A Year of Card Techniques ~ December Blog Hop ~ Stamp Your Background!

Welcome to the

Welcome to A Year of Card Techniques Blog Hop where each month we feature a different card technique. We’ve assembled a team of card makers who range from new to advanced, so you’ll see a great variety of cards and ideas. This month we’re going to stamp our own background for a unique customized look.  Hopefully, we’ll inspire you to try one yourself.  If you would like to check out our past technique hops, you can do that here:

• January-Shaving Cream Marbleizing
• February-So Sketchy
• March-no hop this month
• April-Stamp Set Showdown
• May-World of Watercolor
• June-Basic Card Folds
• July-Bleaching Your Card
• August-World of Watercolor
• September-Inlaid & Lifted Die Cuts
• October-Waterfall Cards
• November-Masking Magic

Our amazing sponsor this month is Claudia Henderson of Close to My Heart. Yes, this is me :-)

Please take a moment to check out her store here.

And the awesome prize this month is:

We really appreciate feedback, so please leave a comment on each of the blogs in the hop today.  Since this is our last A Year Of Card Techniques hop and the holiday season is just around the corner, we are going to give you some extra time to hop!  The winner will be announced on Saturday, December 30, 2017 on A Piece of (my) Heart’s blog, so be sure to check her blog on Sunday. The winner will have until January 6, 2018 to claim their prize.  If you would like to be notified by email, please leave your email address in the comments.

This is the beginning of this months blog hop, so if you happen to start here first welcome.  To increase your chances of winning make sure to hop along and comment on each blog.

Creating your own background papers. How much fun is this? I don't know about you, but I often run into the problem that I need a background paper with design and can't find a matching one or one that I like. So what do I do? Yes, I make my own design paper ;-)

It really is not that difficult to do. I cut my cardstock down to size and pick one or multiple stamps that will work with my card designs. You can go simple or bold, just don't over complicate it. The beauty of having Close to My Heart cardstock on hand is that I also have the matching ink colors to go with the papers.....really simple, right?

Let's start with my candy cane card. I couldn't find the right striped papers or anything that I liked, so instead I cut my "Ruby" cardstock to size, picked a few snowflake stamps and little circles and arranged them on a clear block. In this case I when with our white pigment ink and stamped all images at the same time. Important for a random look, let your stamp go over the edges, make sure to rotate the block with ever imprint and have fun. Ones the ink was dry (pigment does take a bit longer to dry) I added my phrase, a vellum heart and some good old candy canes to the card.

The background to my second card was even easier to make. I have some pretty big background stamps and sometimes you can't really use them for smaller projects, but they are awesome for backgrounds. So I used a music sheet stamp and inked it in "Whisper" grey. I sized my whisper cardstock and stamped the image on top. No worries if the impression is not perfect. I like it this way so it looks more like a random piece. We added our little reindeer to it and then, there was still something not right. Yeap, the background needed some sparkle and maybe some snowflakes. Out came the stickles glitter glue "Star dust" and on I went to place little drops all over the card.

Again, this time I used some really really simple stamps to create my background. And yes, you can get fancy and use multiple stamps and different colors etc, but sometimes easy is the way to go. I hope you give your stamps a second look and see what kind of background you can create. Always remember, if you can't find a matching design or paper, just create your own.

I hope you enjoyed our little excursion through the world of card techniques.

Now you’re off to visit with the talented Debbie. Hope you had fun and thanks for stopping by.

Claudia

Always remember:

"Art comes from the heart.

So there is never a right way or a wrong way;

there is only Your Way."

Here’s the full line-up in case you get lost:

Claudia
Debbie
Wilma
Amanda
Jodie

A Year of Card Techniques ~ November Blog Hop ~ Masking Magic!

Welcome to

Welcome to A Year of Card Techniques Blog Hop where each month we feature a different card technique. We’ve assembled a team of card makers who range from new to advanced, so you’ll see a great variety of cards and ideas.

This month we’re going to explore masking techniques.  There are so many variations of masking, it would be difficult to list them all here.  But, since pictures speak louder than words, we’ll let our team show you the masking techniques they opted to try.  Hopefully, we’ll inspire you to try one yourself.  If you would like to check out our past technique hops, you can do that here:

• January-Shaving Cream Marbleizing
• February-So Sketchy
• March-no hop this month
• April-Stamp Set Showdown
• May-World of Watercolor
• June-Basic Card Folds
• July-Bleaching Your Card
• August-World of Watercolor
• September-Inlaid & Lifted Die Cuts
• October-Waterfall Cards

Our amazing sponsor this month is Jodie Park of Close to My Heart

Please take a moment to check out her store here.

And the awesome prize this month is:

We really appreciate feedback, so please leave a comment on each of the blogs in the hop today.  The winner will be announced on Sunday, November 26, 2017, on A Piece of (my) Heart’s blog, so be sure to check her blog on Sunday. The winner will have until December 14, 2017, to claim their prize.

You should have arrived here from the lovely Debbie.  If you're visiting here first, you might want to start at the beginning so you don't miss a thing and increase your chances of winning by commenting on each blog.

While the year is slowly coming to an end I have to say it was so much fun working every month on these wonderful techniques. I hope you enjoyed every moment as much as I did.

 But let's get back to this months challenge. We all have dies at home right? Some come with matching stamps and others are on there own. Well this month we were trying to find a way to get more out of our dies. So what else can you do with them?

I settled on a pair of snowflakes I found in my stack of things. First order of the challenge, I ran them through my BigShot and put them on my desk. 

Looking at the cut-outs and the negative space they left I thought about creating two cards by using both "cut-outs".

I stared with the snowflake die-cuts. I put some removable adhesive on the back of them and adhered them temporary to a piece of white cardstock. I used a sponge daubber and some distress inks in different hues of blue to cover the white cardstock completely. Then I had the great idea to use some of my shimmer paint to add little sprinkles to the piece....well.... instead of sprinkles I emptied the whole container over my cardstock.....yikes! But as I always say, there are not mistakes ;-) I grabbed a piece of kitchen paper and soaked up the excess....which left me with a beautiful shimmer on my cardstock. It looks up-close like the milky-way. I then removed the snowflakes which left me with two beautiful white impressions.

 For my second card I used the negative space of the die-cuts as a template. I started with the smaller flake and three different hues of blue. I randomly laid the template down and sponged the colors on. Last I used the big flake and some really light blue distress ink to fill in the empty space. As you can see really soft so overlapping the colors wasn't a problem.

 When you try this with your negative cuts, just make sure you hold the template well in place and be careful sponging in between the fine cutouts. 

You can use removable adhesive to hold it down too, but it works with out if you are careful applying the inks.

 From my first example I created the card seen on the left here. I matted it with some silver foiled cardstock. I also cut the big snowflake from silver paper and offset it on the white . A few rhinestones and a little greeting finishing this card up.

I do love how the colors blend in from light to dark which makes the white snowflakes really stand out. And my shimmer paint accident made a real special effect...have to remember that!

For my second sample I used some mat silver cardstock as the matting part of the card. Since the blues were a bit strong for my taste, I layered a piece of vellum on top to tune it down just a bit.

Another silver snowflake and a few rhinestone complete this card to.

So when you look through your dies, always remember to think outside the box and used them in a few other ways than planed. I hope you enjoyed this months hop and I will have more detailed information about both of these cards on my Friday follow-ups on the blog here. So make sure to check back often and don't forget to leave a comment below and on the way.

Now this is the end for this months blog hop. Hope you had fun and thanks for stopping by.  See you next month with another great technique!

Claudia

Always remember:

"Art comes from the heart.

So there is never a right way or a wrong way;

there is only Your Way."

Here’s the full line-up in case you get lost along the way:

Sharon
Kim
Wilma
Amanda
Jodie
Debbie
Claudia

Craft Show Time in Milford this Saturday

It is Craft Show time again...

Come see me at St.Mary Our Lady of the Snows Church in Milford,MI this Saturday, November 11th from 9 am- 3 pm. Address: 1955 E Commerce Rd, Milford, MI 48381

Lots of unique vendors and items can be found at this Craft Show. I will have many new items made from paper for you. Cute little teachers, Thanksgiving or Christmas gifts and decorations.

How about these items?
- candles and tea lights in unique boxes
- tea cups and hot chocolate mugs made from paper with delicious fillings
- cards for all occasions including lots of Christmas cards
- home decor items like lanterns and so much more

Come see me on Saturday and in case you can't make it, well you will miss a great opportunity, but I have you covered :-) Contact me to see how you can still get some really unique gifts to give.

Hope to see you on Saturday and spread the word, bring a friend and have some fun.

Close to My Heart: Super Sale Special in November

Welcome to: 

"The Just for FUN" campaign

The Just for FUN campaign is all about Fundamentals! You can take part in the “fun” with discounts on Fundamentals paper packets, Complements, and ribbon packs! There are two ways to save during the month of November. 

First, you can purchase Fundamentals products individually at 30% off the retail price.  

Second, purchase a Fundamentals bundle containing the Fundamental paper packet, Complements, AND ribbon, at 40% off the retail price!

November is the perfect time to stock up on Fundamentals paper packets, Complements, and ribbon. With a bundle of coordinating products, you can craft with confidence, knowing that the parts and pieces of your projects match.

You can find all packages available by CLICKING HERE!

I love these packages because the packages have a nice mix of design papers and designs. You will love to work with them and....the compliments and matching ribbons will make your life really easy. Have a look and see what might be perfect for your projects.

Please feel free to contact me and remember Christmas is on its way and maybe you have a crafty friend in your life that could use a package like this. Join the "Christmas Collective Order" button and start shopping online. All orders will be shipped with a lower shipping cost to your home and while you are there to check out the specials for November. Maybe you keep browsing around a little and see all the other wonderful products that Close to My Heart offers. Have fun shopping and see you soon.

Technique: Waterfall Cards - Part 2

Here is the second waterfall card I made for the blog hop. This time I used an old Close to My Heart stamp set I found in my stack. This one turned out to be my favorite one for this technique since it creates a little movement while puling out the tab.


The parts that I used for this card are:
- card base in daisy white 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 
- CTMH "poppy" red cardstock 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"
- Christmas design paper series 2016 cut at 3 3/4" x 5"
- strip "poppy" redcardstock 2" x 9"
- strip "poppy" red cardstock 1" x 4 1/4"
- 4 squares off "poppy" red cardstock 2" x 2"
- 4 squares off daisy white cardstock 1 3/4" x 1 3/4"
- 2 brads and my Santa and reindeer stamp sets

The cardstock strip measuring 2" x 9" is scored at 2", 2 3/4", 3 1/2", 4 1/4" along the 9" side. Fold and crease all score lines.
Adhered the Christmas design paper centered to the "poppy" red cardstock (not the card base!). Fold your 9" at the 4 1/4 line over and lay it (no adhesive!) on to the Christmas paper piece. This folded strip has a longer side and a short one. Place the longer side down, facing the shorter side with the rest of the scorelines up. Depending if your waterfall is going horizontal or vertical make sure you have an even distance from the outsides top/bottom and left/right. I created this card horizontal so my pull out tab is on the right side.

Now take the 1" red cardstock strip and place it over the 9" strip flush with the sides of the bottom piece. Move it down to the point were the right part of the 1"strip (in my case) is flush with the end of the shorter side of the 9" folded pieces. Hard to explain, but it should look like this:
The part of the 9" strip with all the scorelines is flush at the end with the little 1" strip while the bottom part of the 9" sticks out underneath about 1/2".

Carefully remove the 9" strip holding the 1" in place. Place a little adhesive on each end of the 1" strip and adhered it to the Christmas design paper piece. (no adhesive in the middle of the strip!) Punch a hole on either side of the 1" strip through all three layers of the sandwich for the brads. Place each hole more towards the sides. Inset brads and bend ends on the back side over.

Next we add the 9" strip to the sandwich. Make sure your scorelines are creased back and forth. Slight the longer half of the 9" folded at the 4 1/4" mark underneath the fastened 1" piece. Place the shorter part of the 9" on top of the 1" piece. Your 2" part of the strip should be the first one touching the 1" strip. Place about 1/4" strip of adhesive on the right edge of the 2" part and adhere it on top of the 1" piece flush and centered. This is it for the mechanism. Before you continue decorating, carefully pull the part underneath the 1" strip to the side and make sure your creases on top peak up and move underneath. Continue to move the strip back and forth so the mechanism is working smoothly.  
  
Now to the finishing touches. In my case I stamped my images in black ink on the white squares. Well, the stamp looks like this: Santa and sleigh plus three reindeer. Naturally they didn't fit on the little squares and then I thought about this:
I stamped the first square with the Santa and the end of one of the reindeer. For the second square I stamped the first two reindeer of the set on it. The third square was stamped with the second and last reindeer. This way I stretch the reindeer a bit, but when the tab is pulled out, the reindeer are moving ;-). For the last square I used the HOHOHO that came with the set. 

Next I added the stamped squares in the center of each of my 4 cardstock squares. Looking at the 9" strip on the sandwich you should see four score lines. Take the first square, add about 1/4 adhesive to one side and line it up with the 2" fold line. Adhere it to the score line, but don't go over the crease. Take the second square and add it the same way to the next score line....continue with the remaining two squares. The last square should line up with your 4 1/4" fold of the strip. In between each square I pulled out the strip to make sure things are working smoothly.

Now add the rest of your embellishments to the card. Don't use foam dots, adhere them just flat to the squares. Make sure they don't stick over the squares to much otherwise they might get stuck on the 1" strip when you try to pull it through. I placed a simple red rhinestone to the nose of the last reindeer ;-) and few green ones for the HOHOHO. 

If you done everything correct, you can pull out the lower strip part while the top squares fold up and disappear underneath the strip. Ad a message on the pull out part and decorate so your recipient knows to pull this part to get the message. Las but not least, add the assembled piece to your card base and decorate the inside of your card. By finishing everything this way, the ends of the brads will disappear between your sandwich and the card base ;-)

I know this all sounds a bit complicated, but it is really pretty simple. Hard to explain here than actually making it. Ones you are familiar how this mechanism works it will be a breeze to make these cards. 

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about this technique and anything else you might see here on the blog. I would love to hear from you. Sent me pictures of your creations too :-) I would love to see what you made. I hope you enjoyed our little excursion into the world of Waterfall Cards. I sure love them and I am pretty sure these will not be my last ones to make. Take care and check back often.

A Fall Window Card

Don't you love all these bold colors that fall brings us? The reds and greens and deep yellows? I thought they would be great on one of our fall cards for this month. 

By the way, this design for this card can easily be changed into a winter scene or a Christmas card or for Spring. Change out the colors and some of the embellishments and voila :-)

But back to this card: The card base is a regular 4 1/4" x 5 1/2". I cut a piece of brick red cardstock at 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" to cover the front of my base. This piece was embossed with a brick embossing folder and then adhered to the card.

Next the window, this is a cutting file I have on my Cricut machine. It comes in two parts, the window and the window box. Both have been cut from brown cardstock. 

For the drapes, I used a piece of design paper cut to fit right behind the window. I cut from the bottom center about 1/3" into the paper and then about 1/4" from the cut line to the tip (so a triangle with my center cut in the middle....hope this makes sense). I adhered the curtains to the window before I attached everything to the brick piece.

I raised the window box with some foam dots so I cut arrange some of my greens and leaves underneath and above the box.

The phrase was stamped on a piece of oval white cardstock and a matching glitter paper scalloped oval was attached right below it. This ensemble was adhered to the center of the window box.

Technique: Waterfall Cards - Part 1

This was supposed to be my Friday follow-up post, but due to no phone,internet and TV service for almost 4 days (very long story) things got pushed back a bit. But now that everything is back up and running :-) let's start with the Waterfall Card Technique.

Here are the parts I used for this card:
- card base in colonial white (cream) 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 
- colonial white cardstock 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"
- brown design paper 4" x 5 1/4"
- strip of colonial white cardstock 2" x 9"
- strip of colonial white cardstock 1" x 4 1/4"
- 4 squares off colonial white cardstock 2" x 2"
- 4 squares off design paper 1 3/4" x 1 3/4"
- 2 brads and stamps or cut outs for decoration

The cardstock strip measuring 2" x 9" is scored at 2", 2 3/4", 3 1/2", 4 1/4" along the 9" side. Fold and crease all score lines.
If you use stamped images, now is the time to prepare your smaller squares with the images before you continue to assemble the card.
First I adhered the brown design paper to my extra piece of cream colored cardstock (not the card base!). Fold your 9" at the 4 1/4 line over and lay it (no adhesive!) on to the brown design paper piece. This folded strip has a longer side and a short one. Place the longer side down facing the shorter one with the rest of the scorelines up. Depending if your waterfall is going horizontal or vertical make sure you have an even distance from the outsides top/bottom and left/right. I my case the waterfall is placed vertical on the card. 

Now take the 1" cream cardstock strip and place it over the 9" strip flush with the sides of the bottom piece. Move it down to the point were the bottom part of the 1"strip (in my case) is flush with the end of the shorter side of the 9" folded pieces. Hard to explain, but it should look like this:
The part of the 9" strip with all the scorelines is flush at the end with the little 1" strip while the bottom part of the 9" sticks out underneath about 1/2".

Carefully remove the 9" strip holding the 1" in place. Place a little adhesive on each end of the 1" strip and adhered it to the brown design paper piece. (no adhesive in the middle of the strip!) Punch a hole on either side of the 1" strip through all three layers of the sandwich for the brads. Place each hole more towards the sides. Add your brads and bend the ends on the back over.

Next we add the 9" strip to the sandwich. Make sure your scorelines are creased back and forth. Slight the longer half of the 9" folded at the 4 1/4" mark underneath the fastened 1" piece. Place the shorter part of the 9" on top of the 1" piece. Your 2" part of the strip should be the first one touching the 1" strip. Place about 1/4" strip of adhesive on the edge of the 2" part and adhere it on top of the 1" piece flush and centered. This is it for the mechanism. Before you continue decorating, carefully pull the part underneath the 1" strip to the side and make sure your creases on top peak up and move underneath. Continue to move the strip back and forth so the mechanism is working smoothly.    

Now to the finishing touches. In my case I added the design paper squares in the center of each of my 4 cardstock squares. Looking at the 9" strip on the sandwich you should see four score lines. Take the first square, add about 1/4 adhesive to one side and line it up with the 2" fold line. Adhere it to the score line, but don't go over the crease. Take the second square and add it the same way to the next score line....continue with the remaining two squares. The last square should line up with your 4 1/4" fold of the strip. In between each square I pulled out the strip to make sure things are working smoothly.

Now add the rest of your embellishments to the card. Don't use foam dots, adhere them just flat to the squares. Make sure they don't stick over the squares to much otherwise they might get stuck on the 1" strip when you try to pull it through. 

If you done everything correct, you can pull out the lower strip part while the top squares fold up and disappear underneath the strip. Ad a message on the pull out part and decorate so your recipient knows to pull this part to get the message. Las but not least, add the assembled piece to your card base and decorate the inside of your card. By finishing everything this way, the ends of the brads will disappear between your sandwich and the card base ;-)

I know this all sounds a bit complicated, but it is really pretty simple. Hard to explain here than actually making it. Ones you are familiar how this mechanism works it will be a breeze to make these cards. 

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about this technique and anything else you might see here on the blog. I would love to hear from you. Sent me pictures of your creations too :-) I would love to see what you made. Stay tuned for one more example of these wonderful cards coming your way next Friday. Yes, and it will be on the blog on Friday because I am going to set it up right now LOL....have a wonderful week and check back often. Thanks for stopping by.