TIPS AND TECHNIQUES

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

A Non-Card Halloween

So I decided to post a non card Halloween greeting.  I was looking for a Halloween craft to do with my granddaughter and saw these Halloween blocks at a craft show.  They looked super easy so I thought what the heck a 6 year old can do this along with a little help from my Cricut for the letters.


The blocks are just scrap 2 x 4's that I had my husband cut into 5" pieces.  We painted the sides with Black acrylic paint and then picked out some printed Halloween card stock and cut it to fit.  Ours were cut 3.5 x 5 but all 2 x 4's are different and not true 2x4 so cut your papers according to your block size.  We then went to my Cricut and using the Plantain School cartridge we cut out 3" letters to fit on the block.  We liked the way the blocks with the O's on them looked sideways but you could place them upright.   These sit on our fireplace mantles along with some wooden pumpkins and wooden candy corns for decoration.   Whats also cool about these is that you can reverse them for Christmas.
Back side of BOO
Same blocks .... different season!  Pretty cool huh?  My granddaughter loved making these and we just might make a few more for gifts.  I was thinking of using 4 blocks instead and have 1 side read FALL  and the other Noel.  
Well that's my little non card greeting.  Just wanted to share!

HAPPY CARDING!

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Oh Christmas Tree!

Another day...another Christmas!  This stamp is certainly getting a work out!  Then again it could because I only brought 3 stamps with me to the cabin.  LOL  This one I really don't like much and I will be re-doing it in the future.  I tried to make a scallop on the side using a salt shaker for the template and a razor knife to cut it.  First it's way too large of a scallop and secondly cutting with a razor knife stinks!  Or maybe I just stink at using a razor knife which is definitely possible.  

  To hide all my bloops when I cut the scallops I added little dashes to them.  Not my best idea for sure and then I had made a slight score, in order to keep scallops even, that I thought I could press out but that failed too.   Now looking at it I guess I should have also dashed the banner so it stands out more but........

  This card is definitely a would of, should of, could of!  LOL.  I guess we can't get it right all of the time and I just thought I'd share my mistakes.  We all make them right?  
  
  I think I'm going to go through my granddaughters decorative scissors and grab a few for the cabin so I have a few more options.  She'll never miss them!

  Back to the drawing board........lets see what I want to do next.  Until then..........................





HAPPY CARDING!


Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Simply Christmas update

Well I mentioned in my post "Simply Christmas" that I was going to try using that stamp on different color cardstock and with silver or gold ink.  So down to my craft room I went, dug out paper, ink and emboss powders.  I just so happened to have silver and gold powders and decided to put it over silver or gold ink.  First let me say that just using the silver or gold on the darker cardstock alone looked great.  I did the gold both on the black and the red cardstock and used elegant gold embossing powder and on the green paper I used the silver ink and embossing powder.




Ok this pic I used a flash













             And this one had no flash












What is with and taking pictures.  I swear I never get the result I want.  As usual these card fronts look waaayyyy better in real life.  Guess you'll just have to take my word for it.  Go ahead an give these a try with a similar stamp for a really elegant looking card.  I especially love the gold on the black.  can't wait to put these cards together.

  Well tanks for checking back.  I just wanted to show the results using different ink and colored paper.

HAPPY CARDING!!!!!!!! 

Simply Christmas

Ahhhhh.....I think I'm really getting into the Christmas season and Halloween isn't even here yet!  Plus I still need to make 3 more Halloween Cards!  I think I'll work on those this weekend.  But for now it's another Christmas card and this one is sooooo darn simple!
  I used a stamp by Our Daily Bread called Christmas Tree Collage.  It's a cling stamp so very easy to position.

The card base is a basic 4.25" x 11" white cardstock 110# Recollection brand, scored at 5.5".  I then matted with a piece of cherry red cardstock 4 1/8" x 5 3/8".  Next was white card measuring 4" x 5 1/4" .  Centering the stamp so that there is a white border I stamped using color box black ink and then covered it with clear embossing powder.  The ornaments are colored in with a glitter gel pen.  Organza ribbon with a clear rhinestone finishes it off.  This card seriously only took like 8 minutes to make.  Imagine how many of these you could whip up in an afternoon!  As usual my inside is not stamped since I tend to like to write something personal to each person receiving my cards.  Well I know if I need just a few extra cards I'll be making these.  Maybe change up the mat color to blue or green and color ornaments to match or maybe stamp the image in red or green or gold and leave the ornaments clear with glossy accents.   Ohhhhh....another idea would be to stamp silver or gold on Red, Green or Black cardstock.  I bet that would look pretty elegant.  Maybe I'll try that this afternoon.
Hope you have a wonderful day........................

HAPPY CARDING!