Whew!  All these personal challenges to use things I’ve bought and haven’t touched are killing me!  So many of my cards lately are not my norm - makes me wonder why I bought all this stuff in the first place.

I can’t believe what a difference having a little more space to work in can make to the creative process.  I used to have to clear everything off my worktop so I could use the cuttlebug or the paper cutter, etc.  Not having to drag them out and put them away every time I make a card is great (and will be even better if I can get Mr. Bee to install another worktop…)

I’m hoping this weekend will see the installation of some closet doors and maybe some shelving in the closet that is slated for my craft supplies (I will be sharing the room with some overflow items from our t.v. room so it’s not 100% a craft room but it’s close enough!).  Then I can move the last few things out of my old room and get that room repurposed.

Anyway, on to the card…

This was an easy one!  I paper pieced the cup (watercoloured the “tea” inside) and cut it out with my nesties.  The card only took about 15 minutes to make (really fast for me) and I got to use this great MME paper that I bought a few months ago.  The ribbon is ancient stuff that I bought at Costco - it seemed like a good deal at the time but hardly any of the colours go with my papers and cardstock.  Live and learn.

I used some retired In Colour cardstock for the base (Marigold Morning).  I decided to group my In Colour CS by the year it came out instead of by individual colour in the future.  It will help me use it up and will also eliminate the need for so many hanging file folders in my CS cabinet.

Not sure if I have anything blog-worthy tomorrow…my latest card is a bit humble…

I actually am not that happy with today’s card.  I was specifically trying to use a strip of patterned paper (inspired by a card on the cover of a magazine) as the starting point for the card and wasted a lot of energy trying to coordinate patterns and colours.

I *think* the card would have been okay if the placement of the image etc. wasn’t a bit too high on the base.

On the plus side, I did use a stamp that needed to be inked and I made a cute embellishment by running some felt through my cuttlebug and adding some glittery fun foam and a button.  I also think I was moderately successful mixing patterned paper from two different collections.

Here’s the card:

The cute, girly cards are not really my style but I am trying to use what I have and branch out with my layouts, choice of colours. (I tend to stick to the same things)

I’ll be back tomorrow with another attempt at a “non-Kelly” style card.

Our amazing niece has a birthday this month.  She’s a budding card-maker but I don’t get to craft with her as she lives in the UK.

Her gift (and this card) is in the mail.  Hope she gets it close to her birthday! (we were a shade late mailing it)

The card I made her uses a WS Anna Wight set.  I’ve only used it a couple of times (though I have no idea why, it’s adorable!)  I didn’t choose this set for any particular reason other than I thought it was time to ink it up again.  Hope Ash likes whales! (plus it’s a good theme for a card-maker from Newfoundland!)

Here’s the card:

I used some cute nautical-themed paper from K&Co and did a little something different with my ribbellishment. (that hasn’t caught on, btw)  IRL the button matches the paper perfectly.  It’s from a Basic Grey package of buttons.  Incidentally, I really need more blue buttons and maybe some green ones too.  I haven’t found a good source other than PTI and I am trying so hard not to order from them (just ’cause it would kill my wallet to add another company to the list I order from).

Happy Birthday (almost) Ashleigh!

Guess this little guy will be using a skateboard instead!

Another cute Stamping Bella find.  I’ve actually been wanting a version by The Greeting Farm for ages but every time I go to order it from a site it’s sold out. 

I don’t have very many “guy” stamps but the majority of dudes in t-shirts seem to have smiley faces on them. 

‘Supwitdat?

I had another go at using some Basic Grey patterned paper.  I’ll never use it all…here’s the card:

It’s got a bit of 60’s meets boarder thing happening but I think I like it.  Another detour on ribbon use due to the “dude” theme so I double-stacked a couple of buttons for a neat embellishment.

The image was coloured with reinkers and an aquapainter.  Next time I’m going to make the shoes look more like sneakers - maybe white soles and a coloured upper?

Must head up the twelve-set! 

I like to order my supplies from Canadian companies but it’s usually cost-prohibitive to do so.  Cheaper supplies means my money goes further.  Of course, you have to factor in shipping which you’ll pay no matter what country you order from (including Canada).  I don’t factor in Customs charges (other than the $5 Canada Post fee) as you have to pay tax if you are purchasing in Canada so I don’t understand why so many Canadians on the SCS forum complain about paying GST or HST as applicable.  Customs rarely charges duty on the goods as they invoke NAFTA for goods coming from the US unless the outside of the box obviously indicates the goods were made in a country that is NOT North American.  (trust me, even if I wasn’t a customs broker - which I am - I’ve placed MANY orders from the US)

Anyway, the point (there’s always a point - it just takes me many asides in parentheses to get to it) is that Stamping Bella, a Canadian company, has cute stamps, flat rate shipping (and free shipping over a certain dollar amount) and the occasional on-line discount.  That is the trifecta of Canadian order criteria for me so whenever I learn of a percentage discount from them, I immediately start filling my shopping cart with enough goods to qualify for free shipping.

My last order was compliments of my younger brother.  I got it a little while ago but only mounted the stamps in the batch I did on Saturday.  I am trying to make sure I ink every stamp I buy (it’s a way to prevent going into “collecting” mode) so once they were mounted on cling foam I selected an image for my next card.  I chose Monster Party - a stamp I’ve been wanting for a while.  Here’s the card:

Aren’t they the cutest monsters?  I had already selected the patterned paper for the card prior to colouring the image - this is a pad of Basic Grey paper that I “had” to have and only used once.  In all honesty, I only bought it because it had some paper in it with elephants on it and I love elephants.

I was aiming for a boy card so I swapped out ribbon for coordinating buttons on the card and avoided glitter or anything fussy.  I was a bit concerned that the paper was a bit dark to go with the image but I think there are enough cheerful components mixed in to make it work.  I just have to add a sentiment to the inside and this card is ready for a new home.

Back tomorrow!  I’ve been a busy girl!

I’ve has a fairly productive card-making weekend.  I was taking a little break from Valentines and decided to top up my stash of birthday cards.  I specifically focused on making cards using paper I’ve had for a while with new stamps that haven’t been inked.

I got this Whipper Snapper stamp before Christmas but only managed to get it cling-foam mounted (I buy the bare rubber and mount the stamps myself to stretch my stamp-spending budget) Saturday morning (along with 13 other stamps - I hate cutting the cling foam so I save the stamps up and do them all in one session).

I’m trying to use some of my older Basic Grey paper as well as some K&Co paper - these are the two brands I tend to buy a lot of so it made sense to start with them.  I’m much more selective over what paper I buy now but there are still a lot of options from my “collecting” phase.

Here’s the card:

Of the half-dozen cards I made on Saturday, this one was my favourite.  It was a fun image to colour and the paper was so cheerful that it was very easy to embellish the card once the image was matted.  Now that I’m using a different camera I hope the pictures are doing my cards a little more justice these days (thanks, Rich).  I think you can even see the glitter I used on the scoops of ice cream -  I know you can see it on the prima flower and the centre brad. 

The paper on this card is Carolyn Gavin paper by K&Co.  It’s amazing and I hope she comes out with more some day.  It’s a great blend of funky, retro, fresh and “green” (as in earth-friendly).

My image was coloured using my own “hybrid” method of watercolouring.  I have been using reinkers instead of markers which makes for a much brighter wash of colour and I’m still learning the ropes (not happy with the “sky” colouring - too harsh!).  I went back over some of the shadowed areas with an SU marker to give those areas a little more definition.  I’m having trouble watering down the aquapainter to the right level for shading.

The sentiment is from SU’s Crazy for Cupcakes set and is my go-to sentiment whenever I make a card using an image with dessert-type foods.  I used my newest SU punch (got it in December with my birthday SU order) - you’re probably going to see this punch used fairly often for sentiments.  I can’t be bothered using Spellbinder dies for sentiments so punches are the obvious alternative.

Lots more to share this week so please check back!  Comments are always welcome!

I cranked out 11 sets like this (well, the chipboard animal is different on each one) but am only sharing 2 on the blog (who needs to see 11 of the same thing?).

I really like the new K&Co Kazoo line (much more than the new Valentine themed papers) and bought the paper last weekend.  I couldn’t resist buying a package of the chipboard shapes either.  Those clever marketing people HAVE to stop packaging things in animal-shaped containers!

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the chipboard but there was a sheet of die-cuts in the paper pad and I was determined that I would use them for something (usually the stickers/die cuts in any collection I buy get ignored) so I used them to make some 4X4″ Valentine cards and also did some matching notepads.

Here’s a shot of the Lion set and the Robot set (those were my favourite chipboard shapes):

I had a little trouble with the light in these pictures but you can see that the paper is very cheerful!  I think the paper on the cards is actually from the Valentine pad - it’s the flip side of a pattern with very busy hearts on it.  The sentiment/image on each card was made by cutting down the die cuts in the Kazoo pad (They were like mini valentine’s with To/From on them - the kind we used to give out in school).

Incidentally, there are lots of patterns in the Kazoo collection that are not specific to Valentine’s Day. (and you’ll be seeing some of them on cards very soon!)  I’m hoping to find a smaller pad of the paper but my M’s only had the 12X12.

Enjoy your weekend!

A little break from the Valentine’s today.

This card is a “unisex” baby card.  I know green is a bit predictable but I do like to pair it with orange for a baby card that stands out.

The patterned paper is My Mind’s Eye.  I got the 12X12 version at eP but found a “UK exclusive” when I was in England back in October and couldn’t resist picking up the 6X6 version as the smaller scale of the patterns is so much better for cards - never mind that I had to pay in £ what I would have paid in $ back home.  Worth every penny!

I CASE’d a card by Cammie (Carolyn King) changing pretty much everything except the general layout.  Her card was square and had a few more details than mine (and was very cute!) but I liked the basic concept enough to borrow the blueprint. 

Here’s the result:

The little rocking horse is from a Hero Arts set.  I love their stuff and I’m trying to avoid checking out their latest releases.  I know they’ve got some really cute bigger stamps in their newest catalogue (in particular a cupcake and a teacup that I’d love to own) but I need to try to get more mileage out of the stuff I already own and I’m making a little progress in that department since I’ve changed craft rooms (more space = better layout!)

I’m taking a night off from blogging tomorrow but I’ll be back at it over the weekend and will have more to share next week.  My little stamping hiatus did me a world of good.

While moving from my old craft room to my new one (which I’m still doing) I “discovered” a package of cardstock that I received at no charge.  It’s from the bold brights family of colours at Stampin’ Up - a family of colours I don’t actually use.  Well, I do use one colour from that family - real red - mostly at Christmas time.  Anyway, I discovered this package of lovely lilac (barf!) and decided to try to use some on a few projects.

As I’m currently making Valentine’s, it’s not really that hard to incorporate a shade of purple that is akin to a sweet tart candy.  I also found a sheet of Valentine’s paper that has a similar colour in it so the only thing left to do was pick a layout.

Surprisingly, it took me ages to come up with a card just because I was using a different colour.  I finally found a layout used by sf9erfan on SCS and here’s what I came up with:

At first, I discounted this layout as I thought it would be too time consuming running all those dies through my Cuttlebug.  However, by actually taking a moment to think about it I realized I could cut three shapes at a time because they were all different sizes so I didn’t need to re-use the same die over and over. (this is not rocket science but I make less complex cards generally so these shortcuts are not second nature to me).

I wasn’t completely happy with the card when it was finished so I spritzed a little purple ink on the white patterned paper to remove some of the emptiness.  I still think it’s missing something (ribbon?) but I’m going to leave well enough alone - besides, I’m not sure I have anything that will go with the lilac paper.

Hopefully back tomorrow with something else to share.

Ah, that’s better!  My last two posts were done on my netbook (as is this one) but I didn’t have a mouse and was using the touchpad and keyboard shortcuts to format pictures etc.  Very time consuming.  Tonight, on the way home from work we picked up a new cordless mouse at Staples (I was holding out for a jade green one to match my netbook but I can’t seem to source one.  The only green one I can find is NOT the shade of green I like.  Next time I’m in Toronto I’ll have to try to find one. (but those that know me are well aware that I won’t fork out even more money for a second mouse)

I needed to take a break from the cutesy K&Co valentine’s papers so I made a card using Basic Grey’s Blush line.  I have a lot of this left over from a year or so ago and I like it just as much as I did when it first came out.  BG is my favourite paper “artistically” speaking but it can be difficult to match to a stamp unless you’re into flowers etc. (I think I can count on one hand the number of floral cards I’ve designed in the 5 years I’ve been doing this).

Here’s today’s card:

The deets: BG Blush paper (duh), Stampin’ Bella Kissy Face stamp (not sure if that’s right - don’t have the stamp in front of me - the craft room is still in slings), close to cocoa cardstock, foam heart from M’s. flat backed pearl to dot the “i” in Kiss.  Cuttlebug and Nesties, reinkers, aquapainter.  The dress on chickie is paper pieced from the BG paper and the hearts on her dress are flocked.  I also added a little rickrack (is that how you spell it?) as I thought something was lacking after I finished the card.

Must motor.  Lots to do to get this room fully functional.  Last night saw the addition of a blind for the window and a keyboard tray for under the counter - I decided not to bring my computer desk with me to the new space - it’s fairly rickety at this point and it has traditionally been a bit of a dumping ground for bills and odds and ends.  Theoretically, I’ll have less work area on the new countertop as the computer, printer and cricut will be sharing it (though it is 3.5 feet longer than the old one) but I’ve got big plans for later - when time, budget, and the patience of my husband will allow.  That will give me another good working area to play with.  In the meantime, I have to hide the evidence of a serious paper addiction.  Even I didn’t know I had this much patterned paper and cardstock.  I’m going to have to plant an entire rainforest in penance for contributing to the demise of so many trees!  I think only 2 of my paper pads are mostly recycled paper.

Back tomorrow with a couple of notepads/cards for Valentine’s Day (Hey, that’s the theme for the next few weeks - deal with it!)