Super Dad Father's Day Card

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I just *had* to make two cards with my new Amazing Duo stamps and here's the other one!

I wanted to make a special card for my Super husband to let him know how much I appreciate him for Father's Day. Everyone else seems to be making the Shirt and Tie cards or a Fishing themed one so I went the other direction, Super Dad! Really, he's a great Daddy for my girls and a very supportive husband to me with all of my crazy craft endeavors, so I think Super Dad is the right way to describe him. Enough gushing now, LOL!


I knew I wanted to use this amazing plaid from the Echo Park Paper Mini Line called The Great Outdoors. I bought just one kit and then ended up buying several more of just the papers because I LOVE the papers so much! The reverse of the plaid is wood grain so I just used that for a little contrast and then added a custom colored piece 1/2 " May Arts White Ric Rac. I have been buying mostly white trims lately since I have discovered my new love of coloring things to match my project exactly. I'm saving my pennies for the Copic Airbrush and Compressor so I will be able to custom color things even faster! I inked everything with Cornflower Blue Close to My Heart Ink and stamped an argyle pattern on my blue cardstock. It's subtle but that's what I was going for. I used my Copics to color my "Boy" from the fabulous Amazing Duo set from The Greeting Farm and then used the "you're SUPER" sentiment from the same set. Then I added a little faux stitching to both pieces and mounted them with a bit of foam tape to the base of my card. I think my husband with like this one!

You Are AWESOME Card

So I was recently shopping in an amazing scrapbook store in Bloomington, IL called The Scrapbooking Studio and it was my first time into the store. I was delighted to see that they not only carry LOTS of my favorite Echo Park Paper, but they also have The Greeting Farm Stamps too! I picked out several stamps, including a set called "Dynamic Duo"


Of course, I had to make a card right away (ok, two, but that's tomorrow's post) so I made this for my AWESOME friend, Lori! She is a Close to My Heart consultant also, so if you need any great CTMH goodies they have a wide variety available, including the alphabet stamps I used here! I decided that this cute little Super Hero Girl looked a bit like Wonder Woman so I decided that I was going to use that as my inspiration. I added a few lines here and there with a Copic Liner pen for more accuracy and then I colored her with Copics but didn't do a ton of shading and blending, except for the hair (which I'm still learning how to do). Then to make the white stars on her skirt, I used a little Liquid Applique so it would just puff up and be opaque when I heated it. I used Echo Park Paper's Playground line for the Red and Blue and Country Drive for the Yellow and just added a little "stitching" around all of the edges to give it a little something extra. Finally I stamped "you are" in Sunflower Ink on my Yellow and "AWESOME" in Cranberry on the Red and used a little foam tape to adhere my colored image to the card! Now to drop by Lori's house with it before this posts to my blog...

Hat's Off to Ribbon Tutorial

Every year the Manhattan Woman's Club has a Reciprocity Meeting where we invite guests from other clubs. This year's theme was "Hat's Off to Women" and we were all asked to wear a hat to the meeting. It was held at the BEAUTIFUL Jacob Henry Mansion in Joliet so I wanted to be a bit fancy. I found this very plain hat at K-Mart and I really liked the silver around the edges.


Well, those who know me know I can't just wear a plain hat. So I got out a bunch of my spring colored flowers and started playing with different combinations. I kind of knew I wanted pink and purple because those are my favorite colors at the moment but...


...let's just say I had a variety of flowers to choose from. Yes, that's my inner hoarder peeking out again!


Of course, I had to replace that goofy string tied around the hat with a beautiful ribbon. I recently discovered that you can color just about ANYTHING with Copic Markers so I grabbed this White Stitched Grosgrain May Arts Ribbon (WA01) and blended my pinks and purples in a sort of random way, just going from light to dark and then back again. And you will notice, you can still see the "stitching" on the ribbon too!


I tied my beautiful ribbon around my hat and left the ends long to dangle from the back of the hat. Then I hot glued my chosen flowers and leaves to the hat and sat back and realized something was still missing...


So I pulled my Copics back out and colored the brim of the hat too! This time I paid attention to make sure that I didn't have the colors in the same places on the ribbon and the brim. The whole time I was coloring I felt like a "bad" kid who was coloring something I wasn't supposed too, LOL! But when I was finished, I knew it was the right move, the hat looked fantastic!


Here's my very fancy 3 year old modeling Mommy's new hat! I think it looked pretty great and I got a lot of compliments on it too. Hat's off to you!

Our New Baby!

That's right, we have a new.... FUR BABY!!!!



This is little Lacey our new 7 week old Australian Sheppard puppy! Yes, we are nuts. The basement flooded a couple weeks ago so we had to clean it out and our new couches are being delivered tomorrow, so in the midst of all this chaos... we decided to add a puppy to the mix!

Well, at least I have an excuse to use more of the DCWV Pet Stack that I bought.....

Echo Park Paper Beach Baby Layout

Today I'd like to share a layout I created with some of the gorgeous paper from the Echo Park Paper This & That Graceful Collection. I took these photos of my daughter building her first sandcastle in WI a couple years ago. I used a bit of Bakers Twine to tie up my banner which I cut with my Cricut using the Country Life Cartridge. I also used my Cricut to cut the word "Beach" from the Ashlyn's Alphabet Cartridge. I used my Tim Holtz Distress Inks to ink... everything and of course I used my Pink ATG to stick everything down. Thanks for stopping by the blog today!

Never-ending Card Fun!

 I recently learned how to make Never-ending Cards and was talking about how much fun they are with a friend and she asked me to create one for her. She was going to surprise her daughter with a Disney Vacation for her birthday and wanted to let the card do the talking so this is what I came up with!

This is the first view of the card, I used my Memento Tuxedo Black Ink to stamp my Snow White (her favorite princess) and then colored her in with my Copic Markers. The "5" is cut with my Cricut and I stamped the background on the white pieces with a variety of clear stamps and Close to My Heart Baby Pink Ink. I inked alllllll of my edges with the ink, on the whole card. Then I used my Stardust Gelly Roll Pure Glitter Pen to add the glittery swirls to the 5. To get to the 2nd "page" of  the card you simply open it from the center to reveal...

...Page 2! The princess here are cut from a sheet of patterned paper and I used some vellum stickers as an accent. I used my Stardust Gelly Roll Pure Glitter Pen to add glitter to my stickers and to my stamped phrase that reads "Where does a Princess say 'Dreams really do come true'?" To reveal the answer you fold back from the center again and the answer is....

...Disney World (of course)!If you'll notice that one page 3 your side images stay the same. It's one thing you will want to remember if you decide to try one of these yourself! I used more stamps and of course that amazing Stardust Gelly Roll Pure Glitter Pen for more - GLITTER - really, you can't have too much glitter, ever! From here you simply open the card out from the center again to reveal...

...the final page! I spent a long time coloring in these beautiful princesses. I used my Copic Cardstock and Copic Markers and practiced the techniques I recently learned. The images are all stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, of course. I left the 2 center squares blank so that my friend could write her own personal message to her little girl because I'm sure this card will be a treasured possession for a long time!

I even created a custom envelope with my Scor Pal, with a Velcro closure (I cut it into the shape of a heart) for the little girl to be able to keep her card in! I stamped all of my images in pink on pink cardstock and again used my Stardust Gelly Roll Pure Glitter Pen to add a touch more glitter. As I side note, you will want to make sure you are using a STRONG adhesive for this project. I would recommend either your Pink ATG or my favorite - Scor Tape! I hope you will give making a fun, interactive card a try soon!

Mosaic Book Box

When I started this project it was going to be a quick and pretty little box. I had a very simple idea in my head for what I wanted to do... and then I found myself adding a little more here and doing a bit more there, and found myself spending many hours creating this little box.

It started lift and a plain wooden "book-look" box that I had purchased a couple years ago, on clearance for $.29. I had purchased several because they were so cheap and cute. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and I decided to FINALLY alter one of them.

To begin, I sprayed the "Pages" part with lots of Glimmer Mist. I started with the Walnut Gold, added some Coffee Shop and then finally some Tattered Leather. Then I used my Black Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabber to paint the rest of the outside of the book. Then I decided to work on the inside of the book first.


I started with some fabric remnants that I picked up at a local craft store. I loved the silky patterned one so I simply used my Scor Tape and adhered it to a sheet of chipboard that I cut slightly smaller than the inside measurements (to allot for the fabric's bulk). Then I used my Glossy Accents to adhere this piece to the inside bottom of my box. Did you know that Glossy Accents is an excellent adhesive as well? I then repeated this to line the inside of my lid. Next a grabbed the music note fabric and cut small pieces of chipboard to do all of the inside sides on the box. Since the music note fabric was plain white cotton I wanted to make it co-ordinate just a bit more. So, I grabbed my Bazzill Splat Mat, my Heat Tool, a Mini Mister filled with water and my Glimmer Mists! First I sprayed the ribbon with water to make the dyes soak in better. Then I randomly sprayed Mel's Diner, Wheat Beer and Meadow Green all over my fabric. I used my Heat Tool to dry it and then cut it to cover my chipboard and used more Scor Tape to adhere it. Then used the Glossy Accents to attach all the pieces to the sides. I also used some giant binder clips to make sure my pieces stayed tight to the surface to dry.


Next I started working on my cover. Remember the Mosaic card I posted here a few days ago? Well, this is the original project that I had cut all those pieces for. I just cut strips from my Echo Park Paper "For the Record" 6 x 6 Paper Pad. This technique would really be great with any of Echo Parks lines! Then I inked all the edges of my pieces by swiping them over my Walnut Stain Distress Ink Pad. Then I very sparingly added Glossy Accents to the back of each piece as I created my pattern. I made sure to leave space for my title piece. Then I used my Glossy Accents to cover each piece of paper to give it a glass tile look and let it dry.


For my title, I had picked up these really cute "mistables" at a LSS a while ago and they've been sitting on my desk waiting for just the right project. I think this qualifies. So I used my Wheat Beer Glimmer Mist to cover the whole thing. Then I used my Barn Door and Walnut Stain Distress Inks around the edges. Then I added a layer of the Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint. When it was dry I added more Walnut Stain Distress Ink to the cracks (just liberally apply it with your Ink Blending Tool and then use a damp cloth to wipe off the top). Then I added 2 layers of chipboard behind it to raise it up a bit more. After I adhered it to my box with more Glossy Accents I then added the Glossy Accents to the top of this as well.


So here is where I will mention what I will call my "Glossy Accident"... I had actually already completed most of my box when I was adding that final title "tile". When I set it aside to dry I didn't realize that it was sitting at the tiniest angle... and when I came back to it to take photos I gasped. The Glossy Accents had slowly traveled over the edge of my tile, through the other tiles and down the side of my box. Well, I'd invested too much time in this box to toss it aside and start again, so I decided to roll with it and disguise it as much as I can! So I added Glossy Accents to the whole top of the box. First I very carefully outlined the whole top of the box with it and let the outline dry on a completely level surface (yes, I checked it with a level to be certain). Then I filled in the rest of the "grout" space with a thin coat. When that was dry I added one more layer to all of my tiles to be sure they all stood out. I love the finished effect!


Ok, so now I will tell you how I decorated the back of my book box. I wanted it to sit flat so I needed a flat design. I created a stencil from one of the shapes in one the For the Record papers. Then I used my White Adirondack Paint Dabber to fill in my shape. When it was dry I removed the mask and then I randomly added my Glimmer Mist using the Wheat Beer, Coffee Shop, Walnut Gold and Tattered Leather to it. Then I painted the Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint over the area and when that was dry I added Scor Tape around the edges, peeled off the backing and covered it with antique gold glitter. A quick simple way to make sure your glitter goes on perfectly straight!

Here's a look at the spine of the book. I simply added my paper (this was a 12 x 12 sheet from the same line) and added some May Arts Velvet Ric Rac to the edges. After that previously mentioned "Glossy Accident" I added the Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint over the top as well to mask that little boo-boo.

I's so thrilled with how my little book box turned out, now I just need to find some special treasures to tuck inside!

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