Oldie Moldie Monday

This should have been posted in December as an Oldie Moldie Monday.  The paper and image are very well aged.  This tag was for a young man.

Catching Up On Christmas Posts

I was a bad blogger in December and did not post lots of my projects.  Here are two tags I made.  I put small sacks on the back where I could put a gift card or money.

A Valentine Fish For You

I am currently visiting friends in the Florida Keys and this is the Valentine card I made for them.  They live in a fishing community during the winter months.

I drew the fish and painted him.  I really like how he turned out.  The hearts were cut with my Silhouette.

The background was different shades of blue sprays on a gessoed book page.  I had seamed the paper and the seam stood out.  I then added washi team over the seam and then several small pieces in two spots.  I mixed some texture paste with paint to make blue embossing paste and used two different stencils to add some additional texture to the card front and hide the washi tape.  I believe I accomplished that.

I enjoyed making this card because I should have been cleaning my house and packing.

Oldie Moldie Monday

As I bask in the sunshine of Florida, I wanted to share another set of Valentine cards I made.

There are two of this design and finish showing you the cards I am mailing to my elderly ladies I talked about on February 5 on my blog.

The paper is from Authentique.

Have a wonderful day, week, month, year.

Happy Valentine's Day

I needed t make some fast Valentine cards so I sprayed pieces of watercolor paper with all different colors and brands of pink sprays.  I love the color of the background.  The heart stamp was from Michael's $1.50 bin.  The hearts and sentiment were embossed in white embossing powder.

Happy Little Stampers Monthly Anything Goes With Die Challenge

It is time for a new challenge at Happy Little Stampers for their Anything Goes With Dies Challenge.

I am in a private Facebook card makers group and we are doing an exchange of shaped cards.  I thought I could do one project and complete two things.  Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.  I decided to use my Silhouette Cameo to make my card.  I cut everything out for a sewing themed card and then I looked at who I was to send the card too.  At that point, I had to change my mind.  I was sending the card to a coffee lover so I needed to make a coffee themed card.  I really like the card I made and I made two of them.

The card hinges at the top and it was such a small hinge that I added a strip of paper to reinforce the area.  The paper collection was a Christmas one from Basic Grey.  I thought the snowflakes made a great front of the coffee to go cup.  All the pieces of the card were inked around the edges.  The striped piece in the middle of the holder was not part of the pattern but I wanted to bring a little more design into the card.  I cut a band of the striped paper and then just trimmed it down so it went across the center.  The sentiment is from Paper Smooches.

I had lots of fun making this coffee themed card but I know I have two sewing themed cards all cut out ready to be made.

Please come join us at Happy Little Stampers for our February Anything Goes With Dies Challenge.

February Mixed Media Happy Little Stamper Monthly Challenge

It is February and it is time for a new mixed media challenge at Happy Little Stampers.  The challenge this month is tear or rip..

I had gotten a new paper pad for a Christmas gift and decided to use this paper as the base for my card design.  My card took many turns along the way before we came to this card.  It will be a birthday card for a special young lady.  I may add a birthday sentiment to the front before I send it to her.

Here is a close up of the heart.  You can see the layers of embossing paste and paint splatters.

Here is a close up of the torn strips band that goes across the bottom of the card.

Here is the first layer of the card.  See all the torn pieces on the rectangle base.  The heart has many rows of torn paper on it.

I then added a layer of white gesso over everything.  (I see this in lots of videos.)

I then added embossing paste through two different stencils.

 I then added paints and sprayed them with water (I saw that in many videos also).  It is an OK background.

The original plan was to have the tealish background to be the entire front of the card with the torn strip across the front.  This was not making my creative juices flow no matter how much I tried and I even let it sit for a day or two to see if it would grow on me.  It never did.

If you look at a picture of the finished card, you will see that I added a piece of the patterned paper on the front of the teal/pink background.  The background I made was now just peeking out as it was now a mat.  I added a layer of pink to the strip of torn paper.  If your colors in your background and patterned paper do not match the way you want them to, just take your paint and smear some on the patterned paper to pick up the same hue of the color.  I added paint to the teal strip on top and also the bottom pink layer.

I recut the heart and covered it with one of the patterned papers from the strip.  I had gotten some new embossing paste on clearance at Michael's.  It was in the Christmas clearance.  This bottle was called snow.  It had some grit in it.  I added it to the card front panel and also the heart.  The card front was added to a black card base.  A strip of black twine was added to the strip.  The heart was pop dotted to the front with cardboard.  At this point I watered down the pink and teal paint and splattered it on the front of the card.

The sentiment was in the paper collection.  I cut it out and matted it with some touched up pink paper.  This was adhered with foam tape.

As you can tell from my story, this card took a few paths but I did manage to save it.  I know my friend will like it.

Please get out some paper and start tearing it up and join us at the Mixed Media February Challenge at Happy Little Stampers.  

Oldie Moldie Monday on Sunday

In between the midst of my travels to warm places I am trying to get a few valentine day cards made.  I have four elderly ladies that I send cards to.  Three of these ladies are in their 90's.  Since Mom passed away in April, I try to bring a little smile to other elderly ladies.

I think these old fashioned valentine cards will make them smile.

These cards were made from a 6 x 6 pad from Authentique.

I am entering the card into the weekly challenge at Paper Players where the theme is will you be my valentine.

I hope you enjoy these cards.

Friendship Cards

How would we ever make it through life without for friends and the friendships we make through our time on earth.  I am blessed with so many wonderful friends.  I wanted to make a few cards to have in my supplies so I could send to a friend who needs a little cheer in their life.

I was lucky that Time Out's weekly challenge is this quote - Friends are connected heart to heart, distance and time can't break them apart',  

Here is my card.

The background is made with distress inks which I smooshed on the paper.  I put some distress ink on a piece of acetate and spritzed it with water and made my background.  I used Fossiliked Amber and Crushed Olive.  This one was done with dry watercolor paper.

The card below was done with a watercolor paper that was wet and then you smooshed on the ink.  You get a little different look.

The flowers were gifted me by a dear friend who knew I coveted her stamps from Paper Artsy.  The sentiments are both Hero Art Stamps.

I finished the cards with a spraying of a Tattered Angels gold mist.

Thanks for stopping by.

Freshly Made Sketches Encouragement Card

I found a little time between trips to do a few challenges.  The card today is for a friend battling breast cancer.  She is an online card making friend I have known for so many years but never met in person.

I saw this sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for their weekly challenge and decided it would be a fun one to use for my card.

This is my card for the sketch challenge.  The background is a piece of die cut watercolor paper.  The rectangles that the flower is stamped on are also die cut.  I used three different Tattered Angels sprays to color the background and the flower background.  

The flower stamp is from Stampers Anonymous Studio 490 Wendy Vecchi Stamp it Stencil it.  The sentiment is from Stampendous stamped in Black Versafine Ink.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mixed Media Mojo February Challenge

It is so hard to believe that February is already here but it is good to be racing through the winter months in Wisconsin.  Of course it helped that I spent two weeks in South Carolina and in another week I will leave for two weeks in Florida.  I am looking forward to the Florida sunshine.  Oh - I digress from the business at hand.

The February challenge at Mixed Media Mojo is Love with the added twist of Wings.

I needed to make a Thank You card for my friends that I visited in South Carolina.  I decided to use this challenge to make my card.  I need to be multi creating - one card satisfies two things on the list.

I used a napkin for my wings elements (bird) and for the love I put the napkin on a heart.  Don't you think that is creative.

I had so much fun making this card and I really enjoyed how it turned out.  I used a napkin for the focal point of the card.  If you have never used napkin on a card or layout, please take a few minutes and look at napkins and you will see beautiful pieces of art work that can be used in your creative process.  You must separate the layers of the napkin and only use the top layer.  I adhere the image to a piece of card stock with gel medium.  I brush another layer over the top to make sure the image is sealed onto the card stock.  I don't mind the wrinkles I get because it is added texture.  I then die cut the image with a heart die.  I used a spray and added it around the edges of the heart to give it a more aged look.

I have been watching lots of U Tube lately and I see people using cheesecloth in their creations.  I had a package of cheesecloth so I cut off a hunk and colored it with the spray I used on the outside of the heart.  

I went into my ample supply of paper and dug out some heavier papers for my background.  I adhered them together and added a layer of embossing paste in several areas of the card front.  I got this deal at Michael's on some embossing pastes just for Christmas.  They ended up to be a bargain at $1.  I believe I used the pearlescent one on this card.  

I grabbed a small piece of lace, a strip of burlap and some twine to add more elements to the card.  I also found these cream colored flakes from Stampendous and wanted to use them on my card.  

The napkin had a solid strip of blue on it so I adhered it to some card stock and cut it with a very old border die.  I added  this down the right side.  There was a small piece of the border left over and I used that on the inside of my card.

Here is a close up of the bird.  I fussy cut a second bird and layered it on top of the bird on the heart.  The tail was cut off with the die but the fussy cut one kept the tail.  You can also see the cheesecloth and flakes in this picture also.  I did spray the flakes with some gold spray to give them a little more color.

The Thanks was die cut from three different papers and glued together to give your thanks some dimension and extra stability.  The sentiment strip is a piece of burlap layered on a piece of patterned paper.  You can see the lace peeking out below the sentiment strip.

Here is a picture of the top left corner.  You can see the spray around the heart, the cheesecloth, and the embossing paste.

Here is a picture of the upper right corner.  Here you can see the flakes.  You can see a little bit of the border here.

Here is the inside of the card.  I fussy cut another bird and used the leftover piece of border to make the inside as pretty as the outside.  I really should do something to the envelope also.

Please come join us this month at Mixed Media Mojo.  It is my last time as a designer for the blog.  It is time to venture forth and  try some new things.