Not so great cards

Some cards that I think turn out well don't take a lot of time. These are cards I think did not turn out well but oh did they take time!

I am so disappointed in the way this card turned out. It does not look like I imagined it would and I did it twice! The first time as I was gold leafing around the edge of the oval I got gold ink in a place it couldn't be hidden on the background. Next when I did the embossing on the white panel I didn't get it even. So I scrapped the whole thing and started again.

This one I just plain do not like. It is 5" x 7", not a size I usually do but the 3d was too big for a smaller card and I just had to use the 3d after I spent so much time cutting it out!.

Sometimes things just do not turn out the way we want so I thought I would share my failures with you!

Experiments

This morning I was experimenting with a couple of new techniques. These are the results.


The first experiment I did was a combination of Iris Folding and 3d.



The second is a different fold from what I usually do and results in a smaller card. I also put a 3d image on the card. Sorry I can't remember where I got the image but you can go HERE and find links to many 3d sheet sources. I didn't add any sentiments to the cards as I was really just playing.
If you would like to try these type cards for yourself you can find the tutorials HERE along with some other great tutorials.

Flowers and Stripes

Although these are not my colors I quite like this card!


I started out with the 3d sheet from Crafty Nikki and then had to find papers to use with it. I very often print sheets I like then cut and assemble them before I know what I want to do with them. I find the cutting relaxing. I found the striped paper in my stash and used a border punch from Martha Stewart on the white panel. While looking through my scraps I found the blue strip already the right width and I liked it with the green and yellow.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:
I edit my pictures in Paint Shop Pro and they are always much sharper in PSP than they are on the blog. Does anyone know why this is?

Best Wishes

I had almost forgotten about vellum until I was trying to decide what I was going to do for a background for this card!


I used a pale peachy pink for the base and a darker peachy pink for the layer which I topped with vellum that I ran through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss Dots folder. I dry embossed the medallion with a Romantic Style stencil and cut it by hand. I finished the card with a peel-off sticker.The flower is from a 3D sheet from Crafty Nikki.

Penguins in Texas

This is another card I did for a Christmas swap on the 3D group. The background is the snowflakes Cuttlebug folder and the penguins are from a sheet by Crafty Nikki. I used a 2-way glue pen to add some glitter to the hats.

I'm Back!

I am sorry I have been missing but I had a friend here for a week so I didn't do any cards. We did have a good time though!




I have 3 cards to make for swaps on a 3D group I am in. This is the first one. It did no photograph well! It is a reverse pyramid. The edges of the top layer are edged with a gold pen and at the bottom right had a gold peel off 'Thinking of you' sticker.

Altered Lunch Tins

These are the altered lunch tins I made for my grand daughters, Morgan, 6 and Amanda, 4, to keep little treasures in. They are small, 7" x 4" and 5" high. I bought mine to fit 5-1/2" x 4-1/4" cards but decided that they would also make great containers for little girls to keep special treasures in. I kept the decorating simple as I am sure they will not be treated gently! LOL.

They are made by Provocraft and you can find them at Michaels etc in different sizes to suit your project. You can also find these and other alterable tins online by doing a search for lunch tin.The Cuttlebug embossing folders also fit nicely into this size tin.



You can cover this size with one 12" x 12" sheet of scrapbook paper.

For Amanda's box I cut the 12" x 12" sheet into 4 strips 2" wide which left a strip 4" wide. I then cut the 2" strips to 11-1/2". There will be a seam on the sides of the box and a 1/4" gap in the middle of the box that can be covered with ribbon. Glued the first 2 strips on the back and the second 2 on the front overlapping on the sides. Cut the 4" strip to 4" x 7" for the top.

For the other box I cut three 4" strips and left a gap at the top and bottom which I covered with ribbon.

To make a template for the cut outs for the lock and the handle cut a piece of aluminum foil to size, cut a slit and form the foil around where you want to cut. trim the foil and check again for fit before you cut the paper. It is really trial and error as not all the tins are exactly the same.

I made a card!

It felt good to make a card today after all the journals. I am also altering a lunch box for each of my grand daughters. I have the paper and embelishments picked out but I don't have the right color ribbon so I guess that meand a trip to the store. Darn!


The panel is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder D'Vine swirl showing the debossed side. The edges are inked with Colorbox Colonial Blue.The 3D sheet is from Crafty Nikki.

Journals #'s 9 & 10

These are the last two journals for a while. They will be going in the mail to Shirley this week.

The first one is so not me! When I made this one I had a young person in mind. I outlined some of the flowers in the background with glitter and also the layered flowers have glitter around the edges of the petals. There are turquoise rhinestones in the center of some of the flowers. It is actually a lot prettier than it looks in the picture. Glittery stuff never shows up well in a picture and I photographed the journals in the same place as I take pictures of my cards but with the journals being so much taller and closer to the ott light the light is reflecting off the top.

The layout of the last journal is not what I intended but I had an Oops! I use a cosmetic sponge to spread the glue around on the cover and have a tendancy just to throw it aside while I glue the paper on and I put the journal on the gluey sponge and didn't see it until it was to late. As I took the sponge off it took some paper with it so I had to cover it up and so instead of being in the top left side the picture is on the top right!

The background paper is stamped with a texture stamp in gold and the mat and the picture are stamped with the same stamp and embossed in gold.

If you would like to make a journal for a cancer patient get in touch with Shirley Nagel at srcattle@aol.com This is an ongoing project with no deadline

Row House Swap

I had never heard of a 'row house' in regards to art but when the swap was announced on the ArtHavenCreations Yahoo group I was intrigued so I signed up.

I used Basic Grey Porcelain papers and used a pencil to make the brick pattern. The flower boxes are raised with dimentional tape and the 'flowers' are ground up styrofoam. It isn't soft like Flower Soft but works just as well! The sentiment says 'The path to a friend's house is never long'

To make the flower material you will need small pieces of white styrofoam, craft acrylic paint and a blender/chopper. I have a small one I bought at Mervyns years ago for something like $5 on sale. Break the styrofoam into small pieces and put in the blender with a small amount of paint and blend away until it is a fine as you want it. That's it, my Frugal Friday tip late again!!

I will have my last two journals tomorrow.

If you would like to make a journal for a cancer patient get in touch with Shirley Nagel at srcattle@aol.com

Journal # 8

Another journal of the masculine variety. I am definitely having a hard time with these manly things! There is surprisingly little out there in the way of pictures for men and boys.


I have had this scrapbook paper for ever and thought I would never use it. Well never say never I guess. It came in a double pack deal at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago so I have 4 sheets of everything and really could never imagine using this and some others in the pack. I am glad I hung on to it now though!

The cockrel came from a beverage napkin, one of Michaels dollar spot deals. There are 4 cockrels on each napkin and there are 16 napkins in the pack so I am all set for cockrels for a while!

I seperated the layers of the napkin, roughly cut out one cockrel and glued it to a piece of black CS. When it was dry I cut it out and glued it to another piece of black CS that I stamped in gold with a texture cube from Stampendous.

Journal # 7

I have discovered that all composition books are not created equal! I bought the first 6 at Walmart and then as I was near Target I bought some more there. The difference is that the ones from Walmart have heavier covers than the ones from Target but I think the quality of the paper in the ones from Target is a little better. Now if I could put the cover from the Walmart one on the Target paper it would be perfect!


I made this journal with a man in mind. I stamped the leaves on dark brown CS with Versamark ink and then used gold and copper embossing powder. The sparkle doesn't show up in the picture but they are really pretty.... in a manly sort of way! LOL The strip the leaves are on is kraft CS which was a piece cut off from the cover liner. I had an extra gold leaf so I put it on the inside cover.

Only 3 more journals to go and then off they go to Shirley and the Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center in Bakersfield California.

Journals 5 & 6

These are my newest journals for cancer patients. I will be mailing them and they are going to take a flat rate box for $9.95 so I figured I would make enough to fill the box before I mail them to Shirley!

Both journals started out as a composition book that I bought at Walmart for 50 cents. The front and back are covered with scrapbook paper and the inside covers are lined with cardstock. For the one on the left I stamped text on a piece of cream CS and distressed the edges with tea dye distress ink pad from Ranger. The 3D flower is from a sheet I found on the net.

For the one on the right I cut out the picture from a thank you card set I bought at Dollar Tree for $1 for 8 cards and envelopes. I cut the dark mat with a Nesties curved rectangle and the larger mat from a scrapbook sheet of a map. I cut the frame for the sentiment using 2 curved rectangles at the same time.

Here are the sizes to cut the paper to cover the journal. From scrapbook paper or other paper cut 2 pieces 8" x 11.5".
Leave some of the spine showing and cut notches around the curves before gluing to the inside of the cover.

For the liner cut 2 pieces of paper or CS 7.25" x 9.5". Round 2 corners of a long side and glue to the inside of the covers.

If you would like to join in and make a journal to be given to a cancer patient contact Shirley Nagel at srcattle@aol.com This is an ongoing project so there is no time limit. I would like to thank those of my reader who have contacted Shirley already. We can make a little difference in a cancer patients life through our art.

Journal #4

This is the 4th journal I have made for cancer patients. I had intended to make 6 as I bought 6 composition books but looking at the flat rate boxes I found I can get 10 journals in the box for the same price so I will be buying some more journals and sending 10 to Shirley. It is so much fun and I am using up paper I have had forever!

For this one I used scraps to make patchwork on a piece of copy paper and then ran it through the Cuttlebug with the D'Vine Swirls folder. I did the middle first and then each end. I didn't worry to much about the pattern matching up. I used a micron pen to do the cross stitching.

I had a question about making journals from someone who commented as 'Anonymous' Can I just remind everyone that if you comment as 'Anonymous' I can't reply to you as although I get the comment in an email it doesn't have your email addy it just shows up as "Anonymous" noreply-comment@blogger.com.

I start out with a composition book. I bought mine at Walmart for 50 cents. Then I covered the front and back covers with scrapbook paper cutting it about an inch bigger on the 3 open sides and wrapped the paper to the inside. I then cut 2 pieces of coordinating cardstock for the inside of the covers and decorated the front. Try doing a search for altered composition books and I am sure you will come up with lots of good information. Here are a couple of links to tuts.

http://www.craftbits.com/project/altered-journal
http://www.scrapgirls.com/altered_journals_with_printables.htm

Journals for cancer patients

Shirley Nagel, a lady on one of the yahoo groups I belong to, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ARTHavenCreations_Friendships/ asked if anyone would be interested in making journals for cancer patients. The response from the group has been amazing! If you would like to join a group with friendly, sharing, amazing artists then I recommend this group. These are 3 journals I have made so far.


I really had a hard time making these because they are so much bigger than what I am used to but it was fun and I look forward to making more.

If you would like to make a journal for a cancer patient get in touch with Shirley at
srcattle@aol.com

Frugal Friday --- Saturday Edition

I missed Frugal Friday yesterday so here is a Saturday edition! I am pretty burned out trying to come up with quick and easy cards for sets that my daughter is selling like hot cakes to raise money for her fundraiser for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. So far she has raised $150 selling cards and keeps coming with requests for more cards for Mom to make! I am happy to help out though.
She is working hard to reach her goal of $5000. On Tuesday she was in a wing eating contest at Wing Stop. She had people who sponsored her for $2 a wing. She had 5 minutes to eat as many of the 25 wings as she could. She ate 20 which shocked her co-workers who sponsored her as they thought she would only eat 10 at the most!

I used Nesties in the Cuttlebug to emboss the cards and then used a smaller one for the image panel. The 'Just A Note' stamp is a $1 stamp from Michaels. To emboss the card without cutting it the sandwich is from the bottom up A plate, B plate, tan mat, cardstock, Nestie with the cutting side down, B plate.

All machines aren't created equal and for my machine I have to use a shim between the B plate and the tan mat to get enough pressure for a good embossed image. Your machine may be different so try it without the shim first and if you are not getting a sharp enough image keep adding a shim of cardstock until you are happy with it.

I think these cards would be pretty done with notecards that are colored on the outside and white on the inside but I don't have any and I wanted the inside white.

I am going to look through my stash and see of I have any suitable patterned cardstock that is white on the back