Less Is More/Pick A Square

The challenge at LIM for this card was to pick a square area of the card and limit the image to that spot. Check out other entries HERE.

Take a minute to scroll down for a look at my other cards!

OLW/Cats and Dogs

The theme for this week's One Layer Wed. is cats and dogs, which was a no-brainer for me because I love cats! As soon as I saw what the theme was, I immediately reached for this SU set, "Window Dressing," and placed Archie in the window. Although neither of my cats wears a collar (we live in the woods, so it could be dangerous for them if they got caught on something,) I added a little collar for the card. Archie does have blue eyes, however, so I add blue eyes with a Spica glitter pen.

For real-life photos of my cats, just click on "Cat Photos" on the sidebar. To check out other One Layer entries, click HERE.

Birthday Bargello

The paper used in this bargello design comes from Basic Grey, Life of the Party. One of the things I like about doing bargello is that you never know just how it's going to turn out until you put the pieces together, and this card is a perfect example of that. I had no idea that the striped paper would turn out to look just like birthday candles!

Since one of the designs was a collage of birthday packages, I made a "package" from a leftover piece of the metallic paper underneath. The hard part was wrapping the embroidery floss around such a small square and making the bow on top.

Joan was here when I made this, and she thinks I should use it as one of my entries in the State Fair this summer. Since the category is for "stamping" (instead of "card making") I'm not sure one little birthday greeting is enough to win in that category; but I probably will enter it anyway.

We'll see...

Happy Stampers

Here are four of the Mothers Class members showing off their bargello cards, which all turned out great!

(Double click on the photo for a closer look.)

Pastoral Cards

Here are two cards made for our pastor's use. Both are edged with a Martha Stewart vine punch. The green card features a stamp from SU; the other is a verse from Our Daily Bread Designs.

SIMPLE SATURDAY #22

Happy Cardinal

Could this cardinal be singing because winter is over and the flowers are in bloom again? I know I am!

This is the other image from the same set used in the previous post, only this time I made it a regular horizontal card. The yellow gives it a summery look, especially with the floral dsp around the image. There's no confusing this cardinal with Christmas!

Blue Jay Gatefold

Don't you just love getting new stamps? This one came yesterday from the Cut@Home website. They also have a matching die for the bird, which is actually supposed to be a cardinal. Since I felt the bird was simple enough to cut out by hand, which I did, I didn't order the die. (The stamp set comes with two different images and a birthday greeting.)

There were several steps in making this card. First I stamped the image twice, using the second one for coloring and cutting out the bird. The bird and large blossom were popped up with SU dimensionals.

After coloring the images, I used the Nestabilities label die. Since the image was slightly larger, I used my craft knife to slide the die under the tail feathers, the bottom right leaf and the uppermost blossom. I also die-cut the Nestabilities Fleur de Lis square as a border and mounted the image on top.

The only embellishments I used on this one was a tiny black gem for the eye and some Stampendous jeweled stickers for the flower centers. (Double click for a closer view.)

I think this stamp set is going to get a lot of use!

START HERE CHALLENGE--Yellow Flower

Since tulips are one of my favorite flowers, this challenge was easy. Paper piecing is also one of my favorite techniques, so I put the two together.

First I stamped the tulip along the right side, close to the edge. After coloring the leaves, I stamped just the blossom again on yellow plaid dsp and pasted it over the image. Using the same dsp, I punched out the border and pasted it on the inside of the card. Then I cut away the right side of the card so that the tulip would lay over the border strip below.

For finishing touches, the embroidery floss, oval greeting and bee sticker were applied. I used some Stickles for the bee's wings and inside the tulip. Light gray dots along the left side of the tulip give it some dimension.

This was such fun that I plan to use this design next week for the Mothers Class I teach. You might want to try this site for interesting challenges HERE!

LESS IS MORE--Embossing

Actually, less is less--timewise, that is! This card took all of seven minutes to complete.

After inking the Hero Arts wreath, first with Versamark and again with soft green ink, I stamped it on the card. Using clear embossing powder, I heated up the wreath and then added colorful flowers using three flower peg stamps. Unfortunately, (for this challenge) I had to pop up the butterfly because the ink wouldn't take over the embossing.

To finish, I rounded the corners, added the embroidery floss and stamped the greeting. This will make a nice summery birthday card!

(For more entries at Less Is More, visit HERE.)

Acrylic Smash

I picked up these cards for $1/pack at Michaels (including envelopes)-- what a bargain! I decided to try using this one for the Acrylic Smash technique featured on Split Coast Stampers HERE.

Using Gold and Pearl metallic dabbers, I applied them to the acetate. I then used a piece of white cardstock for the backing and secured it behind the circle opening. Using black Stazon ink, I stamped the blossom (Hero Arts.) After stamping the SU ferns on the cardfront with Versamark, I highlighted them with green chalk, added the embroidery floss on the side and stamped the birthday greeting.

This was a simple and quick card to make!

LESS IS MORE--White on White

No matter how you do it, white on white seems to always work, making an elegant card. This was the challenge for Less Is More HERE

Starting with a basic white card, the first layer is an embossed border with wide lace wrapped around it and mounted with dimensionals. Next I embossed leaves and rounded the corners for the second layer, wrapping a narrow sheer ribbon around it with a simple knot on the right side. Over that, I embossed a leafy square, rounded the corners, added pearls and a double Hero Arts blossom and mounted it with dimensionals. For the butterfly, I glued the small one on top of the larger one and added a row of tiny pearls for the body, then glued it above the top layer with TomBow Liquid glue.

This would make a great wedding card!