Sizzix Card

This week the focus is on Sizzix dies for the My Creative Life classroom. To be honest I don't really have that many. In fact I only have one which I won. I have more Sizzix embossing folders the majority retired holiday ones. Anyway I decided to see what I could do different with the Layer #9 floral die I have. I also wanted to experimented with rolling ink on photo paper or glossy card stock. As well as see if I could tame a Sizzix embossing folder. Here is the card I came up with.

I started out with spritzing a piece of heavy card stock with my homemade glitter spray. It really looked splotchy and I was not sure how it was going to turn out once I embossed. While the card stock was wet I went ahead and embossed. The pressure used embossing smoothed out the color and the one section where I have problems with tearing did not tear. :-) I don't remember the name of the folder but it is a retired one and it came with a Christmas folder in a set.

For the pink panel I tried using a brayer  and Stazon Cherry PInk ink to make a background on a scrap of photo paper. I ended up with a sticky mess. I think the solvent in the ink dissolves the coating. Being frugal and an experimenter I turned the photo paper over to the semi-glossy side. After the pink was dried I inked up Stampendous Garden background stamp with Stazon  Purple. It was the first time using the stamp and I didn't get even coverage but I  actually think I like it better than if I had gotten even coverage.

I saw on a blog painted burlap shapes but they were flat. I really wanted something with more dimension. Most of the ideas I've seen using the layer #9 die has been flat flowers. I painted the burlap with purple acrylic paint that I mixed white in and ended up with a bluish-purple color. After painting both sides of the medium petal and while it was still wet I shaped it with my fingers. I then took a small petal and did the same thing. With the second small petal after painting I shaped it around the end of my paint brush. I glued with paint all the petals and let it dry. I covered the edges with Extreme glitter but for some reason it didn't really show. I'm thinking if you wanted to keep the burlap natural color that thinned white glue would work. I didn't like the flower last night but it must have been whispering in my ear while I slept because I woke up this morning and loved it. Lol!

I don't know if I like this card but it was fun trying different things. Of course a lot of times when I don't like a card the person I give it to loves it. Either that or they are being polite. Lol!

For those who may be concerned that Cameron is being neglected and planning to turn me in for neglect I just want to let you to know that he got a workout cutting pieces for a project over the weekend. Unfortunately my granddaughters came down sick Saturday evening so the project had to be put on hold.

Off to put Cameron to work cutting things for the inside for some cards. Thank you for stopping by and do come back. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

I Could Have Danced All Night

Hi All! Right now the song running through my head is "I Could Have Danced All Night".... "I could have danced all night And still have begged for more. I  could have spread my wings and done a thousand things I've never done before..."  I swear this song is my Bug's theme song. She was born with dance and music in her soul. When she gets home from preschool she will rush in and change into her dance clothes. If it is not dance day then there are tears of disappointment. Sometimes when she is suppose to be in bed sleeping she is instead dancing in her room. When I saw this cute shaker sticker of a ballerina I knew that I had to buy it to make Bug a card. I wish I could have gotten a better picture. I was fighting glare and shadows and my camera battery was almost dead.

Once again poor Cameron my Cameo was neglected. I cut the circle and the oval out using Spellbinders dies. For the circle after it was cut from mixed media paper I brushed two different colors of water color paint on it. Before the paint was totally dry I went ahead and embossed using a retired Sizzix embossing folder. I've had problems in the past with my paper tearing with this folder but with it being damp it didn't tear. Once the circle was totally dry I went and sanded. I like the results and will have to keep this technique in mind. I've painted with acrylic paint and sanded but never with water color paint.

The oval was cut out of pattern paper but the pattern is not really visible and there is a line at the bottom where for some reason the paper was not printed. It is probably why the paper was ten cents at the thrift store. I edged the oval with silver ink and a cosmetic wedge. After the shaker was adhered I pop dotted the oval for dimension.

I had a blob of white paint left on my palette and the paint I had mixed for the oval so I painted on  scrap mixed media paper. You know me I hate to let anything go to waste.

 I bought the Epiphany Craft 1/4 heart punch at a thrift store for under two dollars. The hearts were punched with that punch after the paint dried on the scrap.

I hope Bug will like her Valentine card from Grandma. Who knows we may even dance after I give her the card. She loves to dance with Grandma. Especially when I twirl her around. Then when I get home I'll be singing "I Could Have Danced All Night".

What song would you use to describe someone in your life?

That's all folks! I'm off to bed. Thanks for stopping by and do come back. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Frog Went A-Courtin' and He Did Ride, Uh-huh

Hi, now that I probably have the Bob Dylan song going through your head I will share my newest card. I made this for my oldest granddaughter who loves frogs. When I saw the shaker stickers at a dollar store I knew they would be perfect to go on cards which will be hand delivered.

The project for this week  at My Creative Classroom is to use Spellbinder dies. I don't like to use my Cameo in the wee hours and since I could not sleep I figured this would be a good time to use my nest-abilities dies. I only have the scalloped circles and the scalloped ovals as I never could justify spending a lot of money on them.

To make my card I put the largest scallop die a little above the folded card stock and then ran it through my eBosser which is surprisingly pretty quiet. Once the card base was done I went and ran the same die through but this time with pattern paper that I like the color but the pattern just does not show up. After it was cut out I then embossed it. Then having to experiment I inked a smaller die and then ran it through the eBosser. I love how the edges of the scallop colored as well as where it would normally be embossed. I decided to leave this as it was and not emboss. I added the sticker and then decided to weave ribbon on the front.

Although I used Spellbinders for this you could do a similar card using a cutting file and a cutting machine. I'm not sure though how you can make the shaker stickers if you can't find them. A card like  this would even be pretty with a large single flower in the center. Or even a heart for Valentine's day.

Thank you for stopping by and leaving comments. I have some more playing with Spellbinder dies I want to do this week as well as at least one more Valentine card so do come back and see what I am up to.

Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Sketched And Embossed Valentine

Hi Everyone! One of my goals for this year is to spend at least fifteen minutes a day creating. I'm amazed at how much I can get done in that time frame. Of course sometimes I get so excited that I keep creating past that fifteen minutes. Another goal is to use supplies I have on hand. I was looking at my fine tip washable Dollar Store markers and thinking they would work in the Silhouette pen holder. They did! This is the card I came up with.

I used a Darice embossing folder on core bright card stock. (I only wish that I had some other colors of core card stock to choose from.) I then lightly sanded the card stock after embossing. For some reason when I tried to use the markers on pattern paper the hearts sketched really distorted so I went back to sketching on plain copy paper. The flourishes in the file did a weird thing so I decided to put a bow where they had been. The hearts were colored with a Prismacolor colored pencil that I will confess has been packed in a box for over five years never used. The heart is the same file as the cut out heart on the previous post. The bow is Carnation scrapping floss by Karen Foster. I decided this year to quit hoarding it and using it.  I guess I did not have the card stock right in the embossing folder so I got a embossed line. A piece of lace generously provided by my friend Myrna took care of that as well as a narrow piece of ribbon. Actually I do not use ribbon and lace a lot so once again this goes with my goal of using more things that I don't often use.

That is all folks! Next  is to play with my Spellbinders as that is this week's project for My Creative Classroom.

Thank you for stopping by and leaving comments. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

First Valentine Card

Hi everyone! Hope things are going well for you. I'm taking My Creative Classroom free class My Creative Life 2014. The first topic last week was using a die cutting machine. I decided it was time for me to use  studio more and so sat down and made a cutting file. Here is my first Valentine card.

I embossed Darice Core card stock with my Rebecca embossing folder. I thought of  sanding the core card stock but decided to leave it. The glitter panel was an experiment gone bad. I had stamped on the plastic when I was playing before with floor wax and glitter. However when I sprinkled glitter on the back side of the stamped image it disappeared. (I really need to get black Stazon ink or a ink which will work with plastic) Although the instructions had said that too much glitter would cause the tissue paper to not adhere I decided to see what would happen if I used heavier glitter. Instead of using wrapping tissue paper I used one ply of facial tissue. I had no problem with the facial tissue sticking to the glitter and plastic. It is down tight.

The heart shape was cut out of photo paper. I used the Be Mine heart shape from Silhouette. I don't know if it is still available or not. I did the hearts and the middle heart using the text to path function and wmvalentine1 font. This is a fun dingbat font. I used the text to path function and the letter o to make holes for the scrap floss. The scrap floss is by Karen Foster and the color is magenta. I think I need to trim the ends shorter.

If you do this glitter technique you will need to be careful how you adhere the piece. I used Zots but discovered that they need to be on the base piece and then the glitter panel placed as the backing on the glitter piece rips. Luckily I had put the first Zot under the heart so the ripped backing does not show. It probably would be better to carefully brush glue on the glitter panel.

My next  project will be to use this file but instead of cutting out the design to use either pens or markers in my Cameo. Then for another project I'm also thinking about cutting a heart out with only the middle heart and the hearts border to use as a stencil on a solid heart the same size. The cards I will make for these projects have not percolated enough in my brain yet.

Are you making Valentine cards this year?

Thank you for stopping by and do come back. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Nursing Student Birthday Card

Can you believe that January is flying by so fast. I have a birthday next week that I needed to make a card for. I did some experimenting for this card but my experimenting failed. :-( In spite of my failure I was finally able to finish a card today. I am pleased the way it turned out even though I had to change a few ideas.

I am trying to use up some blank cards I bought several years.  Some of them are colors like this that I normally would not use. However, I noticed that it matched the nurse's hair. I also liked the idea that it is textured. I like to have some texture as I think it makes cards more interesting and not so much like store bought cards.

For the sentiment I wanted something special for a nursing student. After looking through quotes and cards for nurses and nursing students the only thing I could find was "On the eighth day God created nursing students to prove he had a sense of humor."  I added the birthday part since I was making a birthday card. I love how I can do text in the software for my Cameo and make it print and cut. I took a speech bubble added my text and then played with filling in the text and line colors. While at it you can even play around with line thickness. Just make sure that you have the text set for no cut. I printed this on photo paper and was impressed with how much nicer it printed than the trial one I did on copy paper.

I put in a search for free clip art of a nurse and came up with this cute one. I thought at first I could do a trace but I ended up having to do some editing to get it to trace easily.After she was traced I did an offset which the blue is. I tried to put micro-beads on the offset with floor wax but it ended up being a disaster. The only good thing was that the combination of micro-beads and floor wax colored my card stock giving me this most interesting blue piece.

After I printed and cut out the nurse. I made a tissue rose and added ribbon leaves to cover the flower that was on the image. I actually found it easier to make a flower from wrapping tissue paper than ribbon. I like the dimension that adding the flower gives this card. For the glasses and thermometer I used "Dimensional Magic" to give the impression that they were really glass.

I hope the person I give this card to likes it. It was fun even though my micro-bead experiment didn't work out. It was fun to see if I could make a rose out of wrapping tissue paper as well as to use my Dimensional Magic again to give more interest.

Now I need to start thinking about making some Valentine's cards. I would even like to make some to donate to a thrift store but don't know if I'll have the time. Especially since I've been busy deep cleaning and organizing my apartment.

Thank you for stopping by. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again!

Extreme Glitter Stamped Card

Just a quick post today. I decided to see how Folk Arts Extreme Glitter would work on photo paper over a stamped image. I probably did not need to use the floor wax on the paper first but I did. When I went to blot the glitter paint with some blue tissue paper some of the color of the tissue paper transferred to the photo paper. I decided to go ahead and use it anyway.

Although I love the Holograph Extreme Glitter paint I wish I could find a color that did not dry with a pink cast to it. Of course I had forgotten that I had bought a bottle of Aqua color until just now. Lol!

Here is the card I made.

I believe the sweet stamped image is by Stamping Up but not sure right now and I'm not in the room where my stamps are. I saw this stamp in a thrift store for a dollar and the girl spoke to me. I'm thinking this will make a neat stamp to use for Spring cards. 

I have seen several cards with scrap floss or twine around a panel. I decided to use some Karen Foster scrap floss and since I don't use my buttons much to add a pop of extra color with the yellow button. I have quite a collection of buttons and why I don't use them more often I don't know. Maybe because I mail so many of my cards now.

I used chalk for her skin tones as well as for the shutters and the valence in the window. The glitter shows through the chalk but since I did not have either a gray or skin tone water color pencil it had to do. The rest of it was colored using wet water color pencils as well as blotting in places with a cotton swab.

Have you used Extreme Glitter Paint by Folk Art for anything? By the way if you have not and would like to if you have a Hobby Lobby they are the cheapest and sometimes they even have a percentage off of the Folk Art paints. In mine I had to really look for the extreme glitter paint as it was on one of the bottom shelves. I really thought one of the employees was going to have to help me to get back up. LOL! 

Thank you for stopping by. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crafting till we meet again.

First Experiment Of The New Year

 Hi everyone! I hope your new year is starting out well for you.

I decided since I'm superstitious and whatever you do the first day of the year you will be doing the rest of the year to experiment. As some of you may remember my goal  for last year was to experiment and to try new things more often. Not just in crafting but in all areas of my life.

Yesterday I did my first experiment. My other goal last year and this year is to use what I have on hand. Who knew you could do so much with acrylic floor wax besides polish floors with it. ;-)

The technique I used for this card I have not seen done anywhere. I was looking at the bottle of floor wax and wondering hmmm let's try this. Oh you want to see the card instead of reading  my ramblings. O.K. Drum roll please!

The card base is from an assortment of blank cards I had bought by mistake. Most of the cards are too flimsy so I'm trying to use them up. The stamp is by Paper Studio "Cherry Blossom Bird". The ink used Black Tuxedo by Memento. The stamp is stamped on glossy photo paper.(I buy it at a dollar store when I can find it.) The lace my dear friend Myrna sent me as a Christmas present. I thought it would be perfect for this card.. The paints were some water color tube paints I had and a pearl white acrylic paint by Artist Loft.(Most of the water color tube paints were dried out and the tubes almost empty. I don't know why I have been moving them everywhere I have moved over the last fifteen years. Time for new tube paints.)

I have tried in the past to paint on photo paper but it has not worked out like I wanted it to. The paint would be absorbed into the paper so I was not able to blend like I wanted. Since the tissue paper coated with acrylic wax blended the paint so nicely on my last experiment I decided to try that with photo paper. I was not sure whether the Black ink was going to work so I stamped with that as well as the image on another piece of photo paper with Stazon ink. I will do something with that image later. Perhaps experimenting with alcohol inks over the wet acrylic wax.

I coated the whole piece of paper including the stamped image with acrylic floor wax. Don't worry if the photo paper curls it will pretty much uncurl  as you saturate the paper with the wax.I don't think you need to but I thinned both the water colors and the acrylic paint with the floor wax on my parchment paper instead of water. (For this I used nonstick parchment paper as I can toss it when I'm done. It can be a pain peeling paint off of a nonstick mat. Did I mention that I'm lazy.)

 I took my blue paint and brushed it over the entire piece of photo paper including the stamped image over the wet wax. Then I took a crumpled up piece of wrapping tissue paper and placed over my wet paint. Because the wax is tacky some of the paint will be pulled up. If you are doing this technique you can quit here when you get something you like or you can go ahead and paint the image like I did.

If the stamping does not show through the paint you can blot some of the paint off. I used a cotton swab which had been dipped in the floor wax on the feathers to remove excess paint. I love how on the breast of the bird the pattern shows through from the background.

I did not think to mix red with white pearl paint to get pink for the blossoms. The blue from the background probably would not have shown through so much in places but I like the result.

I glued the lace over the edge of my stamped image panel using floor wax. Who knew that floor wax worked as a clear glue. After everything was dry I adhered the panel to my card base and turned the card base over and ran my brayer over it to make sure that the panel was down tight and would not try to curl up. You can also of course put the card under some books to make sure that it is flat.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to paint. Lol! You are probably going to be seeing more posts which use paint. That is another goal of mine. To do more of what I love to do.

Thank you for stopping by and commenting. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy life to stop for a spell. Wishing you Happy Frugal Crating till we meet again!