Card making

 

Hello there my crafty friends! I have recently been quite obsessed with Spellbinders dies and I may have bought one or two sets… and I’ve been collecting Technique Tuesday dies and their Ali Edwards stamps too…. and yesterday I took a day off from work so naturally I stayed in my PJ’s all day (ALLLLLLLLL DAY!!!!! :) ) and crafted! 

I had to get the hang of some of the Spellbinders dies.  Look at this little lady I stamped.  It’s a Unity stamp and I used Copics to color her in… and I very unsuccessfully tried to use a Spellbinders die to cut a shape around her.  :(

 

I messed with the dies, added a shim, added a different shim, changed around the plates, looked at the Spellbinders website and their videos, checked out YouTube videos, and finally just called the company.  Guess what:  If the packaging says “INSET” next to the size of the die that means it DOES NOT CUT. It embosses, debosses, stencils, and letterpresses, but it does not cut.  It is to be used in conjunction with one of their Nestabilities sets, like so:

The die on the left is the Nestability die; the one on the right with all the hearts is an “inset” die, and it’s one of their new “Imperial Gold” collections.  I’m SO GLAD I got both sets!!!!!  O.o    Here’s the original die I was trying to use around my stamped girl.  This time I ran the embossing die first and then the cutting one after.  MUCH better result. 

I keep my dies in these nifty ArtBin containers.  The sheets are magnetic and oh-so-handy.  The container comes with three magnetic sheets and you can buy more sheets in packs of three; although you can probably fit about 21 sheets IN the container it will weigh far too much at that point… 15 sheets per container (if full with dies) is a good limit.

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And here is my finished card. From the original (the first picture of this post), I just hand-cut around the girl to get rid of the horrible edge that I had ruined.  Then I die-cut the actual frame, pop-dotting between the two, and finished it off with a Stampin’ Up! phrase—and I used the hearts from the other frame that I cut out. 

Just a little bit of dimension:  :)

Then, since I had that SU! stamp set out for my phrase, I decided to get out the matching hexagon punch and make another quickie card. 

Pigment ink wins again!  Here, I used CTMH inks with the SU! stamps—because my SU! inks are all in storage.  On the left is the pigment, on the right is dye.  I just love the pigment coverage WAY more, even with the image stamping in the center where it’s not supposed to. 

Here’s the finished card.  I used the same MME patterned paper from the card above, CTMH inks, the embossing of the white background is the CTMH quatrefoil embossing folder, and of course the stamps are SU!, as well as the ribbon.  The bitty pearls are CTMH.

Not to be outdone, I had to play with some Technique Tuesday dies too.  :)

 

Unfortunately, this card didn’t turn out as I had envisioned it in my head.  I think the colors are all wrong, or I shouldn’t have used black.  Oh well—I’ll try again with these dies another day.  I did stamp “happy birthday” on the inside of the card, and the embossing folder for my base is SU!. 

That’s it for now!  I’m going to a crop tonight and plan on working on some CTMH projects, so stay tuned for that. 

In other news, I have a major project coming up at work and if I do well then some big, huge, wonderful doors will be opening up for me, lots of professional opportunities.  Please pray for me to do well and for those opportunities to become available!  As always, please pray for His will to be done, not mine, that I go where He wants and that I do what He wants.  ;)  Thank you!!!

 

Blessings,

Martha 

A couple more to share!

 

I have a couple more layouts that I can share with ya!

 

This LO features an old Basic Grey line, some K&Co white bling, a Wilton

doily (yes it’s meant for cupcakes or treats but I repurposed…I just

hope it’s acid free!), and I used my CTMH stitch guide for the stitches

 on the top left corner.  <3 my cute parents!

 

This paper is from a stack, probably DCWV.  The inked chipboard that has

my journaling is CTMH, and the cream roses are CTMH too. 

Flower is Prima, bling is ?... these are things that I had in a "must use now" basket.  :) 

The picture is of my brother and his very lovely lady.  :D

And that is it for now.  I hope to have some time to craft this weekend

and if so I'll be back posting and sharing what I make with you. 

Have a blessed day!

Martha

Layout share!

  Have you missed me?  :D  I hope so, though I have a fantastic reason for not posting as much as I used to:  I got a real job!  The last one was play time; this is for real and I.LOVE.IT!!!  :D  I've never been happier in my life.  Grateful for my job, my family, all of my innumerable blessings... truly I am blessed. But I digress!  All that working & family time keeps me from crafting and that is A-OK with me!  When I do get a chance to create it's a real treat.  So far I've made four pillow cases for my boy because I LOVE to sew! And last weekend I got a chance to scrap.  Here are a few pages I've made.










That’s some K&Co bling on the left, and Queen & Co bling on the prima flowers.  That adorable little heart was plain chipboard that I colored with some CTMH alcohol markers and then finished off with Stickles.  Doily is SU! and so is the stamp and die for the stamp.  Next is a pretty simple page using some Cocoa Daisy PP for the background and CTMH stamps.  Stickers are likely Echo Park (I don’t remember!) and the “document real life” card is Project Life.




 





Finally, some old Basic Grey, chipboard, and Technique Tuesday (Ali Edwards) stamp (the “heart this”).  It’s a simple page but I love it.












Until next time, thanks for stopping by and leaving love!  


Blessings, Martha