Rolling in the Green

Hello all and welcome and/or welcome back. I have so many green dots that I am going a bit dotty. I decided to take all of the backgrounds I made and create a variety of cards. I settled on five of each sentiment. 

As you can see the one on the top is more muted than the one below. You can achieve many different looks with the same technique. Had a lot of fun playing. Decided to round the corners on all of the layers.

The sentiment is from Hot Off the Press. The Spellbinder die is the locket one. Got it at Tuesday Morning for pennies. The twine was from the package purchased at Michaels. It does not come across in the photo but the colors are ALL shades of green.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Keep inking in the name of love.

Reverse Bokeh Effect

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of my peeps out there. I do believe that the older you get the faster time moves. This is just about the time when I want the days to drag a bit. Anywho, go shout it from the mountain tops that I have put up another post in under a month. I know ha, ha. Here is what I have been working on these past few weeks. I am calling it my Reverse Bokeh Effect.

  

I wanted to do this with varying shades of green ink, but did not have what i needed so I improvised. These are all Recollections papers and I used my punches to get various sizes. I then inked the circles with White Gesso and counted out at least 23 for each A2 sized card. 

The multi-shape circle embossing folder came in really handy as it continued the illusion of the circles. I made several others along this same theme and will post those at a later date. I could not resist adding a silver glitter to the center of the circles. I suppose gold would have been better, but I did not have any that size.

The sentiment is an old one from G-Studios used with a Spellbinder labels die. I tossed in circular flowers to continue the theme. They are from an old QVC set I ordered many, many moons ago.

Do try this technique using the toned multi-color paper packs available at Michaels. Have fun creating and keep inking in the name of love.
Until then.

The Countdown is ON!!

If you are still thinking about what to do for Valentine's Day for those near and dear to your heart, time is running out.

Wanted to share a few more of the cards that I created. 

The white/cream centers were from a previous Mother's Day project and thought they would be perfect for this card. The LOVE is a Quickutz font. I have a lot of left over letters as there are two on each die. Will definitely use those for another project. For now they are in a baggie together so they won't get too lonely.

The hearts and arrows are from a pack that was recently on sale at Michaels. As you can see I adapted the size of the embossed piece to fit the card. Really liking how the black circles turned out. I punched them from the black paper that is matting the focal elements. Sneaky, I know, but a great paper saver.

This is the two-sided paper pad used for some of my inside sentiments. I believe it was from Bazzill. Will check and correct my post as needed.

Finally, the last cards for today. I think I have about five sheets of the paper left that I used for the cards and will create 6 two-page spreads using that. Yippeee, now I can take advantage of the after Valentine's Day will- you- please- take- this- paper- off -of- our- hands- sale. Why certainly.

Please keep inking in the name of love.

Until then.

Happy Valentine's Day

Oh, my. I cannot believe that my poor blog has seen such neglect from me. I have been a busy bee and wanted to share with you a few Valentine's Day cards that I have cranked out. The stamps are Recollections 2016 except for the Bee Mine.

I am desperately trying to use up the pack of paper (Recollections 2015) that I purchased so that I can justify to myself the need to get a NEW package of love themed paper.

The inside sentiments are cut from a scrapbook page that is double sided. Perfect for making card fronts or inside greetings. They did need to be trimmed as they were 4x6. 

Recollections black card stock is my go to for anchoring my layers. I have considered using the gray one made by Recollections, and just might do that on my next set with some really soft pink paper. I did clean up the Bee smudges with a few gem stones. In card making you can usually cover any bloopers.


Thanks for stopping by and keep inking in the name of love.
Until then.

Merry Christmas

Wow, it is hard to believe that another Christmas is here. If you are like me you promised that you would be READY this year. The best laid plans...and all of that. Well, this is the FIRST year in about 20 years that I did NOT mail out Christmas cards. Made lots of samples but failed to pull one of them together in time. I could have spent Friday evening and early Saturday getting some ready to go, but chose to spend that time with my family. 

I would like to share one of a set of cards that I made for someone else. Hard to believe I got 25 done in 3 days.


We got a live tree this year and it was a lot of fun to get (in the rain) and decorate while drinking hot chocolate (mine laced with Baileys) with Christmas carols playing in the background.
Wishing you the Merriest of Christmases and may God continue to Bless and keep you.
Until then.

Football Themed Birthday Party

Happy 12th Birthday to my wonderful son. He has brought immeasurable  joy and happiness into my life.

Once it was decided that yes, he wanted a party this year; we established the theme. I got busy looking for appropriate items. His cake is from Shoppers Food Warehouse and was delish. I found the cutest file at SVGcuts.com and designed his invitation using the football party set. The fonts are from the HungryJpeg.com June bundle. You should check them out. The August bundle is up and it is too cute. 

I created goodie footballs (Svgcuts.com) for all of the attendees. I had meant to create a tag saying, Thanks for attending my celebration. Hope you had a ball. All of the items were round. ha, ha. well,  I did not pull off that one. Here is the basket that sat on the table at the party. I did suggest to the boys that after emptying the football, use some cello tape to hold it together and you can play football indoors. LOL

An inside look at the loot. I am certain that their dentist will send me beautiful bouquets of roses once he realizes I am the reason for his upsurge in business. The treats were purchased in bulk  and divided out using candy bags and twist ties.

I truly believe the winning touchdown were the tumblers (saveacup.com) that I made to honor their favorite football team. The boys were over the moon when they saw them. Many were thrilled because they finally had a cup with the correct spelling of their names. I used black vinyl (Oracal 651) to cut them out of a varsity font found at dafont.com --a first. These cups do come with a coordinating straw in the color of the lid.

Here are two photos of the opposite side. I printed out the logos using the Cricut printable vinyl. This was another first. I cut them on my Brother Scan n Cut and sprayed them silly with Krylon Acrylic sealer. I am hoping that with care, they will last. At least the vinyl names are there to stay. Yes, we had a lot of Ravens fans in the house. Anyone out there with season tickets that would like to donate a few games? I promise I won't turn down your offer. tee-hee.

We had a grand old time and I love that I got to enjoy the party, too. My party host at Ultrazone Laser Tag did EVERYTHING. Took the boys to the laser tag room, returned them. Served the pizza and unlimited sodas (another boon to the dentist's purse), cleared away all the debris and led the boys in singing Happy Birthday and then served the cake (the dentist owes me BIG time). Alls I had to do was sit back and enjoy. He took them for another game of laser tag--I allowed another parent to play in my place--and i put my heels up and practiced my deep breathing. While they were away he returned to clean the room. Afterwards, I supplied all of the boys with tokens for the arcade and then it was pick-up time by the parents. Whew. That hour and 45 minutes flew quickly. This place offers, invites, cake and goodie bags. Being the crafty gal that I am, I wanted to tackle that part of the party.

That night my sweet angel said this was his best birthday ever and that he did not want to close his eyes because that meant the day was over. I told him no worries, we will celebrate the entire month. Oh, how I love that kid.

Thanks for stopping by.

Until then.

Students' Mother's Day Cards

I know this post is a bit late but wanted to share the cards my kiddos created for mothers day. I stamped the image, they colored it in using colored pencils.

Although I had some embossed panels to use, the children selected their own color choices and did their own inking. They were amazed at how the distress inks and applicators worked. I think I made a few converts.

I also precut some Darice quilling flowers and taught the kids how to roll them to create a flower. We put some Perler bead dots in the center. I was in charge of the hot glue.

The stamped image is backed with a piece of craft foam for a 3-D effect. The greenery is a Sizzix three piece die set.

Not everyone had rolled flowers. I had my Prima containers and generic flowers available and others created their own using brads.

That is our school mascot posing with a set of cards. If you look to the upper portion of the picture you will see the brown craft envelopes that we lined. I taught them how to line up, trace around the flap and cut out the insert. 

This time they had to roll their piece through the embossing machine and wanted to know where they could purchase one. They learned how to line the envelope and where to oplace the glue.  The cards are lined on the inside and we used some of my Martha Stewart border punches to create a cool look. They LOVED punching. 

Several of the girls want to come home with me and craft all day. As in the past I will put together craft bags for those who are truly interested. I have more than enough stuff to get them started. Gotta keep this love for creativity going.

Thanks for stopping by and as always keep inking in the name of love.

Until then.