crafting this and that

Hi!  I have another box card to share today.  This one also features one of the cute hedgehogs from Birdie Brown (MFT).  I love that his arms (legs) are stretched wide and the sentiment fits it well. Here is the box card folded.  I am working on some teacher cards next so hopefully I'll have some more cards to share soon. Thanks for dropping by!

Hi!  I finally made another box card!  I've come to realize that I only have a couple hours a day if I'm lucky to craft or work on my Etsy shop.  And sometimes I procrastinate so those 2 hours probably decrease down a lot!  So this box card features the cute hedgehogs from Birdie Brown at MFT.  The sentiment is a combination from Lawn Fawn and Mama Elephant.  While I think these box cards are cute and fun, sometimes it takes a bit of time to align correctly so that it will fold nicely.  The first 2 I made came out really easy but for some reason I think I wasn't liking these up nicely and so it would lay flat one way but not really the other. But I think I got it now.  In any case, I need to take the time to align the sides carefully.  My plan is to make 3 more of these box cards.  Haha, I always have plans but they don't always happen.  By the way, I restocked the snowflakes and maple leaves in my shop.  In case you ...

Hello!  Today I have a series of cards to share which I think are super cute and funny too.  I love Birdie Brown's stamp sets available at MFT and the cards today uses the behind images of the cat, dog & pig found in Cool Cat, Lucky Dog and Hog Heaven.  I had a couple of ideas for the design of this card but I felt the sentiment called for multiple images of the animal's behind.  I just couldn't let there be one image and the sentiment have plural Butts.  I know that is weird of me but things like that drive me a little crazy.  I won't get into how people misuse plural and possessive s though.  That really drives me crazy.  Anyway, so then I thought this would be a cute way to stamp multiple images over the card.  I created the sentiment on the front using an alphabet set from Lawn Fawn. This is the sentiment on the inside which comes in the Cool Cat stamp set. Here is the dog version.  These cards took a lot of time to c...

Hello!  I am playing catch up again!  I have a bunch of cards to share today and probably the next few days as well.  I am falling behind blogging but the days are busy and sometimes I am just not feeling crafty if that is even possible.  I have to really push myself to get going these days and try to stay motivated.  So blogging tonight is part of trying to stay motivated! I've already sold this card but wanted to share cause I love these Birdie Brown images.  I am falling behind in collecting her new stamp sets but I will eventually get them!  The background is blended with distress inks onto watercolor cardstock. Here is a doggy version using another Birdie Brown stamp set. And last is the piggy one but this is a missing you card instead of an apology card.  Before I go, I want to mention that I am having a FREE shipping offer over at my Etsy store (banner on sidebar) with a minimum $12 purchase.  There is a code on the top o...

Hi!  Well, this is like a record these days, posting 3 days in a row!  Time to share my third and final entry for MFT's Superstar Card Design contest . This card let me play around with MFT's Blueprints 30.  I wanted a different way to present gift cards which is why I purchased this set.  The first thing I did was stencil on some stars using MFT's horizontal starry sky stencil.  Yup, I have both the horizontal and vertical stencils.  I like them a lot for creating night time sky lines but they're also great just to create a star pattern.  Then I cut out my first piece on the left above.  I also wanted to cut out a bottom layer exactly the same but I didn't want the opened flap part so I did partial die cuts on all the edges (cut, rotate, cut, rotate) until I got the piece on the right. This set comes with a die that cuts the openings to hold a gift card.  The one on the left I didn't like because if you see closely you can see the ...

Hi again!  I was able to finish up another card last night to enter into MFT's Superstar Card Contest .  My second entry also features a cute piggy from Birdie Brown's Hog Heaven stamp set. Love this sweet image of him squeezing the heart.  There is a sentiment at the top which is very soft and subtle since I heat embossed it in white but I thought it was fitting for this image. The sentiment reads Wherever you go, go with all your heart.  It is also from MFT's Happy Graduation stamp set. I used distress inks to blend in a pink cloud background using the clouds from the End of the Rainbow die set.  Then I added in a shimmery cardstock rainbow and couple more clouds from the die set too. A close up photo of the piggy that I fussy cut out to adhere onto the cloud. I'm working on my 3rd card but not sure if it will work out.  Thanks for stopping by!

Hello!  Well, it's been a gazillion years since I entered any kind of card making challenge or contest.  And when I actually first saw the announcement for MFT's Superstar Card Contest I was not going to participate.  But something clicked last night and all of a sudden I felt kind of competitive!  And did you see the prize they are giving out?  Wow, very generous!  So why not?  I'm gonna enter.  And I might even enter the max 3 times.  Who knows? So here is entry number 1. I love the Birdie Brown sets over at MFT.  So stinkin' cute!  And for a while I couldn't color up these cute piggies from the Hog Heaven set because I had run out of ink in a couple of my pink Copics.  But finally got the refills over the weekend so this all kind of worked out.  The little piggy with the angel wing, so adorable! The Reach for the Stars sentiment is from MFT's Happy Graduation set which I got when they had their huge retiremen...

Hello!  I have a couple of Mother's Day cards to share today.  I had a whole bunch of these Birdie Brown elephants colored up so thought I'd better get them onto some cards. And I got to use my Minc machine and do some foiling for the sentiments.  Overall, I think the Minc machine is not always a 100%.  Sometimes I'll have to just toss the sentiment cause the foil will be spotty in some areas.  I'm not sure if it's the brand of foil that makes a difference or not.  I've used both Deco foil and Heidi Swapp's foil and both will be spotty at times.  And maybe sometimes I like things to be perfect and maybe people won't scrutinize things the way I do and hold them up to the light and stare and look for imperfections.  But I think some people are just like me and will do exactly that.  I also do this with cardstock!  Especially white cardstock.  Before printing something I'll have to make sure the cardstock does not have any spots!...

Hello!  I have another bear card to share today but this one is a birthday card. This card also uses 2 different stamp sets like the card I shared in the previous post.  The bears, birthday cake and sentiment are from Birdie Brown's Birthday Bears.  The tree stump and I heart you is from Lawn Fawn's Mom & Me set.  I placed the birthday cake on the tree stump because why wouldn't these bears use it as a table?  Haha.  And I love the little sentiments that fit in the heart on the tree.  So sweet. I made a lot of similar backgrounds for a number of cards.  That just helps me think of less card designs!  Plus once I have all the blending sponges and inks out, I might as well get a lot of use out of them.  I do use a light gray Copic to create a shadow to ground my image.  It's nothing fancy and I just do it real quick. I love these sweet bear scenes.  I'm also really excited to see the new bear images from Mama Elep...

Hello!  I am back today to share another card that I have listed in my Etsy shop.  It is another bear card but I love the bear trend too!  And the sentiments are so sweet! So these 2 bears are from Birdie Brown's Birthday Bears stamp set which is available from My Favorite Things.  The sentiments are also from that set.  The tree stump and the sentiment on the tree is from Lawn Fawn's Mom & Me set.  I was using both stamp sets making some cards when I realized the little bear would be cute sitting on the tree looking at the big bear.  And that's how I came up with this card. I love it when I can mix and match images/sentiments from different companies and stamp sets.  I created the background by blending some distress inks.  I think I need to invest in more colors but really if you're on a budget you really don't need many colors, just the basics to create a background. I used a Spellbinder's circle die to make a template for ...

Hello!  So does it seem like a slow week?  I can't help but think it is after hearing my hubby suggest it.  The power of suggestion!  Can't he say something that will make me more productive?  Sometimes I need motivation to finish up my projects.  What motivates people to get up and blog every day?  I don't think I have enough projects to blog each day.  I do have a list of things to do but finding that push to finish them is difficult. Here is my latest card using My Favorite Things Adorable Elephants again.  That is the most appropriately labeled stamp set, isn't it?  The elephant images in this set are truly adorable.  I had this idea in my head that this particular elephant would be blowing bubbles from his trunk.  I didn't quite know how I would do this since I didn't have any bubble stamps!  I thought maybe I could use a bubble font and print it out?  But in the end I just drew them out. I made the backg...