Family Birthday Cards .... Part Three - My Daughter

This is a post about failure and success -  no, not my daughter!  But her birthday card that turned into multiple efforts, was definitely a lesson in perseverance....

You may think it strange that I chose to do a sunflower for a spring birthday, but that is her favorite flower .  And honestly, I wouldn't mind channeling a little fall weather right now with all of the heat and fires we have had here in San Diego county the past week.  It has truly been the worst I have ever seen, and I have lived here most of my life.  I have never seen the Santa Ana winds that bring the hot, dry air in the month of May - never.  And ten fires in two days all in our county?  It has been absolutely unbelievable.  I am so very grateful that no one I know lost their home or was injured.  And I am counting my blessings.  There are dry areas of brush and growth everywhere and , as my parents always said, "there but for the grace of God go I."  So today, I am full of gratitude.

Back to the sunflower.... this is one of Dominic's beautiful flowers and it cut perfectly.  In hindsight, I should have used a card stock weight material for the this flower.  I really do love how it turned out, but with the way the text weight paper buckled under the glossy accents....well I ultimately could not send it to her. And yes, tried putting it under a heavy book (several) overnight that that just didn't work.  Note to self:  Know when to stop when embellishing a card!  So as much as I love the look of the card with the glittered glossy accents, it will not be on it's way to her (at least not this year!!!)

It's the buckling of the outer frame that really bothered me.  I love the look of it but was just so unhappy with the final presentation.  So maybe not a total failure, but still not a card

I felt I could happily send to my daughter!

So...... late last night I decided I just needed to try again and do something different .  Feeling like I needed to stick with the sunflower theme, I found a free clip art of a sunflower stencil that seemed quite simple.  Of course, true to form , I could not leave well enough alone!  LOL  So I traced the design in SCAL and added several shadow layers for a little more interest.  The shimmery papers that I love are from Paper Temptress - the mica line - and the center of the sunflower is ruche paper - love the texture and it cuts easily with the Silver Bullet Pro.

Initial cutting of the top layer of petals (bad lighting - didn't adjust for night light)

Individually embossed the petals (5 at a time so I wouldn't lose the placement) and glued to the orange(truer color below) before I removed them from the mat.

An unexpected bonus - a negative stencil created from the orange petals.  

Expect to see this as part of another card at some point!

Layered petals with two shadow layers - a yellow/gold marbled cardstock and

antracite mica (Paper Temptress) to give it that "pop".

I embossed each of the amber sunflower petals with a dot embossing folder before attaching them to the flame petals.  And the dark brown ruche center was embossed with a "mesh" folder for even more texture.

Chocolate brown ruche cardstock (Paper Temptress) embossed with a the Mesh embossing folder.

The sunflower center with a visitor.  Do you love that little ladybug as much as I do??

Did you see the cute little ladybug sitting in the center of the flower?? I made that thanks to the inspiration of  Susan Tierney-Cockburn (Susan's Garden)! This blog has a great explanation of how to make them with the Viva Decor Pens.  I want to make more - they are so much fun and so easy.  And I think it would be fun to use a similar technique to make other things ... just what I need - more ideas of things to create! :)

A view of the finished card with all of the elements together. So happy with this one!

I kept the same sized card as the first one since the greeting on vellum was already printed and the envelope was addressed and stamped!    I really do like the square cards - there is just something nice and clean about the presentation - not too small and not too large!  Juuuuuust right! (channeling Goldilocks here!)

Another view.  It's all about the ladybug - she makes me smile!

This is one of those times when starting over was clearly the right thing to do.

I hope you enjoy these cards - and learn from my mistakes.  I would like to say that I will not make this same error again, but...... I don't necessarily learn the first or even second time around.  I am still going to think about how to save part of this so if I come up with a good alternative (already thinking of one) I will post it later... so stay tuned for more experiments from the craft room.

And I have a ton of online class videos to watch, so hope to be having some fun with new techniques. I want to improve my marker coloring, play with colored pencil shading that I used to love to do, learn how to stamp with watercolors and more.

Also looking forward to having a little more time in the kitchen to share some fun summer recipes.
Stay tuned and stay well.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Missy!

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October Birthday Cards... Positive and Negative

So here we are again with another installment of positive and negative cards.  I have to say, I just love when I can cut one file and create two cards from a single pattern.  It's like a two for one sale - who doesn't love that?!?

The mat was placed over a colored sheet of paper so the designs would be more visible. 

The positive is on the left, the negative pieces on the right.

This file is from Birds Cards.  She has some great files for anyone who loves to make cards.  And I was able to cut a square of double sided adhesive from All That Jazz to pull up the negative pieces for the glitter application.  But first things first...... the main image....is cut from Paper Temptress mica paper, dotted with Viva Decor pearls in the center of each flower (those are so easy to make and fun) and then I cheated and used a Prima flower that I had in my stash for the center.  I have so many flowers to use up that I am trying to make a concerted effort to use them .  I like the colors of the card - the patterned paper is from Echo Park (I think). I had several out and lost track when I finally settled on one. I need to pay more attention.

Here is the cut file again showing the frame on the right and the pieces on the left,

with the double sided adhesive placed on top.

And finally, the frame on the card base  on the left with the double sided adhesive covered in glitter with the negative on the right.

The negative card or reverse image was sprinkled with Ritz lilac glitter onto the double sided adhesive.  The center flowers are from the Calendar Series at Ducky's Designs and were cut out of two shades of the mica paper from Paper Temptress.  Yes I use that paper a lot. I love how it cuts and there is something about the subtle shimmer that glimmers on the card. It just makes me smile.

These are two of the upcoming birthday cards.  There will be more to come in the days ahead. I have a lot of family occasions hitting in October so hope my motivation doesn't run out before I finish.

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Time Crunch - Three Cards in One Day!

I think this is a record for me!!!  I am usually lucky if I can make one card in a day because of how long it takes me to come up with an idea!!  Sad I know.... but under pressure, apparently I really CAN accomplish more.

So here are three cards - all very different and relatively "simple" for me (!) - that I put together in one afternoon thanks to my wonderful Silver Bullet Professional cutter that repeatedly comes to my rescue!

First on the list,  and most pressing on my mind, was a sympathy card for a dear friend who recently lost her father.  I used a file I had used before so it was already adjusted in size (I tend to make larger cards - 5x7 or half fold size or a square card) .  My go to paper for most sympathy cards is the luster line from Paper Temptress - I love the elegance and sophistication of it. I used the Viva Decor Pearl Pen in silver to make the pearls in the varying sizes.

The cut files........

I think you can see the beauty of the Paper Temptress vintage luster paper in this pic - it is my favorite paper to use!  It is the card base.

Next was a simple card for the granddaughters.  I had picked up a couple of really cute necklaces for them from Cookie Lee Jewelry that spelled out "DANCE" so wanted to get those off to them!  I decided just to wish them a happy summer!!  The file from Birds Cards was meant to be used with the cut out pieces, but I decided to use the negative image (as I have done many times) and create a card in their favorite colors.  One loves yellow and the other turquoise - so that is how this developed using the Pop Tones paper from Paper Temptress.

This is the part of the file that is meant to be used!  It will be featured in a card coming soon - no doubt!

But instead I used the "remains" (!) and cut another layer of yellow which I ran through an embossing folder to let the sunshine glow!!

The finished card with the little necklaces all wrapped up in "their" colors!

I had a stamp made years ago that goes on the back of the cards that I make for the grandkids! 

 It makes me smile every time  I use it!  

You can get a wide variety of personalized stamps from The Paper Angel.

And finally, I had a leftover negative image from the Rose birthday card that I posted a few days ago, so that was my inspiration for the last card.  I used the double sided adhesive from Tyler at All That Jazz Supplies to make a shadow layer and pull the pieces off the mat intact.  Then I took a slightly lighter Ritz glitter and covered the open areas.  Rather than pull the back layer of adhesive off, I left it on and just used pop dots to layer it on the card give it some dimension.

The negative rose image from the Rose card  (file by Dominic)

A closeup of this beautiful rose by Dominic

The rose on pop dots!!  Reaching new heights (that was bad!)

I printed the "Thinking of You" greeting on my laser printer and foiled it in black on my FoilMaster from That's Scrap Inc. It really isn't that obvious but there is a nice sheen to it when the light hits it!

You can really see the shimmer of the luster cardstock from Paper Temptress here.

I am going to try to work at not over obsessing over each card and each detail - it's a process!  No guarantees that I can do that, but I am going to try harder!!

All three cards went out in the mail the same day they were made  - yippee!  Success!!


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