Embossed Butterfly Cards

I needed to make a lot of cards last week and had very little time to do it. So, inspired by a card a saw in CARD magazine, I created this one. I switched out the sentiment to fit my needs and went to work on a card-making assembly line!

I tried a new technique that I learned from Jennifer McGuire's Thinking Inking class to make the butterfly super shiny. (You can view a video and the pdf at http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb.asp?cmd=display&forum_id=52&thread_id=2832083 .) After punching out the butterfly, I stamped the entire surface with VersaMark ink, sprinkled it with embossing powder and set it with my heat gun. Now, here's where the new technique comes in! While the butterfly was still hot, I sprinkled it with more embossing powder and heat set it again. In total, I probably used five or six layers of embossing powder to achieve an acrylic-like look on the butterfly. Here's a close-up of the butterfly.

Ingredients: Stampin' Up! card stock; Basic Grey patterned paper (Romani); Martha Stewart Butterfly punch; Cuttlebug embossing folder (Swiss Dots); Technique Tuesday stamps (Simple Sentiments); EK Success corner rounder; bling from Michael's; black ink; twine from my stash.

Project Twelve

If you're like me, you always take way more pictures than you will ever be able to scrap in a single lifetime. Thankfully, in the two years that I have been seriously scrapping, I have moved away from feeling obligated to scrap every event and include every picture, and more towards trying to use my hobby to tell the stories of our lives. However, I still have the nagging feeling that I want to scrap certain occasions and, of course, there are always so many more layouts in my head than I have time to actually put down on paper. That is why I was intrigued when I read Davinie Fiero's blog post about Project Twelve. (You can check it out here: http://davinie.blogspot.com/2009/01/challenge.html) Davine challenged readers to make just 12 layouts -- one for each month -- to tell the story of their lives. One layout a month -- I could do that and maybe not fall too far behind.

So here is my January layout for the Project Twelve layout. (Just for the record, I created it in February -- right on schedule. It just took me two months to post it. LOL!) It includes pictures from sledding, New Year's Day, Melissa's Winter and All County concerts, as well as Sal's birthday.

The hardest part of this challenge was coming up with a color scheme since the pictures are all so different. I decided on red as my dominant color since a majority of the pictures had some red in them. From there, I knew that I wanted to use my new grey fabric Thickers so I pulled out my Basic Grey scraps and got to work. I started with a plain piece of American Crafts cardstock which I stamped with VersaMark ink to give it a slight pattern. I rearranged my pictures several times and finally decided on a placement that was not dictated by chronological order.

I used my new Stampin' Up! Curly Label punch to create journaling spots from grey cardstock. Next, I added some snowflakes which I cut using my Martha Stewart punch. (This is one of my favorites!) Just a note: when adding the snowflakes I used the same principle as I do when stamping. I let some of the flakes fall partially off the page and trimmed them out with a scissor. I also tried to make a visual triangle with the snowflakes to carry the eye around the page. Finally, I dug into my stash for the pearls to embellish the snowflakes. For $1.99 a pack, pearls and rhinestones add so much punch to a project. I now store them in my crop bag so that they are always at my fingertips!

I have already completed my February layout and have even printed the pictures for March. I told you that this is a challenge I could keep up with!

Ingredients: American Crafts cardstock; Basic Grey patterned paper and sticker embellishments; Autumn Leaves stamps; VersaMark and Colorbox inks; Martha Stewart (snowflake) and Stampin' Up! (curly label) punches; American Crafts Thickers; pearls from Michael's.

Tag, I'm It!

A few months ago, I was looking for some inspiration over at pagemaps.com (http://www.pagemaps.com/) when I noticed that the talented Becky Fleck was also looking for something. She put a call out to scrappers to contribute samples based on her sketches. If picked, your work is included in her monthly newsletter alongside her beautiful sketches. Of course I threw my name into the hat. And, to my surprise, I was contacted last month and asked to create a tag. Everything had to be on the hush hush and I couldn't post a picture of my project until Becky published her February newsletter. Well, thanks to Super Bowl Sunday, Becky posted her newsletter a day early so, at long last, here is my tag:

Have I told you how much I love the Martha Stewart butterfly punch? In case you missed my last post about it, I double punched each butterfly. The bottom layer was glued down flat to the paper, while the top layer was only affixed in the center. I bent the wings upwards to give it a little dimension.

Make sure you visit pagemaps to see all the great sketches Becky created for February!

Ingredients:

Paper: Creating Keepsakes (cardstock and patterned paper)

Embellishments: Creating Keepsakes (rub-on letters) Queen & Company (felt border) Michael's (pearl stickers)

Ink: Signo (white)

Tools: Martha Stewart butterfly punch

A Quick Post...

...to show a quick card I made this afternoon. I needed a sympathy card, and I needed it quick so I came up with this:

I ran the cardstock through my Cuttlebug, punched out the butterfly and stamped the sentiment. The card took me about five minutes to make, once I settled on the design. Unfortunately, I went through several designs and inked up several stamps that I didn't use. The clean-up took longer than the making the card. UGH!

Anyway, I broke open the Martha Stewart butterfly punch that Sal and the kids got me for my birthday. I think I'm going to be using that punch a lot. Note that I punched the butterfly out twice to make it two-dimensional.

Ingredients: Cardstock: Stampin' Up; Patterned Paper: Basic Grey; Stamp: Hero Arts; Ink: Stampin Up!; Bling: Michael's; Tools: Cuttlebug Leafy Branch Embossing Folder, Martha Stewart Punch.

I have a few more layouts that I need to photograph so that I can share them with you later this week. So far, 2009 has been a very scrappy year!

Thank You, Thank You!

I just wanted to thank you for visiting my blog and thought it would be appropriate to share some thank you cards I made. My inspiration for these were the thank you embellishments which I found on sale at JoAnn's. Since I'm not one to pass up a sale, I planned my card around them. I just love how brown and green look together. And, that color combination always makes me think of a story that Sal tells about his mother. Apparently, when he first started working and had to match his ties to his suits, he asked his mother if his green tie went with his brown suit. She answered, "Look at the trees and tell me if green goes with brown." Thankfully Sal's office switched to business casual several years ago!


Okay, here are the cards:

I just love how inking the edges with brown gives the paper added dimension.

Ingredients: K&Company patterned paper; The Paper Company Heritage Colors card stock; Anna Griffin brown ink; Michael's ribbon; Fiskars circle cutter; Autumn Leaves Scribbles Alphabet Clear Stamps (letter "o"); Stampin Up! Scallop Circle Punch; Martha Stewart Simple Scallop Edge Punch (last card only).