Tuesday, January 20, 2009

It's the little things.....

I find that I don't need a whole lot to make me happy! So you can see that when I went into a Starbuck's today and they had cupcakes for sale, I was instantly HAPPY!!!
You have to excuse this photo because the only thing I had was my cell phone camera but I knew that that would still convey why this made me happy.
That stop was while I was on my way to this stop, a Craft Warehouse. Now, if you haven't been in one of these, you need to check out where they have stores and see if you can shop at one. I love them! Not only do they have a great scrapbook and stamp section but they have a great fabric section and all kinds of other crafts! Just give me all of the time I want in one of these stores and again, I am very HAPPY!!!

Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)

Saturday, January 17, 2009

It's A Boy! Baby Cards

At Card Positioning Systems blog this coming week, we thought we would put a little different slant on the normal schedule so each team member went back over the last 99 sketches and we each picked the sketch we wanted to work with. Another little fun aspect of this weeks cards is that we put our focus on new little baby boys since Tami, our chief sketch creator, and her family recently welcomed a new little guy into their home. I used sketch #5
The main accent on my card is a sailboat stamped with one of my new Martha Stewart stamps. I competely coated the image with the Aleene’s® Paper Glaze after I cut it out giving it an epoxy look. That was then added to the front of the card with foam tape for added dimension.
Since I am already on the theme of "BABIES", I wanted to show off another card with that theme. This is actually using Sketch #40 from CPS. The stamps are by Crafty Secrets and I loved the vintage look of the stamps and the papers.
For my main focus piece, I painted a piece of chipboard with a dark paint and then painted Ranger's Crackle paint over that. When the paint dried and cracked, you can then see the dark undercolor through the cracks.
I stamped the baby buggy on a piece of plain white cardstock and then coated that with Ranger's clear Crackle Accents. This cracks as it dries. I inked this piece with a dark brown stamp pad so that the edges were inked and some of that ink with into my cracks so help show them off.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)
SPECIAL DELIVERY card
Materials: Cardstock
Patterned paper – Choco Collection/Quick Quotes
Boat Clear Stamp – Martha Stewart
Greeting stamp – Rubber Soul
Stamp pad - Memento
Corner rounder punch- Fiskars
Border punch - Fiskars
Star brads – Making Memories
Clear Paper Glaze – Aleene’s®/Tulip
3M foam tape
ALL OF GOD'S GRACE card
Cardstock
Patterned Papers and stamps - Crafty Secrets
Ranger Crackle Paint and Crackle Accents
Clearsnap Stamp pads
Ribbon
Scallop edge scissors

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

What a CUTE little owl!

No doubt whatsoever, owls are "HOT" right now. Any kind and any size. I guess I just like trends because this is one bandwagon that I have gotten on. Wonder how long these guys will be around? One of my absolute favorite papers companies is We R Memory Keepers and these papers are from them. The pink/salmon colored paper was scored with the Scor-Pal tool and then those folds were sanded a little bit to distress them. And for added distressing I used the Tonic Paper Distresser on the edges of the papers. These papers have a white/distressed took to the edges of the papers so I was just adding to that look.
My little owl was stamped and embossed with black embossing powder. I love the richness that the embossing gives to the black. I did some inking to add a little color to his body.
Another interesting accent is that I added the Aleene's Paper Glaze to the inside part of each of the leaves and then sprinkled the Clearsnap green glitter on that. I like using the Paper Glaze as my glue for something like this because it dries a little 3-D and it really holds that loose glitter.
LITTLE OWL - HELLO card
Materials list: Cardstock
Patterned paper – We R Memory Keepers
Owl stamp – Inkadinkado
Hello stamp – October Afternoon
Black stamp pad and black embossing powder – Clearsnap
Aleene's Paper Glaze - Tulip
Green Glitter – Clearsnap
Tonic Paper Distresser
Scor Pal scoring tool
3M Foam Tape

Sunday, January 11, 2009

CPS Sketch #99 and a fun layout

You read that title correct - Card Positioning Systems blog is on it's 99th sketch this week! WOWIE!! I have been privileged to be part of CPS from the very beginning and it has been such a fun thing to share with the scrapping/cardmaking community.
Our sponsor this week is DRS Designs. I loved how simple and elegant this branch sprig is and so I kept it simple by using silver embossing powder.
I embossed the butterfly with the same silver embossing powder and colored in the openings with a pink Copic marker. I added just over the pink areas a Glitter 3-D Fashion paint by Tulip. I have said this before, but I love this glitter because it gives a great coat of glitter and still lets the underneath color show through.
And I also wanted to share this simple layout. I used "DOODLE" papers by Rusty Pickle, they come in black and white and the idea is you can add color and doodling to what they have printed. The photo was turned black and white and I used a Magic Splash program to add color back into his uniform.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)
SILVER BRANCHES card
Materials:
Stamps courtesy of DRS Designs stamps
Cardstock
Silver Colorbox stamp pad and Silver Top Boss Embossing powder/Clearsnap
Glitter Fabric 3-D Fashion paint – Tulip
Self Adhesive pearls – Mark Richards, Inc
Corner rounder punch- Fiskars
Big brads – Karen Foster
Ribbon
Copic Marker

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Smile and the World Smiles With You!!!

At least that is what this little guy thinks!!! He has so many people in his life that he pretty much thinks it is always party time. You can see from this HUGE smile that he loves it!
And I wanted to share a card with you - a rather different card.
I used a piece of plastic by Plaid that you would normally purchase to cut your own stencils with. It is a great weight, it is slightly cloudy and makes for a fun card.
I used Queen & Co. felt and glued that to the front of the plastic. Some of their felts are self-adhesive, this particular one is one of their first releases of felt and it required me adding glue but that was actually very easy. I added a couple different sizes of rhinestones to the middles of some of the flowers.
I used a completely separate piece of patterned paper to create a liner for my card. The pattern can be slightly seen through the cloudy plastic front and with the particular paper I used, it has another pattern on the reverse side so it made for a fun inside of the card. A line of glue tape along the top, back of the liner is enough to attach it to the outside card. This was finished with a simple rub-on phrase.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)
WITH ALL MY HEART card
Materials:Plastic – Stencil plastic/Plaid
Patterned paper – Roxie Cliques/Love, Elsie/KI Memories
Rub-on phrase- Making Memories
Corner rounder punch – Papershapers/EK Success
Felt Flower ribbon – Queen & Co.
Rhinestones – Hero Arts
Ribbon

Monday, January 5, 2009

Creating EPOXY-like accents

I wanted to share a couple cards today each having a little extra surprise to their designs.
This first card is my Card Positioning Systems card for this week. Sweet 'n Sassy stamp company was our sponsor for this week and I picked a set of word greetings to work with. What I really liked about their greeting sets is that they are more then just "thank you" and "happy birthday". Those kinds of greetings are great for many cards but once in awhile, a more thoughtful verse if a fun accent and so that is what you see on my card.
What I want to also point out on this card and the next one are the little "epoxy" kind of designs that I added to my cards. For this above card, I cut out some of the designs from this patterned paper by We R Memory Keepers and I then coated these cut out pieces with Aleene’s® Paper Glaze by Tulip/Duncan. I also added a little bit of bling on part of the design with the Diamond Glitter 3-D Fashion paint by Tulip. I love the amount of glitter you get with this paint. If you look closely you can see that glitter in part of the green design.
For this next card, I pretty much used the same idea. I cut out the design from a piece of patterned paper. You can also see that I used a plain piece of white cardstock to place behind the cut design and I ran that through my Cuttlebug machine with the Swiss Dot embossing plate.
I wanted this design to be very 3-D so I cut out additional pieces of some of the design so that I could make it layered. In this side view, you can see the layers. All of the pieces were coated with the Aleene’s® Paper Glaze by Tulip giving the pieces a great, epoxy look. Self-adhesive pearls finished the elegant look.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)
THERE’S YOU card
Materials:
Stamps courtesy of SWEET & SASSY stamps
Cardstock
Patterned paper – We R Memory Keepers
Scallop oval punch - Marvy
Glitter Fabric 3-D Dimensional paint – Tulip
Clear Paper Glaze – Aleene’s®/Tulip
Rhinestones – Darice
Corner rounder punch- Papershapers/EK Success

IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU card
Materials list:
Cardstock - Prism
Patterned papers – Autumn Leaves
Cuttlebug embossing plate – Provo Craft
Scallop Scissors – Family Treasures
Machine Sewing
Self Adhesive pearls – Mark Richards, Inc.
Rub-on greeting – Making Memories
Clear Paper Glaze – Aleene’s®/Tulip

Friday, January 2, 2009

2 more Glimmer Mist projects

I wanted to share the remaining projects I had created for my guest projects for Tattered Angels and Cut Cardstock. Again, I used one of the Glimmer Screens and ended up with two projects.
I started out with this deckle edge paper from Cut Cardstock. It has a great feel to it and it just seemed that it loved the Glimmer Mist. First of all, I sprayed the paper with a peach colored Glimmer Mist and used my finger to rub it around to fully coat the paper. Next I placed the flourish Glimmer Screen on the paper and sprayed that with the Fully Purple. I then lifted off the Glimmer Screen with the Fully Purple ink still on it. (Hold that thought!!!)
I also sprayed the flowers - they were peach already but by spraying them with the peach Glimmer Mist, I added just a little bit of Glimmer.
Now for that Glimmer Screen that is full of Fully Purple spray! I placed it on a plain piece of white cardstock. That transfered the flourish design onto the white cardstock. I used a bag pattern that I found at Mels Stampz and cut out a little gift bag, adding some extra sprays of the same Fully Purple and some of the Copper Metallic.
You can see from the close-up that I outlined my purple flourish design with a white pen to reinforce my design and for my little accent piece at the handle in the bag, I took a plain piece of white cardstock and sprayed it with the Coffee Shop Glimmer Mist and punched that out with the flower punch. One thing about punching shapes with paper sprayed with Glimmer Mist - let the paper dry first. It gets wet with the spray and so the paper doesn't want to punch correctly.
Thanks for visiting, Linda (lbpost)