Crafty Wednesday – cards for boys, big and small

Welcome to another Crafty Wednesday. I apologize to my reader/writer friends. I know I’ve been neglecting my duties as a writer, lately, with only sporadic reviews and interviews. I just can’t get my head into that space, these days.

Since I still had a few cards that I haven’t shown you from the summer gathering, I thought I’d get them done, today. Next week, I may be able to give a tutorial on some pretty, pull-out style cards I made, based on a beautiful one my sister-in-law made for me, a while ago.

Let’s begin with the big boy card. I started with a cream-coloured base, 5″ x 7″, pre-cut from a package that included envelopes. I trimmed all the corners with a corner-rounding punch, as I did with all the other rectangular elements. The brown background piece was cut an inch smaller than the base card out of embossed card stock from a paper pack by Tim Holtz. All the embossed card stock from the pack has a white core, which looks very cool when you sand down the top layer. I didn’t do that with this card, though. I attached the brown background to the card base with Sookwang double-sided tape.

The Art Philosophy cartridge for the Cricut (available exclusively through Close To My Heart) had this amazing alphabet graphic that I had to try out while I was at my sister-in-law’s place, since I, myself, don’t own a Cricut. I cut it from turquoise card stock and placed it on a piece of cream patterned paper, then placed it onto the top right-hand corner of the background colour.  I cut a 7″ piece of striped ribbon and secured it over the brown background as well as the background for the alphabet graphic. Onto a small rectangle of cream-coloured card stock, I stamped ‘Birthday wishes’ using one of my sister-in-law’s stamps. (If you wanted to make a similar card any birthday greeting would suffice.) I set it on a beige background with a kind of crackle design and attached it over the ribbon with 3-D squares. The final touch was adding the self-adhesive wooden star (from CTMH) to the top left-hand corner, over the ribbon.

I have two young nephews who both enjoy cars and trucks. For this card, I started with a white card stock base of 5-1/2″ x 4-1/4″ (half an 8-1/2″ x 11″ sheet, folded in half). I used one of the thin embossing folders from my Cuttlebug‘s edging set to emboss the top & bottom of the card, then gently sponged blue ink over the raised part of the design. I cut green paper to fit within the embossed areas, allowing a 1/2″ to show on the ends. I attached it to the card with Sookwang.

Close To My Heart has a cool stamp set called Fast and Furious, that includes the race car, a dump truck, various sentiments (including the one I used here) and tire track stamps. For the race car, I stamped its design onto white card stock with Versa Mark, sprinkled the image with blue embossing powder, and heated it until set. I punched out a small circle in which a wrote the #7. Onto a separate piece of white card stock, I stamped and embossed the wheels in black, which I cut out and attached to the car. Before attaching the car, I stamped the ‘tire tracks’ across the green paper all the way to the edges of the card. I used 3-D squares to place the car onto the tracks. I also embossed the sentiment with blue embossing powder & cut it out to place above the car. I stamped two different sized stars, cut them out and placed them on either side of the sentiment.

For this card, I started with the same sized base as above using white card stock. I cut a piece of turquoise card stock two inches smaller than the base card. I used the large tire track stamp from the CTMH set to create the tracks on the turquoise card stock, then attached it to the card with Sookwang. I tried to use the dump truck stamp from the set, but it didn’t turn out too well. (I need to get a dark yellow ink pad so I can stamp it better because the stamp itself is not just an outline.) Instead, I used a the digger and pylon stickers from Darice‘s sticker book called Tough Stuff. The ‘non-STOP-fun’ sign from the stamp set was stamped in red ink onto white card stock, then cut out and placed on a Popsicle stick broken in half. I used white glue to affix the stick onto the card. Finally, I stamped the ‘beep!’s along the right-hand edge of the card.

Well, that’s it for now. I’m off to get ready for a Grandson visit. Hard to believe Daughter will be celebrating her 3rd anniversary, today! 🙂

PS. I just noticed something new that WordPress has added to my site. I apologize for any advertisements that might pop up. It is not something I can control until I decide to purchase the ‘No Ads’ version of my WordPress site. (sigh!)

Crafty Wednesday – cards for young ladies

Welcome to another Crafty Wednesday! Sorry I missed posting last week. It was such a whirlwind day, I just didn’t have time, with some necessary shopping in the morning, lunch with friends and a board meeting in the evening. I really need to start organizing my posts ahead of time so they’re ready at the push of a button. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today, I thought I’d make up for last week by adding a few more cards than I would normally show you. Above, you’ll see a couple of cards I made using the Close To My Heart‘s stamp set called Fashionista, which includes 4 different ladies, the background and 3 sentiments, including ‘Beautiful’. I used black embossing powder for the ‘Beautiful’ sentiment, girls and background stamps from the set, as well as the ‘Happy Birthday’. I used my shiny paints to add a bit of colour to the silhouettes before cutting around them. I used a 2″ round paper punch to cut out the ‘Happy Birthday’ and a 2-1/2″ scalloped circle punch for the colourful flower behind the sentiment. I added a bit of bling in all the swirly parts of the sentiment, too. The background can vary, as you can see, depending on your whims. These cards both began with 1/2 a sheet of card stock with the backgrounds cut 1″ smaller than the bases. I sponged around the edges with complimentary inks.

We also had a graduate in the family, this year, so I made my niece the card above. I embossed the front of the base card (5-1/2″ x 4-1/4″) with Sissix‘s Butterflies & Dragonflies embossing plate. I cut the pink polka dot background to 3-1/2″ x 2-1/4″, allowing the embossing to show around it. The numbers were black embossed using CTMH‘s Varsity Alphabet stamp set. I used the small letters of the Trinity Alphabet, also by CTMH, to stamp & emboss ‘class of’. The embellishments are stickers that can be found almost anywhere.

The card above is for the second youngest little lady in our family. The base of the card is yellow card stock (8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″, folded in half). I cut a sheet of orange paper 4-1/2″ x 3-1/4″ and yellow gingham paper 3-1/2″ x 2-1/4″. I attached the yellow gingham to the orange paper, then wrapped red & white bakers twine around them. I used CTMH‘s Varsity Alphabet stamp #1 to stamp & emboss in black, carefully cut it out, then attached it at the centre where the twine crossed using small 3-D sticky squares.

My sister-in-law has a cute pair of stamps – this little girl and a little boy, which I will use on a different card at a later date. I stamped & embossed the girl, then added colour with my shiny paints.  I cut her out and attached her with 3-D sticky squares. For the ‘YOU ARE’, I used self-adhesive foam letters.

Finally, this card was made for a special young-at-heart lady who recently retired from SAM (Stroke Recovery Association of Manitoba). She was an integral part of the non-profit organization, in charge of the crafty fundraising ladies who sew, knit and crochet items that are sold at many of their social functions & available for sale at the SAM office.

Now that she’s 90 something, she figured it was time to retire! I had only met her once when I was asked to make her card. Fortunately, I came across this dress-makers paper that I thought would make a great background for her card. I cut the dress-makers piece 4-1/2″ x 3-1/4″, the yellow card stock 5″ x 3-3/4″ and the green card stock base 8-1/2″ x 5-1/2″, which I folded in half. I trimmed all the corners with my corner punch and sponged all the edges with green ink. I used Sookwang to attach the papers and card stock. The ‘Happy Retirement’ sentiment was stamped in black ink with a backing of yellow card stock. These, too, had their corners trimmed and edges sponged. I added the green polka dot brown ribbon, attaching it with wide Sookwang double-sided tape. I found 3 khaki-coloured buttons and attached them with sticky dots. I cut out a spool-shape out of cream-coloured card stock and wrapped green thread around it, attaching it with a 3-D sticky square.

Well, that’s it for this week. Hope you have a great ‘Hump Day’! 🙂