Dylusions Journal books by Ranger

While still under "Shelter in Place" in the state of Illinois one can craft their hearts out!  If you know me you know I love crafting with the grandkids when they are around so I am not always making cards.  Unfortunately for me the grands cannot be here due to the current nation wide situation.  Although we believe that our households are clean and clear of the virus we do not want to chance it.  While cleaning out the kids craft closet I found 2 Ranger journals.  One I bought and actually bought 2 of them and gave one to my granddaughter and the other one was given to me as a gift to put techniques in that I have tried so I don't forget.  My granddaughter and I had started the other ones with just daily writings.  That one has some premade decorated pages and we just wrote our thoughts on some of them.  She has done alot more than I but neither of us decorated our outside. Its more like a diary type journal. It can be gotten here .
So I had decided it was time to decorate.  I just happened to have some of the dylusions paints so after I gesso'd the outside I went to town.  You can also use regular acrylic paints.  Just have fun with a background.  Next add some texture.  I used the top of jars to make the circles and some mesh from an orange bag for added texture.  I then added some stamps.  Oh and a bit of washi tape.  I then wanted to seal mine.  Though no where have I seen anyone else seal their's.  I just used regular semi gloss poly.  I just like the added protection.

The second one I have was, like I said a gift.  I have put little things in there such as some paperclip art, a few ATC's some stenciling.  But again the cover was not decorated.  Here's where you can see the one I'm talking  about.  journal .

I am loving the brightness of these.  I can't wait to show my granddaughter.  Maybe we can craft via messenger!  LOL 

Now to work on more of the inside pages.  You Tube here I come.  Oh and probably Amazon too.  Because you know I'm going to need a few more supplies right?

Til next time.........................................

HAPPY CARDING

Double Point Card

How is this for super adorable?   Saw this on Pinterest and just had to make one.  Okay maybe 2 or 3 lol.  I wanted to play with sizes.

This one is a basic 4.25" x 5.5" card base that I used a seafoam green for.  The double points are then attached to the 4 x 5.25 piece of cream shimmer paper.  I used 2 different ovals on the top point and made the flower from a die.  The little SMILE banner is popped up so that the bottom of the oval can slip underneath to keep the points closed.  If you flip the oval up it reveals a secret message.  Then your main greeting goes inside the card base.

As you can see I used a little vase to keep the card base open a little.  

I wanted to change this up a bit too so on my directions it will be for a flat card and not a regular side opening card base.

So here's what you'll need:

4.25" x 5.5" flat non opening base
4" x 5.25" mat piece
2 pieces 3" x 4"
An oval , square, or rectangle size your choice in base color
a mat piece to put on your oval, square, or rectangle
Then a flower or butterfly your choice.
Use scraps to make little sentiment banner to keep points closed

With your 3x4 pieces score with 3" side on top at 1" on both pieces fold back and then take the bottom corner and bring to center as shown in picture. Glue these little triangles down. Then attach the 1" scored end to the back of your mat piece and fold the points to the front.  Then attach the mat to the flat 4.25 x5.5 base.  You can see what the back should look like in bottom left picture when score line have been glued to back of mat.

Picture on the right above is how it should look when you glue mat to base.  Remember this one is a flat base.  If you want it to open just like a regular card just make the base a regular card base.  Then time to decorate.  I used a 2.75" and a 2.25" stitched squares for my center.  On the outside top point the only part of the square glued is the top.  Bottom is left unglued so that it may slip under sentiment.  I also chose to use a butterfly on the front instead a flower.

In all honesty I'm not crazy about this one.  The butterfly could have been better and the colors are too bright for me but it does show the process.  Choose your favorite papers and give this one a try.

Til next time..........................
HAPPY CARDING

A Call Out for Cards

Well being Sheltered in Place is certainly allowing me to get some cards done and dig through my stash.  Yesterday I got an email from a local Scrapbook Store wanting to fill there carousel with home made cards.  For each card you donate you get to put your name into a drawing for some fun stuff from the store.  Since the store has to remain close at the moment due to the virus the owner has said we could mail in our creations.  I always have extra cards here since I love making them but never have enough people to give them to.  Most of the time these cards end up in a shoe box where I forget about them and then one day I'll go through them and think..."Huh...I don't really like these anymore".  LOL  Do any of you ever do that or am I the only one?  So this gave me the opportunity to create and get rid of at the same time!  I'll have to go re-read the email because I don't remember exactly how this was suppose to work.

So I thought I'd start with 2 real simple cards.  I got a couple new dies and embossing folders and I was dying to try them.  Embossing folders always look so nice with shimmer paper.  Plus I don't have to do a sentiment inside because it was requested that they be left blank.  Awesome!

Now time to go try a Fancy Fold!  My favorite kind of card. So........
Til next time.........................

HAPPY CARDING

A Birthday Card to Die Cut For

Recently I was at a Scrapbook show where I had a coupon for 50% off 1 die at the Tessler booth.  I found this beautiful orchid die and knew I just had to have it.  Since I needed a birthday card for my sister I thought this would be a good time to use the die.  Not being sure what I wanted to do I went through my papers and decided most of the card would be made with shimmer paper (love shimmer) and then I remembered someone once on You Tube die cut out their flowers on vellum.  I cut multiple flowers from the vellum as well as a base of the flowers from white shimmer paper.  On the vellum I rubbed some versa inks on the paper before I die cut them out and then layered each flower.

I tried to keep things simple again due to mailing issues during this Corona virus "Shelter in Place".  Not to take any chances I have decided to avoid the post office for the time being.  Which means I can't determine the correct postage if my card is too heavy.  But I think even with the simplicity it's pretty sweet.  I embossed the front with a Darice folder.  I probably should have also embossed the cream oval too but didn't think of it until after I put the card together.  I'm sure I'll make another so I'll try more embossing then.

Stay Healthy and til next time.......................

HAPPY CARDING

More Easter Magic

I absolutely love this die set by Christina Griffins.  It is so versatile. Today I have a few more card examples from this die.  First these are the pieces I used to make my cards.

When you cut out the lattice egg all those little pieces fall out so if you cut out a few in different colors you can mix the pieces up and replace them into the openings of the lattice.  As you can see above there are all the little pieces.  Below is how the card turns out when pieced.  I love it.  The die set also came with a little die that cuts those bows which was the perfect touch to the card.

Then another way to use the die is to back the lattice with a solid egg shape of a patterned paper.  This is not as fussy as the piecing one is.

This can be used 2 different ways.  First way is as above where you have the lattice piece placed on top of the solid piece and it would then be placed on a card front.  The other way is using the lattice die right on the card front as a window and then on the inside of the card place a piece of designer paper behind it.

The purple one is where I layered the egg on top of the card front and the Gold one is where I used the Egg die as a window and backed it with designer paper.  The gold card is not complete but I wanted to show you the different way to use the dies. Both of them just had designer paper behind the lattice.    

Thanks for checking these out.  Maybe you'll find a reason to get these dies too.

Til next time...............................

HAPPY CARDING

Paper Clip Bookmarks

Still on the Governors Shelter in Place so there are more crafts to be done.  I had decided that I was going to use this time to make embellishments.  Fussy cutting everything and digging through drawers of miscellaneous do dads.  There are alot of people into the paperclip phase.  They are cute and can be used on cards or even in journals.  Like the Junk Journals alot of other people are making.  When I thought of Junk Journals, what came to mind were bookmarkers.  Then I also thought of the Bible journals some are doing and I thought why not make paperclip Bookmarks for Junk and Bible Journals?  I have one of those Ranger Journals that I have not used yet and decided the first thing in my journal will be the bookmarker.  I bet you could use these in regular book too and since its a paperclip it won't fall out of your book.  That's a plus right?

So here we go.  These will be super simple ones but you can bet I will be doing more complexed ones in the near future.
I decided to use card stock cut at 2" x 5.5".  This way you can get 8 from a 8.5 x 11" sheet.  I used my fancy 1  7/8th" scallop circle punch and the Paper Studio's Tag punch. I also used 2 different sized butterfly punchs and some more of those paper shreds I made on my Cutterpiller trimmer.

These are the ones I've done so far.  I turned 1 of the unfinished  ones backwards so you could see where I put the clips. The stamp set that I used for the bottom markers was a freebie in a magazine I get.  I have so many of these freebies that I have never used and I thought it was about time I find a use for them.

Now I need to think of more ideas with these clips.  I swear I must have 100 of them if not more.

Til next time.....................
HAPPY CARDING

Spring Birthday

Well it's suppose to be spring.  At least according to the calendar but then we get 3.5 inchs of snow!!!  Whhhaaatttt!!! This is crazy!  Although it all melted in a few hours and the streets and sidewalks were warm to prevent the snow from sticking so we didn't have to shovel.  Yay!!  More time for carding.

My niece has her birthday the end of this month.  She loves (at least that's what she tells me) my cards.  I usually go all out with a ton of layers and lots of 3D embellies.  But these days are stressed.  People are suppose to shelter in.  That means I will not be going to the post office to get the proper amount of postage on her card.  So I opted for a less fancy and way more flat card that I can slip into my mail box for the postman to pick up.

I love this Egg die by Christina Griffiths called Extravagant Egg Die.  I've used this on a few Easter cards I posted earlier Seen here .  This die set is so versatile.  It wakes beautiful shaker cards but also works well as a window card using the lattice piece as I did here.  I backed the lattice with a swirl holographic paper.  I used Perfect pearls at the cross pieces to look like dimension but not add weight as rhinestones would.  All my flowers remained flat with little perfect Pearls centers.  The finished size of this card is 5x7 so it is on the larger side.  I'm sure my niece will love it.

Thanks for stopping by.  Til next time..................

HAPPY CARDING

COVID-19 The CRAFTERS WAY

Hello....Hope everyone is managing the Covid-19 lock downs. As a paper crafter this is like a mini vacation for me.  I don't have to watch the grandkids, though in all honesty I miss the heck out of them.  That being cleared up....it also give me more alone time.  Which for me is crafter heaven.  I am probably like most of you paper crafters and have supplies to last me well into the next decade of crafting!  So get the creative juices going and lets make some embellies.

Now alot of time we find it much easier to just buy the embellies we need.  Truth be told.we probably have plenty of store bought ones all over our craft rooms.  But.....we now have time to PLAY!  What about some happy mail to a friend or two who are card makers/papercrafters?  Especially those miles and miles away who you only have internet connections to.  

Today's post is all about the infamous paper clip.  People all over Pinterst are crazy about these.  They take ordinary paperclips, jazz them up and use them on cards and scrapbook pages.  I myself have made a few not so fancy ones that I have added to my G45 cards in the past.  But today????  I'm using clips that were given to me by a friend.  When I got them I thought "Wow these are weird".  Left them in the envelope and tossed them into the closet until I could be inspired.  I took those gems out and found some scraps along with a 6x6 G45 paper pack I had and went to work.

These clips were plastic and 5 attached in a row.  I separated them and then went for the paper and scraps.  Not everyone will have these clips but you can use plain old paperclips from the office supply store.  They will work too.

To give you a little bit of an idea of sizes I used for these particular clips The scallop circles were 2" and the fancy scallops were 1 7/8".  The Kraft colored flags on the bottom were 1" x 2.25".  The Designer paper tags were punched from an old Stampin up punch.  The mat pieces for the tags were 1 1/8th" x 1 7/8th" black shimmer paper.  The smaller paper ribbons are also Kraft paper in photo but you most definitely can use designer paper for these.  They measure 1/2" x 2.5".  Paper shreds at the top were from cutting slivers of cardstock on my Cutterpillar rotary cutter.  It can cut such fine shreds that curl by themselves.  Love using these as an added wow.  I also used crunch flowers on some of the clips which I made using a 2" scallop circle, wet the circle and scrunch it up.  Set aside to dry and add a little glitter.

Now Just have fun and play.  Add little sequins or bling here or there.  Maybe some Stickles add a little envelope...whatever.  You decide.  Then package them up if you want to give in Happy Mail.

Here's the start of mine.  With being sheltered in place this is a great way to spend time.  As easy as these look when finished they can be time consuming as you pick out all the do dads and piece everything together.  Start small...make 4 at a time so your not overwhelmed and you'll find as you go ways you'll change it up for the next 4.


Til next time.....................
HAPPY CARDING

Random Act of Kindness Easter Cards

So I wrote this last week with all intentions to have the grandkids start on these this weekend.  Then...................Corona.😞😞.  Then to top it off the grandkids great grandmother on their mothers side passes at the young age of 96.  She lived in the building we were going to hand out the cards to.  Saturday I got the word that the Senior Apartments have locked down.  No visitors allowed and no residents can leave.  Add to that the fact that the rest of the world is also on lock down for the next 2 weeks which means that I can only Skipe the grandkids.  No fun crafting time with them allowed .  It's a crazy time.  So I will be putting together these cards and try to figure out how to pass them on.
I had posted earlier that I thought I would make some cards for a local Senior Apartment.  Its an old building from the 1800's and has approximately 40 units.  The lay flat pop out card seemed ideal to mass produce.  As soon as they are done I will have the grandkids join me to deliver them for Easter.  I'm having the kids also help me with the assembly.  I had to make a sample for them and I didn't want it too complicated.  I had a few of those super old Sizzix steel rule dies with an Easter theme and decided to use them.  Its been along time since I dug these out.  It was really fun to crank these once again.  Here's my sample card.

  

The Bunny, eggs and grass were all the old sizzix dies.  I used a Tonic egg punch for the little eggs.  The Easter greeting stamp is an old wood mounted stamp from Hampton Arts.  A 1.5" circle punch cuts it out pretty close.  Who can resist pretty spring color sequins.

Stay safe out there my friends.................
HAPPY CARDING!

Simple Easter Card

There are so many pretty Easter cards out on the internet.  It makes it hard to decide which ones I'd like to make.  First of all for me I do not send out many Easter cards.  In fact I usually only send out 3 or 4 plus the grandkids.  But make them?  I could do alot!  Maybe the manufactures need to make less pretty Easter Papers.  lol  Anyway this card is a mix of Recollection solid card stock for the layers, a very old scrap of a Paisley print paper and a Cut a part from Authentique.

The die cut is from Spellbinders called Bella Luse.  I added a few Stickle dots on the flowers and the cross is actually a Cupcake poke from Hobby Lobby in their holiday baking section.  I just cut off the tooth pick part.  See I was thinking outside of the box.  I'd show you the inside but it is totally blank.  I have not thought of the right sentiment to put in there yet.  Also since this is like the 6th Easter card I've made and I still have at least 2 or 3 more nearly completed and I still have to do the kids I'm pretty sure this one will probably just stay in the Easter box.  Unless I give it to the mailman.  Hmmmmm  that's a thought.  lol

Til next time........................
HAPPY CARDING

Shabby Chic-ish Easter Gatefold card

Good morning.  It's a rainy day here but spring is trying to arrive and I'm trying to be more springy in my creations.  I am such a huge fan of Shabby Chic.  Decor, cards, tags, etc.  So it is easy for me to put together some cards with that theme.  I think that's why I love G45 paper lines and Authentique.  Both remind me of days gone by where you use alot of lace and buttons and bows.  So for todays card I decided on a gatefold.  I am not using a particular line of papers but instead dug through some scraps.  Nothing says "Shabby" like scraps.  lol  I love the color combination of Purple and green.  Always reminds me of Easter and I love making real and by real I mean extremely "Shabby" flowers.  The ones on this card are incredibly easy to make. 
First lets look at the card shall we?

 Here it is opened:

This card is full of layers.  The wreath greenery is a die that is actually a Christmas one but so much layering is over it that you can't really tell that it has holly leaves on it.  Instead your eyes go to those strange looking flowers.  So how did I make them?  I used 3 different size punches.  A  2" scallop, a 1.5" scallop, and a 3/4" scallop.  If you don't have the punches just use a set of scallop nesting dies and use the 3 smallest ones.  Each flower is only 1 scallop circle.  Punch (diecut) the circle...soak in some water to soften the paper then while wet lay it flat on the table and using your finger tips squish the edges to the center.  Squish a few times.  Its never too much...never to little.  No 2 circles will look the same which is what makes it Shabby Chic.

   

 
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                     I then place them on a paper towel and let them dry over night.  Do they need the whole night?  Heck no but it's the way I work.  I do all my flowers at night so that by morning I am ready to start fresh with the next step.  After they are all dry its time to bling them up.   For these I used a paint brush and some Twinkle paints for a glittered look.  But you could use some glue and sprinkle some tiny beads or dry glitter.  You can use solid card stock or printed card stock to make the flowers.  Its all up to you.  I love making these.

Well I hope you enjoyed this card.  Til next time......................

HAPPY CARDING

More Treat Boxes for St Patty's Day

Hopefully the Luck of the Irish will bless us with Leprechaun perfect weather for St Patty's Day.  I remember when my grand son was just a baby it was 80 degrees here in Chicagoland.  Although I'm out in the Northern burbs where our towns have alot of Irish festivities.  That year we were able to put on our green and watch the parade in shorts.  The 5k race had alot of on lookers because it was so beautiful out and we all got to enjoy our Corn beef and cabbage hot off the smoker.  Mmmmmm...what a perfect day.  None since!  LOL  With some luck we may be able to do it again this year.  We can always hope right? 

For early prep I decided to do little treat boxes for the table decoration.  The grandkids loved getting the little treat boxes at Christmas and Valentines Day so I thought I'd do them again for St. Patty's day.  This time I will fill them with golden coin chocolates.

I used the paper pack Dublin from Authentique.  Love these vintage looking papers.  Since the boxes are so little you don't need alot to embellish them.  These go together so quickly.  I'm sure if I had more people to hand them out to I would have kept on going.  LOL.

I think these are adorable and the kids are going to love them.  Well at least they will love whats inside.  I mean who doesn't love chocolate?

Til next time
HAPPY CARDING.

March 1 Stamp Challenge

It's that time again.  Time to see where these 2 little critters ended up.  Not to sound like a broken record but I decided to challenge myself by...well basically stealing (lol sorry Kelly & Jeanette) an idea from  friends who do challenges all the time.  And let me tell you these ladies are amazing for many many reasons but for one they actually participate in alot of challenges and complete them!  Me???  Ha, I'm such a slacker.  But last year I saw they had a personal challenge for the year of picking 1 stamp (each lady picked their own) and they would create a card each month using only that one stamp.  So silly me when I saw they were going to do it again this year I thought "What the heck, I'm going to try"  I mean how hard can it be?  They can do it and I can use my brain once in awhile.  The challenge allows you to use any papers you want, any fold, any embellies but only 1 stamp.  No Problem!  So for today's card I jumped on the fancy fold and the theme of the month.....St Patty's Day of course.

Here they are.  My little Trash Panda's as I like to call them.  I think I might give these guys a name since we will become so close during the rest of the year and although I like the nickname "Trash Panda's" that I gave them, they really do deserve a real name.  Don't you think?  Anyway Chicago is well known for their St Patty's celebrations.  I have a brother in law who owns a Jazz club right near where all the festivities occur and it's a BIG day for the club.  So I thought my little guys should get ready to party and as you can see they found their hats and are ready to go.  I made the hats just cutting a little oval in half and added a brim.  I fussy cutted the shamrocks and blinged everything up with gold sequins to resemble gold coins from a pot of gold.  I did not have a sentiment stamp so my Sharpie Marker came to the rescue.  I used the corner fancy fold as the card base and added a little triangle pocket on the bottom right in which a little Ireland tag is sticking out.

So I think I have names.........Bert and Barry.  I like it!  Bert and Barry can't wait to show you what they are up to next month.  Oooooo I think I might be liking this challenge a "Wee Bit".

Til next time...................
HAPPY CARDING!