIDE of your card!!!  :)

 

Finally, I brought out an older SU!/Sizzix die that I bought a few years ago but had never used.  This 3D pop-up card was actually easy to make and lots of fun to decorate!

 

This is the front of the card.  It looks simple BUT when you open it up....

 

 

TADA!  A 3D cake.  :)

 

I've used Simple Stories paper and stickers throughout, and the shine on the cake is from Stickles. 

Here are a couple of side shots. 

 

I really enjoyed making the above card.  Like I said, it came together very easily.  It may look complicated but it really wasn't; I think it took longer for the Stickles to dry than it took me to make the whole thing! 

 

Those are my card projects for this week.  Thank you for stopping by! 

 

 

 

Laughing Lola cardmaking workshop

Here it is.  The beautiful Laughing Lola patterned paper bundled up with a stamp set and embellishments, with full-color instructions for making 15 cards (five each of three designs).  The kit comes with 15 pre-cut and pre-folded white cards and matching envelopes. 
It just couldn't be easier than that!!!

I love, love, love the stamp set, and I will most *definitely* be using it on other projects.  It coordinates with the Cricut Artiste cartridge.  (see links at bottom for purchase information)

 

 

Here's one card:

 

 

And another:

 

 

And the last one:

 

 

 

There are five of each card that took me about three hours to complete.  The instructions are simple and pretty much written so your cards are produced assembly-style.  This is a time saver for us busy people who never have enough hours in the day for everything we want to do!

 

 

 

And, I have leftover paper, twine, and some of the bling, not to mention the stamp set. 

This is really pretty paper and I love these cards. 

 

Laughing Lola cardmaking kit available HERE.

Laughing Lola patterned paper pack available HERE.

CTMH / Cricut Artiste available HERE.

 

Happy crafting!

 

 

Birthday cards

Hello crafty friends!

I got my hands on this CTMH stamp yesterday.  Can you believe, it's only $2.95?!!  (You can find it HERE). 

Here are some cards I made with that cute little stamp.  First, I used my leftover Sarita workshop papers.  I posted about the Sarita WOTG HERE).  I had quite a bit of scraps and pieces left over, and that's what I used for a few cards.  For this first one, I also used the Frame Flair stamp set, which coordinates with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.

The background for the following card is from a stamp set that will be available in September (stay tuned for more cards I made with that stamp set!).  The Lagoon houndstooth washi tape can be found HERE. 

On this next one, I used VersaMark ink and white embossing powder.  It looks really cool! 

I also used a scallop border punch on this one.  The punch can be found HERE.

Next, I got the Laughing Lola cardmaking kit (which I do another blog post about).  After making the cards as instructed in the kit, I used my leftover scraps and embellies once again.  Laughing Lola patterned paper is available HERE. 

Some pretty simple cards, but they're still homemade.  I welcome homemade sentiments over Hallmark ANY DAY!  :)

In all, yesterday I made 13 cards of my own design and 15 from the Laughing Lola cardmaking kit.  I was actually pretty tired at the end of the day!  It's worth it though because now I have a good assortment of cards on hand.  I will post later about the Lola kit cards. 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving love!

Blessings,
Martina

Just a few more!

Hi All,

 

I got a few more pages done yesterday.  I'd love to have done more but I do actually spend time with the family, cook, clean, and OH YEAH it was Sunday so we went to church!  :)

 

This layout is my most-recent-favorite.  I just love, love, LOVE how it turned out. 

 

I'm not sure of the background PP brand.  It's probably Basic Grey.  The rest is plain from-the-stash cardstock. 

 

 

 

Now, this white chipboard piece pictured below is from one of the three sheets of chipboard that comes with the CTMH Artbooking collection.  I got that cartridge to cut the tan piece to lay over the chipboard.  I used one of the three stamp sets to stamp some stars on that tan piece, and to stamp "cool" onto one of the circle chipboard pieces from the collection. 

 

 

 Next, I used both pieces from my Cricut cut along with the chipboard, for a 3D effect.  "Movie" is cut from CTMH's Artiste cartridge, and the "making magic" is a sticker set from CTMH, too.  See the stamped stars?  :)

 

 

This film strip is also from the collection, and the black film strip stamp, too. 

 

Can you see the pencil marks on the tan piece?  That's because I wanted to stamp on it and I wanted to see where my stamp would be showing through. 

 

Here's my finished filmstrip piece, complete with stamped "you're a star", "cool" and the actual stars. 

 

This little film reel machine thingy?  There's a cut from the digital Cricut collection.  The cartridge is called "Making Movies" or something.  I don't own it, and I didn't want to pay $7.50 for a digital cartridge that only has 10 different cuts on it and I only needed one.  So I made my own. In Cricut Craft Room I welded two circles, a square, and a triangle, which took me all of three minutes.  Would it have been easier to pay the $7.50?  Yes.  But it only took three minutes to think outside of the box for a minute and do it myself.  Then, after I cut the piece out of black, I used a white Signo pen to make some little highlights on the piece.

 

 

 

I also added some hardware to the layout.  Here and there on my layout, I used CTMH's New England Ivy brads, which are no longer available.  These little containers on the right? That's my dying collection of no-longer-available CTMH hardware.  I sure wish they'd make it again, but apparently brads and buttons aren't "in style" right now.  :(

 

 

Here's another layout I made yesterday.  It came out so-so... PP from an old CTMH set of paper (Dotty For You).  Title is set on a Spellbinders die with some AC Thickers that my bestie Jen just gifted me.  Satin ribbon is SU! and everything else from stash (as in, I don't know which company they came from because it's been sitting around waiting to be used since forever ago, LOL). 

 

 

And last, but certainly not least, my kiddo and THAT FACE.  You know the one.  It's the face that comes out when your kid is SICK TO DEATH of smiling for the dang camera.  I see this face more and more often.  Sigh.  I'm not sure about the squirrel I added at the last minute... but I'm calling this one done.  :)  Title is from Cricut Boys Will Be Boys cartridge. 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking and leaving love!  Until next time...........

 

Blessings,

Martha

Another LO share!

Sometimes it's ok to just put a few pictures down on a pretty patterned paper, add a few accents, and journal.  No techniques, no fuss, just another story told in your scrapbook.  It's OK to be simple!

 

Sometimes you're ready to glue everything down and you go HMMM.... maybe I should.... make that POP a little bit.  :)  The sledding kid die cut (from Cricut's Snow Day) is plain white and it was just too plain.  My title?  Too plain as well. 

The Cricut cut has layers I could have added, but I really just wanted a sort of shadow here.  So, how to fix it up without making it too cluttered and messy looking?

Glimmer Mist, one of the chalkboard colors, on both the cut piece and my cut out title will do the trick!  (Title from Robotz cartridge, and banner is from the Jubilee cartridge.) Oh, and a little bit of bling here and there for added dimension and sparkle:

That's what I'm talkin' 'bout.  :D

 (click to enlarge)

Add pop dots to the title for an extra pop. 

I guess I'm sick of summer because at Friday night's crop all I did were winter photos. We don't have a "real" winter here in SA; my sister has taken my kiddo to Ruidoso, New Mexico, for two years in a row, all for the purpose of playing in the snow.  My siblings and I grew up in Chicago and we knew playing in the snow.  In fact, I remember walking to school when the dang snow was taller than me!  :)

 

 

This journaling tag is from a swap I participated in years ago.  And I mean YEARS ago.  I have no idea who made it.  I'm just glad I finally found a permanent home for that cutie snow man. 

 

Last summer Nick's best friend had his b-day party at an ice skating rink.  Who cares about birthday papers and accents when you can go with more winter-y accents?!!  :)

 

On the above LO, I used a SU! scallop punch for those blue edges.  The die cut title is from a Cricut cartridge; I didn't write down which one and I don't remember... The "Thaddaeus" banner is hand cut and the stamps are an old CTMH set.  The mittens and all felt accents on all of the above LOs are KI Memories brand, also years and years old. 

 

So, after making about seven winter-themed layouts some summer pictures caught my fancy and I got to work on those.  I could never, ever, EVER be a chronological scrapbooker.  I go with whatever pictures or paper calls my name! 

 

The PP is Little Yellow Bicycle that I believe it is their line from last summer.  I'm still using up the stash here!  "Pool Party" was cut from either the H2O Cricut cartridge or the Splish Splash cart, I don't remember which one.  The word bubbles on the right-sided page are from the CTMH Artiste cartridge.  I added some buttons in the sun die cut (all the plastic die cuts are LYB brand), and the "happy happy" is an accent I made myself a month or two ago. 

 

The journaling block is from Becky Higgin's Project Life.  I just cut it down to fit, added some brands and twine and mounted it on the green that's recurrent throughout my two-pager. 

 

 

Finally, here's a two-pager that I made last week some time.  My sister bought Nick a chemistry set and-- be still my beating heart as I minored in Chemistry in college-- Nick LOVED experimenting!  I love, love, love that he loves to learn!  Especially if it's in the science field!!! 

The flask and test tubes are cut from Cricut's Chemistry Icon digital images.  I had fun choosing which colors to use on that.  "Kaboom" is from the Cricut Disney font and the "boom" icon it's mounted on is from the Office Help cartridge.  The PP and die cuts are Jillibean Soup's Atomic Soup, which I believe is a paper line that's either one or two years old. 

 

Would ya look at that face?  What's not to love!  :) :) :)

 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving love!  I hope everyone has a fantastic week!