Embossing is boss!

Dry embossing is easy and fun.  Whether you have a Cuttlebug, Big Shot,

Sizzix, or Spellbinders machine, they are all pretty much the same and

create stunning effects-- with the right embossing folder of course!

 

This month CTMH is offering one of their five embossing folders for FREE

with the purchase of two packs of cardstock, either single colors or

multi-packs (of all but the basic colors). I played with two of them,

along with Lagoon cardstock, ink, and twine, and a couple of stamp sets. 

 

 

 

I also used Perfect Fit Frames-2 (D1536) and Holiday Tags (D1560).

 

 

 

SHOP HERE:  Martha's CTMH website

 

 

Blessings,

Martha

 

Christmas Cards, part 1

Hello crafty friends!

I've been a busy bee making Christmas cards.  Yes, I'm a bit early but I like to be prepared AND I'm hoping to sell a few sets either on Etsy or eBay.  If there's a card you'd love to have a set of, let me know and I can hook you up! 

This first one is probably the easiest one I made because it's all Cricut cutting.  The card itself comes from the Quilted Christmas cartridge, and the "Merry Christmas" is from the Teresa Collins Dec 25th cartridge.  I added some buttons, bling, and stickles.

This next one is also from the Quilted Christmas cartridge, and the stamped sentiment is from a CTMH set called Glory to God (which I used again in another card, posted below).

 

This next one was simple too; I embossed the green glitter paper, used an SU! ornament punch on vellum, which I also ran through various embossing folders, and added the twine.  There's a stamped sentiment on the inside of the card.

 

Finally, my favorite from these sets, again using the Glory to God stamp set (available for purchase HERE).  I copied an idea from Jennifer McGuire.  On a piece of white paper I stamped with VersaMark, embossed with black and silver (the stars), and then used sponges and ink to the background.  Next, I punched a circle out of my card, which I also inked with Bamboo ink and then stamped the same stars with Sky ink, and I placed my embossed piece behind the circle.  Finally, I stamped and embossed the "Peace on Earth" sentiment on the front. 

That's all I'll share for now-- stay tuned for more Christmas card inspiration!

Blessings,
Martha

As promised!

As promised, here are the layouts I made over the last couple of days, all ready to share!

 

 For this first LO, I have some pictures of Nick catching a chicken.  That's right, a chicken.  No, we don't live out in the country, we live on the south side of a fairly large city... and on this side of town the messicans (myself and my parents included!) can grow chickens if we wanna!  LOL  So one of the neighbor's chickens got out and Nick thought he found himself a new pet.  Not!!!  :)

 

I used Cricut Noah's ABC Animals to cut out the "Chicken" and "catching", and I used the Animal Kingdom cartridge for the actual chicken.  There were a few layers for the chicken, except for the feet.  I used Copics to color in his feet/claws. 

 

 

I don't know why I decided I wanted white for my title but, as usual, once it was cut out it was just TOO white for me.  So I did some shading.  First, I shaded the entire white piece with CTMH's Bamboo ink (it's a nice light beige).  On the following picture you can see where the left half is still white and the right is shaded. 

 

 

After that I added some yellow color (CTMH's Crème Brulee) to the bottom half.

 

 

And after I finished that, I added Cranberry at the very bottom.  It has very nice depth now, and really pops on the black shadow piece.  :)

 

 

Here's the finished layout, featuring Basic Grey's 2010 line called Hello Luscious.  ("cluck" is also cut from Noah's ABC Animals).  Chipboard from stash and journaling on a CTMH stamp. I drew lines around the perimeter of the big PP piece, just so it looks more grounded and less lonely.  ;)

 

 

 

 

 Love that little chicken!  I used Copics to color in the feathers and wing, and I drew the eyes myself.  I have googly eyes that I could have used, but I didn't want my chicken to look like he was really high on some drugs.  LOLOLOL!  So drawing them in was the way to go. 

 

 

 

 

Next, this is a simple LO where I just used both sides of three patterned papers to cut my own banners.  Add a cardstock mat, some SU! grosgrain ribbon, bling, and stickers and it's done.  It's not the greatest picture but I'm trying to shy away from posed pictures and get more candid shots. 

 

 

Journaling is on a Cricut cut, from CTMH's Art Philosophy cartridge. I had that piece just lying around as it was extra from some other project. 

 

 

Finally, I have these silly pictures of Nick pretending to have a moustache.  OMGosh do we have fun with fake moustaches in this house!  As soon as Nick fashions himself one I tell him that I moustache him a question, and he answers with "I'll shave it for you later."  My sisters howls with laughter at our silliness, and we follow suit.  Good times, good times!!!  :D Anywho!  I believe this is Crate Paper patterned paper and cardstock from the stash.  The moustaches on the left there?  That was manila paper that was too stark after I embossed the stamped moustaches, so I dabbed brown on the whole piece of paper.  The moustache in the title is from Hobby Lobby's Paper studio, and the rest of the title is CTMH letter stickers. 

 

 

 

 

So here are the moustaches I was just talking about.  That is actually a CTMH stamp that I stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed in black.  As the powder melted and became glossy and shiny and wonderful, the moustache took on new meaning for me...

 

 

 

Here's the stamp set for the moustache.  It can be cut out with the CTMH Artiste cartridge, and it's meant to be a part of a Father's day set. 

 

 

So, as I was saying, as that moustache was getting all purdied up (LOL) I saw it as more than a moustache.  It looked like two birdies kissing!  So I broke out my leftover Chantilly (CTMH) paper from a while back, stamped with more VersaMark, and embossed with white. 

 

 

Meet two little love birds.  :)  Now, maybe you have to cross your eyes a little bit to see the two birds (which I did outline with a CTMH Cranberry alcohol marker, and used the same to draw in little legs for my love birds, too!), and when you uncross your eyes you may see a moustache that has two googly eyes on it.  It's kind of funny IRL!  :D

 

 

I used the Artbooking cartridge to cut that hot pink heart ribbon on the front, and also to cut out "Love", which I glued on the inside of the card.  I then used an alphabet set to stamp "YOU". 

 

This is the alpha set for the inside-- I really need to use it more!!!

 

 

All right crafty friends, that is all for now.  I haven't made anything today and tomorrow we have two baseball games... and while I have your attention can I just vent a bit?  There's one game at 10 am and another at 4 pm.  We will not be able to make it to church.  In fact, we won't get much of anything done tomorrow or get any rest for the week to come, with two spread out games like that.  Can you say annoying?!!!!  GRRRR 

 

OK, vent over.  Back to crafting!  Be sure to leave me some love and visit often.

 

Blessings,

 

Martha

 

Catching up

Hello crafty friends!  Sorry I've been MIA but I was under the weather and my crafty mojo left the building!  Plus, this handsome fella started playing baseball. 

Last week he had practice for two hours each on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and then games on Friday night, Saturday morning, AND Sunday morning.  By Sunday afternoon we were both beat!  All of that baseball-ing has seriously cut into my craft time!  Staying busy and outdoors is always a good thing, for both of us, so I'm happy that he's into the sport.  We'll be hitting some batting cages at some point in the very near future, on top of all of the practice...

So I haven't made very many things.  I'm working on a few items for an upcoming baby shower and I can't post pictures of that until after the shower, of course, and I've worked on baby shower invites that I want to sell on Etsy.  I have some Halloween stuff to share (also for Etsy selling purposes!) but it's not quite done yet.  I've worked on Nick's class's personal yearbooks quite a bit too (I'm following the Becky Higgins format, which you can find HERE), and I'll post pictures of that once I have a few to post!  This will be the second time that I go to Nick's class and "teach" them art.  This year it's more about journaling than the pictures, but it's still memory-keeping that they're learning and I hope it sticks! 

Suffice it to stay I've done bits and pieces of this and that.  Oh, I did finish organizing my Cuttlebug folders.  Check this out. 

I decided to write directly on the embossing folder instead of attaching little stickers.  This is because upon removing and returning the folder from it's storage box that sticker oftentimes falls off.  This annoys the living daylights out of me.  LOL  So I just wrote on the folder and called it good.  I did a sample sheet of each folder and wrote the number on the sheet too, of course. 

Here are all of my embossing folders.  I punched holes in the top corner so I could add a ring to hold them.  Now when I need or want to emboss, I can flip through these samples and go find the appropriately numbered folder.  Easy peasy, which makes it much, much, MUCH more likely that I will *USE* my embossing folders.  And yes, I realize now upon looking at this picture that I have way too many embossing folders.  But there are more that I want.... LOLOLOL

 

I was once keeping my folders in the beautiful blue Cuttlebug binders but I've outgrown them.  I have them sitting in a regular ol' photo box that I got at Michael's one of the times they were on sale for $1.50.  Pretty good, right?  I left that one standing up just to show how the numbering works.  Plus, it's one of my current faves.  :D

 

 

Oh, and that Darice brand?  I had never heard of it until I joined a Cuttlebug group on Facebook.  This place called Consumer Crafts (you can visit their website HERE) had the Darice brand of folders on sale for just $1.97 a while back, and there was free shipping on orders over $25.  I had great service from them and the quality of the embossing folders matches that of the Cuttlebug folders, so just a great buy all around.  I encourage you to visit them and shop.  Boy, I sure wish I got paid to endorse companies and such.... :D  Anyway, Consumer Crafts has great sales and they do the free shipping about once a month from what I've seen over the last few months. 

 

So I got all of that done while watching the new Star Trek movie with my kiddo a couple of nights ago.  LOVE that movie.  If you're not a trekkie, well, all I have to say is, what's wrong with you?  LOLOL  Just kidding- it was a great movie and I'm lucky my sister bought us a copy of the DVD so we can (and will) watch it over and over and over again.  ;-)

 

Here's one other thing I made and this is a complete copy from a blog I visited. 

 

 

Isn't he a cutie?  I will fill it with candy when the best time of the year rolls around!  Here's the blog where I found it, and she listed the instructions for the whole thing:  Catinksit BLOG.  Every cut for this baggie comes from CTMH's Art Philosophy cartridge:  The bag itself, the face, the hat, everything, from that one cartridge.  See Santa's beard?  It's a flower that's folded in half.  His moustache is a bracket shape, and the two whiskers above his moustache are from the flower cut outs.  Pretty fantastic, don't you think?  It was super easy to make, too. 

 

All right, so, the weekend is coming and it appears as though my kiddo only has ONE game so I might have time to get crafty once again.  (As a side note, who schedules a 7:30 pm SUNDAY night game?  It's a school night ya big dopes!  UGHhhhhhhh.....)  I just realized that I haven't made a scrapbook PAGE in a while, as I've been working on other projects.  YIKES.  I'd better get to it!!!  :)

 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving love. 

 

Many blessings,

Martha

 

 

Did I ever...

...share these cards?  I certainly meant to!

This card features an embossing folder by Tim Holtz.  The hardware is CTMH (no longer available).  The peacock is cut from Cricut's French Manor cartridge, which I applied Glimmer Mist to, and the bling (the peacock's eye) is Prima.

You can see where I attempted to pop out some of the peacock's feathers.  It looks super cool IRL.

For this next one I cut the bird from French Manor as well, and the tan frame is from one of the CTMH Cricut cartridges.  I embossed with Cuttlebug folders, and I did add some bronze Glimmer Mist to the bird.  I was going to add a sentiment but I really like it this plain. 

 

That is my card share for today.  Have a great weekend!

Working with watercolors (by me)

LOL-- I say working with watercolors "by me" in my title because this layout is a complete, total, 100% scraplift from my friend Valerie.  Here's a link to her blog with the layout I copied errr was inspired by:  Valerie B's BLOG!

First, I had to make the oval paper on my Gypsy for cutting on my Cricut: 

(I'm saving all of those ovals for later....)

I didn't have watercolor paints when I first set out to copy Valerie's layout so I used water color pencils and some shimmery chalks (Pebbles Inc brand).

 

Here's what it looked like when done. You can tell by the pencil/coloring marks which ovals are colored in with the pencils and the other ones without those lines were shaded in with chalks. 

 

Then I got me some watercolors.  :)  I cut the ovals out once again so I could compare the two different mediums side by side. 

On the left is watercolor pencils and shimmer chalks, on the right watercolor paints.  I think I like the one on the left more; the one on the left is too dark but I just need to practice at making my watercolors lighter, i.e. with more water or less of the actual color.

I wound up using the pencil and chalk one, just because it's lighter and that's what I really wanted.

Oh and I made my own tags.  The ones that go behind the picture?  I didn't have those so I got some scraps, a circle punch, and a hole puncher. 

Next, my chevron paper was a bit too dark so I wanted to use vellum.  The problem with that was that I couldn't find my vellum.  But I did find some tracing paper that is acid free so I used that.  See the difference?

My finished layout.  The waves are cut from the CM Traveler cartridge, the polka dot card behind the photo is from one of the Project Life kits, the button is Studio Calico, binder clip is Fancy Pants, "hello" in the title is Simple Stores, and I cut "Paradise" from the Cricut using the Lyrical Letters cartridge (I did have to weld the letters together myself).  There's some yellow polka dot ribbon and some washi tape beneath that.  The sun is cut from the Traveler cartridge too.  The chevron paper is Simple Stories and the wave and title are cut from CTMH paper (Dotty For You). 

 

Add some sequins and some Prima Say It In Crystals.

 

 

I used the tracing paper for some little journaling accents here and there (just like Valerie's though my old-fashioned typewriter is put away in storage somewhere).

 

All done.  :)

 

 

So then I needed to use up my ovals.... I decided to paint those with watercolors, too, and once dry I stamped a CTMH sentiment on there.  A word to the wise:  Wait until your paper is COMPLETELY DRY before stamping.  See the sentiment on the bottom left oval, how it's blurry on one side and at the bottom?  That's because the paper was still semi-wet.  I thought it would be ok but I was wrong!  ;-)

 

 

I also watercolored some of the bigger ovals in brown to make a 3D frame for my sentiment.

 

Using a Darice embossing folder in the form of a cross, I embossed a sheet of white, used my handy dandy corner edger on the corners, inked all my card and card topper edges, added SU! satin ribbon in Chocolate Chip, and then my ovals, ending with some bling.  Card all done and I used up some of those ovals from my previous projects. 

Detail shot.  I did put the top turquoise oval onto pop dots for further dimension.

And that is the end of my (current) experimenting with watercolors.  I really loved using them and I plan to bring them out more often in the future. 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving love!