Welcome to the Neighborhood

It's hard to believe that it was nearly a year ago when this card would've been something I would've expected to receive from a new neighbor! The families on our street were so welcoming...but that's another story that has already been covered in another blog!

This card was part of my June Stamp-A-Stack offerings because it uses the Right at Home set, which is being retired at the end of the month. I borrowed it from a fellow demonstrator, and creating a layout with it made me want to own it.

This style of card is called a topper, and I first saw it on Michelle Wooderson's blog, Mish Mash.
You really ought to check out this creative Kansan's work! She gives really helpful tips, and was one of my inspirations for starting this blog!

Anyway, the card is made with Night of Navy card stock cut vertically at 4 1/4" and horizontally at 8 1/2" and then folded in half. The Really Rust background is stamped with a large already-retired background called Geometrics to simulate bricks. The houses were stamped with Night of Navy ink. The sentiment was inked using a Really Rust and a Night of Navy Stampin' Write Marker. This card will fit in a regular medium sized envelope.

I was able to put this card to use sooner than I anticipated. One of the first women to welcome me to GA, Linda Ebert, moved last week. Wanting to "pay forward" the kindness she extended me, I gave her this card to give to the new owners of their house and provided inside our contact information. This card would make great thank yous for real estate agents, and I may have to make an extra to send to our wonderful agent on the 1-year anniversary of the purchase of our house here. It really was a God thing that we found this house, sold ours in IL, and moved within 6 weeks last summer.

We're leaving tomorrow--TOMORROW!!--for IL to see friends. We can hardly wait!! I'll continue posting while I'm there...may even have some good shots of our old hometown. Thanks for stoppin' by!

I have a Father-In-Law too, so...

Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the inside of this card, but I am excited to share with you the layout of it. This is called a Trifold card, and it's incredibly versatile and a fun change from the standard 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card style.

Take a sheet of 8 1/2" x 11" card stock, aligned portrait style, and cut it at 3 1/2" vertically. Turn the 11" side to the blade and cut off 1/2". Then you have one long strip. Score it at 3 1/2" and 7" and you now have three squares of equal proportion.

Using the scoring blade again (love that option on my cutter!), place the point of the first square in the blade trough and line up the opposite corner in the trough, creating 2 triangles when you score it. Skip the middle box and repeat the process on the box at the other end.

Fold along the score lines and you will end up with this fold! The design on the outside was created using a solid 3 1/4" square of SU! Whisper White card stock. I stamped the paisleys from the Polka Dots and Paisleys set in chocolate chip ink and then colored them with Really Rust and So Saffron Stampin' Write Markers. The pale blue was created using a blender pen and the Taken with Teal ink pad. Love how that works when you don't have the marker color you need!

After the coloring was done--so relaxing!--I aligned the points like a diamond in the cutter and cut the piece in half, which created the card's front! The ribbon is brown grosgrain and is attached on the back with 2 glue dots, another great invention!

The interior was a 3" square of Whisper White with a mat of Cool Caribbean and So Saffron for a single paisley colored like the ones on the front. I used the Happy Father's Day stamp from All Year Cheer II and it was done! Dad's not all that expressive, so I won't probably hear what he thought of this card, but I hope he felt special.

If you're a visual learner, here's a link to the tutorial I used when I was first learning how to make this card: triangle trifold card tutorial

Here's a second card that uses the same layout, just so you can see how the card can be adapted for any occasion:
















I knew I needed to put something together a card in a hurry recently, and this layout is fast and fun! This used one of the stamps from the Simply Sent Friendship Shapes kit and the rainbow colors from the Bold Brights family. So festive, don't you think! The interior one was made with Encore Gold metallic ink and the sentiment says "you're special!"

Give this layout a try. I'd love to see what you come up with. Send me a link to your picture in the comments...

Thanks for stopping by!

Father's Day revisited

Today is another glorious day in GA. Why? We had more rain last night!!! I know friends in other states are rejoicing over the same thing, so I hope we can all hold our collective tongues about the ensuing humidity that comes along with said precipitation!

The card I'm highlighting today is one that I made following a sketch challenge put out by Beate Johns. If you aren't familiar with her work, you should be! Her blog is the one I visit daily because she's so inspiring. Click on Fresh and Fun to see more.

I was so thrilled at how this card came together! Stampin' Up! takes the guesswork out of coordinating colors, and I always look good! In this card, the base is Cool Caribbean, one of SU!'s 2006-07 In Color limited edition colors that's retiring at the end of June. The background designer paper is from a collection that was in our Winter Mini catalog. I hope it makes it into the new big catalog, which comes out in just 10 days. The main image "DAD" is stamped with Taken with Teal ink on Cool Caribbean. The small circle that says "you" and the horizontal band are made with Taken with Teal.

Technique Tip: The circle in the upper left corner is not a real metal tag, but one that I created. It's so easy--let me share with you how to make it.

• Choose a punch you'd like to make a tag with and a stamp sentiment or image that fits inside that punch. Set these aside. For this, I used a 1 1/4" circle punch, so my paper was 1 1/2" in width, but it was longer than that so I could hold it comfortably while heating the embossing powder. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
• Take the paper and cover the surface with Versamark ink. Versamark is what's called a watermark ink, which means it is clear and will produce a watermark look when stamped on colored paper. It's also sticky, so embossing powders cling to it wherever you put it, and that's what we need it for in this project!
  
• Coat the Versamarked area with embossing powder and shake off excess. Heat the paper with a heat tool until the powder melts. You can hold the paper with tweezers so that you don't burn your hands.
  
• As soon as it melts (do not overheat it), re-ink the surface with Versamark again, and re-coat with the embossing powder and shake off excess again. Heat until the powder just melts and repeat the entire process one more time.
• As soon as the final layer of powder is melted, quickly and firmly press your image/sentiment onto the paper and hold it there. You will be able to see that the stamp is making an impression into the layers of freshly melted embossing powder. Remove the stamp (this doesn't hurt the rubber at all!) and you have your faux metal tag! Punch with your chosen punch and you're done! I punched a hole using my 1/8" punch, and threaded a little accent ribbon through the hole.
  

I had this card made weeks before Father's Day, but with all the preparations I was making for a Stamp-A-Stack I was hosting last weekend, it wasn't until Friday that the card made it out in the mail! My parents were gone at my sister's for 5 days, so they didn't get their mail until Monday, and it was there in the stack! Sometimes, all the planets align!

Have a great day! Thanks for stopping by to take a look!

Quick and Easy Invitation

A few weeks ago, our neighbors Heather and Steve rang our doorbell and asked what dates we might have available for a culdesac party. I thought it was a great idea, and told them we'd help them when they figured out a date. I also shared that I'd be willing to help by putting together an invitation.

Here's what came together when Heather and I sat down last week:

Having no stamps that said "picnic" or "party," we established a more general theme of "CELEBRATE." The base is gable green, and I'm really enjoying having the Bold Brights color family to work with. It's perfect for summer.

The sentiment is from Lexicon of Love, which is retiring at the end of this month. I really like it and will miss it! The circles and dots are from the hostess set Riveting, which I have really enjoyed using also. The circles are done in Tempting Turquoise, and the dots in Only Orange. So summery! Adding the "you're invited" from the All Year Cheer II, which is also retiring, finished this off and made it very clear what the purpose of the card was. This was a postcard card, so the information was printed off on white paper and adhered to the back.

So far, only one family besides the 2 planning the event has RSVP'd, but I think we still get points for offering the opportunity for connection!

We have been almost a foot behind in rainfall year-to-date here in GA, so we were all excited when it began to rain last night, and continued to do so for longer than 5 minutes. Happy day everyone!

Where to Begin?

Let's start at the very beginning! Well, sort of. I'm going to begin today by posting the most recent card I made this evening and work my way backwards through my portfolio of cards that I've made since I started as a Stampin' Up! demonstrator in September.

I made this card this evening for my youngest cousin who just graduated from high school. The school's colors are navy and gold. I really like the Friendship Shapes set--so versatile and celebratory! Not easy to tell from the photo, but the gold is embossed. This is also my first time using Night of Navy, and I have to say I like it. It's not right for all situations, but it's perfect for this. The second picture is of the interior of the card, which was done using Headline Alphabet; again the gold is embossed. It looks very shimmery. I hope that Erin likes it.

If you want details on any of the cards, please feel free to inquire via the comments section. Thanks for checking out my blog!