Sunday, August 30, 2015

Special cards for special babies!

Hello and welcome back! Today's card includes a bonus! One of my friends had twin boys on Thursday, and so I knew I had to make a special card. As I was designing it, however, I decided to make two separate cards so there would be one for each of them. They are going to be sharing a lot of things in their lives, but they deserve their own new baby cards! 



I've had the Something for Baby stamp set for a couple of months, but hadn't yet inked it up. I've also been going through my stash of craft supplies and doing some purging. That's where those alphabet beads turned up. They look just like the old style baby bracelets! I also pulled out the "vintage" Marina Mist organza ribbon, Subtles brads, Nursery Nest DSP and my Bashful Blue ink pad. If you could see my craft space right now, you'd see that I have trouble getting rid of anything, but I'm really making an effort this time. Somewhere along the line, I'll have to write a blog post about that.

Well, these cards will be going into the mail tomorrow. I hope Sara and Kurt like them! Congrats and best wishes to the whole family!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

--Cindi
Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Saturday, August 8, 2015

A Special Birthday Card

Hello and welcome back!

Today's card is a special request. My son's girlfriend's father's birthday is coming up and they asked me to make a card for him. He is a huge Chicago Bears fan, so that really set the tone for this card.




I posted in one of my Facebook groups to find out the right colors to use, and I think these are spot on! The football was a bit of a challenge, but it wasn't too hard to make. I used the Ovals Framelits to cut out an oval from Chocolate Chip cardstock, then used the same framelit to cut off a wedge to give me the football shape. I cut a second Chocolate Chip and a Whisper White shape, using the original as a guide, and then layered the white on top of one of the brown ones. I eyeballed where the stripes would go, and cut out the remaining brown shape, then embossed it with the Decorative Dots embossing folder. I then glued the embossed pieces on top of the layered shape and added the baker's twine laces. I did have to trim the final shape because the embossing shrunk the top layer just a little bit.

Today's tip for the layered knot: Take a piece of Night of Navy seam binding and hold it on the banner longways, covering the sentiment. Gather it just a bit and attach it with the handheld stapler. Place the Pumpkin Pie ribbon on top and tie a single knot over it. Voila!

I hope John likes this card, and I hope you do too!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

--Cindi
Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Thursday, August 6, 2015

Back from Convention!

Hello and welcome back! This is my first post since returning from Inspire Create Share 2015 in Salt Lake City. It is always a bit of a whirlwind and my head is spinning with lots of new ideas. Today's card is based on one that was demonstrated on the main stage by Pam Morgan.



This card uses one of the stamp sets in the new Holiday Catalog, which will be available on September 1. I actually won this set in a Prize Patrol! It's called "To You and Yours," and is designed to be used with a new card kit in the catalog.

The technique to create it was something new to me, so let me try to describe how I made this. The silhouette design is stamped on a square of vellum with Whisper White Craft Ink, and the stars are stamped on a square of Smoky Slate cardstock, also with craft ink. When the ink is dry, flip the vellum over so that the inked side of the vellum is touching the inked side of the cardstock and adhere the two pieces together. I used Tombow glue - just a little dot in each corner. The frame was cut out with two of the Squares Framelits, and the whole assembly was attached with dimensionals. If you wanted to kick this up a notch, you could highlight the embossed stars by sponging them with white craft ink.

Here's a tip I picked up at convention for this card - when you stamp the silhouette, the ink may not fill in the image as much as you would like. Simply take a sponge dauber with craft ink and dab it on the image until it is solid. Easy peasy!

I hope you like this card, and if you're looking for ideas for Christmas (and Halloween and Thanksgiving!), check out the new catalog when it goes live. And as always, you can shop in my online store by clicking the button on the right.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

--Cindi
Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog