Another Lacé Birthday Card

I am so loving these lacé patterns from Penny Duncan Creations.  I think it's the end result that pushes me through the folding process.  I love the surprise color element and the possibilities are endless. I have been using the sorbet duo from Paper Temptress, but realized I have lots of papers that are monotone - solid on one side and textured on the other and they would make beautiful cards too. Of course I could glue thinner papers or card stock together to make my own double sided papers as well, but will work on the stash that I have for now.  :)  The base of the card is from the Pop Tone line with Paper Temptress. Yes I love her papers!  And the Silver Bullet Professional did its usual great job. Since this file is so intricate, I think the next time I cut it, I will use the detail blade!


This pattern is Penny's cutline half moon file.  Instead of scoring it this time, I took a little ruler and folded against it to get smooth folded edges and that worked well.  It seemed easier and a little quicker that way.

This file cut well and with the duo sided paper, the rest was easy!

The flower in the center is from my supply of 3D precut papers.  I continue to try to use up what I have which should keep me going for a LONG time!  I embellished the flower with yellow Stickles in the center and Kaiser pearls on the corners.

You can see the "fold and tuck" technique here and a closeup of the Stickles!

I love these files! Thank you , Penny!

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A Neighborly Birthday Card!!

My taste-testing, recipe critic neighbor is having a birthday so she needed a special card.  I turned to files from Penny Duncan Creations this time for inspiration and my idea bank was quickly on overload.  I had a vague idea what I wanted to do, but it changed during the process as most of my cards do!!

And then of course, by the time I settled on the idea, I jumped headfirst into it at warp speed and totally forgot to take photos along the way. So you will just have to pretend that there are progress pics!!

I love all kinds of Dutch paper crafting and when I saw one of Penny's files I knew that spirelli (the art of wrapping thread around a shape in a design) would be perfect.  Here is a close up of the spirelli design using metallic thread around  Penny's Pearl Lobe Oval Shaplie.

Look at the detail of that inner circle pearl lobe - that is about 1 1/4" wide! 

The Silver Bullet Professional makes projects like this so easy.

The background is Penny's lattice rectangle cut out of the laser silver luster from Patricia at Paper Temptress. I LOVE that paper.

A closeup of the lattice detailed cuts and  you can see the striations in the paper.

The card base and the spirelli oval are cut from from the Paper Temptress mica line. 

This was a fun card to pull together.

Thanks Penny for the great files AND inspiration!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Lo'Vetta

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A Rose for a June birthday!

It was time to make a birthday card for a dear friend and I was at a loss for an idea until I thought about doing a birthday flower.  And lucky for me it was a rose as that gave me a lot of options - well it would have had I not waiting until the day before to make it.  I used make cards weeks in advance of a needed date, but those times seem to be part of the past!!

I knew that Dominic (Crafty Vector) had wonderful flower file cards that needed very little embellishment, so I relied on his rose to make my card.

My Silver Bullet Professional did an awesome job of cutting this file, so well that I will be able to make two cards from one file .

The card front turned into the birthday card, and the remaining pieces, on the right, will be a card later in the week!  I cut out two shadow layers - one in a slightly lighter color to go behind the rose on the left and provide some contrast, and the second was out of double sided adhesive to pick up the pieces on the right.

Here is the finished card.

I also quickly (the afternoon of the celebration!!) decided to make some monogrammed notecards for her, using my FoilMaster that I am loving!

I have learned that if I print on the laser at a dpi of 1200, I will get better results.  Unfortunately because I was in a hurry I didn't catch my mistake and printed at a lower dpi, so the foil did not adhere as well as I know it can. It gave the monogram a sort of enameled effect and she loved them so that's great!! 

Next time I will be more careful and try not to get an idea at the LAST minute!!  I am eager to make more monogrammed notecards as this was really fun!

This was the basic printed notecard.  The filigree on the top and bottom was done in silver on 4 of the notecards and gold on the other 4.  The monograms were all a different color.

I am still struggling with getting good photos of foiling, but this at least shows the blue and the gold!

The final product was placed in a plastic card box with 8 vellum envelopes and tied with twine!

It was a fun project that I am eager to try again!

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Going Away Card..

Sometimes cards are really hard to make because they are not about something happy or fun.. Such was the case with this card that I made. I will admit that I am in a "bit" of denial that a very dear friend of mine is moving away.  The good news is that she is not leaving the country or even going to the opposite side of the country.   The bad news is that she and her husband are moving and will be six hours away instead of five minutes.  I don't want to have to think about "goodbye".   So I made the card about friendship..... and life.  It made it a little easier and lighter on my heart.

I found this beautiful Irish blessing that inspired the rest of the card.  It was difficult to get a good picture of the foiling - I am still working on mastering that, but I used the FoilMaster from That's Scrap and foiled the text on marbled vellum in bronze foil on the inside greeting.  The outside of the card was also foiled in bronze

The card front is a file from Mamaw's Legacy. She is no longer creating files, but she made some beautiful ones a few years ago...

And I finally got the courage to try one of  the rose files from my dear friend, Penny of Penny Duncan Creations.  She always leaves me in awe with her creativity and vision.  I had tried one of her roses about a year ago and it was a dismal failure, but I was determined to try again.  Here are some of the cuts with my Silver Bullet Professional.

 And I did it!! It looks nothing like Penny's, not near as perfect or beautiful, but at least it resembles a flower and it was actually fun once I started to get the hang of it. It is clear that I have a lot of practice ahead of me to get a better grasp of this skill, but I am so glad I persevered. It was a lesson in what you really can do when you set your mind to something, and I was determined to make my own roses for this most special friend.

She is leaving in a week which makes me sad, but she and her husband are coming back to town in two months for a gala we are both working on so I am just focusing on when I will see her again. And there are already several of us talking about excursions to see them..... I think half of Oceanside is planning trips to visit them in their new home.

So I am going to focus on that butterfly and let the love in my heart fly freely with them and bring us all joy and gratitude for the time we had together and the adventures yet to come...

"Beautiful and graceful, varied and enchanting, small but approachable, butterflies lead you to the sunny side of life.  And everyone deserves a little sunshine."  ~Jeffrey Glassberg Pin It Now!

Still Foiling...

There clearly seems to be a method to my work -whether baking or crafting.  When I try something and am happy with the results, I get in a sort of rut and bake 10 things with lemon in a row, for example.  Or in this case , with my card making, I can't seem to stop foiling everything I can!!  I am so enjoying getting great results and am addicted~~

So I have needed to make a wedding card for some time. It's a good thing there is a grace period for such things as I am long overdue! I have a beautiful ornamental alphabet from Thyme Graphics.- Thyme's Alphabet - that I used as my inspiration.  As I said earlier, I knew I wanted to foil but was looking for the right image and the alphabet was perfect.  And the wedding colors were green and navy blue. Since I have not seen a navy blue foil, I used the royal blue in the background to let the green "shine".

I did a print and cut using SCAL and the Silver Bullet Professional.

SCAL print and cut showing the registration marks

I foiled the letters AFTER I did the print and cut as I have not used the print and cut feature a lot and was a little out of practice.  They came out great but it was good to know that foiling after a cut works fine too!  I love options!

The card base was is the Vintage Luster from Paper Temptress. The stamped sentiment is from JustRite Wedding Nested Sentiments , stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black.  The little roses were from my stash, I sprayed them with Dylusions spray mist in london blue and cut grass.  The sentiment tag has pop dots under it for added height.

I am still learning how to take good photos when using foiling. I love the PicMonkey program, but I still need to improve my skills!

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Foiling Fun!

I have made a commitment to do a better job of using what I have.  There... I put it in writing so now there are witnesses and my deeply embedded sense of guilt will hold me to it - oh how I hope!!

A couple of years ago I purchased a FoilMaster from Sherri at That's Scrap Inc  - the same place where I got my awesome Silver Bullet Pro.  I have no problem putting the Silver Bullet through its paces, but until recently, the poor FoilMaster has been the neglected child in my craft room. No more....

A recent revelation shared by other crafters gave me a renewed desire to put it to good use - I could not understand why my results were spotty and not as beautiful as theirs. WARNING - technical explanation to follow! Then I realized I had to make some adjustments to my laser printer so I would get a higher concentration of ink, thus giving the foil a better surface for adhesion,  Voila!!!  Success!!

The card is by no means perfect, but it's a start - a good start!!

 This is the mirrored image left in the foil after it adheres to the laser printed digi stamp.  The digi stamp is from Fred She Said - Dragonfly Flower Doodledallion.
Through June 2 she is having a special sale - 
20% off everything over $10 and 40% off everything over $20!!

Rainbow foil was set over the digi image with red foil over a black laser printed frame.
The text was done in white so the foil would not adhere to it.

The finished product!!  

I cannot wait to do more foiling - love the effect!

Hope you do too!!

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Another Positive/Negative Card Experiment!

I have had a long list of cards to be made longer than I want to admit.  Last weekend was my time to try to make as many as I could.

After making the positive/negative card from Dominic in an earlier post, I still clearly had that on my mind. This file from Paulo looked so detailed and pretty, but I wasn't sure what would be remain on the mat! Would it be enough of an image for a second card? Well, much to my delight it worked pretty well!!

For any of you who have cut Paulo's files, most are very detailed. Well, the Silver Bullet Pro accepted the challenger of this project and did a beautiful job.  I can always count on it!

Here are the very intricate pieces left behind.The beautiful paper is from Patricia at Paper Temptress

Look how thin and perfect this cut is???

Perfection.......right??

And here are the results.....

I love how they turned out.  The "thinking of you" tag was actually printed on my laser printer and foiled in gunmetal with my FoilMaster - another awesome machine from Sherri.

And speaking of Sherri and That's Scrap Inc and the Silver Bullet Professional...... in case you have not heard the GREAT news.....

Look who is NUMBER ONE?!?

And you can purchase it from Sherri at That's Scrap, Inc!

Congratulations Sherri for the 100 rating for customer service and the Gold Award.  Those of us who own your machine and love it are so thrilled for you!

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Negative and Positive Cards!

It is no secret that I love the card designs that Dominic makes..  His files are perfect for the capabilities of the Silver Bullet Pro Cutter.  It takes the tough tasks and handles them with ease!

One of the really fun things about Dominic's files are that it is easy to use both the positive and negative image from the cut and make two cards out of one - and I love that especially since it usually takes me forever to come up with an idea!!

Here is the positive and negative image - perfect for TWO cards out of one cut!

I needed a birthday card for my daughter who will be thirty something next week so that was task one! I used his hydrangea pattern for the first time and I LOVE it.

The card front

Detailed leaves

Here is a perfect example of what a beautiful job the Silver Bullet Pro cutter does.  It amazes me every time I use it - I am in awe of the detail and precision with which it cuts.  And you can see the beauty of the Mica paper from Patricia at Paper Temptress

Finished card #1

And the bonus with Dominic's flower files are that the "scraps" left behind make another beautiful hydrangea!  I just cut a shadow layer out of the double sided adhesive from All That Jazz (this is the best double sided adhesive) and carefully placed it over the remnants and voila!... a new image!

The leftover (negative) "scraps!!

Carefully covered with a shadow layer of double adhesive paper.

The leftover petals on the adhesive layer

Then, since there was adhesive left open in between the petals, I just sprinkled Ritz glitter over the flower and it adhered so nicely..

Glitter added to cover the adhesive and make the petals POP!!

 All that was left to do was remove the remaining backing on this flower and you are left with an instant sticker!! How cool is that?

Carefully remove the adhesive backing for an instant sticker!

And then you take the new glittered "sticker" and adhere it to your card and with a few added details you have a second hydrangea card that looks totally different from the first one!

Finished card #2

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Happy Birthday, Scott!

My oldest son just celebrated his birthday..... he turned ??.  It still puzzles me how I could possibly have a child that age (the card below gives away the details .... I just don't want to admit it in print!

Scott LOVES to golf.....I mean he loves EVERYTHING about it and would probably be on the course every single day if he could afford not to work and be a man of leisure.  His wife is an avid golfer too, so that makes it nice.

I have made him many birthday cards, using the golf theme and I thought I could not possibly do one more.....I had exhausted all ideas until I thought of a golf cart.  So it's not the most ingenious card I have ever made, but it works!

His sister-in-law was married last Saturday ON his birthday, so we have not celebrated yet.  But since he is not reading my blog  *gasp* - I think I am safe in posting the details!!

Once I found the golf cart image on line, I traced it in Sure Cuts a Lot Pro and cut it out with my Silver Bullet Pro using Paper Temptress mica paper. I also cut out a shadow layer to make it pop a little.

I then printed a birthday greeting on the outside of the card using a laser printer and then ran it through my Foilmaster with gunmetal foil to give it a nice sheen. I like how it turned out.

The added pennant is just a simple triangle cut out of incandescent card stock from Paper Temptress.  The wheels are embellished with silver brads that have been colored with a black Spectrum Noir marker.  It's simple, but I hope he will enjoy it!

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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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Ducky's Birthday Dilemma

I have a very dear friend with a birthday on St. Patrick's Day - March 17th (for those who missed it!!)  She is an incredible graphics designer. You may have seen her work at Ducky's Designs - she used to work for Disney, and you can certainly see her love for all things Mickey especially!!

I have to share a quick story.  We met on a forum for electronic cutters  4-5 years ago  and over time we found out that we not only lived in the same state, but were in the same city - and believe it or not, only four blocks apart!!  She has become such a special friend and I cannot imagine not having her in my life.  And I LOVE her designs and know she has quite a cult following - and rightly so.

So a few years ago as her birthday approached, I decided to use her files to make her a card - and incorporate as many different ones as I could.  Each year since,  I have tried to outdo myself!!  I love a challenge!  LOL  Not sure I exceeded the number of files used last year, but I did have a lot of fun putting her card together......

If you are a collector of Ducky's files, here are the ones I used....
Birthday Alphabet "D"  (the letter)
Birthday Alphabet "W" (the hat from the monkey!)
Alpha Charms (the small letters that spell "Ducky"
Treasure Box (the shamrock border)
Mickey Lying Down
Birthday Mickey (the balloons)
Look Who's Birthday?? ( the frame behind the letter )

Coming up with the vision was fun.  Her files lend themselves to all sorts of creativity. It was exciting  to see it come together!

Most of the papers are from  The Paper Temptress - many colors of the Mica text weight and some of the Pop Tones. I am excited to share the detail I was able to get with the Silver Bullet Professional. As many different things as I have cut on the machine, I am still caught off guard by the precision and detail with which it cuts.  Mickey's gloved hands were three separate pieces on one hand and SO small - as were the whites of his eyes.  Pretty incredible!!

The letter charms (only 1/2" thick), main letter and balloons were coated with an iridescent medium.  It created a sort of webbing on the letters and dried quickly.  I  love the way it shimmers and best of all it didn't weaken the paper or distort it!

The clover border outline is just under 1 MM  thick - or I should say thin!

Here is another photo of Mickey resized much smaller then the original design and perfectly cut.
This Mickey is 3 1/2" long (including the 1/2" tail!!) and 2 1/2" tall)

Look at how THIN the tail is!!

And I am so happy with the final results.

  Happy Birthday, Ducky!

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