Halloween Birthday and New Foiled Overlay

My oldest granddaughter is FOURTEEN years old today - what the heck???  She can't be that old..........  Luckily she is still a sweet girl and the early teenage years have not ruined her......yet!  Although I do think she would need surgical intervention to be "removed" from her phone, but that unfortunately seems to be a sign of the times..........  I love technology and the convenience, but I don't love that we often fail to have face to face conversations and text or email instead. I am guilty of it as well and trying to improve on making REAL connections.......... but enough of my editorializing!

It is her birthday and I tend to do a Halloween theme since it falls the day before - and I have been having so much fun experimenting with the Silver Bullet and the FoilMaster that I turned once again to both. I had an idea to make a foiled overlay and just let me say - this will NOT be the last time I do this - too much fun!!

So.... I found some royalty free clip art on the internet (so grateful that others can draw) - and traced the witch and the moon in SCAL and cut out.  The witch is black luster card stock from Paper Temptress and the moon is from paper scraps.  The background sky is mica card stock also from PT that has been embossed to look sort of spooky!

Now to the overlay.  I used SCAL to create stars scattered over a rectangle the same size as the embossed rectangle and placed them around the witch and the moon so they wouldn't detract from them.  I did a print and cut of the stars, foiled them in silver with the FoilMaster and then cut the rectangle with the Silver Bullet.I placed some small glue dots under the stars so the transparency would adhere without visible signs of adhesive. I so love how this turned out.  It was super fun and super easy and looks so much better in person.

I hope she loves this special birthday witch!

The stars are really silver but reflecting the light in the photo. 

I can hardly wait to do an overlay again.

The greeting is just a font cut out of silver mica and placed over black and silver sparkly ribbon.  

The sparkle cardstock from PT pulls all of the pieces together as the card base.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KENDRA!!

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Another Positive-Negative Card Experiment AND foiling - oh my!

I needed some inspiration so returned to my favorite files from Dominic to create two cards from one - I so love that technique and it's fun to see what I can do to make them different!

I chose the calendula flower as I love the detail and it lends itself to the reds,oranges and golds of the season. I used the Sparkle paper from Paper Temptress this time and it handled these files perfectly. So thrilled with the results.

The top image is what I refer to as the positive; the bottom is the negative

A closer look...positive...

And negative...

The negative again backed with double sided adhesive - ready for a deluge of glitter!

And the designs begin to shape up and take on their own character...

Once I backed the original image on the card base (Felt Grandee from Paper Temptress) I decided it needed a little more.  So, for an added twist, I used Dominic's butterflies file (there are all sorts of silhouettes of butterflies and an additional four with beautiful wing patterns) and foiled one on acetate and cut it out.  Yes I am really loving the foiled laser transparency of late - it looks great and gives such a nice embellishment to any card. Have lots of fun ideas running through my head of things to try - if I can just remember when the time comes!

The second card (negative) card is backed in the Mica card stock from Paper Temptress and utilizes a polished stone technique with alcohol reinkers to get a mottled colorful background on glossy paper.

Dominic's files cut seamlessly on the Silver Bullet Professional.  And I hope this tempts you to try foiling laser transparencies.  It really is addicting!

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Birthday Card with New Techniques!

It has clearly been ages since I have posted a card on this blog. And those of you who know me, know that I love making cards.  I get in a real funk if I go too long without crafting. There is something about making cards that just fills me up - it is like adrenaline for my soul.  It just gives me a sort of energy that nothing else does, and I feel so good when I actually complete something and can deliver it to the recipient.

And it was really fun to try some new things.  This was way out of my comfort zone, but it's good to stretch every now and then  - right?

The inspiration started from Splitcoast Stampers. I love getting their new techniques every Wednesday.  I usually just read them and file them in One Note so I can refer to them later. But this time, it really caught my eye  - heated copper embellishments.  And I desperately needed to get a birthday card made for a dear friend.  So I just went for it , not really sure what would happen, and honestly I hope I can do more of that in the future because this was really fun.

I had a piece of copper that has been waiting for a little attention, so I decided to go for it and heat it with a butane torch.  Of course the one in the kitchen was out of fuel (why does that always happen?!?) - so once I got the refill it was good to go and I had a blast!!  This is how it turned out and for a first time it wasn't bad.

Wherever you see silver, that means I over-heated it a bit, but it also adds a nice effect.  It's one of those things that I don't think you can really plan - you just have to be open to the process and I was.  I gave up control and that was hard for me!  Then I put it in an embossing folder (Ornate Butterflies from Embossalicious) and ran it through my eBosser.  I love how beautiful the embossing looks with all of the colors.

Isn't this cool??  Heated and embossed copper sheet.

Of course I went into this not really sure how the card was going to develop.  So once I saw the colors I thought of the Shimmer Sheetz that I had. They too were gathering dust in my craft room.  So out they came.  I used a great file from Penny Duncan called the jagged flower and I will definitely make it again with more layers.  It would look better fuller, but this worked for the effect I wanted....

These cut out so easily and perfectly with the Silver Bullet Professional.

After they were cut out with my Silver Bullet, I heated them slightly to give them a little curl. Then I decided to emboss them which was a bit backwards and I hate to fight to get them flat in the embossing folder, but I won!  Then I heated them again to get a little curl back.  I cannot wait to play with the Shimmer Sheetz more in the future - they were fun as was the copper!

Embossing the flowers - so easy and fun!

Four layers of iris Shimmer Sheetz attached with glue dots

and enhanced with a large rhinestone.

I mounted the copper on Paper Temptress Azalea mica card stock as it has a good weight and handled the weight of the copper easily. (and yes, I have ordered some light and medium  weight copper to play with it and see if I can heat it as well without melting it!!  Stay tuned for that one!)

I had a stash of thin ribbon that I ran over the corner of the card and put a Peel and Stick birthday greeting on the ribbon - I didn't want to clutter the card so that was just the touch I wanted.

The card base is Orange Sparkle.  You can see the detail of the Happy Birthday Peel Off Sticker.

Really happy with how the flower pulls in all of the colors of the card 

and adds a lot of interest and texture.

I hope you love this card as much as I do and will try some of the techniques.

You will be addicted!

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Dominic's Daisy - Tripled!

I have so needed to make quite a few birthday cards, but have been busy with some fundraising events and time was just not on my side.... until this past weekend.  I sat myself down and just said "knock it off!  You have things you need to do so focus!!"  Nope -  that was a great idea in theory but fell flat. I don't listen to my own lectures very well!  Sometimes the creative mojo is just NOT there and it has been doing an exceptional job of hiding lately.  I have searched through card sketches looking for inspiration - and found none.  I tried blog after blog after blog. I loved all of the wonderful creations out there, but none moved me enough to try to make one like it.  The more I looked the more discouraged I became.  And the more discouraged I became the less inclined I was to even try to think of something  to make.  Then it happened - the undeniable tick of the clock reminding me that the time was upon and the cards were needed NOW.

After a mild panic, I fell back on one of Dominic's designs - I love how they cut and they always make me look so clever - but it's really ALL him. I love his flower series and have used many time and time again.  I decided it was time to make the daisy again - so I not only made it once, I made it three times!  I know.... I never..... well almost never make the same card twice.  And even though I  used the main design three times with basically the same paper, each card has a character all its own. I really am happy with how these turned out and even happier that it has led me to work on other projects - to be revealed over the next few days  I hope.

I am hopeful that the creativity is returning, albeit s--l--o--w--l--y!!!  But it's okay - I can wait patiently and hope I can nurture it and keep it going.  My fingers are crossed!

So here is my trio of Dominic's daisies. And even though I cut the positive/negative image, I decided to just stick with the main file and play around with that.

I love showing the positive and negative images. 

This time I didn't make a card with the negative image...yet!

Paper Temptress Pop Tones Grape Jelly card base

Paper Temptress Parchment pink

Bow Easy for perfect bow making!

A simple and easy card.

Paper Temptress Sparkle Blanco card base

Coredinations background showing in the corners

Paper Temptress Luster Canvas behind the daisy

Seed pearls glued in the center of the flower.

A bit more detailed but still simple.

Paper Temptress Pop Tones Grapesicle with daisy cut out.

Back of Bo Bunny patterned paper showing through the daisy for contrast,

Star Dust Stickles in the openings of the flower center

All of the cards use Bo Bunny dotted patterned paper that has a solid color on the reverse side. It cut beautifully with the Silver Bullet Professional Cutter as did all of the papers, and it was fun to use something a little different.    Details are under each card. I hope you enjoy them!!

Stay tuned for more creativity from the craft room and the kitchen!! Pin It Now!

An April Birthday

Life is getting busier, but cards still need to be made and they will always be a centering time for me and a great stress reliever, once I get an idea!  That is always my challenge and usually takes me forever to get a design in my head.  And there are still so many new things I want to learn - so it's no surprise that I am easily distracted and often go from no ideas to a dozen and then can't seem to settle on just one.  I have been asked many times why I don't sell my cards. The answer is simple -  it takes me too long to make one and I don't like making the same design more than once.  So it makes the cards a bit more labor intensive, but it's all part of the process for me.

For this card, I recently downloaded one of the free files from Birds Cards.  Her files cut nicely.  I decided I wanted to glitter the rose design, so I used the double sided adhesive sheet from Tyler's All That Jazz Supplies store.  He carries a lot of great products that cut beautifully on my Silver Bullet Pro.

I carefully peeled the leaf design off the top side of the adhesive sheet and sprinkled green Ritz glitter on top.

Look  at the fine detail of the cut.  I love that you can expect the Silver Bullet Pro do whatever you want it to do.

Next the rose pattern was covered in the poppy orange Ritz glitter. I love this glitter because it feels like silk once it adheres to the adhesive and doesn't rub off!

 Finally, a white iridescent was applied to the rest of the rose border frame.

I was a bit dismayed when I finished as it screamed "Christmas" to me - you know - the red and green theme --  and that was not the look I was going for in April!!  So I added the yellow sparkle paper from Paper Temptress to break it up a little.

Still  working on it  trying to figure out what else is needed...

I wasn't sure how it would all come together, but I like the final effect.

I will definitely be using the double sided adhesive more often - it is fun,  It is also a good exercise in patience, but the results make it worth it! (and I need to work on my raising my patience threshold!!)

And hopefully the card has arrived at its destination so I can be the first to say..................

Happy Birthday , Nance!!

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