A Couple Of Fun Stories and A 3D Bird

Hi Everyone! It has been a while, again. I have been fighting some health issues and some depression the past couple of months. Of course, whenever my body is under any kind of stress I have a fibro flair, sniff sniff. I did force myself into the craft room and got a card made. It did take 3 days, lol, but I am so happy to have gotten something done.

I have some fun things to share with you first. I know it will make the post a bit long, but I hope you enjoy reading them.

I was still pretty bummed yesterday but I had to sit my grandson. On my way there, I ended up behind a truck with it's back center window open. The German Shepherd in the truck kept putting his front feet and head out of it, ha ha ha. He was having such fun enjoying the wind, excitedly sniffing and looking around. He kept being told to get back in and he listened. Just like a kid, though, getting back in only meant for the next minute or so. Out he popped again, over and over. He made me laugh so much! I wish I had a video camera. Out went the blues. Isn't funny how the smallest thing can make such a difference in someones day :o)

Also, my daughter and son-in-law have been trying to have another baby for a year now. She went to the Dr last week so that they could start running tests. Of course, the first thing they check is the guy. OH, my poor son-in-law! Not wanting to drag things along, he dropped off his...well...you know..."sample" yesterday morning. I just can't imagine the embarrassment a guy must feel doing that, OH MY, I am practically humiliated for him, lol.

Anyway, my daughter was craving oatmeal raisin cookies this past weekend, to the point that she actually made a bunch of them. The point here is that she does not even like them. On top of that she was whole 4 days late, YKWIM...so she decided to take a pregnancy test at work (she is a nurse at an immediate care facility, so she can get them free :o)

When she got home from work she handed me a plastic baggie. I looked at it and could not for the life of me imagine what that thing inside way. After laughing at me she told me what it was. It was a pregnancy test stick thing or whatever the thing-a-ma-jig is called. Yeah, I admit I am that old :o(  It was not just any test, though, it was a PINK one! Sheesh...I am so slow...I didn't even know what that meant!

You know where this is going...yup, she is pregnant! That means she was pregnant last week when she went to the Dr and when my poor son-in-law made his morning "delivery"...Poor guy!!! (I don't think I am supposed to know that part...so don't tell anyone, OK?!?)

Now, I am not supposed to tell anyone but my husband. Yet, I am sooooooo excited, how could I not tell someone! So I chose you gals :o)  Again....keep the secret until they let the world know, OK?!? {WINK}

Alright...on to my card...

I really liked this 3D bird image, though I have no idea why he is green. Have you ever seen a green bird? The image is 5 layers. Cutting the small parts, like the skinny flower stems, was not really the hard part for me.  The hard part was actually the stems as I put the image together. There is no way to adhere them with any type of dimensional since they are so skinny. I needed to "pull" them just enough that they did not sag/wrinkle or rip. Good thing I like a challenge ;o)

I used some metallic floss to stitch the flourishes and leaves. I really am my own worst enemy sometimes...the metallic thread is such a difficult thing to work with. It really does add that perfect "touch" since I really like how it shimmers (or anything that shimmers for that matter).

OK, as I have said before, I am a bit slow with some things. One of them is figuring out how to make a bow with multi loops. I tried that Bow Easy tool, which is not easy at all. They should add a "child proof" label on it since anything with those labels are not so "adult" friendly.

 

I finally figured it out though. This is the first one I made with my old, truely easy bowmaker. I adhered the green ribbon and bow over some organza ivory ribbon with metallic edges.

 

On the inside, I just paper pierced the flourishes and leaves on each side. I could not seem to get a good photo of it because the paper was so shimmery, it just reflected the light. If you click on the photo, I think you will be able to see it better. But you don't have too, lol, because if you do, it will look like the peircing is really off, with different size holes everywhere. Doesn't look like that in real life. I think I need a "less quality" camera that does not pick up so many details that the eye doesn't even notice.

Here you can see how the ivory paper shimmers. It has a pretty gold hue (I think that is what it is called) when the light hits it a certain way. The green layer is the same, which you can kind of see in the next photo on the upper right corner.

As always, I added what I think of as an "all occassion" sentiment.

Thank you so much for sticking with me and making it to the bottom of the post. lol Have a wonderful day!!!

 

{{{HUGS}}}

 

Using My Favorite Techiques

I have had a really hard time getting into my craft room due to baby sitting my grandson. My daughter just got a new job, so I not longer have to babysit. It is bitter sweet.

Hmmm...that is what I thought as I went to make my first project in a while. How exactly do I get back into it with the excitement I had before?

Deciding the best way was to do my favorite techniques, I pulled out my paper stitching and iris folding patterns. After a bit of trial and error, I finally found the perfect size iris fold pattern to go in a lovely stitching pattern I found in a magazine I have had for quite some time.
 

Isn't this iris fold pattern pretty! To really snazz it up I pulled out some metallic paper I have been hording. I wish I could remember where I purchased it. I am thinking that I will have to mark everything I buy with the store name so this will stop happening, lol

The metallic paper has such a lovely embossed design that really added some beautiful texture to the wings. 

Of course, I had to use some metallic floss for the stitching to match the paper. Even though the metallic floss is much more difficult to work with, the finished result is always worth it.

One problem I have always had when paper stitching is the pierced holes being quite large when I am finished. I find rubbing over them with a paper scorer works really great for remeding this.

  

I used a sentiment stamp from a Stampin' Up set called Wonderful Words. I love the font on this and am not sure I will ever tire of it.

To keep the continuity of the metallic look, I embosssed it gold.

Can you see the lovely shimmer of my favorite paper? Yum...The designer paper also has metallic outlines around the swirls. All of the designer paper I used for this card came from the lovely 6 1/2 sq." pad from Keiser Craft called Sweet Nothings.

There is a lot of texture and demension to this card. I added the pearls for a final touch. They are not as shiney as I would have liked, but the color goes quite well. I used some pale pink chalk to add a bit of shadowding around the butterfly here on the front. It did not show up in the photos, but in this one, you can tell the vanilla paper is not so vanillary. 

I used the butterfly that I cut out to make the iris fold for the inside top flap. WOW...was adding the piercing from the sewing pattern difficult. I just could not get the bottom flourished to match as well as I would have liked. After 3 tries, I just used the best one. Yeah...I agree, I am a bit anal about things like that, ha ha ha

To outline this butterfly as well as the one on the front and the anteneas, I used my Krylon gold leaf marker.

Here is the inside of the card. I used the stitching pattern as a frame, but only pierced it. I am not sure which I like better, just piercing or the sewing. It was the perfect way to dress up the rather large rectangle for a personal note.

Put all together, I am really pleased with how the card turned out. It is larger than most cards I make, being about 5 1/2 x 7". I did make sure I had an envelope to mail it in before making it. It would be a total bummer if I had a card and no envelope to go with it!!!

Now I am excited to get back to paper crafting and blogging again. Not only that...but the blog hopping I so much miss. I learn so much from other craftes. There are sooooo many wonderfully talented people out there!!!

{{{HUGS}}}

Paper Piercing and Roses

Well...here I am after a couple of weeks. I made this card a while ago but have suffered from what my husband calls "a brain fart", lol (I hope that wording does not offend anyone) I just could not think of a thing to write. Finally, I decided to just sit down, type and hope that it all makes sense.

Thank you Checkerbeads and Lisa808, for answering the question I asked in my last post. Both of these wonderful ladies have fantasic blogs full of beautiful and unique creations which you can find by clicking on their names. I am glad that you said you don't mind reading the supplies" through out the post. To be honest, I really am not sure how to write any other way than to "talk" in it :o)

I did decide, though, to add a list of supplies at the bottom of my posts for those who are short on time and are not able to read the whole post.

I absolutely love paper piercing, paper stitching and paper tole. The past few months, I have not had much time to do so because of babysitting my grandson. But...I had to take the past 6 weeks off of sitting due to some surgery I had. Yee haw...time to do my fav!

This is a paper pricking pattern from Fred She Said that comes in the kit called "Diamond Rose w/Paper Pricking Pattern". Such a pretty pattern. I have seen lots of people color in part of patterns (especially those who do paper stitching) and wanted to give it a try. With a such a simple pattern, it was soooo easy to do.

I am not sure if you can tell, but I used 3 paper piercing tools on this, each in a different size. The largest for the leaves, mid size for the flourished and the smallest for the vine in the leaves. Of course, pearls are a must!

This rose is from the same kit. In Photoshop Elements, I cropped off the paper piercing pattern on the corners, deleted the pre-colored background (using the wonderful Magic Wand) and printed the rose 4 times. I made the rose 4 layers but the top and bottom leaves only 2 layers.

If you look closely at the first 2 photos in this post, you can see I replaced the deleted background color with a softer one using chalk.

For the base of the card I used the Ruche paper I purchased from Paper Temptress. What I really like about this paper is that it adds a nice texture without having to pull out embossing templates and my big shot (saves time, tee he he). The colors tend to better match my color schemes than other papers also.

I just love this patten paper called English Rose by Kaiser Craft, which a dear friend Elizabeth gave me. Wasn't that just the sweetest!!! She has a beautiful blog called Visions Of Paper, which has the loveliest creations, that you can get to HERE.

This is 12 x 12 paper which I very rarely use since the patterns are much bigger than I think look good on a card. I find this paper not only beautiful, but easily cut so that the pattern doesn't make the card looked cluttered with the larger images.

I very rarely use rub-ons on paper either. These rub-ons go on so easily and completely, I just can't help but use them to snaz up the card. In 2 photos, above you can see the 5 flower and 4 leaf rub-ons I used for the inside of the front. 

In the photo just above that one (3rd one up) you can see how well they rub on and adhere to the paper. You can't even tell they are rub-ons, they look so much like a part of the paper. I just love that, since one of the reasons I don't like rub-ons is the "frame" (for lack of a better word) around the image.

You can barely see it here unless you click on the photo, but I added some rub-on words to the left center rose and the lower left corner of the opposite side.

Phewww...I guess I was not lacking words to write, lol. Thank you so much for stopping by!

• Image: Fred She Said Diamond Rose w/Paper Pricking Pattern
• Pricking Pattern: Fred She Said Diamond Rose w/Paper Pricking Pattern
• Paper: Ruche from paper Temptress, English Rose by Kaiser Craft, Neenah Classic, layer under main image is from SU though I don't remember what color
• Rub-ons: Part of the English Rose Paper Collection
• Accessories: Jet Ink Printer, Paper piercers, chalk, dimensionals, pearls from Pizzazz Aplenty, 2mm   ribbon from Hanky Panky Crafts (sorry I don't remember which color this is), copic markers for around the cut layers

{{{HUGS}}}

Paper Piercing Butterflies And A Couple Of Questions

I am so excited that I was able to do something in the craft room this week. Using the big shot kind of gave me some stomach cramping, but nothing that would keep me from playing!

I received this template in about 3 weeks ago from Ecstasy Crafts. It is weird that it has no name, only being listed as "exclusive small template". It comes with a piercing/embossing mat that is the perfect size for the template, which is nice especially for the low price.

Anyway...After embossing it the first time, I tried to color it with my copics. WOW...what a mess it was. The colors bled so bad, which surprised me. I really thought that copics dried fast on anything.

For the corners I used part of a flower flourish that is on the template. Really wish I could have colored them, but with the embossing you can still tell they are flowers, lol. HMMMMMM..I am wondering now if color pencils would have worked. Funny I don't think of these things until talking (typing, lol) about it.

I was able to use spray adhesive on the butterfly die cut to adhere it to the vellum, but it did not work to adhere the vellum to the shimmery base paper. I ended up using my ATG which, surprisingly, did not show through. Good to know!

The edge embossing is also made up of 2 flourishes on the template plus a tiny flower centered on each edge.

This flourish was cut out from the same homemade paper as the butterfly die cut. I have had this paper for years and finally found something to use it on. I pull it out all the time and it never seemed to go with anything I was doing. Coloring it with a copic made it a bit darker than I expected, so I covered it with some stickles.

It always amazes me that the camera picks up details that the eye does not see. In real life the flourish looks completely and evenly covered, but in the photo it looks the opposite. I wonder if I should not have gotten such a good camera, lol

Here is a "bow" I made...ha ha ha...doesn't look like a bow because of the type of ribbon. It is a 3 loop "bow". It looks to me that if I made it a 4 loop "bow", it would have looked like a flower. I'll have to try that next time.

This is all those things put together to made the front of the card, lol

The butterfly embossed paper I used under the vellum only comes in white. I used my brilliance blue ink pad to color it. I have no idea how others get the embossing to stay white when doing this. I just could not get the butterflies to stay white no matter how much pressure I put on the ink pad. Do any of you know the trick to this? Though it doesn't look bad this way, I think that if the ink did not get into the embossing, the white butterflies would have really looked pretty.

I have never used the smaller dies from this set, though I have used the large one quite a few times. Figured I should finally give them a chance. This tiny embossed butterfly, which does have some piercing around it, is also on the template.

Here is the inside. I only used the tiny, tiny pearls here, as opposed to a larger size in the butterflies on the front. I figured that would make it easier to write the note. I really like how the flourishes looks here. When I was finished the inside, I thought "wow, I think I like this better than the outside" tee he he
Thank you all for sticking with me though I have not been able to post often. I am not as tired as I have been, so am looking forward to checking out your blogs and leaving comments this coming week.

I also have my Egg Transformer blog finished as well as the Etsy store. All I need to do is take photos and plug them in. I have been told by a few people that I should also sell some of my eggs in the Etsy store. What do you think?

I have another question for you all. I have noticed that several blogs just list the items used at the end of their post rather than talking about them in the post. I suppose that would make the post shorter, which is most likely better to read, but I am not sure. Do you prefer the items listed at the end?
{{{HUGS}}}

Not Months, But Moments

These are 2 of the very first unmounted stamps I had purchased. Of the gazillion or so unmounted stamps I have bought these are only 2 of them that have not touched ink. I have decided to pull out all these unused stamps and bring some life to them. Going through my image book, I found this image and sentiment went really well together.

I absolutely love the Memorybox Dies. They cut so perfectly. The border is called Butterfly Chain and the flourish is Elegant Scrollwork. I was quite unsure about purchasing the flourish since it is such a "thin" flourish with lots of swirls. I could just picture ripping it trying to get it out of the die. It never happened! The flourish just falls out of the die perfectly on it's own.

I am not sure if I said this in other posts, but just in case...The best way to adhere intricate die cuts is to use a spray adhesive. I use the 3M Spray Mount which does not become permanent right away, so you have time to get the item placed just right.

WOW, check out this card stock! I am soooooo in love with it. I found it at a scrapbook store about 1 1/2 hours from my house. I so wish I could find it local or even on line. It is kind of expensive, but the emboss and shimmer of the card stock is stunning. Hmmmm....wonder if there are more embossed designs out there beside the butterflies! OH, how I wish I knew how to Google it!

These flowers are from the wedding isle at Micheal's. They come in a huge bunch for 1 or 2 dollars. I took the yellow center off of them and added rhinestones to match. The pink tear drop things are part of the bunch and easily come apart to use.

I have the hardest time getting a good picture when I used the shimmer paper (well...actually...I only use shimmer paper, lol) I have been playing with the white setting on my camera and that seems to help a little. I have tried to edit the photos with Microsoft Picture Manager Editing Program, which really does not do much at all. I have tried editing in my Photoshop Elements and that does work much better. I have yet to figure out how to get the colors to remain the way they really are as I play with the lighting though. I guess there is always something new to learn!

I just signed up for an online Quilling class through My Creative Classroom. I have taken a few classes from them and have learned a lot from them. For the next few weeks you will probably be seeing quite a few quilled project!

Have a wonderful weekend...HUGS

Confession and Collage Card

OK, I have to confess that I have a new addiction which has been taking up way to much of my time. It is called Pinterest. Yikes...if you have not discovered this yet, you may want to stay away...it it HIGHLY addictive.

I have found so many things I now want to try. The first is home made cleaning products, lol, which sound like they not only clean better than store products, but will smell better too.

Then there are gazzilions of paper craft projects that people "pin". I have "repinned" or liked so many that I want to CASE. Now all I have to do is get off the computer, tee he he

I did break myself from the site for a bit the other day and decided to try a new product I got in from Hero Arts.

This set, called Collage Background, includes a background stamp and matching embossing folder. I was skeptical at first but it comes out perfect and very easy to line up.

Although I used my favorite shimmer paper, I used Brilliance ink to stamp the image. It is hard to tell here unless you click on the photo, but the image has a beautiful shimmer to it.

The back ground stamps is for a 5 1/2 x 4 1/4" card. I like to make mine a bit bigger, usually 5 1/2" squared. To make it work with some layers and pattern paper, I cut a bit off the top of the background.

After adding the jewels to some of the music notes, I felt like the jewels were over powering them. To make them "stick out" more, I went over those few with a blue copic marker.

 The butterfly on the inside is actually from another Hero Art set called Antique Flowers and Butterflies. This set has dies to cut the images with, making it so much more versatile. Being another new set that came in, I wanted to see how well it worked. As you can see, it worked great with the butterfly matching the front image quite well.

Yayyyyy...I finally got a new siggie. I could not figure out why the old one would not work and it drove me nuts. Found this one on the Whimsey Stamps site and fell in love with it. You get both a siggie for your blog and a water mark for only $5.00! They have several to choose from which you may want to check out here.

HUGS 

Birds and Butterflies

(WARNING: lots of pictures for you to see what I am talking about >>>big smile, and lots of links for you to check out!)

I know I don't usually post on Saturday, but I just HAD to share with you a new blog and store I found. You are going to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. The blog is Nicecrane Designs. WOW, what stunning creations she has, what talent. She also has a store Nicecrane Designs you will not be disappointed when you check it out.
The designs are like no other I have seen and her prices are so fantastic. I could not decide what to buy, since everything is so lovely.

Here I am sharing some of her pre-colored images, but...she has the most beautiful digi stamps I have ever seen and I have seen a lot! After looking at her blog and store, I found my mojo, YEAH. I did not color any of the digis I bought yet because my mother had emergency surgery on her appendix last week. So...I made some simple projects to share with you.

First, I just had to make the pretty butterflies that I shared a tutorial for you >>> HERE. In the tutorial the butterflies are about 1/2". These I made a bit larger, between 1- 1 1/2". So much easier and perfect for adding to paper crafts.

I hope you can see the dimension of the paper tole used for the wings.
These butterflies have such beautiful detail. You can purchase the set of them HERE and make your own. They really are simple and if you have any questions about them you can always email me.

The wonderful thing about these butterflies is the detail they have. Much better than any clip art you would find. Here are some close ups for you to see what I mean.

Next I made some super duper fast bookmarks using the stunning Audubon Bookmarks. All you need to do is print out the bookmarks, cut (of course, lol) adhere to paper and add ribbon. She adds tastles to hers and they are fantastic you can see one HERE. I do not have tastles, so I used silk ribbon. To make sure the ribbon did not rip the holes, I added some of the Aleene's quick dry tacky glue around them.

Aren't they stunning. I simple love the sentiments on each of them. Here are some close ups for you to see the details.

For the base, I used the fantastic Ruche paper from Paper Temptress to add some texture and interest to the back.

 I hope you like these and check out her blog and store, but...make sure you have some time, there is so much to see and you won't want to miss any of it.

Enjoy your holiday weekend.

HUGS,