Happy Almost Valentines Day!

 I am so excited for Valentine’s day to be here… I have some cute Valentines to give my youngest kids and I have had so much fun making valentines for friends too!  Have you???  Made Valentines???

So hopefully these Valentine’s will inspire you!  My first one is the first one I sent… to my bff Brandy when she was having a bad week.

 Would you like to see a vid on how to make a 3D object for a card… I have played with this technique a lot and think I have it down now… pick out a paper you like that isn’t too light but not too heavy either… I laid it all flat and it mailed with just 1 postage stamp!  Yay!

Next up is a card me and my daughter made for my mom and dad….

 The large polka dot print is popped up on the card and the sentiment is on the card base… I was inspired by a card that used this technique on a blog I can’t remember now but loved the inspiration it gave me to make a lovely card for my mom and dad… I used my 6 x 6 doodlebug paper to make it and embellished it with them too!

For the inside…..

 

 My dd Brandi colored in the tree limbs after she drew them out and added this cute bluebird from Doodlebug stickers that I got when I bought the paper pad…

She used washi tape I had gotten when Pick your Plum had a sale on it… she likes the washi tape!!!  And adorned it with a cute valentine envelope from mini love notes by doodlebug and added her own sentiment!  So nice!

Finally in the Valentine department is a Valentine I made for one of my doctors…. and am showing it on ABC Challenges 🙂

 I popped up the border and sentiment on this one and had hearts exploding from the cute mini envelope…. added my sentiment and left the inside blank for her to pass on to a Valentine of her own!  Love those kind of gifts you can regift so easily!

Below you can see the dimension better on the card… totally worth making it… and I used mainly leftover pieces to put it together!  Score!!!

Now onto our current home improvements… my honey has been busy… working on
THE FOYER that looked like this….

 You can see a few boxes of the new tile we will be installing… once the old floor is gone…
And the craigslist table we found that matches our Casa Del Loro theme with a big parrot on it!

Here is the floor about 2/3 gone but concrete left still to chip up little bits at a time….

We had a gold and glass chandelier in the room and changed it out to brushed nickel and frosted glass… goes more with the ceiling fan in the living room and the look we are trying to attain in the house as we update it.

When he isn’t chipping away at the flooring in the foyer he is working out back… focus is on 2 areas… first is a low spot in the ground where he will plant the flowers against the florida room

So stay tuned for more Valentines and more home reno as we make this house our home forever 🙂

Happy crafting and have a blessed day!

Hope you found some inspiration in this rather lengthy blog post!

Kathi

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A Valentine for my new doctor :)

It has been a few days and I have several things to share… and lots of pics to inspire… so grab a cup of something yummy and take a little break!  You deserve it 🙂

I meet a new doctor today… part of moving to a new state is getting a new doctor… so I got crafty and made them a Valentine!  lol  I didn’t sign it and I hope it will get passed along to someone who needs it.  My inspiration for this card came from Lori on her post here.  She made this card!

So I pulled out my gypsy and my cute Doodlebug paper and started to create a similar card!

 

I used a 12 x 12 page to design my card… the bottom half of the layout is for the card… as well as the hearts.  The framed looking piece on the top right is for a future card but I like to use up all my mat when I lay things out… The top right is the decorative paper… I pulled it so only the part I wanted cut is cut instead of wasting paper or needing a larger piece of paper… I used cardstock for the card itself and Doodlebug Lovebirds collection for the rest!  LOVE this paper… I did turn my pressure down from max to high but my blade depth remained on 6 and all but one edge of the frame cut out PERFECT!

So here is my page laid out on my mat.

And here is my final card!

 I was inspired also by a challenge going on at ABC challenges…. for conversation hearts as an inspiration!  So I will be posting this card there….  Here you can see the fold better….

 it is called an “s-fold” card and is found on the Artiste cart by CTMH!  Here is the inside….

 And not to be left out… as I showed you the scraps of paper I started with my honey used this bunch of scrap wood left over from the fence we had installed and the door we took out of the kitchen/dining room….

 He nailed it and screwed it…

 What will it be????  It has a purpose!  I promise 🙂

 

 To hold his toolboxes… on rollers too!  Everything to make is was reclaimed… from this house or projects we have done that didn’t turn out as planned… to make this terrific storage and it is very sturdy and won’t tip over.

The toolbox was a craigslist find a while ago in Tennessee and it was free!  My honey sanded and finished it to keep the original patina but all the drawers and lid work well… even his little toolbox that holds odd tools fits on the bottom!  SCORE!!!

What are you making with reclaimed stuff?  I am using a paper pack that I bought but all else was from my stash and as I have made over 10 cards already with it… that paper could now be considered free to use!  What do you think?

Hope you have a fun day finding something to inspire you!

Kathi

BLOG CANDY WINNER and Valentines ~ Happy February!

Welcome to my blog… I wanted to share some cards with you for ABC Challenge blog… I really love their blog challenges and this week is Valentine’s themed!

But first let’s give away some BLOG CANDY!!! Yay for Doodlebug delight being mail bound Monday!  The lucky winner is:

Amy E. with her post:
Yay for giveaways! As you well know, I’m already a follower! Haha! I just found your Pinterest button and followed you there too….

Thanks Amy for following me here and on Pinterest!  Check the end of this post for a link to contact me!

As for Valentine’s… I am mailing my sweet Sis-in-law her card so I decided to make my nieces and nephew cards too!  They are blessed with 4 amazing children and I love them each so much!  Now on to some Valentine fun… these cards came together quick and easy … some washi tape, ribbon, glue and imagination brought it all together!

 So I punched holes to sew on these cards… and as you can see… there is faux stitching but not actual thread there because I punched to close to the card edge and the yarn I used was a little think making the holes a little bigger… maybe I could have sewn on them with thinner thread but this is supposed to be fun NOT tedious… so off with my markers I went… using by Sakura gel pens I used a different color on each card!

First is Jared’s… he is the oldest

 I added black ribbon to his and this was in the kit I got these in.  It looks heavy and manly so I thought his card was perfect for it!

Next is Madison’s card… and this is the card I will feature on ABC cards… I made the hearts with….

 washi tape!  Yep, I laid it on the side of the sewn on paper I wanted to throw away… about 4 strips in a square gave me more than enough to punch out these floating hearts… and here is the inside of this one!

 Next is Hayley’s card… she is a huge ball of energy in a cute little body… so I put hers on a action wobble by CTMH!  It is way bouncier than my homemade version and quite economical when I was ordering things anyway… SCORE!  The heart with the arrow through it is a heart Pammy made for me to use when we had our Valentiney craft day… I wrote Hayley’s name on it with my Zig marker and whallahh!  A fun interactive Valentine..

 And finally little Delaney is so sweet… so I told her on the outside…

 and the inside too!

Hope you enjoyed this Valentine smorgasboard…

Amy email me with your info here.

Blessings!

Kathi

Card Kit Series ~ Post 2 of 5

Welcome back to another installment of this….

Card Kit Series from Wendy Coffman… to get this set check out this post.

Check out my cards that are the sunny owl cards here 🙂

Today I will show you the card with 6 hearts on the front… with this card Wendy avoided an extra layer of paper by using a coordinating size stamp on the paper!  Genius… so let’s take a closer look at my first card…

 I lost the last inner circle.. you see with Wendy’s design she sent 6 light blue circles, 6 smaller designer paper circles and 6 hearts that I punched out 🙂  I lost one of the designer paper circles and instead of stealing one out of my stash I decided to go NAKED!  lol

 The inside is my favorite… A cute owly pair are saying hello!  I signed it with a little glitter added!  I love the sparkle of CTMH Glitter Glitz Gels 🙂

If you look closely at Wendy’s she recommends inking edges with chocolate ink… but I find my style is more bright so I used Holly hock to match the rest of the pinks on my card 🙂

The other card is full of mess ups but I will give you a quick peek so you can see how different one card can be using your imagination …

 I stamped and tried to emboss and didn’t see the glitter that escaped… it was old embossing powder and I threw it out with a lesson learned… I should have added more of that stamp I guess looking at it now to add pattern to the card but instead I made it 2 love birds sending heart kisses to each other….

 Inside I did tone on tone stamping and made the letters chevron striped!!  Love it 🙂  I still think I may keep this for my honey… shhhh.. another secret to keep!  lol

I really enjoyed making these cards and learned a lot about what I like and experimented too in lots of good ways and just a few better embellish ways.

Happy crafting and creating!!!

Stay tuned tomorrow for Inspiration Saturday and BLOG CANDY winner will be drawn!  Yay

Kathi

Happy Bird-day Shaped Card!

Today I took leftovers from my playday with Pam and made a card!  SHHHHH… it is a secret.  It is for my sweet sis in law who’s birthday is coming up soon!  I am posting it now because I want to show it off to my bloggy friend Sheila… she inspired me every day right here at She’s a Sassy Lady and she has a linky up for making shaped cards… well I made a shape card WITH a window!  Take a looksie 🙂

 I made this card with this layout on my gypsy using Elegant Edges and the hide/contour button.  Notice the bird on the top left of my mat?

 I cut it out in the blue base color to put over the pink mat and popped it up… see here…

 This is a saying I have wanted to use for a while but didn’t have a stamp that said it so I printed it on my computer and laid it out on the grid of my cricut mat where I thought it would cut best and it worked!  Yay!  I did size the circle down a couple of taps to make it so the blue showed around it.. you could easily ink the edges too but I have been inking so many edges I opted out and seriously like the CAS look of this card.

 I used Doodlebug Designs Lovebirds 6 x 6 paper pad and the blue is from my stash… the stem is brown because I used a chocolate pen on it 🙂  the finished card is about 4″ x 4″… PERFECT!!!

Have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by!  Don’t forget… if you haven’t registered for my BLOG CANDY giveaway check this out!

Kathi

Card Kit Series ~ Post 1 of 5

I am going to do a series using a kit I bought from Wendy Coffman here!  I was so excited to get it and showed you the kit in the package here… but watch that flat paper come to life in this series!!!

The review on this kit overall is WONDERFUL!  The pieces came all cut and ready for me to stamp, embellish, and complete with one stamp set that I got also in the Whoo’s your valentine set I bought from Wendy as well!  All this loveliness in one package must be completed soon… so to work I went!

First I followed Wendy’s EXCELLENT directions with pics for each card and the card box… each post will feature one card or the card box to make the series of 5 😉  Hope you enjoy this and see if there are more of these available if you are interested in playing along!  Wendy ROCKS!

The first card is a Valentines card that my daughter fell in love with… she picked the Valentine I would give to her when she saw this card!  lol

As I said in my previous post I got 2 kits thinking me and my daughter would do this together but she wasn’t in the mood so she kept me company while I crafted 2 cards at a time… one with Wendy’s suggestions and one I did with my own style injected!

Here is the card she designed and I put together…

 She instructed me to use chocolate ink on all my edges.. and I did do that some but I am more light and bright and less vintage in my style… here is a close up of the cute owls 🙂

 This card was cut with the Cricut Artiste cart and is called an “s” fold card… there are several designs on the cart with the heart being one of my faves 🙂

 And this is a lighter brighter version I made with the second card… I still inked but I used all different colors that brought out the pinks and blues in this card… and I got the owls stamped just as I liked them too!  This one is going to my daughter as she put the eyes on and feels a sense of ownership in this card… it is just waiting for me to write a sweet note in it!

 In my daughter’s eyes the mommy owl is looking down on the baby owl protecting it and the baby owl is looking at the sun and adoring it and feeling safe.  That is what she said!  She cracks me up with how she makes a story!

 The kit comes with Glitz Glitter Gel in 2 colors for embellishing your cards and gift box… and as I said Wendy’s directions and pictures are professional and spot on to replicate her work … or do like I did and do your own thing a little bit!  Like popping up the little owl on the branch 🙂

Next on my desk is another card you will see tomorrow.. I am making one for a neighbor who suffered a loss in their cable supplying internet, tv, phone, and security system when our fence installer accidently sliced their cable.

Next up also is how to decorate my new FAVE wall in the house… the kitchen wall… it was this…

 and now it is this color… a creamy light peach!  My son’s idea but he wanted a bolder peach…. I am happy with this peach with pops of brighter peach…. I thought a banner on the wreath would be cute … what do you think????  The ceiling fixture is getting replaced with something silver or brushed nickel… in the meantime help me out please with ideas!

Don’t forget about my giveaway.  There is still time to enter… for details click here!

Have a blessed day!

Kathi

A designing dilemma and HAPPY MAIL!

Today I have a few things to share with you… grab a cup of something refreshing and visit for a bit 😉

First I want to share the mag I won on Kathy Martin’s blog Card-Blanc…..

My very own copy of September 2012’s Scrapbook Trends

Have you ever had one of these mags?  It is published by Northridge publishing and is a monthly publication with scrapbook, card, and tag ideas by the millions!!!!!  Truly it is 130 pages and maybe 20 are advertising… and blogs are listed so you can find a style you like and try them out as fresh ideas to try!  LOVE this mag!!!  I have been drooling over the pages of creative goodness for an hour or so before I could stop to write this post!  LMBO 😉

Also in the mail… yep, there is more!

Was an order I placed from  Pick your Plum.  I saw it recently featured on a blog.. now I see it frequently… but I initially saw it here at Craftaholics Anonymous 😉

They sent me my order of WASHI TAPE!!!!  and included a Laffy Taffy too!  Shipping was only $2.99 and each roll of the tape was only $1.50!  I spent less than $10 and got a huge smile!  Thanks Pick you Plum and Craftaholics Anonymous for turning me on to it… now I get email updates whenever they have an item at discount… about 3 times a week.  Shipping took 9 days and I got emails letting me know they got my payment.  Overall an A experience because shipping took a few extra days… but wow what a deal!  Have you heard of this company before???  Have you ordered from them ???  What was your experience like???

Before all the excitement of mail time I had started working on a card I wanted to make with scraps I had left over… and one sheet of paper from a stack that I felt went well with the whole card… but it was too teal.

So I added more of the light paper to try to get the card to jive…

but I really didn’t like it so nothing is glued down… and that is why the K stamp is there… I wasn’t sure the final design so I was unsure the ink I would use.

Finally after a shout out to my bff Joyce I came up with this…

The butterfly is 3D from heavy cardstock and I added wire while the glue was wet from making the butterfly 3D .. for the antenae.

I dry embossed the teal paper and used a Creative Memories fancy corner rounder for the striped paper… the inside is dressed up too!

And while I have been having all this fun Daisy has been begging for treats… every time her Daddy takes a break from fixing the wall in the kitchen!

See how smooth the wall is now… and no wall paper … painting will begin tonite!!!  Yay 🙂

Have a blessed day and thanks for taking time for me!  I hope I have inspired you. 

Kathi

The card that almost wasn’t!

Hello my friend 😉  Glad you could join me for a bit today.

Have you ever had a project that never seemed to be just right to call it mission complete!  I just had one of those projects… not my first by far though!  lol

I made this card… I thought I took a pic of it but can’t find the before pic so you just get to see the beautiful after pics… check it!

 And a close up….

It was all shades of brown… my daughter decided it needed the black so she painstakingly doodled on my stamped areas and brought out the designs in the K and the swirls of the butterfly imagining where the swirls would go from where I had inked the edges with a dauber!  She ROCKS!

For the card itself I used dry embossing on the card base front that I inked with tea dye ink, heat embossing on K in gold that didn’t come out as well as when I used pigment ink with detail powder!  Live and learn folks 🙂

I cut the butterfly out of  Florals Embellished on my cricut and cut out 3 of them scoring them in the middle… after stamping them with a swirly tone on tone inked stamp.  I then folded them in half and glued them together… let them dry then attached them to my card… this has been the 4th butterfly I have made… but I have now mastered how to do it for the best results!

I am happy to show you how to make the butterfly.  If you are interested… leave me a comment… 🙂
Thanks for visiting with me today and stay tuned for a casa del loro update!

Kathi

Washi tape heat embossed card with video!

Today I have a video for you!

I made a card for my mom and decided maybe some of you don’t know how to heat emboss or how cool it can make a project look…. professional!

Today we are going to make this card…  with washi tape!

adding texture and height to a card or scrapbook layout using basic tools.

Now wasn’t that easy and fun!  I love heat embossing and don’t use it enough!

So for this process you need a heat gun… some folks will say that a hair dryer will work in a pinch… it is too windy… a heat gun focus heat more than a hair dryer and works much better.. use your coupon as this tool runs about $30.00 for a decent one.

Also, I used pigment ink to “hold” the embossing powder until I heat set it.  Pigment ink is different from regular dye ink and takes longer to dry… so you must heat set it or be VERY careful until it is dry if you don’t heat set it!

Please send me any questions you have about heat embossing.  I used clear embossing powder but colored pigment ink.  You can use a Versamark pad and regular ink dipping first in the Versamark and last in your color then stamp, add embossing powder, and heat set that for the same effect with different materials… I have these products if you would like to see a video doing it this way.  Let me know.

Have a blessed crafting day!

Kathi

How to hand sew on paper with video!

Hello my bloggy friends!  I have discovered inlinkz and am going to try to share with you today using that at the bottom of this blog entry!

I also have finished the video I showed you yesterday… yep, the 2 cards are all done!  And I also sewed on a scrapbook layout…

wish a close up on that zig zig stitching I did….

Using my AWESOME CTMH Piercing Tool and Mat set!

Here are the cards I made in the video before…

check out the video then check out my cards AFTER below that 🙂

with a close up of each card so you can see the stitching 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this post as much as I did making and editing it!  Even if it did cut me off at the end you have the idea how easy it is to sew on your projects!

Hope you have a blessed day and try the paper piercing and sewing on a project in your future… please feel free to email me your projects and have them shown on my blog!  Email me here!

Here are the links to the products I used today.  I make no money from this… just want to help you out be giving you these links 🙂

Piercing Tool Kit

Ruler

InLinkz.com

Kathi