Workshop Christmas Party

Like every year our Card Workshop group gets together for a little Christmas Party with coffee and homemade cookies. 

Thanks to all that attend my class every month in 2013 and I am looking forward to seeing you all again in January.

Special Thanks too....

Bev, Carolyn, Debbie, Jan, 

Karen, Linda, Marsha, Nikki, 

Peg, Ruth, Sandy, Sarah 

and 

IZZY

Well, if you like to join us or have a bunch of friends that like to start their own class, please feel free to contact me. I would love to teach you too.

Even if it's only you or you are two or three, sent me an email or give me a call I would love to help.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

see you in 2014!

Gift Card Holder Last Part

Here is our final project for this year. Another 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" gift card holder.

The holder opens this time upward and a strip of cardstock and design paper dressed up with two Christmas trees is holding it together.

The little present was stamped twice and colored in. One image was enhanced with glitter glue. Now all that is left for this decoration is to cut both images out and place the glitter one with foam dots on top of the other one. Adhere the little package to the left side of the card on the front flap.

Both Christmas trees were stamped in English Ivy ink and enhanced with more gold sparkle embossing powder. One tree is glued directly to the strip that runs around the card in a vertical way. The other tree is placed with foam dots on the strip as well, offset from the first one.

 On the inside I attached a piece of white card stock with Christmas greetings. The bottom flap ( about 1") is adhered just on the sides to the card to create a pocket for the gift card.

If you need more detailed information or measurements of any of this Card Workshop Class, please feel free to contact me.


Joyeux Noel e Bonne Annee ......

Gift Card Holder Part 3

How about a little purse-anal gift card this time? This is the third one of our card holders. A cute little purse with can be given away anytime.

A strip of design paper was cut at 12" x 4" and scored three times. At 5 1/4", 6" and at 6 3/4". Fold the card strip in half showing the striped paper design. Then fold each side back so the poka-dots are on the outside and you have a little V in the middle. Use a strong corner rounder and round the two corners on the folded side, with the V still in the middle. 

Lay your folded card flat and make a mark on on side of 3" from the bottom up. Draw the line in pencil across so you can erase it later. I used two round cookie cutters about 1/4" different in size to draw half a circle above the 3" mark. Using my craft knife, I cut the inner circle and with my scissors I cut around the out one including the little straight parts on each side along the 3" line.

 Now you are able the remove the paper part around the top circle. I folded the inner part over so the striped paper was showing on top of the doted paper. A little bit of clear and red glitter glue along a few of those strips makes the card more festive. I places a piece of white and red cardstock on each purse side on the inside. Before I adhered the red piece I glued a piece of ribbon on the back so I could use the strips sticking out to tie the gift card to the purse. A personal note on the white side and a little tag on the front and this little purse it done.

To keep it standing up and not opening, tie both handles together with a piece of ribbon.

Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo .......

Gift Card Holder Part 2

Santa sends his best wishes and see what's tucked away inside:

 Again, this card measures 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" and is hold together by Santa's belt.
A white piece of cardstock is trimmed with a scalloped edge and little black circles are placed as buttons along the white strip. Adhere the strip down the middle of the card base.
The belt was created with a strip of black cardstock, a piece of silver glitter cardstock and another piece of black cardstock. Fit the black strip around the card so it slights of easy and adhere both ends in the front together. They should overlap a little bit. Place the silver piece over the seam of the strip and adhere. Finally glue the little black cardstock piece on top of the silver one. Make sure it is in line with the strip, which will give you the illusion of a real belt buckle.  

A strip of red cardstock is scored and folded so a little peak is folded upward in the middle of the card. Carefully place adhesive around the bottom and side part of the inside of this peak and glue it shut. Cut an opening as wide as your gift card into the middle fold. Now you can easily slip in your gift card.

Your gift card will poke out in the middle once the card is opened. Place a little white piece of cardstock at the back of this card to leave a personal note.
Wrap the belt around the card and Santa's greetings are ready to give away....

Frohe Weihnachten ....

Gift Card Holder Part 1

I am a little late with writing my blog and showing you the last projects of our Card Class this month. Well, but I guess still in time for Christmas.

How often did you buy a gift card in the store and all you get is a small envelope to put it in? Not very personal or? Here are some Gift Card packages we made this month and I think they are so much better than just an envelope:

First we start out with our Doily/ Snowflake bundle of joy. The folder measures a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" . Both ends fold over to create a little pocket. A strip of sky colored cardstock paper and some design paper strips hold the card closed. You simply slide the strip off to the side and the card will open.  

 The beautiful doily/ snowflake was created with the "Classy Doily" (B1424) stamp set from Close To My Heart. I cut the base shape out with the Cricut and stamped the doily once in sky blue on it. Little blue glitter glue made it even more sparkly. I then stamped the same image two more times in silver. I cut the first one out right around the star design and the second one around the middle part. Both layers are attached with foam dots to the base. Now all that is left is to attache the snowflake doily to the strip.

 When you open the card, you will see your Christmas Greeting and a pocket for the gift card. 

Slight your gift card in on the bottom, leave your personal note and slight the strip around the closed card.

Merry Christmas...

Home for the Holidays

Here is my final Christmas card form this months card class. In traditional colors and with lots of glitter...you should see my basement :-) 

This card started with a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" colonial white base. I used a piece of 4" x 5 1/4" desert sand cardstock from Close To My Heart. This piece was embossed and enhanced with gold ink on the embossing images.

A piece of red and green design paper was used to create the middle part of this card. The red piece measures about 3" x 2 1/2" while the green one is 3" x 1 3/4".

I adhered the red and green paper onto the embossed piece. I used a golden ribbon to create a little bow on the right side. The bow was attached with glue dots to the right and the rest of the ribbon was adhered with glue dots over the seam of the green and red paper. The leftover ribbon is adhered on the back of the embossed cardstock. Now you can glue the whole piece in the center of your card base. This way the ribbon will be secured behind the embossed layer. 

Whenever I adhere embossed paper pieces I make sure to use a good amount of adhesive so the layers will hold together.

The oval colonial white cardstock was cut out with the Close To My Heart Cricut cartridge. The phrase comes in a straight line, but the beauty of these clear stamps is that you can bend them nicely in any other shape as well. So I bend it in a have oval and stamped it on the bottom of my cardstock piece. Now I could place the little house stamp right above it...

I colored the house in a little bit by using color pencils. Two pine trees were stamped on an extra piece of colonial white cardstock and cut out with scissors. 

I used a glue pen on the house image and the two pine trees on those areas where I wanted the extra fine glitter to be. Once the glue was a bit dry I sprinkled the fine glitter all over the images. Make sure to tap off all the extra glitter before you go on with the assembling.

The oval image was placed with foam dots in the middle of the card. For the one pine tree I used two foam dots top and bottom to place it on the left side of the oval, overlapping the house image just a bit. The second pine tree only got one foam dot on the bottom and a glue dot on the top. This one is places a bit offset underneath the other one. 

This card is also available for purchase...Let me know if you are interested.

Stay tuned for gift card holders and so much more in December...

Santa Claus is coming

This is card is just a fun card to make. Our No.3 of this months card class is the perfect card to stand on your mantle, to place a gift card in or just send some join for Christmas. 

For this layout you would need a piece of 5 1/2" x 12" cardstock . I used the slate cardstock color from Close To My Heart for this one. The doted and striped design paper is from the "Sparkle & Shine" paper pack. All stamped images are from the "Santa Claus" (C1567) stamp set which you can find in the Holiday Guide from Close To My Heart. 

Once you open the card it looks like this....

If you like to know how to score and cut the base for this card, please contact me. It is a little bit difficult to explain here on the blog.

The paper elements you need for the card are cut in the following sizes:

- (2x) Doted paper 5 1/2" x 2 1/8"

- (2x) Red cardstock 2" x 2 1/8"

- (1x) Red cardstock 3 1/2" x 2 1/8"

- (4x) Striped paper 1 1/8" x 2"

- (2x) Striped paper 1 1/8" x 3 1/2"

Adhere all paper as shown on the picture above. Make sure that the space around the papers are evenly. The two front and back papers are slightly overlapping each other. A piece of the border that comes with the paper was placed on the front.

A tag design from the Close To My Heart Cricut cartridge was used to cut out a piece of white cardstock and a slightly bigger piece of matching red cardstock. Santa was stamped on the white cardstock and embellished with a glitter pen. Both pieces are centered and adhered to each other. The Santa Claus tag is placed with foam dots in the middle of the front.

Another tag was cut out from the same cartridge and stamped with a Christmas phrase in ruby ink. A few rhinestones were added and this Santa Claus card is done.


This card is available for purchase either to assemble at home or already done for you. Let me know if you are interested in a set.... stay tuned for one more card this month..

I hope all of you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Enjoy your time with family and friends.

Christmas Ornament Card

This is the second card of my November Card Class. For this card I used a white cardstock base of 4 1/4" x 5 1/2".

 I stamped the "Merry Christmas" in the lower right corner in black ink. A red rhinestone was placed on top of the "i" to give it a little sparkle.
I adhered a piece of 4" square red design paper and a 3 3/4" square black cardstock piece in the top center of the card base. Make sure that the white shown form the card base is evenly spaced.

The three ornaments were cut out with the Close To My Heart Cricut cartridge. I run the grey and red cardstock ornaments through an embossing machine to give them a little bit more dimension. I used silver ink to bring out the embossing. The middle ornament was cut out from the Close To My Heart "Sparkle & Shine" paper. It needed a little sparkle for this card so I used red and silver glitter glue on every other stripe of the paper. Make sure you let the glitter glue dry completely. I always like to be on the safe side, so my glitter glue items will dry over night.


I first glued both cardstock ornaments to the black piece. Each one towards the side and top. The striped ornament is placed with foam dots over the other two, partially covering them. A bow made from a silver ribbon is adhered with a glue dot underneath the striped ornament. A little snow pearl is placed at the top of the middle ornament and your Christmas Card is done.

Do you like to create these cards at home or do you like a set pre-done? Contact me for more information... and stay tuned for more cards...   

A Round Pumpkin Card

Here is our last Autumn card for the October Card Class II, a round pumpkin card.

It's not always easy to find the right round card for your project, but I found an easy way to make your own. First I determined that I wanted to make a 4" card that would fit easily in a regular envelope for a 5 1/2" by 4 1/4" card, including all the extras (leaves, bow, etc).

I cut out a 4" circle from sunset cardstock (Close To My Heart) with my Cricut. I ran the circle through my Cuttlebug with a wood grain design. I edged around the circle with sunset ink to make it look more dimensional. Now comes the tricky part:

First I took a 5 1/2" by 4 1/4" card base (landscape format) and adhered the sunset circle in the middle of the card front, down to the bottom. The fold of the card (long side) is on the top. Now I marked on the top of the card, in the middle of the circle two lines about 2" apart form each other. I cut along the tow lines and around the rest of the circle. You end up with a round card and a "hinge" on the top of 2". (See picture of the back of the card).

Don't worry about the hinge itself, because we will cover this up later with leafs and bows.

 I stamped two big leafs in olive and chocolate brown, cut them out and adhered them to the top of the circle above the hing. This way I was able to cover the white hinge. Make sure the leafs stick out a big over the hings to make it look more natural.

I created a bow from bast and brown craft paper. A big glue dot holds it in place.
Two little tags wishing a Happy Thanksgiving and the round pumpkin card is done.

If you need help creating this card, have any other questions or if you like to purchase a set of these cards, please fell free to contact me.

Stay tuned for more cards, pages and other ideas to come or come and see me on Nov 16th at the Craft Show of St. Mary, Our Lady of the Snows in Milford form 9am until 3pm.

Leafs and Acorn card

Leafs and acorn, our third card of Octobers workshop II. I am sure you have a set of leaf stamps laying around. How about getting them out to create a card like this one?

I started with a Colonial White (cream colored) cardstock base of 5 1/2" x 4 1/4". The next layer is a piece of 5 1/4" x 4" Cashmere cardstock from Close To My Heart. I ran the piece through my Cuttlebug and embossed it with a writing design. Chocolate brown ink was used to go around the edges an in a couple of areas over the top. I used a strong adhesive to glue it to the base.

Three different strips of cardstock and design paper were cut to length. The barn red piece is about 4"x 1 1/2", the cocoa piece is 3 3/4" x 1 1/4" and the design paper one is about 3 1/4" x 1 1/4". You can stack the three pieces as wide or as narrow as you like.

The leafs were stamped in olive and barn red onto cashmere paper as well. I then cut them out and went around the edges with some chocolate brown ink. 

The acorn is stamped in cocoa brown and barn red ink, all from Close To My Heart, cut out and edges like the leafs.
A little tag was cut out, stamped with Thanks and edged to match the rest of the card.

I adhered the leaves first, then the tag, raised with foam dots and finally the acorn, also raised with foam dots.

Enjoy the fall and get inspired but the falling leafs....

Let me know if you like a set of Octobers cards.

Fall Thank You's

Here is the second card we made in the October Card Class workshop II. Thanksgiving is all about giving Thanks. A little "Thank you" can mean so much, so why not say it more often:

For this card I used a 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" card base of Colonial White (a cream white) cardstock. I adhered a piece of barn red cardstock from Close To My Heart in the center of the front part of the card. 

Now to the flower part:
First I stamped the flower image from the "Happy Autumn" (D1550) stamp set from Close To My Heart on a piece of 4" x 3" colonial white cardstock.
To create the multi-color stamp image I used the sponge dauber technique. So how does this technique works you might ask?

I used four different inks, barn red, autumn terracotta, gold rush and olive green. For each color I used a separate sponge dauber to avoid color contamination on the ink pads. This is very important, especially for lighter colors!
I always start with the lightest color. I sponged gold rush on the bottom on the flower. Next was the autumn terracotta and on the top some barn red. A little bit of olive was applied to the bottom. A big huff on the stamp and on the paper it went. Now all that was left was to stamp the stem in olive green.

Using the same technique, I stamped just the middle part of the flower one more time on a separate piece of cardstock. From this piece I cut out just the middle flower as seen on the picture and adhered it with some foam dots right on top of the original stamped image. This gives your flower a more dimensional look. You can layer multiple layers like this on top. Make sure you cut away just a bit more from each layer than the previous one. Flatter foam dots will make the illusion even more realistic.

At last I added a little ribbon bow and a "Thank You" tag to the card.

What a wonderful card to say "Thank You", don't you think?

If you like a set of my card class workshop pre-made or ready to finish at home, please contact me for more information.


   

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to everyone and I hope you had lot's of fun during Trick or Treat. We sure had a lot of little people coming by our house tonight and it was so much fun seeing them in there costumes. As every year we were giving away little Play-Doh containers (for the little once) and candy for everyone naturally. But let me tell you, Play-Doh is the hit every year...

Appropriate for the day, our second October Card Class started with a Halloween Card.

It is a 5"x5" card base that had a rounded front. I adhered a dark purple piece of cardstock to it (I know it looks alomst blue, but it is purple!). I then opened the card and cut away the paper that was sticking out above the rounded edge.

The spider net is cut out by hand <grin> just kidding... I cut the net out with my Cricut and the Close To My Heart cartridge Philosophy. A little bit of glitter applied with a glitter pen makes the card sparkle.
  
The spider was also cut out with the Close to My Heart Cartridge. I placed two green bubble rhinestones as eyes on the head. I then covered the whole spider in glue and sprinkled a thick layer of black flock over it. A little bit of drying time and a good shake and your fussy spider is done...creepy isn't it?

 Finally the letters were also cut out with the same cartridge. I made the look a little bit more spooky by using a black pen and blackening the edges.



 HAPPY HALLOWEEN ....