Bleach Technique

Here's a card I made for my dad. I have a hard time making masculine looking cards but I loved this one so much I taught it at one of my classes.

After embossing the image in black I bleached out the parts I wanted to show up and then flicked bleach onto the rest to get the speckled look.

Then I roughed up the edges and tied linen thread around it.

My Squash Book

Here's a blast from the past.... a squash book!! I made this for my aunt a couple of years ago. Just looking at this makes me want to go and make another one. I love making these because they are really very easy and fun!

The hardest part is deciding where the pictures will go and getting pictures that actually look good when it's only a triangle.

Directions for this can be found at Splitcoaststampers.

Party Crackers

This is a fun project that can be modified to fit any occasion. They make wonderful goodies for special trick or treaters!

For this project you will need the following:

1 empty toilet paper roll
1 6 1/2 X 12 sheet of designer paper
2 1/2 X 8 inch strips of coordinating paper
tag punch
ribbon, cord, scissors, adhesive






Cut the toilet paper roll across the middle almost in half. Leave about 1/2 to 1 inch connected. Fill the tube with candy, confetti, novelties, money, whatever!! (Don't forget to fill before wrapping!)






Wrap the 6 1/2 X 12 sheet of paper around the tube, so the paper sticks off the tube for the ends. In other words, the length of the tube and the length of the paper go the same direction.




Squish the ends closed and tie with the cord. You can skip the cord and just tie with ribbon but I find it easier to tie it with the cord first.













Wrap the thinner pieces of paper around the ends for accent.










Make a tag and embellish however you want and you are done!

Easy-Cheesy!

Christmas Thanks

Here's one of my "Christmas Thank-You" cards. Lots of paper piecing and glue but a good result.

I used my cricut and the Christmas Cheer cartridge. The santa outfit, hanger, and candy cane are all on that cartridge.

The "thanks" was stamped using the "Make It Count" set from Stampin Up!.

I used white, black and real red paper (all from Stampin Up!) and real red ink. The belt buckle I colored in with a silver pen.

Gift Card Holder

This is a gift card hold I made for my mom. I used the "merry" set from Stampin Up! and my Cricut to cut the scalloped oval.

The snow flakes are stickers that I found at Michaels.

I used a basic matchbook template, cutting it 8 1/2 X 4 inches. For the pouches inside I made them 8 X 4 and then folded them in half. I punched a half circle in the front of each to make it easier to get the gift card out.

After I decided which "pouch" I wanted in front, middle, and back, I trimmed the first pouch by 1/2", the second pouch by 1/4" and left the third pouch the original height.

Then I used Terrifically Tacky Tape to glue the edges of each pouch down and decorated the front of each pouch.

I put the pouches in the book so they fit all the way to the bottom and used my crop-a-dile to punch holes for the gold cord.

I did not glue the bottom portion of the scallop down as I wanted it to lay over the front of the matchbook.

Gift Box

I made this box to put a small gift in. The trees in the background were cut on my Cricut using the Christmas Cheer cartridge. The three trees in the front were stamped green on green using the Season of Joy set from Stampin Up!. I bought the gable box at Paper Zone.

I just glued the ribbon around the bottom and then adhered the trees, tied on the tags and it was done.

Snowman Christmas Card

Yet another Christmas card!! I loved this one. The only thing stamped here is the Merry Christmas. I saw this snowman paper at our local scrapbooking store yesterday and just had to get it. The snowman print is on one side and the stripes are on the other.

I used SU's ticket punch to make the "merry" ticket and the tab punch to make the "Christmas" bit. I'm still not great at sewing cards but I'm getting there!

Goodie Boxes

We are having a group of friends over on Saturday to carve pumpkins.

I made these little goodie bags for all of the kids who will be there.

It was easy but time consuming because there are so many (in fact, I think I still need two more!).

I used Beate's one sheet box as a template and just went from there. Here's what the first one looked like. If you look close you can see that they got a lot more basic after this one!!

Another Mini Scrapbook

This was a quick little scrapbook I made to highlight our trip up to mount hood.

It was so easy!! The hardest part was getting the pictures the right size to fit. You can make this any size depending on your pictures.

Figure out the size of the pictures you want to place in it, double that (because you will have a picture on the top and bottom). Add 1/4" to 1/2" to measurements and this will be your inside pages to mount the pictures on.

The add another 1/2" to 1" to those measurements and that will be your cover.

You can embellish the cover anyway you want. Punch a couple of holes to run your ribbon through. The ribbon goes behind the pictures so make sure the pictures are put in last.

After you make your "pages", they are simply stapled to the cover

This would be a fun gift for grandparents.

Teacher Gifts

Here's a gift I made for one of the teachers I worked for last year. This is another easy project and very cost effective. The journal came from the dollar store and the pen was probably another 1.00.

It's a great use for the older Stampin' Up! Designer paper that was only printed on one side.

The "K" is sponged around all the edges and I used grograin ribbon along the edges.

The flowers are from "Got Flowers?". I put a daub of crystal effects in the center of each one and put some little clear beads.

The pen has the same paper inside as the cover of the journal.

Shaving Cream

If you've never done the shaving cream technique you have go to try it. It's messy but I love the results.

It works best with non-glossy cardstock. Take regular shaving cream (not gel), the dollar stores usually carry it. Spray some cream into a flat pan.

Take a couple of different colors of reinkers. Here I used blue and green for water. You could use orange and purple for halloween, pumpkin and brown for thanksgiving, etc.

Dot the reinkers over the cream and, with a toothpick, or skewer, or a pencil, swirl the ink through the cream until you like the way it looks.

Carefully lay your cardstock into the cream, lift off and wipe with paper towels.

You get the most amazing background paper!!

eek!

I saw a card similar to this one in a magazine. I used one of the tag stamps from Stampin' Up! and used a black marker to color the stamp.

The spider webs and drag lines were drawn by hand.

I used Everyday Flexible Phrases for the "happy halloween".

You can't really tell from the picture but along the right side and half way across the bottom I used my piercing tool to punch little holes.

I used traditional orange and black but a deep purple and orange would look great too!!

Ornaments

This is a fun project that is very quick and easy.

I couldn't get a very good picture but they really look great in person!

I hope I explain this well enough. If you need more instructions just email me.

You will need the following items.









Printed paper or paper that you have stamped on. Cardstock is a little bit too thick. If you want to use cardstock then skip all the steps dealing with the thin chipboard.

Thin chipboard, such as the chipboard that Stampin' Up! puts in their designer paper as a stiffener.
Small hole punch and a large circle punch

Linen thread or some other means of making a "hanger"
Glue gun, Sticker maker or glue stick

First you will need to cut your paper so that it will go through your sticker maker. If you are going to glue your paper to the chipboard then it won't matter what size it is.

Put your paper through the sticker maker and mount it onto the chipboard.

Do the same with another piece of paper, either the same pattern, a contrasting or a complimentary pattern.





Mount the second piece by turning the chipboard over and mount it on the opposite side of the chipboard.

If you are using cardstock just stick the two pieces of cardstock together.








Punch out or cut 4 circles. The bigger your circles, the bigger your ornament.












When you have four circles you will need to cut slits in two of them. Only cut half way through each.












Then, make the same cut again, very close so that you end up with a "slot" that is tight.

Punch a hold in one of the circles with a slit punch. This is where you will put your linen thread for hanging.









Cut the remaining two circles completely in half.












Slide the two circles that are cut half-way through together.









With your glue gun, pipe a thin bead of glue along the inside edge of one of the wedges. Quickly stick one of the "halves" into place.

Continue with the remaining three half-circles until you go all the way around the ornament.












Now you have a cute ornament to hang. Use different types of paper for different holidays!!


The flash made the glue really show up but it doesn't show up that much in real life.

Snowflake Card

This card was so easy to make. It's hard to see but the brad has a crystal center that really shines.

I love the see through snowflake. I wish I would have bought more of them!

I also think this would have looked better with some stitching but I hadn't got more sewing machine out yet when I made it.

Black and White Card

This is a simple card I made one day when I was trying to be very elegant!!

The black is mounted on a quarter sheet of white.

I used white craft ink and white organza ribbon.

Scallop Punch

I've been playing around with my scallop punch. I really like it so far.

It's hard to tell but this card uses Green Galore, Summer Sun, and Elegant Eggplant. The colors look great together.

I used gold cord and wrapped it around the punch to give it more definition. The punch is mounted on the card with Stampin' Dimensionals to make it stand out even more.

Getting ready for Christmas

It's hard to believe that it's already time to start working on Christmas cards. Here's some ideas that I've come up with, some I've "cased" but some are my own design. I've made a bunch and have kind of decided on at least two different designs, plus I'll give these away except for the couple that I don't like much.

This one was very simple, which I like, and I love the corner punch from Stampin' Up!.














I like the rustic look of this one.




















This one was easy enough but my note card inside keeps falling out.




















I really like this one but I found it a little hard to get consistent images since I was using white craft ink and brown marker. Plus I had to clean the stamp after every stamped image!

Decorated Can

I got tired of making Christmas cards yesterday and decided to do something else. I got this bean can that I had been saving and decorated it.

This is definately a "plan ahead" project. The can needs to have a pull tab opening and you'll need to open it from the bottom with a safety can opener, leaving the pull tab intact.

After cleaning and drying the can and bottom. It's simply a matter of decorating the can any way you like for any occasion. I didn't even glue the paper down. It's just taped in the back with scotch tape so it doesn't show.

The twill tape I dyed using a regular Stampin' Up! craft pad and sponge. The metal tag is from the Hodgepodge Hardware and works great because it bends to conform to the shape of the can.

The gold cord is just wrapped around the can and then taped in the back.

All together I think I spent about 20-25 minutes on this.

Snowman Card

This is my latest Christmas card. I used chocolate chip, close to cocoa and creamy caramel paper. I had to use 4 different stamp sets in order to get a big snowflake variety.

All of the snowflakes in the background were embossed using a versamark pad and clear embossing poweder.

The ribbon is the new Taffeta ribbon from Stampin' Up!. It is wonderful ribbon to work with. I love it!!

So Swirly

I love these colors together! These are two of Stampin' Up's! new In Color's for 2007/2008, Wild Wasabi and Purely Pomegranate.

It doesn't seem to matter what type of card I'm making, it always turns out great!

I also used the new ticket corner punch and double stitched ribbon, also in Purely Pomegranate.

I used the So Swirly wheel on this card so it went together super fast!