Thank you card sneak peek

Hi again,

Just thought I'd give you a little sneaky peek at a Thank You card I'm working on. This stamp set is super fun; it's from Art Impressions and it's called Purrrthday. I purchased mine here from Simon Says Stamp a while back.

I colored the image following a tutorial by Kristina Werner but I substituted her Copics with my Spectrum Noirs.

I haven't decided yet if I'll be making a shaker card but it will have a window; that's all I know. As soon as it's finished I'll be sure to post pictures. It's almost nearly done.

Thanks for stopping by. Hoping you're enjoying some nice spring weather.

Have a blessed and crafty day.

Hugs,
Bettina :)

Happy Easter and Happy Spring

Hello there,

Hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Easter and a restful Spring break.

I had the chance to make a few cards over the past couple of weeks. Here they are. The top card is an Easter card and a Mother's Day card. I had actually made a second Easter card like the one shown only with floral background paper but I already sent it out to my daughter.

The penguin card is for my youngest daughter's birthday which is coming up soon (sigh)

The Mother's Day card was inspired by this beautiful card made by Debbie Hughes. I actually used my Cricut Country Life cartridge for the vase and a SSS stamp set that came with the May 2014 card kit. The roses and leaves are cut from vellum and the swirls are white embossed in the front but colored with pigment inks in the back. Then I arranged the elements in three different layers; either flat, or one to two thicknesses of foam tape.

The Easter card is just a 3.5"x3.5" square card. I colored a stamp with Spectrum Noir colored pencils and used Gamsol to blend out the colors. For the background I used some Tim Holtz Salty Ocean (I think) distress ink. Then it's just centered on a scalloped circle die cut and a simple bow for embellishment. Kept it fairly simple. :)

Finally, the birthday card was inspired by this card, which I found on Pinterest. To create the background I applied some white pigment ink onto purple cardstock using a stencil I had. Then I used my Cricut Create a Critter cartridge to cut out some balloons, but I also used an egg die to cut out oval shaped balloons. I didn't like how "flat" the balloons looked so I distressed the edges of each with similar colored distress inks. I created the penguin entirely with the oval egg die which I cut from black and white cardstock and then used my version of punch art but used the die instead. The feet are upside down hearts punched from yellow cardstock. For some fun I gave him googly eyes and a fun hat. I think she'll like the card; I enjoyed making it.

So, those are my card shares for today. Thanks ever so much for stopping by.

Hope to be back soon.

Have a blessed & crafty day!

Hugs,

Bettina :)

Dreamcatcher Card

Hello Crafty Friends,

Very recently I saw this tutorial on YouTube by Yana Smakula. Her YouTube name is ZrobySama and she also has a blog here. She made a beautiful dreamcatcher card and I was finally inspired to make something. LOL. The problem was that I don't have the dies she used or any other kind of dreamcatcher dies but I do have some feather dies and so I made this:

Super happy with how this turned out and I'm working on editing a partial process video. The first thing I did once I got the idea for this card was to watch some YouTube tutorials on how to make a dreamcatcher. I just love YouTube, don't you? Found this very easy-to-follow tutorial by Emily Lefler, the Untidy Artist here. It looked pretty easy so I adapted the process to this card. 

First I cut out a circle from 120lb Recollections white cardstock. Then with a pencil I lightly marked around the opening where I would anchor the beginning part of the "web"; these points were roughly 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock and then  another point in between each of those creating 8 points. Then I used a pin to poke the holes. Instead of using a waxy thread like Emily I used two strands of cream colored embroidery floss. I created a knot, threaded a sewing needle and started from the back side of the cardstock and started creating the web. As I neared the center, I began adding some seed beads.

I added more seed beads after because I didn't quite like how the beads looked all clustered in the center so I basically ended up randomly tying them on and using a bit of glossy accents to make sure the knot didn't come undone.

Next I used my Simon Says Stamp feather dies and cut them out of watercolor paper. I had recently played around with water colors and shimmer sprays and created my own paper and thought it would be a perfect look for the feathers. Then I took some cream colored cardstock and created a circle frame using the same sized circle die I had used to cut the opening and then I used the next size up. Using the slightly larger circle die I also cut out a circle out of some pink cardstock and vellum. I thought the pink was a little too bright and the vellum layered on top helps to soften the color. These two layers make the background of the dreamcatcher. I also put some foam tape to raise the card front and create a space between the card front and the background.

The sentiment is the Chit Chat stamp set from Lawn Fawn. I embossed the sentiment with some Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder but made sure to remove any VersaMark ink from the speech bubble part of the stamp before actually stamping; I didn't want that part of the stamp for this particular card.

Finally, I tied three of the feathers together with the same embroidery thread and glued them to the bottom center of the frame. As a final touch I added a few enamel dots from my stash.

So, that's my card for today. Hope you enjoyed and got inspired to make one, too.

See you soon.

Have a blessed and crafty day.

Hugs,

Bettina :)

Card for a Birthday Boy

Hello crafty friends,

So, here's the birthday card I recently made for a boy. Totally card lifted the layout from Nichol Magouirk with just a few subtle changes. Masculine cards are very hard for me personally because I love to embellish, embellish, and embellish some more. Anyway, I loved the card Nichol created and since I had the exact same card kit it was the perfect solution to my lack of card making mojo. So, here's my card.

The obvious difference between mine and Nichol's card is that I used the game remote stamp that came in the kit because the birthday boy LOVES playing video games (what boy these days doesn't? lol). The more subtle difference is that I used green strips of cardstock instead of red and I also used some sequin. The sequin was more out of necessity to cover up a smudge but I really hadn't intended on using any. I also didn't draw any faux stitch lines. 

Something I learned in the making of this card is that using a stencil is not as easy as it looks when you see it in a video especially when the stencil is smaller than the area you want to cover. Maybe it was just an off-day for me but, yea, I admit I had some issues. I probably should've followed Nichol's tutorial more closely because I didn't stencil & emboss in the same order she did, so, in hindsight, I could've avoided a few problems I had with embossing powder sticking to the stenciled stars, if you get what I'm saying? Ha! I shall say no more...lol. That's my card share for ya'll. Here's a bit of a close-up:

Thanks Nichol Magouirk for the inspiration and thank YOU for stopping by.

Hope you have a blessed & crafty day.

Hugs,

Bettina :)

Milestone Birthday Card

Hi there

Started off the year on rocky footing but I think now things are returning to our normal routine. My eldest daughter had a milestone birthday; she turned 21 and is officially an adult. We are all pretty much in denial including the birthday girl. lol. She liked the Christmas shaker card I made her so much that I decided I'd do it again for her birthday.

I used Tim Holtz watercolor paper which I cut out using my brand new stitched rectangle dies from Simon Says Stamp. I placed this rectangle on my Cricut cutting mat and cut out the numbers with my Cricut Expression 2 using the Cindy Loo cartridge. I figured out how to get the Cricut to cut out the numbers in the corner of the paper and even put in the size of the paper; all that without using my computer. My craft area is not ideal and it's a huge hassel for me to have to bring my computer downstairs. If anyone wants a tutorial on how I did that, I'd be happy to give it a try; just leave me a comment.

Anywho, I used my Avery Elle "Cake and Candles" stamp set to stamp and emboss the sentiment. I also used a black pen to write "st" since I don't have an appropriate stamp set. Then I used the cheap watercolors from Artist Loft, wet down the paper first with a wet brush and then placed soft pinks, yellows, and blues and let them spread out on the wet surface. I dried it with my heat tool and repeated laying down colors until I was happy. Then I used some gold mist and created some splatters. 

Next I glued down some acetate behind the numbers and used some Scott 3D foam tape to create an area to hold the sequins. Then I filled it in with pink and gold sequin from my stash and enclosed it with some scrap white cardstock. Finally, I placed the whole thing down on a top folding 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" white card base (Recollections 110lb cardstock) and "voila". The only finishing touch is the gold heart sticker which I had left over from my SSS December card kit (or was it November? lol)

If I had to do this card over I would use the smooth side of the watercolor paper because I think the stamping would have come out a little better and I also would line up the word "Birthday" a bit lower because the top of some of the letters look like they got cut off. But overall, I'm very happy with how the card turned out and my daughter liked it very much.

Hope you like it, too. I'll have another post coming up soon; it's a birthday card for a boy.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a blessed & crafty day.

Hugs,

Bettina :)

Happy Holidays From My Crafty Heart to Yours

Hi everyone,

With the craziness of the holidays and some other changes in my life (I'm homeschooling now) I have found ZERO time for crafting. I'm so busy during the day now and by the time I have a minute in the evening I'm too tired. lol. I don't know how you guys are able to keep up with your wonderful crafts, blogs, challenges, swaps, videos, etc & manage to stay sane through it all?! Hats off to you ladies & gents for keeping it up and giving us crafty inspiration among the busiest time of the year!!!! I'm in total and utter awe of you and completely inspired as well.

After Christmas I hope to be able to get back to doing at least one post or video per week.

Until then may you all have a merry & bright, safe & blessed Christmas & happy New Year!

Hugs,
Bettina :)

Christmas Cards Galore using SSS Card Kit

Hi there,

I totally didn't realize how much time had past since my last post, but judging by the amount of dust around here it's been a little too long. LOL. I've been busy with this month's SSS card kit and this time I was determined to actually kill the entire kit (this is a first for me). For the most part I succeeded although if my brain didn't hurt so much from trying to think of ways to use the tiniest scraps, I could probably crank out 1 or 2 more. ;P

Anyway, the total number of Christmas cards I was able to make is 23 plus 2 little non-Christmas notecards. Not bad, if I do say so myself. I used 4 of the designs on the inspiration sheet that come with the kit and then made as many variations as possible with the remaining designer paper (which this month is Lawn Fawn's "Snow Day"---sooooooo cute!!!) Once I couldn't make any more variations I did my own thing. So, rather than post a picture of every single card, I thought I'd share a slide show of pics instead. :)

Hope you enjoyed and maybe even saw one you'd like to re-create. Would love to see it, or, if you have this kit, I'd love to see the cards you made with it. (post a comment with your link).

Thanks for stopping by.

Have a blessed & crafty day!
Hugs,
Bettina :)