A "Simple" Glittered and Embossed Halloween Card

This card was born from simple beginnings. The Frankenstein wobble card was supposed to be the best card this year and this one was just going to be a quick and easy while I had the Halloween folders out kind of card. I embossed the orange card stock, and inked it up with black ink and had a nice simple quick card, for a day or two, until I decided to glitter the spider web. That looked pretty good but now the other stuff didn't. So, I traced the skeleton out and colored it with glue and then put black glitter on the skeleton. That looked pretty good, so I did the cat and crow. Then I decided, it needed some more color, so I did the 31 in green and then the bats in purple glitter.  At that point, I realized that Frankenstein was not going to be the card I sent out this year for Halloween, that this "simple" card was going to this year's best Halloween card.

 

As always, click on the image for full directions.

 

Happy Halloween!

Another Halloween Wobble Card

Here's another Halloween wobble card. This one is a 5x7 that follows the same basic design idea as the last one, the image is just smaller and the card is bigger. This one was a little more challenging to design though because the embossing folder is designed for an A2 size card, so the embossed image is offset to the left and the wobbling skeleton makes up the difference on the right.

As always, click on the images for directions with the stamps used and paper sizes.

Action Wobble Frankenstein Card

While Frankenstorm rages outside, I thought it would be the perfect time to get some Halloween cards posted, starting with this Frankenstein card I made. Frankstein is mounted using an action wobble, which is basically a plastic spring that pops him up from the card and allows him to wobble back and forth. The background of this card is dry embossed and then inked.

As always, click on the greeting card image for full directions from the web site.

Birthday Version of the Scarecrow Card

It usually takes a while to get that first version of a greeting card done because you have figure out all the supplies and colors you are going to use, so its always nice when the design lends itself to multiple purposes.

One of the cool things about this stamp set is that the words can be used as a set or you can use the outside words as a lead in to an old age birthday card and take the inside words and use them on the outside for a get well card like the one I posted yesterday. Click on the image for full directions to the card if you want to know more about how make this card.

Fall Get Well Card

Here's a fall card that you easily use as a get well card or to send someone going through any kind of difficulty at this time of year.

Click on the image for full directions if you want to know more.

Lace Tea Cup Happy Birthday Card

Here is a challenging new 5x7 happy birthday tea cup card. It combines fabric, die cutting, coloring, ribbon and distress. Click on the image for full directions if it interests you.

Wisking You Happy Birthday

 

This card uses a coloring technique I have never posted before. You use water based markers like Tombow markers as your paint on water color paper. You just apply the marker in the darkest areas and then using  water and a brush blend out the color. It's takes some practice to master how much ink you need to put down and how much water to use to move the ink without moving it outside the lines but overall it's a very inexpensive technique.

I saw this technique done with ease years ago but could never quite get the ink to move correctly until I discovered that you need to use particular marker and paper combinations. If you don't have the right paper the marker will soak in and will not move well.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Masculine card using die cut soda cans

Stop recycling soda cans! You need those soda cans for your crafts!

Here's a masculine card I made using distress ink and die cut soda cans. The front is made using a distress tool with a foam pad to pick up distress ink from a distress ink pad and them blend it onto the card front. The embossing causes the higher areas to naturally pick up more color.

The gears are die cut from aluminum soda cans using Spellbinders dies. Aluminum is a much softer metal than steel so any steel tool will easily cut it without damage. This is why knife manufacturers like to cut up soda cans and then cut up something delicate like a tomatoes.

Here's the card:

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Little Girl Cards

It's been a while since I've put any of the new cards I made up on the web, but here are a few I have gotten the directions and pictures for up on the website.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the exact stamps used, paper sizes and marker colors.

This one is a combination of a Penny Black stamp colored with Copic markers, a Heartfelt Creations die and some nice DCWV paper. The image has been cropped down but the stamp was large that this had to be a 5x7 card to fit all the elements.

Same 5x7 card as above, but redone in purple.

A 4x6 card using a Sweet 'n Sassy stamps colored with Copic markers. All of the oval mats are done using Spellbinder dies.

The beauty of nature

Here's a fairly straight forward 7x5 card I did with some of the new stamps I got at a rubber stamp convention this summer. The edge underneath the mountains is also a new Spellbinders Edgibilities die. The mountains have been colored with 4 shades of  nuetral gray Copic markers with a little bit of warm gray mixed in a few places. Rather than try and make a scene with the mountains, I opted to cut them out and mount them on dark blue cardstock since the words speak about the beauty of nature and giant mountain peaks are awe inspiring examples of nature that dwarf anything man has built.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Swing Card

Here's a new card type I haven't made before - a swing card. When you grab the left and right hand sides and pull outward the image in the center swings and changes. Technically, when it's folded up and comes out of the envelope you are actually looking at the image on the back and then when you open it you see the image on the front.

I'm using rubber stamps that were specifically designed for a card of this type but you could actually use any front and back images.

Here's the card - it should show as an animated image that shows the card opening and closing. If it's not working because of where your reading it from, you'll need the click on the image to view the web directions.

After trying to make this a few times, the easiest way I found to cut the paper was to use a trimmer with a cutting blade that has a mark on it where the blade has/will cut. This helps ensure that your lines are straight even if your template placement wasn't perfect.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

That's One Sick Bear

Here's an image I stamped out a long time ago and just recently got around to coloring. Maybe subconsciously I was just waiting for the newest die set I got so I would have something large enough to fit the image without having to do a simple square. This is a 5 x7 card base so the image is quite large. The coloring is all Copic markers. I thought about putting a get well saying on the card somewhere but the image and worried look in the dogs face seemed to say it all already. The colors are on the instructions you can get by clicking on the image.

Waterfall Get Well Card

It's taken a little longer than I was expecting to get this one posted because I have to take extra time to make the animated gif but here's a waterfall/flip card made using the get well image set I brought. Mom made this one because she is always in need of new get well cards for sick relatives. She used colored pencils and Gamsols instead of markers.

Speaking of the animated gif, I noticed on the pumpkin post that a bunch of the reposting and publishing services did something to the image and it wasn't always animated so if you are not seeing the tab being pulled down in the image, you will need to go read the original post or view the card directions.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Flipping out!

I brought the stamps for this card in early spring. Some people call this a flip card but most seem to call it a waterfall card. The stamp sets for these usually have a series of 4-5 images that show the progression of something happening and then reader pulls the tab to flip them like an old paper stack of hand drawn  animations or pictures were flipped to create a moving picture before we had these cool LCD displays with millions of dots that can be changed hundreds of times a second to any color you want with a little electricity.

I am working through them and planning to use each of the stamp sets to make a card. Here's the first one themed around Halloween. Click on the card if you want to see the directions.

Three Goals Achieved Using Three Stamps Sets That Cost $3 Each

I've usually been getting my paper in multicolor packs. I open them up and then put them into a couple of hanging file folders so I can get at the individual sheets without struggling. I sort the old stuff into the new so all the cardstock of the same color is together and keep the whole bunch of about 150-200 assorted sheets in 3 hanging folders. It's almost time to open a new pack. Most of what I would call the "guy colors" seem to be used up but certain other colors like light pink and purple seem to still be in plentiful supply so goal number one in making this card was use some of these "leftover" colors.

Goal number two was to use some of the stamps I just got. I scored some nice $3 Brenda Walton Inkadinkado clear stamp sets this weekend and they fit the colors better than the Christmas stamp set I was thinking about using. Unfortunately these were very ink phobic, at least when it came to using Memento inks. The ink just beaded up on the stamp. I had to use chalk ink to get a good image.

Goal number three was to make something nice, but at the same time keep it simple, mostly be a stamping card. After glittering two of the images and hand cutting one out I am not sure I kept it as simple as I wanted, but it was worth it.

Here's the end product of these goals. Click on the image for full directions if you want to read more.

Groundhog Day

Today the news referred the today's US debt debate as another Groundhog Day in Washington, DC. Keeping with that theme, I thought I would post yesterday's card in the yellow version I forgot to put up last night. There is a new card in the works, but I can't share details yet because the glitter on the background mat is still drying. If the mat doesn't dry as flat as I am hoping for it will completely derail my plan for the card, but, I'm hopeful that you will see a new card by August 2nd that meets my objective of using up more of my excess of pink card stock that I have been avoiding.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Pink Flower Soft Leafy Branch

Here's a card I made using Flower Soft. You can do something similar with almost any branch. This one happened to be the right size and full enough to fill the front a card. On the surface it's fairly simple and straight forward to make, it's just a matter of creatively bringing the background, ribbon and die cuts together into a nice card, which isn't always so easy to accomplish. I leave the insides of these blank since they can be used almost any occasion.

If you want to read the full directions on how to make this card, click on the image.

Fun Somewhat Random Creation

Here's fun card that doesn't involve a lot of measurement but is a bit of challenge to put together and get all the layers in place. If you have three colors of nicely coordinating scraps, it could even be a good way to use some scraps. Even if you don't have this set, most stampers probably have some kind of similar set they could substitute in for the images. I stamped it in more neutral colors but you could also easily make it a lot more feminine and then slap a big flower in top center. Hmm... maybe I should go do that. As always, the full directions are on the website, just click on the card image if you want to see them.

New HoneyPOP Get Well Card

It's been a while since my last post. I have been uploading stuff but it was all changes to make the website more compatible with the latest html specifications and trying to improve some of the web site infrastructure. One side effect you may notice if you have memorized the card positions is that a bunch of cards that got edited will shuffle around position when I put up the next set of indices later today because they are actually computer generated by the file modification time.

I do have a few new cards to put out too, starting with this new Inky Antics HoneyPOP get well card. This one is kind of interesting. I actually used marker and colored pencil on the inside because there were areas I didn't want to bleed though and show on the other side. I didn't do a lot a shading and blending on this one. I did some (applying a second layer after the marker dried and using the blender to lighten the other side) but I was more concerned with color matching the image to the cardstock so I only used the one marker color for each area instead of full blending set.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.

Happy Birthday Definition Cards

Here are two more new cards. These were inspired by two new stamps I got and some one pound packs of cut up paper that had bunches of a few different colors cut down to 4x6 or smaller. Everything except the white card stock and the card base came out of these bargain packs.

I started out making a male design and decided to make a female version with pinks and yellows from a second pack. Like the last design, it's practically the same except for the color choices and glitter on the pink one but the choice of colors made the male card a female one. The cupcakes weren't part of the original design but that area looked too empty so I colored coordinating cupcakes and added them to the design.

As always, click on the images for full directions including the stamps used and paper sizes.