New Year/Baby/Beginnings

Hello and good morning!!

I hope your New Year is off to a wonderful start.  Mine is going well so far, though I've finally started The Diet, and I still haven't taken down the Christmas decorations.  Crafting had to come first after a two-week hiatus.  You know what I mean, yes you do.  As for The Diet, it's been what, about 12 hours so far, and I'm already bored.  But I've been kind of bad for oh, the past 7 months, and now it's time to pay the piper.  But other than that, Happy New Year to me.

Thank goodness for paper.  And glitter.  And ribbon.

Today's card is a baby card.  I've made one baby card to date, about 6 months ago, and I'd like to have a couple on hand to round out my collection of cards.  At my age, all of my friends have grown, or almost-grown children, so there isn't much call for baby cards in my world.  Still, they're nice to have.  

Oh, who am I kidding, there are several challenges out there who are using baby cards or new beginnings as their theme, so without further ado, here 'tis.

I had fun making this card.  It is, for me, a rather simple card which is apropos for the subject.  The color scheme is for the color challenge over at There She Goes, which is to use blue, black and yellow.  Do you think they'll count it against me that I have one little accent shot of pink?  Hopefully not.  I really did enjoy these colors - they're fresh and clean.  (The black is the ink used to stamp the images.)

The first layer was embossed with the Swiss Dot ef as the base.  When I use white layers, I almost always tend to emboss them so as to not have a huge expanse of white cardstock looking back at me, which makes me, a color hound, completely nervous.  

I stamped the image onto Whisper White and paper pieced the three little bits of baby clothing after first having colored them with my brand new Copics.  Since I'm so new to using Copics, I didn't want to risk ruining the whole thing if I colored any of them poorly.  


I stitched around the middle layers (yellow and blue) a couple of times before adhering them to the base.

 And now for the fun part - the embellishments.  I LOVE embellishments and almost can't make a card without at least something dressing it up.  I used seam binding for this one (I think I dyed it myself), and tied it into a messy bow. I attached a tiny brass duck charm and two tiny tags with blue-striped baker's twine, then topped the whole thing off with a little flower button.  Darlin'.

  
I ruched the ribbon strip by pulling a couple of threads down the middle of the strip of seam binding, thereby causing it to gather up, then adhered it to the card with Scor-Tape.  Anyone who sews knows this is a great way to gather fabric, but I had forgotten it until I saw this tutorial given by my good friend Catherine Pooler over at StampNation (members go here, non-members here).  This is a much more reliable way of getting that ruched look rather than just manually sticking the ribbon to adhesive and hoping it holds (which it rarely does for me).  This way the ribbon is actually gathered instead of fake-gathered. 

Here's a picture showing the various layers in greater detail.  (You can see a glimpse of the finished inside.)  I love adding depth by popping up layers on dimensionals.

 I hope you've enjoyed my card today, and I appreciate you stopping by for a visit.  Here's wishing you a lovely day full of whatever it is that makes you happy.

Happy crafting!

 
Supplies:

Paper: Whisper White, Brights DSP Stack (all SU)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Stamp: Hello Baby (Flourishes), Tiny Tags (SU)
Extras: SB Labels One and Decorative Labels One, Copics, seam binding, Scor-Tape, button, duck charm (Mark's Finest Papers), Jewelry Tag punch, baker's twine, dimensionals, sewing machine, Swiss Dots ef.

Challenges entered:

SCS TLC411 - The Best of 2012 (I used the Ruched Ribbon challenge)
Alota Rubber Stamps #98 - New Born
There She Goes TSG189 - Color Challenge (blue, black, yellow)
Incy Wincy Designs - Something NEW (my Copics)
The Pink Elephant #181 - Celebrate (and new babies are reason enough)
Really Reasonable Ribbon #63 - My New Toys (+ ribbon) (My new toys are Copics!)
Simon Says Stamp - New Something (new Copics, baby card)
CCEE1301 - Baby card
Crafty Ribbons Challenge #36 - New Beginnings
3 Girl JAM #9 - Anything Goes
Tuesday Throwdown #129- Shiny and New
Flourishes Timeless Tuesday #202 - Something New (new baby, new Copics)
A Gem of a Challenge #62 - New Beginnings

  
Sweet Sunday Sketch #175

Happy New Year, Pt. 2

I know I've already said it once, but...

Happy New Year, my crafty friends!  Wishing you peace, prosperity, hope, good fortune, and puh-lenty of crafting time to your heart's content!  And let me add that I have missed you!!

The holidays are over, no more hustle and bustle.  The guests have gone, the house is, for the most part, cleaned up, though the Christmas decorations haven't yet been taken down.  Hey, baby steps.  And I've once again got time to play in my craft room.  It's been two weeks and I was going through some serious withdrawals there towards the end; however, I had a lovely time with my family and wouldn't have traded it for the world.

Still...it's back to blogland and craft land for me.  Yay!

Today's card took a while.  I don't know about you, but if I don't craft every day, I get rusty.  Sounds silly to think that a piddly two weeks would put one's mojo out of sync, but it did, and  it took awhile to get the gears going again.  I wanted to play with the fabulous design team over at The Shabby Tea Room whose challenge this week is "Monogram Madness."  Here is their inspiration photo:

These are not colors with which I usually choose to work, but that's all part of the fun of a color challenge, right?  I was happy to see that teeny tiny bit of greenish blue which I think goes so well with monochromatic browns and creams.  This girl's gotta have color, even if only the palest sort.

First off, I dry embossed the first layer with a wood grain embossing folder to give a bit more "earthiness" to the design, then inked the edges.  Then I heat embossed the monogram using black embossing powder and adhered it to the smallest of the SB Decorative Labels One, then popped it up on a mid-size Labels One which was adhered to a larger Decorative Labels One.  The mid-size layer was painted with Creative Inspirations paint in Tan to give a little added glow.

The upper band of papers is pretty self-explanatory.  The lower band consists of three layers of decorative borders with tiny pearls added to the top layer.  The seam binding bow was wrapped with a very small piece of what I call "rhinestone ribbon" from my stash (bought at Hobby Lobby) as the button I wanted to put there had a shank which couldn't be removed and thus caused the button to flop about very unattractively.  A few pearls at the upper right corner finished this card off.  Again, baby steps.  It's not exactly CAS, but it's not over-the-top the way I often do.  It's somewhere in between.  Or "just right" as Goldi herself would say.

So that's it for my first card after the holiday rush.  I think I'll go back into the craft room and just sit awhile and absorb the quiet and peacefulness of it all.  Or put away the goodies that Santa brought to me.  :)

Thank you for joining me and here's wishing you time to yourself to enjoy YOUR passions, too!

Happy crafting!!

Supplies:

Stamp: Alphabet Set by Recollections
Paper: Flourishes tan, SU Whisper White, Soft Suede, MME A Mother's Love
Ink: Versamark
Extras: black ep, SB Labels One, Decorative Labels One, Dienamics Double and Triple Scallop Borders, CI Paint (Tan), SU Woodgrain ef, SU Pool Party Seam Binding, rhinestone ribbon, pearls

Challenges entered:


The Shabby Tearoom #147 - Monogram Madness
Simon Says Stamp and Show - Totally Mad (no rules) Tea Party (Anything Goes)
The Pink Elephant TPE180 - Anything Goes
Charisma Cardz Challenge #52 - Monochrome
Simon Says Stamp Challenge - New Something (my rhinestone ribbon and dp are new)
3 Girl Jam Challenge #9 - It's a New Year, so Anything Goes
CI Paints Inspired By...Anything Goes (Square layer painted with Tan)
Pile It On #49 - Pile On the Embellishments
The Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge #191