Musical Wreath

This card is being entered in this week’s Mod Squad Challenge – The Music of Christmas – where we are to use music on our card.   (Sadly, this site is no longer active.)

It is also being entered in the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – Holiday Cards – where they are encouraging us to show them our homemade holiday goodness this week. While they are focusing on holiday cards, they welcome us to share whatever we may be making and giving this holiday season! (http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/?p=2246)

The stamps for this card came from the Gina K Designs “Winter Cheer” and “Just A Note” (retired?)stamp sets. I also used the ivy leaves from the “Winter Foliage” set, but it is really hard to see them in person and even harder in the photo!  The pine branches and circle of treble clefs were stamped with gina k black onyx ink (and my stamp-a-ma-jig).  Then color was added to the branches using Copic Markers (R89, G29, G24, and E47).  Card stock used was Gina K pure ivory and black along with a piece of merlot I got at AC Moore (no brand on it, just a bar code).  A piece of burgundy ribbon tied in a double bow finished it off.

I wanted to stick to the music theme on the inside as well so I used the “Deck the Halls…” stamp followed by the “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas” stamp from the Gina K Designs “Merry Little Christmas” stamp set for my sentiment.

I have a lot of trouble photographing ivory cards in general and really struggled with this card in particular.  I was trying to reduce the shine/glare of the ribbon while also keeping the ribbon’s color (and the ivory background) looking accurate which kept resulting in dark photos.  There are two tones of green and brown on all of the branches along with red dots/berries throughout the wreath which are kind of hard to see.  (I took 92 pics in my light tent with different backgrounds, camera settings, lighting configurations, and exposure adjustments with my photo editing software, and this was the best of the bunch!)  I’m running out of time to get this finished and entered in the challenge, so I am done!!!

Thanks for checking out my card project!

This content uses referral links as described in the disclosure policy on my sidebar.

Recycled Ornament Card

This card was made for the StampTV MIUM Challenge- Something Old, Something New – where we were to have an old store bought card…or a brand new one we might have lying around, and use elements off of that card to create a new one.  And we MUST have a Gina K Design stamped image or sentiment somewhere on the card; my stamped image is on the inside.  (Sadly, this site is no longer active.)

Here is the original Hallmark card:

I started with a piece of Gina K Edible Eggplant card stock and cut out an ornament shape using one of the Spellbinders Holiday Tags dies.  Then, I embossed the panel with the Sizzix (Stampin’ UP) Stripes embossing folder.  The “J” and “Y” squares and the ornament “O” were adhered to the original card with pop dots, so I removed them and added them to the bottom of the new card panel.  The original card panel was attached to the card base, and then the embossed panel with the ornament cut-out was adhered on top with pop dots making the ornament a recessed frame.  I attached some ribbon and a few mini pine cones and “berries” that I had in my stash.

For the inside, I stamped the sentiment from the Gina K Designs “Sentimental Holiday” stamp set in Gina K Edible Eggplant ink on ivory card stock.  I embossed the two sides with double lines using my score board.

Thanks for checking out my card project!

This content uses referral links as described in the disclosure policy on my sidebar.

Embossed Birds ‘n’ Trees Card

This card was made for the Perfectly Rustics Challenge No. 36 – Embossing – where we are to use wet or dry embossing on our project. (http://perfectlyrustics.com/2014/11/17/prdc-36-embossing/).

For the background panel on this card, I used the Sizzix “Stamp & Emboss – Birds ‘n’ Trees” set which includes both the embossing folder and coordinating large background stamp.  I stamped the background on My Mind’s Eye Nutmeg “Boy” Southwest Paper from the Indie Chic collection using Gina K Warm Cocoa ink first.  Then the images were lined up in the embossing folder and run through my Cuttlebug.  The Greeting was from the Gina K Designs “Winter Cheer” stamp set and was stamped using Gina K Dark Chocolate ink.  The My Mind’s Eye card stock is heavily textured which made it difficult to get clean, stamped images so I used my MISTI to stamp the background and greeting because I needed to stamp them each multiple times.  (For more information on the MISTI, check out my earlier post HERE.)  Gina K Warm Cocoa card stock was used for the mats and card base.  I added some ribbon, twine and a mini wooden snowflake ornament I got at Michaels (this is the smaller of the two sizes that came in the pack of 20) to finish off this simple card.

Thanks for checking out my card project!

This content uses referral links as described in the disclosure policy on my sidebar.

Embossed Snowman – Original Post

The snowman on this card was made with the Sizzix Snowman & Hat Bigz die which also came with a bonus embossing folder that fits the die.    The snowman was cut from Gina K Pure Ivory card stock, and the hat was cut from a scrap of textured black DCWV card stock.  The arms were cut freehand from a scrap of black.  Ribbon and gems were added to finish him off.

The background panel is Gina K Kraft card stock embossed with the Darice Snowflake Swirl folder.  The frame was cut using my trimmer from a piece of Pebbles “Mary” card stock from the Walnut Grove collection.  The Card base is Gina K Pure Ivory.

The greeting stamp is from the Gina K Designs “Winter Cheer” set and was stamped with versamark and heat embossed with gina k black embossing powder on kraft card stock and matted on pure ivory.  A scrap of ribbon, jute and a glittered, wooden mini snowflake ornament from Michaels were added to the greeting banner.

In later versions of this card, I used metal snowflakes instead of the wooden ones because I ran out of them.  I also changed the greeting using a stamp from the Hampton Arts “Outlines – Season’s Greetings” stamp set.

This card was made for the Perfectly Rustics Challenge No. 36 – Embossing – where we are to use wet or dry embossing on our project. I used both.  (http://perfectlyrustics.com/2014/11/17/prdc-36-embossing/)

Thanks for checking out my card project!

This content uses referral links as described in the disclosure policy on my sidebar.

Have An Udderly Wonderful Christmas!

This card was made for the Mod Squad Challenge called – Timed Challenge!  One Layer Card – where we were to make a one layer card and note how long it took to complete – the quicker the better!  (Sadly, this site is no longer active.)

First of all, this card was FUN to make!  I had ink pads flying out of my hand, washi tape everywhere, and a mess on my desk that appeared faster than I ever thought possible!  (Somehow, I ended up with a cut on the back of my hand that I have no idea how I got!)  When I finished, I was imagining all us crazy crafters working at the speed of light, and I just started cracking up!  (It’s a good thing I was home alone at the time because I’m sure I sounded a little crazy!!)  I was so giddy and charged up that I actually considered a glass of wine until I realized it was only 8:30 in the morning so I chose to skip my second cup of coffee instead.  PHEW!!!

I included making the card base, setting up my stamp-a-ma-jig image templates and cutting my Washi tape in my reported times.  (I had already pulled out the stamps I wanted to use.)  Without the hats, this card was done in 2 minutes and 24 seconds.  Here is what it looks like without the hats:

The total time to make the card when you include stamping and coloring the hats, fussy cutting them, running them through the sticker maker, and adhering them to the card was 5 minutes and 58 seconds.

To make this card, I started with a Gina K Pure Ivory card base.  I taped a piece of Recollections “Gift It Christmas” Washi Crafting Tape onto my paper trimmer and sliced it in half lengthwise (it was originally 1 1/8 inch wide.) and adhered a strip to the top and bottom of my card base.  I stamped all the images in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and used the stamp-a-ma-jig for placement.  The greeting is by “I Break For Stamps.”  The cows are from the Gina K Designs “Primitive Blessings” set, and the hats are from the Gina K Designs “Winter Cheer” set where I stamped the two snowmen and the penguin on white scrap paper, colored the hats with Copic Markers R29 and E40, and then fussy cut the hats, ran them through my mini xyron sticker maker and adhered them to the card.

I discovered a few time savers as I worked through my initial plan.  The first time I tried cutting the washi tape, I started with a piece just slightly longer than the width of the card base.  I couldn’t get the two “halves” to be perfectly even; I’m not sure why since I was using the marks on the trimmer. (Probably because I was rushing!)  So then I just took a piece that was about a foot long and cut that in half.  The one strip was big enough to cover the top and bottom and was uniform in size since it started out as one piece.  The other half could be used for a second card or to decorate the inside of the card or the envelope.  I hadn’t use Washi tape much before, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to work with.  It is pretty forgiving in that you can easily remove it from your project if necessary, but it seems to stay put when you are done with it. Since I was rushing, it kept tangling and sticking to itself, but it was really easy to separate and flatten it.  It is also really thin, so it adds no bulk to your card at all.

To get the hats, I placed all three stamps on the same, large acrylic block and stamped them all at once.  The other thing that saved a bit of time was coloring the hats before they were cut out.  I was able to color them quickly while not worrying about going out of the lines since that would all be cut away.  I also realized that I needed to color in the ivory color (brick white) first.  When I used the red first, it seemed to want to bleed into the brick white.  This didn’t happen as much when the brick white was already there and dry.

I’m not sure I would be able to keep up the fast pace if I were making lots of these cards, but they are definitely simple enough to mass produce in a reasonable amount of time!  (Now, if I could just figure out how to do speed-photography and speed-blog-posting!!!)

Thanks for checking out my card project!

This content uses referral links as described in the disclosure policy on my sidebar.