Wainsot Technique

This weeks technique demo at StampTV was how to make wainscoting by Gina K.  What a really neat idea.  I was in the process of finishing up the last of the cards for the wedding shower and needed some masculine cards and these worked out perfectly. 
You can see the video here, and believe me it is so simple.
I chose to make two cards and use images from JustRite's By the Sea set for my focal point.
My card base is Kraft, then a layer of Chocolate Brown and the technique was done on another layer of Kraft, all from Gina K.  I used Memento Desert Sand for the distressing and for the card on the left I used the mountain side of the card stock.  The card on the right is the same format but I used the valley side of the card stock.
I like how they turned out what do you think?  Thanks for stopping by.

Bookmark to Cards, An Idea

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, but I say it's also the mother of creation. These two cards are the result of needing to make some cards and not having the creative juices flowing to come up with an idea. Quite some time back I made a book mark using these two images. Well it was cute and all that, but not very practical. I mounted these onto a large paper clip (you can see it here), but it really didn't work. So it has been languishing in my card box ever since. One night while trying to go to sleep an idea popped into my head and these cards are the result. I just used my Nestabilities to cut out two more mats, mounted them onto card bases and was done. So easy peasy I just can't stand it.

Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

Christening

Today is my Great-Nephews Christening and these are two cards that I made for the event. The silver card is to be from his Aunt Cati, his Godmother and the gold is to be from three of his Great-Aunts (myself and two of my sisters)
I was running out of time so I had to make an executive decision and do a somewhat assembly line set up. I used the Nestabilities Cross set and then used my finger for color them with metallic rub on paste (ooh my fingers hurt when I was done). I then mounted them onto metallic card stock from Cut Card Stock. Then I ran some white card stock through the Cuttlebug with embossing folders and put all the elements together to make two cards. I did however use my JustRite letters to make the sentiment for Cati's card.
Thanks for stopping by.

A Trio of Sympathy Cards

When I was cleaning off my craft desk I came across three stampings of JustRite Sympathy images that I had colored and set aside. They

then became buried under a lot of other stuff. I took the opportunity to use them and quickly made these three cards. I have finally used up the last of the baby shower card stock (I am so GLAD of that) and all the rest of the DP are scraps.

Me desk is cleaner (note I didn't say clean just cleaner) and I'm feeling a little more creative.

Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

JustRite Color Challenge #36

This was a fun challenge to do. It accomplished several things, first it made me go outside my comfort zone and it allowed me to use existing supplies. JustRite always has beautiful inspiration cards, and this time is no different.

The challenge is a color challenge to use Ivory, Red and Black with the addition of making an embellishment. Colors are no problem but making an embellishment to go with the colors is another story. You should have seen me trying to come up with an idea. I really, really wanted to use some of the black waffle shelving stuff we picked up a Lowe's today but I just couldn't get it to cooperate. Instead I took some black and white checked ribbon, put some scor-tape on it then twisted into a flower. I punched a hole in the center and added a brad an popped it onto the red ribbon. The base is Gina K Rocket Red and the ivory layer is Cryogen that I ran through my CuttleBug with the Floral Screen folder.

My focal image is from the Thinking of You Borders and Centers set. I colored with Copics R29 and R39 for the flower and YG03 and YG95 for the leaves. I air brushed the flat back pearls with E50. I used the plain and scalloped ovals to cut out the image and the mats. I used a Spica pen to dot the scallops.

Another thing this challenge helps with is that it's a card for the Christmas packets I put together every year as gifts. Only 30 0r 40 more to go.

Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by.

Jingle All The Way

Well the JustRite Inspiration challenge #33 has really got me going. I decided to make a few more holiday wall hangings using the sketch and this is the next one I came up with.

I used JustRite's A Merry Little Christmas Set for this wall hanging. The DP is some I bought at the end of the season last year and I no longer have the info on who it's from (I wish I did since I'd buy more).

I had some metallic paper that has been sitting in my stash for over a year, but the ribbon and bells are new from Michael's.

Sewing is not one of my fortes but it had to be done for this hanger since my original idea of threading the ribbon through the bells wouldn't work. So out came my dusty sewing box and needle and fibers attached the bells. After attaching them to the left side I thought can it have too many jingle bells???? No so I used them for my embellishment on the left side.

My medallions down the center were a hoot to do. The red metallic paper that I stamped and embossed the snowflakes on was a sheet 8" by 5.5" and these two circles are all that was left after hours of trying to emboss these images. Shiney paper is slippery. The center jingle bell was a lot easier to do, I first inked up the jingle bells and then added the border and inked that up separately. I colored it up with Copics and Jelly Roll pens. I added some glaze and stickles to the bow. I used plain circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities to cut the images and mats out . A little bit of Score Tape and I was all done.

Hope you like it and thanks for stopping done.

Christmas Decorating

When I was browsing the various web sites the other day I stopped off at JustRite Inspirations and looked at the Friday challenge #33 and it is a sketch. Well by now we all know how much I LOVE (read dislike intensely) sketch challenges, but this one really got to me. I especially loved the wall hanging inspiration sample.

I went right over and started pulling out papers and stamps and ribbons and embellishments and started to play. I ended up with three bases and then had to decide how to finish them.

This one is the first. In keeping with my quest to use existing supplies I started with some Gina K Pure Luxury 120lb white card stock. I wanted something strong enough to handle usage but light enough to swing when a door moved. I then added some kraft card stock that I had run through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder and then promptly covered most of it up with the striped DP (something from my stack of DP that I've had for over a year).

I knew that I wanted to use the Christmas Treasures and Borders set (just not the borders), so I stamped the images with Memento Rich Cocoa on Beckett Expression Aster card stock. I colored with Copics, keeping the colors somewhat muted. Then I cut them out with a circle Nestie, ran my Krylon gold leafing pen around the edge and mounted them onto some of the Banana Leaf paper I have left that was cut out with an octagon Nestie. Since I couldn't find card stock to co-ordinate with the base for my vertical element I made my own. I took some of the same card stock and trimmed it to 3/4" by 5 1/2 " then since it was double sided I took the reverse side and trimmed a piece 1/4" by 5 1/2" to lay over top. Then I took a ruler and measured that in half and took a blue gel pen and just ran a squiggle line down the center.

To finish it off I doubled the ribbon in half and made the handle and then added the brad to the left side where the ribbon goes through. This brad was from a kit that I bought at a local store that was closing a couple of years ago. I punched a circle of the same DP and added it to the center.

From this description it sounds like a lot of work but it really wasn't, it was fun to do and now I just have to decide do I keep it or do I give it away. Hmmmm.

Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by. Now I'll go finish the other wall hangers I started, need one for the new great-nephew coming next month.

A Christmas Tag

Well I wanted to play today and this is what I accomplished. This is also a cautionary tale of when not to try stamping. Don't try making anything when you are hungry or tired. This is the fourth attempt at making this tag.

Now to the real info. I very much wanted to join the Caardvarks challenge since the sponsor is JustRite Stampers and the challenge is to make a Christmas tag or mini card. Well since I have to get into the Christmas mood, even though it's hot and muggy, this was perfect for me.

I also had a new set to play with (yes, another Novi show buy, don't nag me). The set is A Merry Little Christmas set and it has 10 borders and centers. I used it with my 2" round stamper and in the outer slot I used letters from the Times New Roman Font Lowercase set for my to and from. This is such a neat set up. I usually just use cheap tags for my gifts but that is going to change this year. Anyway, I stamped it on Beckett Radiance with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with Copics. I added white fun flock to the ball at the top of the Santa hat (using existing supplies so I keep up with my quest to winnow down my stash of STUFF). I colored a white snowflake brad and pop dotted the image onto the Gina K Navy card stock that I had cut out with a Nestabilities 13, then edged it using a Krylon silver leafing pen. I just love the navy and silver combo. I found this red and white polka dotted ribbon in my stash and threaded it through the top and bottom.

The Wisemen

This is the fourth and last image from this Christmas Treasures set from Just-Rite. When I first saw this set I knew exactly how I was going to do these cards. I pulled out all the embossing powders I have after making my card bases and chose colors to co-ordinate. I knew that silver would look best on the dark blue of the bottom left card and that the top one done in kraft needed the Tim Holtz Distressed Powder. That left the bottom right and when I looked at some of my older embossing powders I found this dark blue and it was perfect. On these cards there are no embellishments. I love the sentiment of this card, I so wish that there could be Peace on earth, but I guess as long as there are differences between cultures we'll always have conflict. Enough of that.

I love this set and I hope you like the cards I've made. Thanks for stopping by.

A Christmas Bird

This is the third image from the JustRite Christmas Treasures set. I think this one is my favorite of the four, although maybe the Silent Night is or even the next one coming up. Oh all right I love them all and can see me making many more of these (my sister has put in her order for two dozen of these, hmmm, better get busy).

When I stamped these out (along with some of the others) I learned that you have to be very careful when mounting these onto the stamper.

After I had these all stamped out I realized that the borders were all off center. Made me dizzy to look at them. I was so discouraged thinking I would have to restamp them all when the light bulb went off and I pulled out my Nestabilities and cut out each of the centers. Now when I attached them to the scalloped matting I could center them properly. Worked great. I colored with Copics and on two of them I used Fun Flock on the roof and on one I used Stickles. On the lower left card I used some tiny red rhinestones on the holly berries on the bird house, unfortunately I didn't have enough to do all of the cards, boo hoo. Yikes, I just noticed that on two of these I still didn't get the borders right, that's what I get for working when tired. So now I'm off to fix them. See you tomorrow (I hope).

Hope you like them anyway and thanks for stopping by.

Silent Night Holy Night

This is the second image in the Christmas Treasures set from JustRite, there are four all together, which makes it perfect to do three of each for a set of a dozen cards.

For this image I chose to stamp the top one in black, the bottom left is embossed with the Tim Holtz Distressed Embossing and the bottom right is stamped in brown. Each is colored with Copics slightly differently and two of them have gold rhinestones on the star. On these three I again went for a non-traditional look with the colors but I think they are successful in that I used paper and embellishments I already had on hand.

Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

More Christmas tomorrow.

Christmas Treasures

This is an example of failure and success. Failure is the inability to NOT buy terrific stamp sets when I have vowed to cut back on purchases, success is using existing supplies when using new stamps to make cards.

I bought JustRite's Christmas Treasures set because I just had to have it, when making the cards I pulled out embossing powders I forgot I even had and Christmas paper from last year that I haven't used up. This set uses the 3 1/4" stamper and is enough to be the only thing I need for the front of my card. I stamped it out 3 times using Versamark and then embossed with gold for the top card, black for the middle and the bottom one I used Tim Holtz Distress Powder. I wanted to make a set of Christmas cards as a prize for my nieces baby shower later this month. I also wanted to make some somewhat non-traditional cards. Since the stamp set has four images it gave many chances to use existing supplies (salves my conscience a bit) and have fun designing cards. There is just a little bit of bling on each of these cards, the image was cut out with a circle Nestabilities and then I trimmed it closer. The mats were also cut with Nesties. No coloring on these cards but more on the next three sets.

Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

Happy 4th of July

Okay, this is really the last of the July 4th cards.
On this one I used the sail boat image from JustRite's By the Sea Borders and Centers.
I colored with Copics and cut it and the mat out with oval Nestabilities. Mounted onto DCWV Prints DP that I wrapped with Gina K ribbon. That is all mounted onto a Gina K Pure Luxury Rocket Red card base.
All of the 4th of July cards were so fun to make and I really enjoyed the red, white and blue color combo.
Hope you are having a great holiday, I know I am (well I predict that I am since I'm writing this post in advance).
I'm in Tampa as you read this celebrating my nephew's graduation, my sister's retirement and my other sisters birthday and a mini family reunion. I know that it's hot and there are storms but we can party any way.
See you when I get back.

Sea Shell Sympathy

I was looking at one of my favorite web sites Heart Prints the other day and Sue had the most beautiful sympathy card I have ever seen, you can see it here. The poem on her card is from an old Embossing Arts stamp and it is so lovely. I'm not sure of the source of the poem but I had to copy it for my card.

I used one of my new JusRite By the Sea Borders and Centers for my image. Colored with Copics of course and cut out with an oval Nestabilities as is the mat. I used some blue DP I had on my desk (see using up my supplies) cut slightly smaller than my card base and mounted the image onto that.

I computer generated the poem onto vellum (let it dry) and placed over the top. If you click on the photo or go to Sue's site you can read the poem, It is lovely.

Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by.

Red, White and Blue Christmas

JustRite's Friday challenge #24 is to make a card in red, white and blue using their sketch. Well I have already made all my 4th of July cards and just finished using all my By the Sea Borders and Centers stamps so I really wanted to use my other new set from JustRite.

It is however a Christmas set, Christmas Treasures, and I wasn't sure what I could do. I need to make a set of Christmas cards for a prize at my nieces baby shower next month and I decided I could accomplish to things with one card. This challenge and start my set.

I chose to use the cardinal image as my starting point, after all that gets the red out (groan). I colored the birdhouse blue and used a white gel pen to add some snow to the roof. I dug out all my Christmas paper and found this Merry Christmas paper for one of my borders and used my Martha Stewart punch for the village. I used Gina K pure luxury In the Navy for my card base and Rocket Red for the scalloped mat. Then I went through and pulled out some co-ordinating blue papers for my other layers. All in all I think it came out very well. I may even reproduce this card for myself (well, no, there are too many other images to use). Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by.

July 4th Flowers

When I started to make my 4th of July cards I decided not to use traditional images on all of my cards. I did want to use the traditional colors. How can you possibly go wrong with red, white and blue. I had gotten the Gina K Stamp TV kit Eclectic Summer last year (or was it the year before)??? Another case of having something and not using it. Anyway there was some terrific stuff in that set and the card stock was part of it. I used the Rocket Red for my card base and the In the Navy for my scalloped mat. The ribbon is also from that same set as is that little red brad.

I used the flower stems from the PaperTrey Button Basic set and the buttons are also from PaperTrey. The sentiment is from PaperTrey's Vintage Picnic and the DP is DCWV Summer Dreams. Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by. P.S. I'm just loving clearing my craft area up this way.

Bookmarks for the Beach

When I was looking through the bookmarks uploaded to the JustRite Bookmark It challenge I was inspired by Jenny L.'s submission. I liked the idea of the folded bookmark with the magnet closure.

So in my quest to use what I have and create something new I made 8 bookmarks. The reason for 8 is because I'm headed to Tampa July 3rd for my nephews graduation party. It will be a mini family reunion since all my sisters (there are 4 of them) brothers-in-law and nephews, nieces and one girlfriend will be there. Of course there will be some beach time and naturally there will be reading at the beach so ergo we need bookmarks. I used the largest of the Mega Curved Rectangle Nestabilities and scored it at 3 inches. I stamped the Shells on one half and the Beach scene on the other half. The Shell sides are all colored the same with Copics and on the Beach side they're all the same except for the umbrella and the chair. I got my Copic air brush system out and tried to get a little fancy and as you can see I need more practice. I then searched all my bins for the magnet closures I've had for well over a year and finally found them right where I thought they would be (I had been throught that drawer several times and missed them--no wonder I buy things and then find I have duplicates). So another item sitting on my desk for way too long is used up.

Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

July 4th Lighthouse

This is another of my holiday cards. I just had to use my new JustRite stamps on this project.

I colored with Copics of course and cut it out with the oval Nestabilities as I also did the mat with the scalloped oval. The DP is from DCWV Prints matstack. The card base, scalloped mat and the ribbon are all from Gina K.

Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by.

JustRite Bookmark

This stamp set By the Sea Borders and Centers from JustRite is one I've wanted since I first saw it. I just fell in love with it and have been so anxious to get it. Well it landed in my mail box yesterday and I finally got to play with it today.

JustRite's challenge this week is to make a bookmark. Anyone who knows me knows that I love to read and I have made my own bookmarks in the past, so this was a challenge I could really get into.

I am funny about my bookmarks in that I don't like a plain backside. I want my bookmarks to be pretty anyway I look at it. I have a box of these large plastic covered paper clips so I decided to try to make a bookmark using one of them. I stamped out the two images and colored with Copics. The images and mats are cut out with the oval and scalloped Nestabilities. I then used a lot of strong adhesive to hold the paper clip in between the two red layers, I then got some red thread and sewed the clip in even tighter. I added my images and was done. It actually took me longer to figure out the mechanics than to make the bookmark. I really like how it turned out. What do you think? Thanks for stopping by.

JustRite Round Challenge

When I went cruising through the craft sites today I saw that the JustRite challenge for this week looked like fun. I don't have a lot of JustRite stamps but those I do have I just love.

The challenge is to use round stamps or use any stamp and make it round. So here's what I did.

I took my oval Beautiful Blossoms and Borders set and chose this flower, then I hauled out my round Nestabilities (plain and scalloped) and went to work. First I chose paper from the Citrus DCWV mat stack (such a pretty and cheerful set) and proceeded to cut out my circles.

After I colored my image (Copics of course) I put it back into the Nestie and air brushed some color. I then assembled the circles. When I had them all together I looked it over and saw a smudge now hidden by the brad. Don't you just love the craftiness of using embellishments to hide something. I then found my Custom Design Card Making set and chose to make this a Happy Birthday card (you can never have too many of those). I stamped the sentiment in Memento Rhubarb Stalk.

Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by.