Stenciled Butterflies

When I was looking for a Merry Christmas brass stencil, I came across this pretty butterflies stencil from Lasting Impressions. You can do them each separately, but I chose to use them all at one time. I used two colors of ink and brushes to add the color. The sentiment is a new-to-me stamp from scrapbook.com I stamped it on vellum and added thin strips of cardstock on the top and bottom of it.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

I Just Can't Stop!

OK. Two more Christmas cards done - probably for next year!  I had this sentiment done and wanted to get it off my desk. I had used a Dreamweaver brass stencil, Deco Foil Transfer Gel, gold foil and my laminator to make it. I also used two die-cut frames that had been in my card parts for a while. I glued the frames together and put them around the edge of the card. The patterned paper is from Gina K. 

Of course after trimming the patterned paper for the first card down to size, I was left with a strip of it. Couldn't let it go to waste! I matted it with blue and put it on the side of this card. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Another Glittery Christmas

I made two cards just like this. Now I have 80 Christmas cards! 

I used an Echo Park stencil for the center panel. I had first tried using the stencil directly on double sided sticky paper. MISTAKE! The stencil stuck horribly! It took a while, but I was able to salvage the stencil. Whew! :) Plan B. I brushed distress ink through the stencil on to the cardstock. Then I cut it in half and ran the pieces through my Xyron machine. After making sure the sticky was stuck really well, I added microfine glitter over each entire piece. I added glitter tape on each side of the panel. The sentiment was done with a Dreamweavers stencil and Deco Foil Transfer Gel. I used platinum foil over the transfer gel.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Glitter Ornaments

I love this technique, but haven't done it for many years. I was reminded of it by a video by Jennifer McGuire. I am linking this card up to the STAMPlorations Stencil challenge.

I used double-sided sticky paper, glitter and a brass stencil. I also have a sort of special kind of soap to rub on the brass stencil before sticking it to the paper. (Important, and I will share more on this in a later post!) With the stencil on the sticky paper (which was already added to cardstock), I added the blue-ish glitter. Then I removed the stencil and added the white glitter. The glitters are ultra-fine and micro-fine. I matted with the best matching cardstock that I had. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and is matted and mounted on foam squares. The ink is not a perfect match, but it does match better a little bit "in real life" than it appears in the photos.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Christmas Cards Are an All-Year Thing

I am never done making Christmas cards:) I don't often sit down to make them, but they often happen. Such is the case with this card. I came across this stencil that I got on clearance at a local paper store and hadn't wanted to put it away until I used it. I thought it would be nice with white embossing paste. I used it on blue textured cardstock and matted with white. I mounted the panel on foam squares. The snowflake was cut with a die that I got last summer and had not used yet. I think I have fourteen cards for this year finished now.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Gold and White Christmas

I finally had a little time in my stamping room yesterday, so I cleaned it up a bit. Then I used some pieces I found laying around and made them into a couple cards.

I had embossed this white piece while working on my calendar page for next year. (It didn't make the cut, though.) I used a Dreamweavers stencil for it. I matted it with shimmery gold paper and scored a couple lines under it. I used a My Favorite Things stamp for the sentiment. I'm not usually a "Happy Holidays" person (I prefer "Merry Christmas") but this one fit very nicely. I matted the gold with another layer of white and mounted on foam squares. This one will have to be for next year, as my cards all went out in the mail on Monday.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Embossing Paste Anniversary

Here's a card "letting the paper do the talking." :)

I was looking through my brass stencils one day last week, and came across this Happy Anniversary one. It had been a while again since I'd used embossing paste, so I decided to get it out again. For this card I used white glossy embossing paste. The stencil is from Dream Weaver. I scored two lines on the top and two on the bottom using my Scor-Buddy, matted with white and mounted on foam squares. Then I didn't know what to do with it! It was kind of big. I looked through my neglected patterned paper and found this piece from Die Cuts With a View Cafe Mediterranean matstack which coordinated very well with my sentiment and finished up the card very simply.

I had such a nice time yesterday. An "on-line" friend came over to stamp. So awesome! It was fun exchanging ideas and techniques. Hope we can do that again! Hi, Deb! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Embossing Paste Daisies

While going through some "card parts" I found this embossing paste daisy panel. It was mounted on pale yellow cardstock, which I removed. It already had some pale yellow sponged on the edges. I simply found some patterned paper to layer it with and added it to a 4 x 6 inch off-white card base.

Edited to add: The brass stencil that I used is a Dreamweavers - LL549. I did a tutorial on YouTube a few years ago, which you can find here.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Winter Thank Yous

 I was actually in the mood for stamping yesterday afternoon, and Wyatt cooperated by taking a nice long nap! :) I needed a couple thank you cards and also wanted to check the challenges on SplitCoastStampers. The Ways to Use It Challenge is to use snowmen, snowflakes, etc. Perfect!

For both of my cards, I used a Dreamweavers brass stencil and white embossing paste. After using the stencil and paste, I sprinkled with ultrafine crystal glitter. The navy paper has slight texture and the snowflake paper is from a matstack by Recollections.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

April Calendar Page

Oh my gosh - how did April get here so quickly??  Looking outside, one would never believe it was April here in Minnesota!  Maybe some day soon.  We can only hope.  I think there is more snow in our forecast - and I'm not foolin'! LOL!

At any rate, here is my April calendar page with a brief description.  The tulip was done with a Dreamweavers stencil.  I embossed it (with my BIGkick - saves a lot of time when making 13 calendars) and stippled with Stampin' Up!'s Old Olive and Summer Sun inks before removing.  I matted with a shimmery yellow paper. The background is stamped with a stamp from SU!'s Doodle This with Old Olive.

If you are interested in printing your own calendar pages to decorate, you can download my Excel files by clicking on the page called "2011 Calendar File."  The cutting instructions are there, also.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Two More Thank Yous

Here are the other two thank you cards I made.

For this first one, I brayered white ink on the inside of the thank you Cuttlebug folder before embossing on Perfect Plum cardstock.  The Thank You is from the Stampin' Up! set Thank You Kindly and is stamped with Perfect Plum ink.  The butterflies are punched with a Martha Stewart punch and have pearls for their bodies.  The tag is cut with a Spellbinders die.  The ribbon is from SU!, also.

This second one is done with white embossing paste and brass stencils.  The Thank You is by Dreamweavers, and I'm pretty sure that the flower is by Lasting Impressions, but I don't have time to check right now!  Before using the embossing paste on the flower, I used markers to color through the stencil.  When I was done, I sprinkled a little bit of glitter over everything for a little bit of sparkle.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Happy Anniversary, Harriet and Bruce!

I made this card for my good friend, Harriet, and her husband, Bruce.  Their anniversary was yesterday.

 

I used a Dreamweavers stencil and embossing paste for the butterflies.  You can find my video on this technique here, if you are interested.  After they were thoroughly dry, I cut them out.  They are mounted on Pop Dots.  The cardstock is all Papertrey Ink - white, Aqua Mist and Lavender Moon.  The ribbon is from PTI, also.  I embossed the bottom of the lavender panel with a Cuttlebug border embossing folder.  The sentiment is from My Sentiments Exactly.  I stamped it with Versamark and embossed it with Iridescent Sparkle embossing powder.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

December Calendar

I can’t believe it’s December already! 
Here is the December page of my calendar.  I love using embossing on December’s page – it’s so peaceful and lovely, I think.  The stencil I used is from Dreamweavers.  There is a long row of trees.  I did the embossing with my BIGkick and cut them in half for the calendars.  I matted the trees with a shimmery pine green paper and stamped the background.
Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

Black and White - Embossing Paste Thank You

I found myself without a card to post this morning, so darn – I had to make one. What a way to spend part of Mother’s Day morning! :) It did have to be a quick card, though, so here it is.

I used an Anna Griffin brass stencil for the main image, which was done with Glossy White Dreamweavers Embossing Paste. I mounted it on white. The dotted paper is by Die Cuts With a View. I used a Dreamweavers stencil for the Thank You, directly on the DCWV – again with the embossing paste. That is ALL there is to it!

Happy Mother’s Day to all!! Thanks so much for spending a little bit of it with me, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

Mother's Day? In February???

Another “card parts” card today.

A couple weeks ago when I was cleaning up my stamping room – again! – I came across this already-made “Happy Mother’s Day” panel. I left it out to force myself to use it. I have a couple boxes of card parts that I fully intend to use, but I thought as a start I would use the ones that were already on my table. This was done with a Dreamweavers stencil and white embossing paste. (They are both available from Vicki. The links to her store are in the right-side column.) The panel was even already mounted on the white cardstock, so this was a pretty quick card! I chose the background paper from the Summer Matstack from Die Cuts With a View. After trimming it to fit the card front, I ended up with a single row of dots. I couldn’t just toss that perfect little piece, so I mounted it on a thin strip of white and used it instead of ribbon. The flowers are Primas. On one of my trips to Michael’s a couple weeks ago, I decided to check the jewelry/beading area – and found some clearance items. What could be better! The flower centers are called “studs.” I have no idea what their purpose really is, but I thought they would work wonderfully in place of brads – no prongs to have to deal with. After I got home, I realized they were different sizes and designs – even better! I used glue dots to stick them to the flowers and also to adhere the flowers to the card.

On a side note, my stamping area is still clean after almost two weeks! That is a record for me, for sure. Usually things don’t get put away until I have absolutely no room to work any more, but I thought I’d try something different for a change.

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

December 2008 Calendar Page

As promised, here is my calendar page for this month. I’ll try to make it a habit of posting the current calendar page on the First of each month. My first “blog tradition.”

I used a Dreamweavers stencil to emboss the ornaments. I sponged the edges with Night of Navy. The silver and blue papers are both shimmery. The “Merry Christmas” is embossed with silver embossing powder.

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

"Twin" Christmas Cards

After working for a few hours on a card for an alphabet swap, I have nothing to share with you! I did get it the T card done, though, and I’ll post it after Sheri receives it. So, I guess I’ll upload a couple cards I made a few days ago. They use the same stamp, the same stencil, and pretty much the same layout. The stencil is by Dreamweavers. (I purchased it from Vicki B. You can find her blog and a link to her store here.) The stamp is a dollar stamp from Michael’s.

For the white card, I used Papertrey Ink’s Stamper’s Select cardstock and embossed using the stencil and my BIGkick. I sponged Stampin’ Up!’s Mellow Moss around the edges, and used Mellow Moss to stamp the sentiment. For the second card, I used a thinner cardstock and misted it with water before I embossed it. I left it in the stencil until it dried to keep it from curling. While in the stencil, I sponged Versamark over the whole thing, removed the stencil, and heat embossed it with Star Dust embossing powder by Stampendous. I mounted it on a piece of red cardstock. The card base is by Lasting Impressions – also purchased from Vicki B. I stamped the sentiment with Versafine Black Onyx and embossed it with the Star Dust powder, also, for some extra sparkle. (I wasn't very successful in photograhing the sparkle, but you can see it better if you click on the picture.)

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!

From the Archives: "Pregnancy Congrats"

This is the card I made for our daughter and son-in-law when they informed us that they were expecting.

From the description in my SplitCoastStampers gallery: “The first thing I did on this card was to use the stencil edges to emboss the flat area for the “Congratulations” to fit into. Then I used my Dotted Swiss Cuttlebug folder to emboss the upper and lower parts.I used two different kinds of Dreamweavers embossing paste - "regular" and glossy white. The "Congratulations" is just the glossy white paste. For the rattle, I first stippled Stampin’ Up!’s Mint Melody and Barely Banana ink through the stencil, and then I applied the embossing paste. After I removed the stencil, I sprinkled the rattle with ultra-fine glitter. The rattle panel is raised on pop-dots.”

If you are interested in Dreamweavers stencils or embossing paste (or MANY other things!), I have a great “source.” I get my items from Heartwarmers from Vicki. She has a new blog with great cards, and there is a link to her store in the right-side column.

Thanks so much for looking, and I hope you’ll come back and visit again soon!