Midweek Throwdown - Christmas in July

I had my very first experience with a Cuttlebug at a scrapbook store in Calgary. I don't get in to town that far very often, but, decided to purchase a membership so I could try out all the new toys and see how they work. With a pile paper in hand I spent a few hours testing and playing with their Cricut and Cuttlebug. I had one on the left and one on the right! Multi-tasking is essential when the store is not anywhere near my beaten paths.

Ok, enough rambling. On to my Christmas card. This was embossed with the Cuttlebug, direct inked, clear embossed, direct inked again and clear embossed again and then direct inked to give the background some extra color. The ink is shimmery so this really looks twinkly. Then I punched the snowflakes, added a touch of glitter glue which I coated with Dimensional Magic so it wouldn't even think of flaking, and set the bling in. They are raised on 3-d dots to look like snowfall.

Cowboy Christmas

This one I found in an old Horse and Rider magazine. I simply added the framing and holly. The sentiment was shadow stamped, then the sentiment and the whole thing embossed. It looks good shiny.

Fall - Thoughts of Home

I'm starting on the Fall themed cards as well so I can get them out in a timely manner for the troops. This is the first one. Getting warmed up. I like how the stamp I had matched the picture and I added my favorite touch, split peas!

First Mass Production of Cards

This is the first time I have made more than one of any card. I have made some that were similar, but, nothing like this. At first I thought it would be stressful thinking up a design that would be easily multiplied. I have a tendency to fuss over cards sometimes and that was not going to work if I wanted to make a bunch of the same. However! I found this wonderful paper for the background and the rest came much easier. Here are my 10! I am so pleased how they came out and it really was relaxing not to have to figure out each one. Ha! Who knew?
There they are sitting all nice and shiny!

Non Card Stamping Project

I had been keeping my Perfect Pearls in an old chocolates box for awhile now. The box isn't super sturdy and just a box, so to answer this Summer Haven challenge I covered the box with a nice patterned paper, added a sticker with a saying about how much God loves me and stamped it 47 times! The following are some of the pictures I took of it today.

I added letter stickers to the end of it and now it looks great sitting in my bookcase with all my other crafting goodies. Oh, yeah, embossed it 47 times!

Stamped Embellishment Challenge

This one kept me up last night. The stamp I used is a flower made up of tiny butterflies. Yep, tiny. I painted them with Perfect Pearls before adding the pearl and mounting on a pearly white textured paper.

Can you see the little butterflies? I also raised it with foam dots.

Summer Lovin' Challenge

Kajikit wanted to see a "love" card made with summery colors. And she has a challenge to use up all the scraps from cards made during the whole 2 weeks of Summer Haven. The dark teal shimmery paper was scrap from the skiing Granny card I made (which I will post soon). I know the photo isn't the best but the cool little details made it for me. Like the embossed edging was done with clear on color so it looks watery and crystal-like. And the sentiment was computer generated but the lettering was colored with fine tip pens to connect it to the card color scheme. Prior to assembling, the WHOLE card was run through the crimper for added interest.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY USA!

I made this card for both the Operation Write Home Blog Tour and for Kajikit's Fireworks Challenge. Whew! With working so much I have to combine them if I can. This is a very old die cut set I made years ago and they were just perfect for today. It is a firecracker that was just a bit big for the card, but I hope you get the jist of it. Happy 4th of July to everyone on the Blog Tour!

The Material Girl/Guy

One of the challenges that I am hosting is "The Material Girl/Guy". The idea is to make your card with fabric. This was made by glueing double layers of the fabric to lightweight cardboard for stability and then attached to the card base. I cut out the flower from extra fabric on cardboard and applied Dimentional Magic to it to add shine and help me shape it. Then it was just adding the ribbon and the bling.

Christmas in July

This is another challenge for the Summer Haven event. I just loved this truck! The sentiment was stamped, embossed and raised on 3-d dots. The shiny copper strip resembles the rust on the truck and adds a little bling, don't ya think?