PAPERLICIOUS

Friends

Can Not Live With Out Them. 

Card Construction Details:

 1.  Found a card on Nichole Heady's blog and copied the layout.  Unfortunately, I didn't make a note of which card, but I love most of her layouts......

2.  Trimmed patterned paper from Lily Bee Designs, stamped 3 Hero Arts flowers, masked and stamped leaves.

3.  Colored with Copic markers.

4.  Trimmed A Muse Studio Sage cardstock and stamped Hero Arts sentiment.

5.  Adhered and wrapped with May Arts cording.

6.  Adhered to an A Muse Studio Blush card and added rhinestone to bow.

MOOD WHEN DONE = grateful for good friends.

Sending You

Decided to just push myself into the craft room and see what happens. 

Saw this card by Dawn, owner of WPlus9, and it inspired me to make this:

The red bird is me, chatting non stop, while Mike listens! 

Card Construction Details:

1.  Trimmed a panel of white cardstock and stamped clouds -- love that texture on the clouds.

2.  Stamped wire and birds.

3.  Added heart notes, butterfly, and bee.

4.  Colored with Copics -- wanted just a few pops of red.

5.  Stamped sentiment and swiped with a Copic marker.

6.  Layered onto black cardstock and wrapped with a bit of ribbon.

7.  Popped up with dimensionals onto an A Muse Studio Winter Sky card.

MOOD WHEN DONE = glad to stamp a bit.

Stamps:  WPlus9 The Birds and the Bees and Heartfelt Mix
Ink:  Memento Tuxedo
Cardstock:  Neenah Solar White, A Muse Studio Winter Sky, and SU Basic Black
Other:  Copic, ribbon, dimensionals

Project 100: 41 - 44/100: Die Cut Flat Note Cards

Yesterday's post was classic stamping. Today, just paper and glue...

Love flat note cards. 

The first 4 on this post are for my son away at college.   (Project 100 is my plan to send him 100 cards while he is at college. I chose these messages just for him!)  All are A2 size. 

Designed these using the Silhouette digital cutter.   The words and strip are cut into Neenah Solar White Classic Crest 80 lb. cardstock.  Bottom layers are  Lime, French Roast, Ocean, and Onyx cardstocks from A Muse Studio. 

Had so much fun making the first 4, I decided to use a houndstooth cut on the white layer and see what happens.  The bottom layers are A Muse Studio Buttercup and Onyx cardstocks and a bright pink Stampin Up layer.  Loved the bold and graphic result.

MOOD WHEN DONE = Happy I got the Silhouette. 

Tulips

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate.  Although this is not an Easter card, the tulips certainly remind me of the holiday.

Tulips are special to me.  My Mom made my wedding dress and the material I chose had tulips on the organza bodice.  She spent months hand embroidering seed pearls onto each tulip.  It was gorgeous.  I'll try to find a picture!

In the meantime, I fell in love with these tulips from WPlus9.  In fact, I have a wish list a mile long for that company's stamps.

Card Construction Details:

1.  Die cut white cardstock.  Stamped tulips twice on the die cut, masking the left tulips before stamping the ones on the bottom right.  Stamped a 3rd time for the top left tulips; colored and hand cut.

2.  Colored with a combo on Prismacolor Pencils and a clear Copic marker.  HINT:  Used Indigo Navy pencil for the shading on the tulips.  Dark red isn't dark enough to achieve the look I wanted and I rarely use the black pencil -- I just find it ruins whatever I am coloring. 

3.  Measured the sentiment and made a banner with the Silhouette.  Stamped.  Debated coloring in the background of the tulips or stamping on top of the Sage card but decided that simple was best for this baby.

4.  Put together card as shown, adding the two left tulips on top of the white layer.   Sage A2 Card from A Muse Studio as the base. 

MOOD WHEN DONE = Springy

Find Joy

Not a bad sentiment at all. 

Too lazy  to give lots of details. Cut the fence with the Silhouette, stamped some stuff, colored everything, including the background, with Prismacolor pencils, embossed the wood on white.....Stamps from Papertrey and Flourishes.

MOOD WHEN DONE = Finding Joy on Friday!!  Hope there is something in your life in which you can find joy. 

Thanks for dropping by.....

Waltzingmouse Stamps Sketch Challenge 91

The sketch?

One layer! Right up my alley. Here's my take. Normally I would have cut out the butterfly and adhered; but no, have to play by the rules. 

Hope I get to make another one, but my week coming up is looking chock full of everything except stamping.

Card Construction Details:

1. Stamped butterfly from Waltzingmouse Stamps Nordic Spring onto A2 card.

2. Colored with Prismacolor pencils.

3.  Stamped sentiment from WMS.

4.  Using craft knife, cut out part of the wings of the butterfly.

5.  Added Ranger Glossy Accents to center of fly and yellow dots.

MOOD WHEN DONE = listening to a lecture by Bill Clinton and Jon Stewart.  Interesting.

Color

How's life blog readers??  Hope you  are having a great week. If not, do something nice for yourself.... In the meantime, here is a happy card!

Card Constructions Details:

1.  Ran some Ranger Distress Ink pads over some scrap white cardstock.  Set aside to dry.

2.  Stamped with black ink and Stampin Up By Definition (retired background and the one I'd keep if I could only have one.  Love it!).

3.  Stamped with big flower from a Hero Arts set.  Cut out.  Added Ranger White Glossy Accents to center.

4.  Repeated with green and yellow inks and the leaves. 

5.  Assembled as shown onto a white Bazzill textured card.  Love that cardstock!

6.  Added sentiment from Paper Smooches.  Love those sentiments.

MOOD WHEN DONE = Apparently in Love! with everything

*****

Random thoughts and info:

-- loved your reaction to Train Wreck.  It is definitely going to be a series.  I'm not "brave" -- making cards is just a hobby for me.  I'm not trying to earn money or anything else.  Love it when it turns out great and I find analyzing the wrecks to be fun and informative. 

-- my Mom has turned into Little Miss Busybody at the nursing home, making "suggestions" and "advising" the other residents on all sorts of issues.  Duct tape please!

-- we are going to London in the fall.  Ativan for the flight please!

 

For Janelle

Janelle is a lovely woman who is struggling with a brain tumor.  Her husband, Ken, is her support.   Today I am participating in a blog hop organized by Laurie Willison and Dana to show Janelle and her husband Ken how much we care.  Thank you Laurie and Dana for doing this.  Thank you Janelle for being an amazing example of faith and optimism. And thank you Ken for being a wonderful husband and for keeping us posted on how Janelle is doing.  You are all an example of how stamping and the internet can build us up.

Would you like to participate?  Or see the other cards?  If so, click over to Laurie's blog here and check out the details!

This is just for you Janelle --

Card Construction Details:

1.  Using my Silhouette digital cutter, I designed a layer with Janelle's name embedded as shown.  Silhouette tip below.**

2.  Stamped flowers and colored with Prismacolor Pencils.  Nice and bright for a nice and bright woman.

3.  Adhered with dimensionals on a white card.

MOOD WHEN DONE = Hopeful

Supplies:

Stamps:  Paper Smooches
Cardstock:  A Muse Studio Sugar
Ink:  Memento
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Silhouette, dimensionals

 

**For those of you with a Silhouette/Cameo, once you learn how to do this, you won't stop. I have cardstock with words all over the place! 

These directions assume some basic knowledge of how to make a design with the Silhouette/Cameo. I taught myself over the course of a few weeks -- one of the things I meant earlier when I said I wouldn't be posting as often because I was practicing.  This is a great way to avoid spending money on dies that spell out words.  Or alphabets.

1. Type the word.  A simple block font seems to work best.  Remember that all the letters have to be on the same plane -- meaning a lower case "y" won't work in this design because the bottom of the y will disappear.  For example, instead of "happy" use "HAPPY". 

2.  Resize the word so that the width is what you want.  Use character spacing to spread out the letters for small words if you want the word to span the width of the cardstock. 

3.  Draw a rectangle above and below the word.

4. Move each rectangle so that each one connects slightly with the top and bottom, respectively, of the word.  Remember that every letter in the word has to connect with the top or the bottom.  Don't cover up too much of the letters -- just a bit of each letter needs to overlap the rectangles. 

5. Resize the rectangles so that they are the exact width you want.

6.  Align so that your word is centered (if that is what you want).  Group everything together, press modify and then weld.  The weld functions is what makes the letters connected to the rectangles.

7.  Practice with cheap typing paper until you are happy or HAPPY. 

Bubbles in That Glass

As I was making this card (peace, love, smooches) I was thinking about the discord over some of Papertrey Ink's customer service policies and practices.  And that got me to thinking about how our personalities affect how we view and react so differently to the same set of facts (that's why jury consultants make so much money).

But first, the card --

I cut the peace heart with my Silhouette and stamped a sentiment from Paper Smooches.  The cardstock is a textured white Bazzil and using Distress Ink to stamp on it gave me a smooth finish (just hold the stamp down for a few seconds and the wetter distress ink will fill in the gaps in the cardstock). 

I love this card.  A heart. A peace symbol.  A flower with bling.  A happy card!

But, as I said before, while I was making it I was thinking about the turmoil at Papertrey.  For those of you unfamiliar with PTI's issues, the company has had some problems with its new website, some delayed packages, and has not sent out anniversary sets and prize packages in a timely fashion.  It also has fabulous products and a terrific design team.  (And I know Jenn, an employee of the company, who is a very nice woman put through the wringer over the internet.  Not a good situation and I am sending her good thoughts here.)

Some customers see these facts and are irate, spending (what appears to be) huge amounts of time pounding away at the issue.  Others love the company and are happy to overlook what looks to them as small glitches and are spending (what appears to be) lots of time expressing fury with the folks who are angry.

I have a glass half empty personality.  I see a prize package not delivered and I see all sorts of bad things.  I don't want to have a world view that sees the negative over the positive but I do.   As someone once put it to me "the scale of your reaction is out of proportion to what has happened."  (Cost for that observation $125 an hour...).  In other words, even if you are right, you are paying a high price for how strongly you are reacting.  So, I  try and wait things out until I can shake the glass and see bubbles peeking out over the half way mark or decide that my negative view is warranted. 

I was thinking about this as I viewed and reacted to the Papertrey issues.  None of it makes any sense to me.  The company. The customers.  None of it.  And then I realized that each of these parties brings themselves to the game.   The sunny personality who loves the products and naturally sees only the good in people can overlook what someone else finds fraudulent.   Trying to destroy a company because someone else didn't get a prize package seems a bit much.  Ignoring legitimate customer complaints seems a bit much.  Aacck -- enough to make a normal person run for the hills!! 

So I'm sitting back and hoping that the company resolves its policies and practices that have triggered the concerns.  I hope it does and I think it will.  So, I'm waiting until I can shake the PTI glass and see those bubbles again. 

 

A Nursing Home Diversion (and a card)

Note:  Now that Mike is back home I'll ask him to take some photos while I demo the "dots" technique featured in my last post.  In the meantime, here's a card made with the same pencil over ink technique with a slightly different result (more on that coming) and the details on this card too when I have more time.

And the nursing home diversion:

Linda sits with my mom at meals.  A lovely woman who appears to have had a stroke, leaving her with the use of one arm and in a wheelchair.  Linda loves me and looks forward to my visits (which often occur during meal times).  I joined them last night while they ate.  You should know that my Mom's dementia lifted and she is doing much better for now and is completely lucid.

****

Linda:  Oh good, Joan is here.  I have 5 questions for you tonight.  Medicare and Social Security are ending on February 31st.  I need to sell my car to get money.

Me:  I promise you that Medicare and Social Security are still here and are not ending during our lifetimes.

Linda:  Oh good.  Everybody listen.  Joan says Medicare and Social Security are still here.  She's a lawyer so she knows this stuff.

My Mom (to me):  What's the name of that movie?

Me:  (???) Give me a clue mom.

Linda:  I have an account with Red Top cab and need to go out.

My Mom:  (to me):  You know, you know the name of that movie. About that lady?

Me:  The Help?

My Mom:  NO!  The movie with the husband and the wife and how the husband is doing something to her?

Me:  Gaslight?  The guy is trying to make his wife think she is going crazy.

My Mom:  YES.  We have a Gaslight situation.

Linda:  Are you sure about Medicare?

Me:  I'll look it up on my iphone (and I do).

 

Eventually, after about 5 more minutes of this, my Mom and I get up and walk out of the unit to chat alone.

My Mom:  Don't say anything about going crazy in front of Linda!!!!  Linda is going crazy.  Gaslight was my CLUE to you that she is going crazy.

Me:  Mom, I didn't need a clue.  I got it right away.

My Mom:  Oh, I didn't realize.  You have no idea what it is like to talk to someone who is going crazy.

Me:  ????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!