A Valentine

Yes, it's been almost 6 month since I've posted, but I've been in a serious dry spell- I call it "Crafter's block." Fortunately, I got to hang out with my sister over Christmas (after a full year apart!!!) and she got me back on a papercrafting roll!  I came home with some new supplies (thanks to Sister-Santa and my favorite SU consultant) and a new lust for paper!

(Click for larger photo)

I wanted to work on my husband's Valentine's Day card completely unrushed, so on the first day of February I got to playing. Of course it took most of two days due to my sporadic availability (can you believe my one year old needs supervision?) but didn't it turn out pretty? I'm not sure exactly what to call me style, but this is it! A little bit vintage, a little bit botanical, a bird, a butterfly, something mechanical... (dude, that rhymes! I think that needs to become my blog tag-line!) If you come over anytime in the next ten years, I'm sure my husband will have the card predominately displayed.

Nuts and Bolts: As you can see in the lower right corner of this collage, the card is one of those accordion style cards- do they have a real name? I find the format so much fun to work with because it allows you to make depth without covering a bunch of stuff up. The clock and large butterfly are from Stampin' Up! (SU) stamps and are embossed with Chocolate Chip craft ink.  The bird was made with the SU Bird punch and that faint butterfly behind the bird is also SU. The heart in the upper left and very back upper right is Tim Holtz (LOVE him!) grunge board, inked with SU ink and the heart in the lower right is hand shaped wire. The middle butterfly is hand cut from the DCVW Mariposa Stack (I love it so much I had to buy two just so I wouldn't be so stingy with it). The very back has a small envelope with a tag slid in it. That tag is where I wrote my personal message.

Happy Birthday Hubby

I just realized that I hadn't ever uploaded a pic of the card I made for my hubby's birthday. It was a while ago- let's just pretend I was waiting so all you strangers would have no idea when his birthday is- he'd like that! ;)

Ok, so I shamelessly copied the design from an idea book and traced/drew the deer onto vellum. I free handed the "to my" and "wonderful" based on a font I saw in a book. The only stamps on the card are on the three blocks at the bottom- the two designs and the word "man."

You'll all be happy to hear that he deemed it a manly card as well!

Pocket of Presents

Here's another tracer. I traced the pocket a few times so I could free hand it onto the blue paper and then I free hand drew the gifts based on a separate stamp set (that I also don't own). The yellow gift is a stamp I do own- it has some stickles on the bow and is attached using a dimensional.

I think it made another cute birthday card!

Birthdays for REAL Men

Ok, so in spite of my sister's insistence that the latte cards are perfectly appropriate for men, I had my hubby pick out some stamps from the catalog that he thought were more appropriate. It appears that he thinks serious stuff is best for men... because these are two the stamps that he picked.

He also picked a bunch of hunting type stamps with really intricate, life-like nature scenes, but then, I'm tracing this stuff with a marker, so that wasn't gonna happen. Maybe I should actually buy some of those...

(As always, click on any photo to see it larger)

More Birthdays

Ok, back to making cards for adults. I seem to be on quite a roll with this tracing stuff! These are made from a fun stamp set that I've always been tempted to buy. The base is one stamp and then you can add a cupcake top or a handle and steam! They're really very quick and easy to trace. After making a few of each, it occured to me that it would be very easy to make a variety of mug shapes.

The cards are all on a yellow base with a black layer and then a layer of the fun circle paper. I printed the words on a light blue coordinating paper (the back of the circle paper actually) using the computer. I had to use some glue dots to get them to stick down once I had the swirly paper clip on. The steams are all out of vellum and have some stickles. The stickles made the vellum curl pretty bad, but I found that if you did the stickles prior to cutting the steam out, it wasn't as bad...

When I made 4 of the latte cards I assumed that would be great for guys or gals, but my husband seems to think that they're a bit too fru-fru for real mean! Hrumph! What do YOU think????

Camping Birthday

One last camping card before I move on...

The signs I made up after seeing something similar is a stamp catalog. The lantern is free hand drawn, based on a catalog pic. The bee is stamped in craft ink, embossed and cut out and then attached using a dimensional. The lantern is 'hung' using some poly twine stuff.

More Camping

I have this paper that looks like a photo of a forest. I bought it a long time ago, thinking it would be nice for a camping card or layout. However, I can't ever seem to find anything to use it on. Continuing on my camping theme, I was determined to use some of the tree paper. So, here it is. ha! I guess I really just hid it! oh well.

The tent is traced onto vellum from a catalog pic. The other images are stamped on. The string is sewn on by hand using a yarn needle.

Vote Now!

I'm trying to make some cards appropriate for guys. It seems like every time I have an occasion to send a card to a man I'm really stretching to find something that doesn't have GIRL written all over it. So, I made this set of cards last night as Man-cards. I was so proud and showed them to my husband and he informed me that they weren't really all that masculine... huh.

Now, I need to know, is my husband crazy or are these too girly for guys? Help me out here. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being all man and 1 being all girl, how manly are they?????

Happy Father's Day!

Just one more week of class left and then I can get back to the fun stuff! Of course I couldn't let Father's Day go by without a card for my baby's daddy and my daddy!

Nine Years of Marriage

As I'm looking for inspiration to make two father's day cards, it occurs to me that I never shared any photos of the card I'm made my hubby for our anniversary last month (can you tell I've been going crazy?) So, here she is. What I love about this card is that I finally found a use for some of the "beads" that were on this necklace my mom gave me. She said it was just too heavy (no wonder with a bunch of washers on it) and maybe I could remake it into something else. I've been tinkering with some jewelery making, so that's what I original thought I'd do with it. However, when I took it apart and saw how industrial the whole this was, I moved most of the pieces to my card making stuff. I have to say I really like the effect- the photos really don't do it justice! Thanks Mom!!!

A New Light Box

My sister-in-law recently completed her flight training and is now officially a Flight Surgeon. (Yes, she's a doctor and a Navy pilot.) My husband (her brother) was really bummed that we couldn't afford to take several days off and jet out to Florida for the graduation so he requested that I make a special congratulations card. I think he specifically asked for "something with an airplane on it," but that might have been one of my all-too-real dreams. I'm sure that he made a comment about her golden wings.... So, I hit the internet and found some cool drawings.

Now, I'm a shameless tracer when the occasion calls, but I don't have a light box. I've been looking at them for a long time, but I honestly don't want to have to store one. They're bulky and I'm already short on space, so I just keep pining away.

Today, I was once again in a pinch. I don't have a light box and I don't want to practice enough to draw a good airplane... As I was sitting in my office, it occured to me that my laptop screen was almost like a light box- too bad using it that way would probably damage the LCD screen.... WAIT! My old classic TV isn't LCD or Plasma. hum...

Turns out, the TV is a GREAT light box. I had to use my DVR to find and pause on a mostly white screen, but the best part is that the static of the TV held my paper in place! Way cool!

Anyway, here's the finished card!