Adventures in Embossing

I don't think I've completely mastered the art of embossing, but I am trying to! Recently, I bought some clear powder and thought I'd give it a try with a pretty stamp I got from Michael's. In retrospect, I probably should have taken photos of the process that took place making this card, but C'est la vie! Next time. Here is my attempt-

A Closer Look

Now, there were a few steps with this. First, I took a swirly Recollections stamp and embossed it all over the card. I then used clear embossing powder and applied heat. Then I took to my distress inks! Using Scattered Straw, I applied it all over the card and then applied Vintage Photo to the edges. You can see on the top and bottom of the card how it came out. That in itself came out pretty nice.

Then I took the beautiful woman stamp from Michael's and embossed that on a yellow piece of card stock. I used Ranger's Ultra Thick embossing enamel. I think it came out pretty nice actually.  I took some music paper from a 6x6 My Mind's Eye paper pack I have and added some Vintage Photo onto that. With a ribbon and paper flowers with jeweled centers, I thought this card would be complete!

I'm going to be entering this card in two challenges-

1. Pause Dream Enjoy is having a Ribbon Challenge that ends on January 20th. Make any project, but make sure you incorporate ribbon!

2. Little Scrap Pieces "Anything Goes" Challenge. This ends on Friday January 11th so make sure you get your projects in before that!

Crafting Excursions!

This is my 100th Post!! Woo Hoo!!! I'm really excited to get back into crafting and blogging on the regular and I'm so grateful to all of you crafters out there that take the time to read and comment!

This weekend my boyfriend and I took a little trip to south Jersey to hang out with his cousins. As an extra treat, he offered to take me to a Hobby Lobby for the first time and a Jo Ann's on the way back. I had never been to a Hobby Lobby before so I was a bit excited...

Suffice to say, I walked away with quite a few things. The place was the size of a Wall Mart! They had SO much stuff and I had to curb myself a bit. Especially when I saw their stamping section.

I've never seen a stamping section this organized before! The stamping aisles in the Michael's in New York is simply a dumping ground of stuff. I always feel like an excavator spending hours trying to uncover treasures in that place. Here, everything was very neat and tidy! I walked away with lots of goodies.

On the way home, we stopped by a Jo Ann's. From the outside, it wasn't very impressive, but the inside more than made up for it.

What I love about this store is sections like this.

$1 treasures!! I found many cute stamps to add to my collection. They are small, but they can really add a lot to a card.

And I finally found this lovely cartridge that I have been searching for for a couple of months now! All in all, I think this weekend's crafting excursion was a success! I reached my limit for a while.

It was also nice to spend some time with family, but sadly, I didn't get any pictures of that. I did however snap a picture of their dog, Duke. He is the sweetest lab ever!

 

Sweet Birthday Wish

Hello All!!

Today I have a belated birthday card to showcase. My boyfriend's mom is about the sweetest lady you could ever meet and her birthday is December 30th. Unfortunately, I was pretty sick all through Christmas and New Year's so I didn't get a chance to make her a card. I needed to rectify this ASAP!

I also wanted to make my first ever action wobble card! Woo Hoo! I grabbed some wobbles from Blitsy a couple of weeks ago so I just had to try this out. I looooved it.

I also wanted to enter this card in the Red Carpet Studio #17: Anything Goes "Sweet" Challenge.Their challenge this week is inspired by "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" so they're asking for sweet treat projects. It ends on the 5th so there is still time to join if you have a project! For good measure, I listened to "Pure Imagination" a couple of times while making this. =)

Onto my card--

Yay, action wobble!

I absolutely love my candy and cupcake brads!

More Brad action.

The supplies I used-

1. The cupcake was made from the Birthday Bash Cricut cartridge.
2. The cupcake background paper is from a Recollections paper pack I have.
3. Candy brads are Doodlebug Design Boutique Brads.
4. Stamped sentiment is from 7 Gypsies.

I really like the way this card came out! I really hope you all play along too!

Welcome 2013!

So long 2012! 2013 looks like it will be bringing me brighter days and for that I am thankful. I have already started implementing some things for this blog in terms of design, but we will see when I am finished with that.

However, first things first. Through the month of December, I was running around and my already small craft space became microscopic. And messy. Like really messy.

Welcome to my chaos.

Can you create with this mess? These past few days I have tried turning lame resolutions into concrete actions.

1. I donated 6 bags of clothing. (My closet has a back wall to it after all! There goes my Narnia hopes and dreams)
2. I cleaned out my fridge and bought healthy groceries to start eating better. I don't say diet. That word makes me shudder.
3. I finally cleaned my damn craft desk!!

People may think this desk already looks a little cluttered (do you like how I have people's addresses dangling from the top?) But now I can totally work with this.

Here is to some clarity in the new year! Perhaps now I can create some decent projects. =)

Christmas Cards 2012

Happy Christmas everyone! This year is especially merry for me because I have officially finished graduate school!! WOOT! But because my last class was 4 days before Christmas,  I didn't get the chance to make as many cards as I wanted to. These are the few I managed to put together.

All of the digistamps used here were purchased from Pink Cat Studio and I really looooove these images. They are so cute and easy to color. I managed to buy a bunch during their Black Friday sale in November. Santa was nice enough to bring me many new Copics so I will definitely be going back to the site for some more images.
      

I used some silver stickles as the string for the lights.

It's hard to tell, but I used an array of blue, white and silver stickles on this image.

I used some paper flowers that I found in Michael's for a dollar.

Stickles, brads and 3D Zots helps bring this kitty to life.

The stickers say "Snow Day"

Some white stickles for her hood.

I used some distress inks for the background of this card along with Santa stamps. The trees were drawn on the card.

I loved this image of Lily and the Polar Bear! Distress inks for the background. Silver stickles on the snowy mountains.

I hope you all liked them. I wasn't given as much time as I would have hoped, but now I can happily devote as much time as I'd like to my cards. Wishing you all a splendid New Year! Hopefully you now have more time for the things you love too. =)

Til Next Time, Happy Crafting!

Fun Sales/ DT Calls!

Hello everyone!

Things have been mighty quiet around here lately. School ends in 22 days for me which means in less than a month I will have a Master's Degree AND the freedom to return to my crafting! I have big plans for this blog and my mind is cooking up all kinds of fun. My boyfriend is a computer animator and he's promised to teach me some design basics in Photoshop and Illustrator so I'm coming up with ideas for graphics and perhaps a complete overhaul of the site. I'm also going to try and get back into challenges and blog hops of course!

In the meantime, I wanted to showcase some amazing blogs that I read, help spread the word about some design teams and really just share some beautiful projects I've come across.


Digi Stamps are my newest obsession. I bought one from Pink Cat Studio AGES ago and it has just been sitting on my computer. Fast forward to Black Friday, Melissa had a Mega 50% off sale so I took advantage.... and bought like 10 more. Her designs are so adorable and very easy to color in. I have a few Copic markers and I'm getting more for Christmas, so I'm looking forward to using these babies for my Christmas cards this year.

Speaking of Copic markers.... Have you ever wanted to learn how to use them? Well, if you're a newbie like me, they maybe a bit on the intimidating side.That is, unless you can find a good online tutorial but even that can be overwhelming. There are soooo many out there! But I finally found one  I really liked.



Suzanne over at Scrap Bitz offers online Copic classes, but even before you decide whether you want to pay $40 for a class (BTW, she has some Black Friday sales going on until the end of the week) you can check out her coloring chops. There's a section on her blog where she has youtube tutorials and she shows you step by step coloring instructions on hair, clothing, skin, etc. Her voice is very sweet and soothing (if you could imagine just how many videos I Xed out of because I couldn't stand the person's voice!) and she doesn't move too fast. It's really perfect and by looking at her finished products, the lady knows what she's doing! Make sure to check her out!

Speaking of sales, did everyone get some Black Friday goodies this year? My mailbox was bombarded by e-mails from all kinds of places. I scrolled through Facebook as well for some deals, but sometimes, it was a little more than I could take. Enter my buddy Amy from Scrap This, Save That. Amy was nice enough to spell out all the major deals from Michael's, JoAnn's, Blitsy, etc. What's great about this blog is that it doesn't have to be a major shopping holiday for Amy to do this. Her blog showcases great deals all the time, so if saving money is your thing, (and seriously, why wouldn't it be?) do yourself a favor and check this out weekly. She updates it a lot and with not just money saving tips, but great project ideas as well. The lady's got talent!




And now for some fun Design Team calls! I gotta say, I miss being on a Design Team and maybe when this is all over, I'll try again for one. My friend Heather at Random Recipes, Paper Crafts and Photos by HL linked a Design Team call for Tammy over at Cuttin' and Stampin'.



Tammy is launching a whole new challenge blog on January 6th and is looking for design team members until December 2nd. The term is for one year with a total of 27 projects and if you want more information on how to apply, go to her site here. Good luck to everyone!

If you want to feel like a celebrity, maybe you should try out for a Guest Designer Spot with the Red Carpet Studio Challenge Blog.






They are looking for guest designers to serve one month terms in either January, February, or March of 2013. You create two projects per month whether you're on the card or layout team. If you want more information you should look here on the site. If you make the cut then your project as well as blog and picture will be promoted on their celebrities page. Enter before December 20th!

Well, that's all I have for now. I'll still be around in the next couple of days, but say a little prayer that I make it through finals in one piece!!

Until Next Time, Happy Crafting!

Cards Through a Storm

During the hurricane, I was fortunate enough not to lose power. Thankfully, I live in an apartment building that didn't see any damage so my family and I basically hunkered down for the week and waited it out. During this time, I made a few cards, most of which were the Halloween ones I already posted. 

These last two were made for my friends, Rachael and Monique. They were going to be just saying hello cards so this is what I came up with. 

For Rachael, I picked some flower paper from My Mind's Eye 6x6 designer pads. The white flowers is from a Martha Stewart paper puncher and I put some blue jewels on them for some pop. I've seen so many cards where people rip the bottom layers, but when I tried, it looked ugly, not chic. So I took one of my patterned scissors and cut at angles. I'm really glad with the way it came out.

For Monique, if you remember, she really loves birds so I looked through my paper pads once again and found a brown pattern with a cute pink bird. He sorta reminded me of the bird on the cover of the Death Cab for Cutie album, Transatlanticism which is one of our favorite records so I went with him and choose a complimenting pink and purple paper for the above. This card was actually created around that middle sticker which I don't even remember where I got it from, but seeing as how there was a hurricane going on, I thought the sentiment, "Friends Forever, No Matter the Weather," was appropriate.

Closer look at the jewels on the flowers.

Hope everyone made it through Sandy alright and we're remembering those less fortunate. Remember the Red Cross is always taking donations!

Until Next Time, Happy Crafting!