Just Because you brighten my day! - Sketch #8

Today I am sharing this card over on the Card A Day Blog as well. :)

I used this weeks sketch from over at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge blog.

That's it for my shout outs. LOL I'd love for you to go back and check out the links to these two great blogs after you check out my card. ;)

The past few months I have had a very rough time personally on many fronts which I won't go into here as this is my happy place! :) My dear sweet neighbour and Great-Aunt in-law and Great Uncle in-law who are in their late 80's have been an absolute God send in helping me cope with it all. They are always out in the yard as soon as they see the kids and I out with smiles on their faces and a listening ear. I absolutely adore them! Last week was particularly troublesome and on Sunday I was greeted with a fresh loaf of brown bread that she made me "Just Because". They are truly a blessing to have in my life.

I decided to make a card for them "Just Because" since well, I don't bake but I DO make cards. LOL

Here's the card I made for them.

The card base is Goldrush cardstock and the patterned paper is Surf's Up. I used a wooden badge button inked with honey ink (it more closely matches the goldrush on the wooden badge button due to the colouring of the wood). I stamped the sentiment from D1511 Kick Back. with chocolate pigment ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder which is a great solution for embossing in all different colours without owning a million different embossing powders. 

Hope you enjoyed my card and make sure you check out the rest of the Design Teams creations using this sketch when they are all posted on the Atlantic Hearts Sketch |Challenge blog tomorrow morning.  If you wander over to Card A Day Blog tomorrow as well you'll find another great "Just Because" card from my good friend Lucy.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all the wonderful Dads out there today!

Remember the Father's Day card I posted HERE? Remember I promised I'd show you the inside once we gave it to my amazing hubby and father of our two wonderful children? Well, it's Father's Day so we have given it to him of course. :)

First a reminder what the outside was..

Now here's the awesome inside...

All the cuts are done with my new Silhouette Cameo and purchased in 2 different files from the Silhouette Online Store. They were designed as cuts to be layered but I simply layered them on my screen and filled them with the colours I wanted then I just set my cut settings to cut the outline only. I used simple boxes behind the pieces to make them pop up (I forgot to take a side view photo for you of that but I promise to sneak the card back later today to grab one for you and will add it to the post). 

The table is just a pop-up cube with the front part cut away to form the table legs. The little beer glass is a piece of white card that I scored every 1/8" to make it look like a beer glass and then coloured the bottom part with my honey alcohol marker for the beer. I cut a "C" and attached it for the handle. 

The floor and wall is a piece of cardstock that is coloured with distress stains (Walnut and Victorian Velvet). These colours are very similar to the actual colours of our living room. 

I also just have to share a picture of hubby in his shirt that Michael made him at preschool. He's such a good daddy that he actually washed it last night so he could wear it again today. 

Big kudos to our sons amazing preschool as well! They always do the most amazing things with the kids for the parents. I received an awesome tote bag filled with handmade keepsakes for Mother's Day (yes I know I haven't shared that but I was very ill the day they had the get together at preschool and so I did not receive mine until the following week when Michael went back which I figured was too late to share with you then) and they had a great day for the Father's on Friday with an indoor picnic (it was raining), fun games like giving Daddy a shave with shaving cream and a Popsicle stick razor, potato sack race (which they ventured out in the rain for) and more.

Life is a Journey - Sketch # 7

Today I have a card for you using Sketch #7 from my Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge blog.

I kept this one very CAS. I used "A Journey A1127" stamp set with is just $6.95 a fabulous value. I stamped the trees randomly in black and then turned it upside down and stamped in 2nd generation as a reflection. I stamped the footprints and the sentiment from this same stamp set in black as well.

Hope you enjoy. 

P.S. Anyone have any photography tips for taking pictures of white cards?? I normally just put it on white foam board but as you can see I had to crop the background away since you couldn't tell the card from the background. 

Please go check out the rest of the Design Teams creations HERE and I'd love to see you link up your own creation using this weeks sketch which you can find HERE.

Products Used:

A Flowering Bunch

I usually participate in this great blog hop every month with my fellow Close To My Heart consultants to show you some great projects using the Stamp Of The Month. This month however I had lent my SOTM set to a friend without really paying any attention to dates of her vacation, oops. Anyways, I didn't want you to miss out on the great inspiration using this set so figured I would at least give you the lineup for this months blog hop so you could see what my fellow consultants made with it. It really is a great stamp set.


This month's stamp from Close to My Heart is "A Flowering Bunch" and is available exclusively through your Close to My Heart consultant from June 1 - 30, 2013. You can purchase this stamp set for only $5 with any qualifying purchase of $50 or more. Also, don't forget about all the other fabulous specials this month. :)

Here is the lineup for this months blog hop:

1. Lucy ~ Love 2 Create
2. Amber ~ Scrapper's Therapy 
3. Theo ~ Celebrate Crafts 
4. Jennifer ~ 4 Hearts Scrapbooking 
5. Stephanie ~ QuiltedScrapper
6. Cat ~ catscrapbooking
7. Traci ~ Paper Crafting 101

Celebrate the Magic with Sketch #6

My card for Sketch #6 from Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge is a fun one. Great for a kids birthday OR to celebrate going to Close To My Heart convention 2013 in Disney World!! Yay!!

Only 20 more days until Michelle and I board a flight to Florida with fellow consultant Rosalynd. Once there we will meet up with MANY other consultants (I think someone said there were over 2000 at last years convention) and get crafty with the products being released with the Autumn/Winter Idea Book that will come out August 1. Definitely something to celebrate!

I used a retired stamp set for this card called Magic Adventures D1509. I used my journaling pen to extend the roller coaster track a little bit in front and a bit in back as well (bet you can't even tell where the actual stamped image ends and my hand drawn line begins... and now you're trying to find it just because I said that  haha). I used my watercolour pencils to colour the image and then I hand cut along the sentiment side of the track and car so I could slide my sentiment piece underneath. The picture makes it look black but the mats are actually Outdoor Denim.

I honestly envisioned the sentiment going lower like the sketch but I glued down the whole coaster side before really placing everything to realize it wouldn't fit lower and have a chance to trim some off on the right to allow for it. Oh well. :)

Speaking of celebrations, this months specials are definitely something to celebrate! There are four.. yes four specials this month and technically one of the specials could be broken down into three more.

Check them out and then please head over to the post at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge Blog to see the rest of the Design Teams creations as well as the Top 3 from last weeks sketch ....

1st is a great campaign where for just $2.95 you can grab M1029 - "A True Thank You", a teaser stamp set from the Autumn/Winter idea book and better yet, all the proceeds are being donated to relief efforts for Oklahoma. Check out this great stamp...

2nd is technically three great promotions and also is something that hits very close to home with me. Most of you know that my husband is in the Canadian Navy and has been for the last 16 years, my late father-in-law was in the Canadian Air Force and many other family members serve in both US and Canadian military.
What does this promotion have to do with any of that... well it's 3 great limited edition stamp sets of which Close To My Heart will donate $3 from each B-size My Acrylix® Courage stamp set and $5 from each D-size My Acrylix® Home of the Brave stamp set to the USO, the leading, most recognized military-support and services organization in the United States, or $3 from each B-size My Acrylix® Courage stamp set and $5 from each D-size My Acrylix® Strong and Free stamp set to the Canadian Hero Fund, which supports spouses and children of fallen Canadian military troops by providing post-secondary education in Canada.

B1437 - Courage $9.95

D1576 - Home of the Brave $17.95

D1575 - Strong and Free $17.95

3rd is if you place a $25 order that includes a stamp set, you’ll receive a My Creations® mini banner for free! The mini banner includes 10 chipboard pennants in 4 different shapes with 9 jump rings for hanging.

Last but not least of course is this months Stamp Of The Month set which is just $5 with every $50 order.

A Flowering Bunch - June 2013 SOTM

Now head over to the post at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge Blog to see the rest of the Design Teams creations as well as the Top 3 from last weeks sketch.

Heart in your pocket Sketch #5

When you're all done checking out my project please scroll down to the bottom of my post where you will find links for all the other Design Teams creations as well as a direct link to this weeks sketch with the current entries so far as they are fantastic! :)

Today I have a card for you made using Sketch #5 from Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge blog.

I have to admit that I made what I consider to be the biggest mistake you can ever make with the sketch this week. I looked at the creations by the other design team before completely committing to my own. Of course 2 of the other design team members had done something very similar to what my original plan was.

I was stumped! okay.. so that might be a bit of an exaggeration since I was only "stumped" for about a minute.

I looked over at my children drawing (they usually create projects while mommy thinks about hers and sometimes even manages to create) at the table in front of me, my 4 year old son, Michael had drawn a picture of a heart and was working on cutting it out. I asked him what the heart was for and his answer "It's for you to use on your card that you're going to make.", "oh is it?" I replied (now desperately trying to think of either how I was going to incorporate it in or a really good excuse why I couldn't), "yes" he said "it's a heart to go in your pocket so you can carry it with you for all time". DING!! Light bulb went on immediately. Daddy is being deployed in July for 6 months so this was PERFECT! Not only had he completed the idea (he had seen me working on a pocket card earlier for something else and assumed it was what I was making for this) but he had also come up with my sentiment for inside.

What do you all think? It met his complete approval, which is rare.

I had to reinforce the top flap and middle section with an extra piece of cardstock because I sanded it to distress it and then inked and then sanded some more and I had already scored the cardstock and folded it so it started to rip right through along the fold line. Now it's extra sturdy though and I know it won't come apart.

The base is Pacifica cardstock cut to 4.25" x 12" and scored at 3.5" and 9". I used a cd to trace the rounded edge and then cut it out. The entire thing was sanded (put your cardstock over the edge of a table if you want to create sanded lines to create a wrinkled and worn effect instead of an even sanding), distressed with my Edge Distresser along the edges as well to really rough them up like a comfy pair of jeans, then I took my desert sand, Pacifica and Indian Corn Blue ink pads and brushed them lightly across everything.

The shorter of the two flaps was glued to the middle only along the side to create a pocket. I then used a ruler for the straight edges and lightly drew a pencil line .25" in all the way around and just eye-balled it for the curved edge and used my scor-buddy and a scor-bug embosser to emboss little dots all the way around the edge quickly (I had to put it on a piece of cardboard and just follow the curved line by hand). Flip to the front side and sand to reveal the white core of the cardstock for the "stitching". The sentiment is just hand written with a Journaling Pen. 

Please go check out the rest of the Design Teams creations here and the Sketch I used and all the current entries here.

Products Used:

Beautiful! Creation for Sketch #4

I can't believe we're already on sketch #4 over at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge (AHSC) blog. 4 weeks have just flown by! I have been digitizing sketches like crazy as we want to have as many ready for our Design Team as far ahead of time as possible and since Michelle has already hand drawn 39 pages of sketches at 2 or 3 per page for me to digitize there is no shortage of ones to be done. ;)

I do have a question for all of you though... I am digitizing them in one of my cutting software programs which means I have an actual cut file for every sketch in SVG format. My question is if any of you would be interested in me sharing that cut file each week with the sketch? Let me know in a comment here or over on the AHSC blog and if there are enough requests I will work on getting them uploaded somewhere to share.

Now, onto what you really came here for... my card! :)

I had this wonderful flower that I made with Lisa as a make and take at the Crop for the Cure earlier this month and I have been dying to use it on something. This sketch was perfect. I dug out some of thelimited edition Dream Pop paper that you can get for $10 with every $35 this month and cut a 4" x 5.25" piece to include the banners/sentiment which is on one of the patterns. Stuck my layer onto a Hollyhock card base and then just adhered my flower on top. Finished. I just love the glimmer and shimmer to this beautiful flower and better yet how easy this card was when paired with this fantastic patterned paper.

Products Used:

Sketch #3 for Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge

Today we are sharing the Design Teams creations as well as the Top 3 from last weeks entries over at Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. Go on over and check it out... after you read this post of course. ;)

My card today follows the sketch almost exactly. I am lucky enough to have the sketch designer as a good friend. Michelle who made this sketch actually made this sketch with my love of watercolouring backgrounds in mind. That said, I am actually not very happy with my background and window scene I did today and I will end up re-visiting this one at a later date to do a better window scene.

I used my poor neglected craft robo for this as I have been using the Funtime software to digitize the sketches that Michelle draws by hand to post for you all so I already had a cut file made for this one (I know.. cheating!!). My craft robo is feeling much more loved now that it actually got to "cut" one of the designs I have been making with the software lately.

The whole front panel is raised on foam tape and the window box is raised up again with foam tape from there. I used Dakota paper for the panel and the watercolour pencils for the window scene. The sentiment is from B1392 Key Moments and is stamped in Chocolate ink. I cut apart one of the flourishes from a Sparkles Flourishes for the bling.

I also shared this card yesterday using the same sketch if you want to check the details for that out you can go here.

Now go on over to the sketch challenge blog and check out everyone elses creations.

PRODUCTS USED:

Father’s Day Card

I have this fun card on the Card a Day Blog today.

My husband and my Dad are both very handy and spend lots of time building things or fixing things for people (including me). Their to-do lists often get very very long and both are kind hearted enough to put their to-do lists before themselves (most of the time).

I decided to use the concept of putting away the to-do list as the starting point, added in the current sketch for this week from my new co-hosted sketch challenge blog Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge (hint hint wink wink… go check it out!!) and voila!

Now, as much as I’d love to show you the inside of this card I can’t… for 2 reasons…

1. My husband and my Dad both read my blog and although I’m not sure who’s card this will be I want at least part of it to be a surprise
2. It’s not finished yet.. sssshhhhhh…. I have big BIG plans for it though and I promise to share it with you again after I give it to them.

DIRECTIONS:

This card is actually a full letter sized sheet of paper (8.5” x 11”) folded in half so it’s a large card.
The bottom piece is 1.25” x 8.5” and is supposed to be the workbench in the garage. The corkboard piece which is really just a piece of Kraft cardstock that I sponged some Desert Sand ink on and distressed the edges with Chocolate a little bit is 3.5” x 3.75”. The drawers are 1.25” x 4.25” and the raised panel on the drawers are 1” x 4”.

I used one of my home made embossing folders to emboss the drawer panels.

*I make my home made embossing folders 5 different ways but this particular one is a cut from the Paper Lace 2 cricut cartridge and is cut out of stencil plastic. To use this type I just use the same sandwich as you would use to emboss a spellbinder die plus an extra piece of thick cardstock for a shim.

I brushed all of the black cardstock with some Gunmetal and Pewter metallic rub-ons (it's like a wax paste and s awesome for this type of project). I then took my silver Encore ink pad and lightly brushed it directly on the drawer fronts to ink the raised embossing.

I made a quick to-do list (which by the way is an actual to-do list here of my husbands that I re-wrote small and then chopped most of it off to make it fit behind the drawer). My post it note is just a scrap of white I had laying on my desk and my thumb tack is a tiny silver brad.

They don’t make sentiments this large for cards and I didn’t feel like piecing all the individual letters to spell it out. I couldn’t print it since it’s black cardstock and you can’t print white (unless you have a very high end printing company printer that actually has white ink in it). All this to tell you I hand wrote all the sentiments for this one. hahaha

Wallet Card for Sketch #2 - Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge

Here is my creation for this weeks sketch over at our new Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge Blog.

I needed a birthday card for my cousin and this sketch inspired a blazer jacket type feel (after of course I managed to get the Santa belt image out of my head.. you all know how much I LOVE making Christmas cards but figured I'd spare you for at least another month or so).

The card base is cut from the Artiste Cricut Cartridge and the belt and loop I made by hand for no reason other than I had packed my cricut stuff away for a crop before I finished up the card.

Of course I couldn't leave well enough alone and went at it with my silver pen to make it look like this...

The inside has the space for a gift card to go in and since I picked up the gift card on the way over I just stuck one of the kids Chapters gift cards from Christmas in there for the picture. I used the same silver pen to write my greeting inside as well. 

Groovy Birthday for Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge #1

Here is my creation for Sketch #1 over at our new blog Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge.

I used the new Dream Pop paper pack available starting today until the end of the month for just $10 with every $35 order. Let me just say that the papers in this pack are gorgeous!! Talk to your personal CTMH consultant as well if you get this pack to get a complimentary workshop guide to go with it as well.

I used honey for my card base, sorbet for the bottom piece and the Dream Pop paper on top as well as the zip strip off of the same Dream Pop paper.

I used some Dimensional Element Stars and inked them with honey pigment ink and then a little bit of slate pigment around the edges.

The sentiment is partially handwritten using a marker and the word "GROOVY" is made from the A Typeface stamp set and stamped using slate ink.

Please go check out my blog co-hosts design as well as all the fantastic entries so far in the challenge over at our new blog Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge. We'd love for you to play along with us and maybe even join our design team?! :)

Buzz & Bumble 2 page layout

Those of you that know me know that I do NOT scrapbook. I never even print pictures off just view them in digital frames and on the computer. We have apple tv as well so all of our photos saved in our iPhone and iPad display on that too (yes we are a techy geek family LOL).

That said however, my customers get what they want and what they have been requesting is a 2 page layout so.... here goes nothing!

I will be teaching this class at the crop for the cure this weekend. Details on that on my sidebar or in the tab above if you're interested. If you're in HRM or Truro area (or anywhere else between Halifax and Cape Breton I have space in my vehicle and would happily pick you up on the way. :)

Okay enough babble already... here it is... (be gentle.. remember it's my first one that I'm happy enough with to share with you and didn't just rip back apart).

The photo spots take a 4x6 photo on the left page and two 3x3 photos on the right page. I left the label shape on the right page empty for journaling to be added.

The font I used for the "Title Here" is from Artiste but all the rest of the cuts on the layout are from Art Philosophy. The "Wonderful beautiful day" stamp is from the Buzz & Bumble Workshop On The Go (WOTG) as is the patterned paper. 

Distressed all the edges in Chocolate ink and stamped a couple bees from the Buzz & Bumble WOTG (which I quickly coloured the stripes with my honey alcohol marker), fussy cut them out and stuck them on. 

The birds eye is a bitty sparkle that I coloured with my Umber Promarker. You could use one of the brown and tan assorted sparkles that come in the WOTG if you didn't already use them all like me. LOL

The bees flight path is also from the stamp set in the WOTG. It is a straight path normally but one of the great things about our stamps is you can flex them into different shapes if you choose to like I did here.

Just a quick note for you on how I create.. I do my entire mock up on the computer typically.. like this one I did in Cricut Craft Room. Here's a screen shot of what this looked like in steps in concept...

Products Used: