Thank you

Hi!  I made a simple card to share.  It's a Thank you for my son's preschool teacher's aide.  Her last day is this Friday so even though my son has only known her for a couple months, I thought we could at least make her a couple of thank you cards.  Why do preschool teacher's aides have such a high turnover rate?  It makes it so difficult for children.

My card was inspired by the Deconstructed Sketch #21, PTI's Make It Monday #35--custom washi tape, and Lawn Fawn's WCMD challenge--thank you cards.

I liked the sketch and I wanted to keep my card really simple just to show the custom washi tape.  Cardstock and sentiment is from PTI.  Paper doily is from Martha Stewart.

The widest width scor tape I have is half an inch so I taped 3 strips edge to edge on the tissue paper to make a wider one.  I stamped Lawn Fawn's hearts from Teeny Tiny Backdrops.  Then taped it onto a piece of clear cardstock (PTI) before cutting it with PTI's butterfly die.  The clear cardstock makes it strong enough to keep its shape and is just a bit transparent.  The longer strip is the half inch washi tape.  This is such a neat way to make washi tape!

Also wanted to share the thank you card my son made for his teacher.  He liked the card I had made with TGF's Birthday Ian so wanted to copy it.  His says thank you instead of love you.

I'm off to take the kiddies out for lunch. 

Thanks for reading!

Where are my googly eyes?!

Hi!  I've made another card for PTI's Make it Monday #34 Thick Chipboard accents.  I like making cute stuff for kids so I really wanted to use one of PTI's Boy Basics mini stamp sets.  After going back and forth between the trucks or the rocket or the frog, I finally settled on the frog.  And I thought an interactive card would be fun for a kid and thought the chipboard idea would work well since the many layers really make the die cut pretty sturdy.

So here is PTI's Boy Basics Frog Hop.  I thought a spinner card would be fun.  You can find a tutorial HERE.  I just made an arch instead of a straight path using my old Coluzzle. 

I used PTI's coasters instead of boxes I had around the house.  I layered 4 of the die cut frogs and then the Echo Park DP frog over that.  So the layers kind of make it heavier so it doesn't spin much but it's easy for the child to manipulate and make the frog hop over to the other pad.  Papers over the lily pad die cuts are also from Echo Park.

There he goes, concentrating on that fly.  I couldn't find my googly eyes for the longest time.  I really wanted the frog to have some googly eyes cause he looks so much better with them.  So of course I had to go and buy more though I know I must still have some from before.

Made it safe to the other side. 

I think it would be cute to make similar cards with the trucks and rockets too.  There's so much you could do, make winding roads for the cars or have a race and it could be much larger than a card.  And the same with the rocket too.  This reminds me of my days making speech therapy materials for my kids.  So many concepts you could work on!

I'll also be entering this into Wee Memories Challenge #69, Simon Says Stamp Challenge--Anything Goes, and Paper Sundaes Challenge #88--Anything Goes.

Thanks for reading!

It's been a while

Hi!  I haven't played in PTI's Make It Monday in a while.  This week is Challenge #34 Thick Chipboard Accents.  I thought this might be a fun challenge to participate in.

I used PTI's Bitty Halloween Treats and Sweets dies to make the thick tags I tied onto PTI's Favor it Box 6.  I cut out 15 bitty baskets from some snack box I had in the kitchen and glued 5 together for each one.  I cut 3 more using black card stock.  I used glossy accents to stick the layers together.  It works pretty well.  Their little faces were stamped using the coordinating stamp set. 

I stamped the names onto the boxes using PTI's Outlines Alphabet.  Good thing they have relatively short names or names I could shorten.

I added some black stickles for some fun accents.

I tied them onto the larger boxes with some Halloween twine.  Now I have to figure out what small treat I can fit into these cute boxes.  I also thought I could add a magnet onto the back of each bitty one and stick them on the fridge after the kids open their treats.  The extra layers really make them sturdy.

Thanks for reading!

Have you ever ...

carved your initials into a tree?  That was the inspiration for my card that I made for PTI's Make It Monday Impression Plate Tricks #2.  I was really afraid to try this technique because I didn't want to make a mistake and ruin my dies or plates!  But I tried it and it's way easier than making all those frames from cardboard and what not from my previous posts.  This time around it didn't leave any markings on the back of my dies like it did when I tried it before.  I don't know, maybe I did something different?  I guess I'll have to play around more with this idea.  

Sorry, picture may be a bit dark but my photographer is sleeping already.  I finally got PTI's woodgrain impression plate.  I love it!  The letters are the initials of people who are getting married this year.  The letter dies are from Quickutz.  I used some chalk to fill in the letters a bit so they look more "carved."

Hmmm, this photo may be a bit blown out.  I used the largest Turning a New Leaf die although I did cut off a couple of the leaves that were sticking out a bit too much.  Tiny Tags die for the tag and the sentiment is from Delightful Dahlia.  I stuck a heart stick pin through the felt leaves and tag.  The heart die cut is from My Favorite Things.  I like that little pop of pink right there. 

Maybe this is a better photo? 

I better get to sleep too.  Thanks for reading!

Easter Blessings

Hi!  A little shout out from PTI (for my cards HERE) always makes my day!  I'm back with another card for PTI's Make It Monday #11 Embossing with dies.  I had actually thought of this idea first before my little 3x3 cards but somehow couldn't get it together until tonight.  I had a hard time with colors and then the layout and it just took me some time.  I don't know if I'm completely happy but I do love what I created with the dies.

I made a little Easter basket with dies!  The bottom portion of the basket was made with PTI's Mat Stack die 1.  I cut it out with fine linen cardstock and then trimmed it down to the size basket I wanted.  Then I took the rick rack die and embossed it to look like a woven basket.  Maybe you need to stretch your imagination a bit to see it.  Then I took some circle nestabilites to make a handle which I also embossed with the rick rack die but just sort of randomly for the woven look.  I also inked up the edges a bit.  I made the thin orange rick rack from felt but instead of cutting the whole width I just placed the felt lower to cut it thinly.  And I used removeable scotch tape to keep the dies from shifting when I cut.

I used the Easter egg from the Tag-its set and masked a whole bunch of the eggs together.  I layered the basket over the whole mat stack 1 die cut and over mat stack 5 as well.  I think if I had gotten my most recent order with the hibiscus burst felt I would have used that color instead of orange zest but I'm still waiting.

Thanks for reading and hope you're having a great weekend!  We'll be heading to Old Navy for what sounds like a great sale.  Hope it's not too crowded.

More embossing with dies

Hi!  I'm playing with dies again as inspired by PTI's new Make it Monday.  The challenge this week is to emboss with dies.  So I thought I'd make a 3x3 card set and also enter it in Moxie Fab World's The Card Sets Challenge.  That challenge will end soon so I better get a move on and post this.  Hopefully, you'll get a chance to play too.

This is the first set of 3x3 cards I made.  I cut the circles first with my nestabilities and then used PTI's small rickrack border die to emboss a series of rows onto the lower portion of the circles to look like waves.  I then stamped and cut out the small images from various PTI Tiny Treats stamp sets and popped them up with foam tape.  (Yes, they are tiny images to cut but still manageable).  I cut out larger circles in PTI felt for the layered look.  I really like how this looks and I think the images help to convey the feeling of waves.  

I made a second set of cards in red (sorry this photo is so messed up color wise).  I embossed with the same die just a bit lower on the circle.  I thought the rows could look more like hills or something with the various images flying above the land.  I think if I have time I'd do another series with animals on land and even a Christmas one with a snowy ground.  Time is always such a factor and I don't know where time goes nowadays but it's just speeding by.

Here's the little container to place them all into.  Of course, I had to use this template by Sunghee.  It is just perfect to place 3x3 cards in.  You can get it at her Little Potato House store.  I cut out 2 strips of felt using the rickrack border die to use as handles.  Then used a tag from PTI's Tiny Tags set.  It's the perfect size for this little bag.  The label on front is from the PTI's Tag-its series.

It's hard to get a good picture of all of them.  Six cards in here are a tiny bit snug because I popped up all the images. 

These two are probably my favorites.  You can click on the photos for a better view of the embossing.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Party Animals

Hi!  Me again with my 3rd entry for PTI's Make It Monday using scor-tape and glitter.  This is probably the most glitter I've ever used in my crafting life.  I promise this is my last entry, maybe. 

Anyway, I had this idea for this card using the animals from Tiny Treats Birthday.  I wanted a line of animals leading each other to Monkey's cage for his birthday party.  They are following each other using some twine on a glitter strip.  Because I wanted it to be kind of a long layout, I decided to make a money holder card. 

Here's a close up of Monkey hanging from some twine.  I used the mat stack stamp from Tiny Treats Christmas cause it looked similar to bars on a cage.  I used the long twine to tie the money card closed.

All the other animals coming along with Turtle bringing some balloons.

This is the inside.  It's a pretty simple money holder card to make.  I cut the kraft cardstock to 8.5 x 7 inches.  Then from the 7 inch side, I scored at 3 and 6 inches.  That leaves 2.5 inches to fold up to create the pocket for the cash.  I punched some semicircles and done.

I added another strip of glitter and a sentiment and wrapped twine on the edge.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Hugs & Kisses

Hi!  This is my second entry for PTI's Make it Monday using scor-tape and glitter.  My first entry is HERE.

It's a little late for Valentine's Day but I thought this would be a cute use of glitter.  It uses PTI's note paper die.  I stacked 2 pieces together like scratch paper to play tic tac toe.  I had seen Donna Mikasa stack them too on one of her cards on her blog at 3 umbrellas and thought it was a cute idea.  The x and o are from my Just Rite stampers set.  The bottom sentiment is from PTI's Simple Sentiments. 

I wrapped some pink twine around the end of the banner before tying it into a bow.  I wasn't sure if I should leave some blank squares or not.  I opted for the simple way and since my letter stamps aren't clear I didn't want to take the chance of missing the square when I stamped the letters.  Trust me, this wasn't my first attempt!

Thanks for reading!

Merry & Bright

Hi!  Did you see that Cheryl's card for PTI's Make It Monday (HERE) got a shout out from Nichole Heady???  How exciting is that?! 

It's time for another Make it Monday challenge at PTI.  It's to use scor-tape and glitter.  I have to admit I'm not much of a glitter fan.  I've had one small container of glitter for the past few years and it's still pretty full.  It's just so messy!!  But I guess the purpose of these challenges is to create stuff you normally might not. 

Here's my card.  Heehee, it's an Xmas card!  I'm so early for Xmas but last year I bought the tree die and a whole pack of pinefeather and scarlet jewel cardstock because I thought I would be able to make cards for family and friends.  Well, that didn't go as planned.  Anyway, I used the scor-tape plus glitter for the garlands of my tree.  I traced the die on the pinefeather cardstock and then placed my tape where I wanted it to go but didn't remove the paper to reveal the sticky side.  I put my die back on with some removable tape and ran it through my Big Shot and it cut through the excess tape and all.  Oh and it helps to trace the die cutting side down on the paper if it's not a symmetrical shape like this tree.  Realized that after I had traced the tree cutting side up and had already stuck on the tape.  But I just ran it through anyway since it was traced lightly in pencil.  Does that make sense?

I used some paper from Christmas Prints and placed red pearls around the tree.  I had first thought buttons but then it seemed too overwhelming.  The sentiment is from Tiny Treats Christmas.

I still have a couple more ideas.  Hopefully I'll get to them this week.  Thanks for reading and have a great week! 

Gift Cards

Hi!  Here is my last post for PTI's Make It Monday Challenge to partially emboss/deboss.  My other entries can be found HERE, HERE & HERE.

I made a frame from fun foam.  This one used three 2 mm thick fun foam layers cut to 3x3 inch squares.  That was the size of the gifts cards I wanted to make.  I posted about using frames to partially emboss HERE.

I had some leftover Stampin' Up 3x3 cards so I used the colored ones as the base and used the cream ones to emboss and stamp on.

Here's a close up.  My stamping is a bit off.  But I think it's still cute.  I used PTI's Book Print impression plate.  I can't believe how many projects I made just with that one impression plate.  I just ordered the numbers one so I can't wait to get that one.  I have a lot more I want to order too.  The flowers are from PTI's Beautiful Blooms 2 dies and stamp set.  I used the medium sized flower die set for these cards.  The sentiments are from Tag-its #1.  They are the perfect size to fit in the center.

I made a set in blue too.

A closer view of the blue one.

I stamped some envelopes too.  The To/From is from Fillable Frames #9.  I used the little heart one from Tag-its #1 as a postage stamp.  At the top you can see the little box that all these cards/envelopes fit into.

This is a template called Almost Square Bag from Little Potato House.  It is the cutest box and one of my favorite templates that Sunghee has created.  I just printed it and cut it out.  Placed a simple label on front and done.

What I love about this box too is that you don't have to worry about using adhesive or anything to close it.  There are 2 small little tabs that tuck into the sides.  So smart!  So you can open and close it as many times as you want to.

Well, I think I've exhausted most of my ideas for this challenge.  I had one other but it's going on the back burner for now.  This challenge really did open up so many possibilities and variations for embossing/debossing.  

Thanks for reading!

Loads of Wishes

Hi!  Call me crazy ... it's way pass my bedtime but I wanted to craft tonight and it's a long weekend so why not?  This is one of the projects I made tonight.  I had to motivate myself to make a card for PTI's Make It Monday Challenge to use a vellum sentiment strip.  I saw the little truck from Tiny Treats Birthday set and thought it would make a cute boy card.  Then I remembered how Debbie Olson had used the handwriting line stamp from School Time to make a road for her school buses to drive on.  So that inspired me to make this vellum strip road/sentiment.  It was actually my second try.  I had first stamped it in rich cocoa on the vellum but thought hey, white lines on roads so I stamped it again with fresh snow and layered the smokey shadow cardstock in the back for better contrast.

The trucks are popped up as well as the top kraft layer.  Also used the Book Print impression plate.  It took me a while to decide what color my 3rd truck would be.  Blue or green?  Primary colors or traffic light colors to kind of match my theme.  I kept asking my hubby and he kept saying off things like black.  That doesn't help me much.  In the end I went with primary colors.  Then I thought the top half looked kind of blank and missing something.

Definitely will be going to sleep now.  Thanks for reading and have a great day!

Make It Monday #2

Please scroll down to Eva's post from earlier today! I am actually going to try and participate in a PTI challenge (gasp! - hopefully I can manage to get everything linked nicely). Anyhow, it's the Make It Monday #2 challenge, using a vellum sentiment strip. I actually needed a thank you card for my daughter's birthday present and a lot of clothes! I think her wardrobe will be set for the next 2 years!

Anyhow, I stamped all three Beautiful Blooms 2 flowers on the matching die cuts. I still can't tell if I have the stamps oriented correctly to the dies, so I used raspberry fizz ink on raspberry fizz cardstock to make it less obvious if they are indeed mismatched. Then I used the largest leafy branch from Turning a New Leaf.

Can you tell there's a vellum strip there at the bottom? Maybe I shouldn't have used white vellum on white cardstock, but then I didn't know what else color cardstock to stamp the leaf image on. I punched a scalloped dotted border along the top and bottom edges with an EK success punch and just folded over the ends and taped it on the back. The "{thanks}" is a rub on from American Crafts. I thought it might look neater than stamping, except I messed up the right bracket :-( ! Hopefully it's not too obvious. Then I added some gems to the center of the flowers. It turned out to be a pretty simple card, like most of my cards :-).