HOPE

Hello!

Today I'm featuring another inspirational-style card, this one focusing on "hope," and I'm using one of my favorite color combinations, red and turquoise.

It's a simple little card with some nice textural touches, including the distressed edges which have then been stitched, the true vintage hand made (crocheted?  tatted?) lace trim on top of the satin turquoise ribbon, and the twine holding the tiny tags.  I love texture on my projects and am hard pressed to make a card without at least some tiny bit of it.

The word "HOPE" has been heat embossed and has been sponged with distress ink around the edges.  The edges of the brown mat have been heat embossed with metallic gold for yet another bit of texture.

Two little bitty tags have been adhered with twine for a bit of added interest, and a satin ribbon flag has been anchored with a vintage button.

The inside contains the rest of the quote, one of my personal favorites.

Thank you for joining me and I wish you a hope-filled happy day.

Happy crafting!

This card is for sale in my ETSY shop.

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

In Love

Hello and good morning!

This is a short post today because the Christmas rush is upon us and time in the craft room has come to a near stop.  Not completely, there are a still a few DT cards to make and post (yay!), but there's baking to be done, presents to wrap (and finish shopping for!), and...well, you know how it is.  So some of my upcoming blog posts are going to be pulled from my recent archives which are quite simply the cards I made right before discovering the wonderful world of blogging this past Sept.  They are recent cards, and it'll be like a mini-trip down [recent] memory lane.  You don't mind, do you?  I figure cards don't always have to be submitted to challenges to count, right?

Since today's card is one from the archive, there are no extra photos of details.  I didn't start doing that until very recently.  This is the card I made for my step-daughter and her fiance who the whole family loves to the nth degree.

I love this stamp set from SU, Take It to Heart.  The images are perfect for heat embossing, which is what I did here.  Then I die cut it and the background black layer and popped them up on the white layer that was first stamped using Versamark and SU Everything Eleanor, then brushed with Perfect Pearls in Pearl.  I think it gives a great tone-on-tone appearance.

Let's talk about that white layer.  I cut the card base using the SB Lattice Rectangles die and offset it from the top just a teensy bit so that it wouldn't cut across the top, but you can't see it because I then cut a second, single layer from the same die and layered it onto the front, matching up the lacy sides.  I love the look it gives the card - very wedding-y.

Two layers of ribbon, a double bow, and a couple of Tiny Tags finish this card.  It's almost CAS, yet there is still plenty of detail.  One thing is for certain - this card is a perfect candidate for my card jewelry - pity I wasn't making them when I made the card.  NEXT TIME!

Thanks for stopping by, and here's wishing you a lovely day and a lovey with which to share it, be it a friend, spouse, child, pet...

And of course, Happy Crafting!!

Ingredients:

Stamps: SU Take It to Heart, Everything Eleanor, Tiny Tags
Ink: Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black, Real Red
Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black
Accessories: SB Lattice Rectangles die, SU Framelits Heart, Jewelry Tag, Black ep, ribbon, baker's twine