Cool Art Store Find

One of my favorite gifts this holiday was a certificate to my much-adored art store, Collage.  I re-stocked some necessities, but I also found these handmade polymer clay buttons.  I believe they were the result of one of their classes.  Just what I was looking for to make some non-traditional Valentine cards.

Isn't this great?  The button is about 1.5", so it really stands out on a card.

All I did to it was edge it with a Krylon gold leaf paint pen for some elegance.  I did the same to the metal word sticker (it was originally silver).

The finished card turned out pretty well.  Something suited to a guy, which is always a challenge for me.

That's it for today.  I'm hoping to get a bit of time this weekend to do more crafting.  So many ideas, so little time :)

Thanks for stopping by!
Have a great day.

Happy New Year

Hi everyone.  I took a little break over the holiday, but I'm back with some nifty new cards.  I'm preparing for a show in early February, so it's time to stock up on birthday, Valentine's, and general cards.

Here are some I made over this week:

I decided to experiment with being more minimalist.  At the same time, I've got a sort of shabby, artsy mojo going right now, so I wanted to indulge that too.

So, I've got some sparkly handmade paper scraps, and vintage French textbook pages.  All of the edges are inked with Vintage Photo distressed ink.

This bird card was really fun to make.  I used a German foil doorway and backed it with white CS.  I sponged on blue and yellow ink to resemble a sunny day.  The birdcage is Cavallini and Co, and the bird is Inkadinkadoo.  I popped up the cage so it has some dimension.

The ballon on this birthday card, as well as the sentiment are from SU!  A little copper wire for a string, and poof!  Easy card.

A little Valentine's action on this next one.  I cut a heart out of one of my Rockstar paper pad scraps with hot pink foil lips.  I look at these papers thinking how cool they are, and wondering where in the heck I'll ever use hot pink lips!  Well, here you go.


Thanks for stopping by.  Be sure to come back tomorrow because I have some really neat things to show you - art store finds!

Enjoy the day!

Gift Boxes Galore!

I loved my first attempt at a gift box so much, that I decided to make more. I had also been itching to try the paper flowers that Tim Holtz showed in his blog last week.  Combining the two turned out some glorious little boxes.

For this box, I made the flowers out of handmade paper with a sheet music design.  The paper is thinner than what Tim's tutorial called for, but worked just great.  The edges of the petals are inked with Vintage Photo Distressed Ink, and lightly painted with Platinum Stickles.

I painted the box with white acrylic paint and embossed the SU! Baroque Motifs with black EP.  The black powder didn't stick as well as the gold in my previous project, but it gave a nice vintage-y look.

The finishing touch was a piece of vanilla ribbon.

These flowers look difficult, but once I did one practice attempt, they were pretty easy.  The biggest tip I can offer is to be sure to let the adhesive dry completely betweens steps so that the pieces don't come apart during assembly.  Take your time!








This next box is the same technique, just different colors.  The flower is again handmade paper with a gold foil design.  More Vintage Photo Distressed Ink, and some Crystal Stickles.

The box is red acrylic paint.  This time I used my Close to My Heart "Adorable" stamps.  The small paisley swirl was a perfect fit.  And my favorite gold embossing powder - Zing Gold Glitter.

Finishing touches - white grosgraine bow, and Prima leaves.

These flowers are just the best!  Thanks Tim!

And thank you for stopping by!  Happy Holidays.

Altered Gift Box

Seems like everyone is getting into the altered objects for the holidays.  Last night I was awake for hours designing a gift box in my head.  Today I decided to actually try to do what I was imagining.  And, wonder of wonders, it turned out just as I'd hoped!

This started as one of those little $1 unfinished wood boxes from the craft store.  I painted it with white acrylic paint inside and out.  The little panel behind the glass comes out, so I painted it, added some glitter and a satin rose, then put it back in.

I used my SU! Baroque Motifs stamp and embossed the florishes with gold glitter embossing powder.  The sentiments were stamped with black ink then embossed with black embossing powder.

The cool thing about this box is that it looks like it should take a long time to make, but it only took about an hour start to finish.  If you use the heat tool to dry eveyrthing in between steps, it goes really fast.

Some of you know how much I love boxes, so it's going to be tough giving this one away :)  Guess I'll just have to make some more!

Thanks for stopping by!

Re-using a Store-Bought Card

My friend Michelle made a super cute card using parts of a store-bought one she recieved.  I thought it was a great idea, and decided to try it.  Last year I recieved the most adorable bunny card and saved it just because I liked it so much.  I cut out the bunny image and used it on the front of the card.

A couple of years ago I discovered that the Cuttlebug "Tiny Bubbles" embossing folder also works great for a snow theme.  I used it here for the background with some SU!  White Naturals paper.

The forest green ribbon really added some pop, and since the bunny has such big ears and looks so attentive, I added a Tim Holtz idea-ology tag.  I've been hording them because they're so cool, but you buy them to use them, right?

Also taking a cue from Michelle, I salvaged a portion of the image to use on the inside of the card.  Decorating the inside is not something that I normally think of, but this turned out nice.

I just cut around the image and used the original bottom border, then stuck it to the card.  Easy!

Thanks for stopping by.  I'm off to finish addressing my outgoing holiday cards...

Holiday Tag

Tim Holtz' "12 Tags of Christmas" series did, in fact, inspire me!  Ever had one of those projects that starts out as one idea, then takes on a life of its own?  That's what happened to me.  And I think it turned out much better than what I originally planned.

I started off by attaching some Basic Grey "Mistletoe and Pear" paper to a manilla tag.  Then I embossed the flourish with Winter Wonderland embossing powder, and the sentiment with silver embossing powder.

Then I sponged some Walnut Stain distress ink over the sentiment and edges of the card.  It did make the images stand out a bit more, but the silver is still a little light.  I used a baby wipe (thank God for Huggies!) to dab the ink off of the embossed images.


The metal medallion came from Cathy's Jewels, and I used a scrap of ball chain to attach it to the bow.  Last of all, I put a rhinestone snowflake right in the middle of the medallion circle. 

This was pretty fun, but took awhile to get just right.  I probably wouldn't do this for all of my gift tags :)

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

Cupcake Challenge #36

I decided to participate in the HSE cupcake challenge again this week.  Here is what Rachel has for us:

The raspberry color really got me.  It just looks so delicious!

 I don't use pink paper all that much, so I had to dig out a stray piece of SU! which I think is Rose Red.

Please click on the picture because you can see that I used a French textbook page as the background and painted it with white acrylic paint to mute it.

My favorite SU! Chocolate Chip appears as ink and CS.  The leaves are from a Prima holiday tin that I bought a couple of years ago.

The brown lace came from an antique store, and the green cord came from Joanne's dollar bin.

The overall card shape was done with my new Nesties scalloped circle die set.  I had some trouble getting it to cut through 2 layers of SU! cardstock, so I cut a premade white card, then glued the pink circle to the top.

Have a fabulous week, and thanks for stopping by!