POP UP CARDS 4 more samples

Carole has a great challenge this week, pop up cards! I love making pop ups, they always bring such amazement to anyone who opens one up. They can range from simple to time consuming and elaborate. There are many ways to make a shelf, or you can buy pre made shelves to stick in your card. There is also the wire or plastic pop up that has your item spring forth and really pop out at you. I have pulled together some of my pop ups to share.

This is the inside of the card I made for this weeks challenge.
Card made with card stock from DCWV NANA'S Kitchen. Die cut flowers, grass and stems all made with Cricut Plantin Schoolbook, Cricut Accent Essentials and Cricut Walk in my Garden Misc supplies, mirrored butterfly, chunky black glitter, rhinestones, vellum butterfly with seed beads and Bazzil bitty blossoms.

Front of same card.

This is the inside of a card I custom made for a special customer in my Etsy store. I cut the balloons with my Cricut and stamped them, and added tiny strings to some of the balloons.

I made these with my vellum butterflies a while back when I was on a pop up kick!

This is an insanely detailed card, but I love it! I hand stamped the flowers, cut them out, stamped , cut and colored the bee, then covered it in Crystal effects. Like the balloon card I mounted the flowers in 3 layers.

For the front of the card I used an expensive napkin someone gave me as a gift. I found a technique make it into fancy cardstock. I separated the napkin layers, I then placed a piece of saran wrap on top of a sheet of cardstock and placed the napkin on top of that and ironed it until it stuck together. Did I say this was insanely time consuming? I used some of my vellum butterflies and dragonflies. I made 10 of these for the ladies in my card swap!

Well I hope you enjoyed my pop ups. Thanks for looking~Diane

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Organizational tips for Scrapaholics

I need to organize, when my workspace is cluttered my brain stumbles on that clutter and it blocks my creativity. And now that I have recently joined the ranks of crafters who are addicted to Spellbinders , Quickcutz and Cuttlebug, I have a more pressing desire to organize my scraps. You don't need to waste a whole sheet of paper to cut with any of these dies or folders, so they are very economical in the sense that you can use up all those small scraps. That's what I told my DH, I need the dies so I can save money by using up all my scraps. That is if I can find them.

So I have decided to tackle the job of organizing my scraps. I currently keep my scraps in a very large shoe box on top of my worktable and another couple of shoe boxes on the shelf in the closet. Not a very desirable way to keep them, so I do more collecting of scraps then using them. Help came from my design sisters. Carole, summed it up well, " I keep even the smallest of papers and I have 3 trays. They are untidy, spill over and yell at me constantly to use them." I couldn't have said it any better Carole! (Mine are actually beginning to whine.)Margie admits "OK this is embarrassing, but this is what is happening to all of my scraps! It's all just getting stuffed on my keyboard shelf under my desk! I was hoping to use that shelf for "things I'm currently working on", but it turned into this, LOL! I need help! I hear you Margie, trust me, my mess is worse than yours. I've been saving mine since 2001!

Cara said "OK be nice!! I'm attaching my scrap bin. hee hee So you don't think I waste lots of paper, my SU demo has graciously shared bags of scraps with me, and 1/3 of the tote is instructional material I've collected in my 11 years of scrapping/stamping. What can I say , it works for me. It looks pretty organized to me, and it looks like you are actually using your scraps!I did some research and I found a few basic ways to organize your scraps. Some suggest to use an accordion file, and file by color, placing similar shades in the same section. This is good if you do crops, but I am more of a visual person, and I could fill 4 accordion folders!

ehow.com had an interesting 10 step program that ultimately ends with using a Cropper Hopper vertical paper holder. But I have to say I found step 3 to be somewhat amusing. "When deciding what to save, you might also consider factors like (a) is this an unusual color? or (b) do I have a lot more of this color or is this my last sheet? or (c) is this a color group that I use a lot? have a lot more of this color or is this my last sheet? and (4) is this a color group I use a lot of? I tend to save smaller sized scraps of unusual colors and expensive paper. I also tend to save smaller scraps if they go along with a larger scrap of the exact same color (like keeping a skinny strip that matches a larger rectangle of the same paper)"
Whew! Obviously I don't put that much thought into what I save, which is probably why I am buried in 4 boxes of it? ( I don't know, maybe I need to call my sponsor on it!)

The best idea for me came from a 5/15/07 post by Korie, we will always have paris. I liked this the best because it was more visual, and although much neater than mine will probably be, it's a great place to start. She has suggested the Cropper Hopper, along with color sorting, and she even made fancy labeled rimmed circle tags for them. (I'll skip the fancy tags.) I like the idea that it is simple, visual and they don't look like they take that much effort to keep up. Here is a picture from her site.

Both Carole and Cara also cut their scraps up ahead for embellishments. I have some thin scraps that I was thinking about punching some border edges onto, so they will be ready to go.

I save my paper scraps because I love the color, texture, pattern and feel of all the card stock and papers that I have. So what do you do with your paper scraps? Do you have an organizational tip you can share? Or do you just plop them in a box like me?
I'd love to hear your comments. ~Diane

Negatively Speaking

POSITIVELY STUNNING NEGATIVE CHALLENGE!

This is my negative card, my negative image is the Cricut cut out that was left after I cut out all those little flowers. This was certainly fun for me! Thanks for looking. ~Diane

Negatively Speaking

Today's post deals with using negatives, to utilize your scraps. I will show you how I made this acetate card with a left over negative from my Cricut.

Congratulations to the Tuesday Challenge winners...

3 of the Fav's (Top 3):
BrainyBairn

Kristen

SMK

Overall Winner!!!
Julia Moss

Thanks for looking ~Diane

Carole's Grand Opening

My friend Carole has just opened her Etsy shop,
would love to see you all support her

"I love sewing. I have seven sewing machines and they all are used frequently. Two machines are Brother Embroidery machines and there is such fun in creating projects with darling embroidery designs. I love to keep on hand embroidery hand towels to offer up as blog candy... this froggy represents one of the twenty froggy designs and earlier this year I finished a frog quilt. I am a frog collector and I have a bedroom with about 40 frogs sitting around from huge stuffed frogs to tiny little display frogs on a keychain.

I keep my creations. So much of my heart gets put upon anything I make so I just keep everything... I have stacks of quilts and towels, table runners, baby blankets and quilts, embroidery t-shirts, totes, trays and trays of cards that I have uploaded to various online sites, cards for design teams, cards that have been published. Now is the time I must finally open my Etsy shop.

The shop is open, but as of this moment, the shelves have not been stocked. My shop name is www.crayola58.etsy.com. Soon it will have cards of all styles and cute little handmade totes."

Isn't this the cutest hand towel!

Isn't it sweet! Thanks for looking ~Diane

Date as the main focus on a card

USE A DATE AS THE MAIN FOCUS OF YOUR CARD, LAYOUT, OR ALTERED PROJECT.

Recipe: White and orange cs, Spellbinders Classic Ovals Nestabilities, Just Rite Calendar Borders & Centers Oval Set Fiscars stamps, Tim Holtz mask, folk art black acrylic paint, crystal effects Stampin Up.

This is the first time I have ever worked with a mask, actually I thought I was buying a stencil. I was so wishing I had a black Copic Marker and an air gun! Copics would have made it so easy, but I had to make do with what I had. It was a little bit tricky to get the hang of it, but quite easy once you know what you are doing. I found the best results using a THICK white card stock. I stuck my mask on to the white cs and used a foam brush to apply the black acrylic paint. I did have a problem with the paint seeping under the mask, so for the last try I applied the paint and then immediately sponged up the excess paint from on top of the mask with a paper towel. I am happy with the final result. ~Diane

Spellbinders Grand Prize Winner!

Congratulations Margarita, of Grand Junction, Colorado, USA! She is the Grand Prize Winner in the Spellbinders Pendant Project contest! The Random Integer Generator made the final decision, which was a very fair way to do it. I won $100 in Spellbinder products, had a wonderful time working on my entries, following the reveals and being chosen in the Top 5! That in itself was quite a prize, so thank you Spellbinders and your Coordinating partners, I will be back again!

Where'd All My Money Go?!

I love the name of Steph's blog, Where'd All My Money Go?! I bet we all can relate to it too! She reached over 25,000 blog hits recently and she is looking to share the love with the most awesome Blog Candy! She will purchase a gift card or gift certificate to the place of your choice, so that you can get what you want! Are you ready for the Awesome part? The amount of the gift card will be $150. You have until 8/28 at 10 PM (central) to enter. I am posting and sharing this with you for totally selfish reasons, I want a chance to win! LOL You will totally enjoy your visit to her blog, as you scroll through her posts to the 8/9 Blog Candy post, check out all the beautiful cards and ideas along the way. And be sure to stop at the 8/12 Best Entrance post -( JK Wedding Entrance!) I love this You Tube video she kindly posted for us, I can watch it over and over. This video makes me smile from ear to ear, kinda like the way we'll be smiling if we win her blog candy! Thanks Steph, and good luck to us all! ~Diane

BUBBLES OF FUN DESIGNER CARD STOCK

Bubbles of Fun Designer Card Stock
Hello everyone, remember how much fun blowing bubbles used to be? Today's post is a tutorial which I hope will inspire you to let loose and have some fun with your paper crafting. In fact this is so much fun you could invite your children, grandchildren or friends to do this with you. I will show you how to make the Designer Bubble card stock I used in this Birthday card.

Card Recipe
Brown card stock, bubble card stock, violet pink vellum paper and the cute cake in the center is card stock from DCWV THE SWEET STACK. I cut and embossed the cake and sentiment with Spellbinders Petite Ovals Nestabilities.
I dipped the edges of my ovals in a Vivid raspberry ink pad and added some pink glitter to the flowers I cut with Cricut Walk in my Garden, and then added a brown ribbon.

Bubble Card Stock Recipe
Plastic tablecloth or protective cover for your table, plates to catch the bubble drips, small bowls, water and 1 teaspoon of sugar per small bowl. 1 bottle of bubbles- I only used 1/4 of this small bottle for all 5 dishes. Straws, food coloring (I used Neon Bright's I found at $store)
Sorry my recipe did not give a measurement for anything but the sugar. I did approximately 1 part bubbles to 2 parts water (free pour) and I added more food coloring as needed.
Card stock, I cut 8 1/2 x 11 sheets in 1/2 to make them a little easier to manage. I also try different colors because you never know what combination will look best. Rubber gloves are optional and old clothes for the little ones.

Now let the fun begin! Mix your water, bubbles, sugar and food coloring with your straw and start blowing bubbles! This was so much fun, and the bubbles were such beautiful colors too! Put a plate or old pie tin underneath to catch the mess, I figured that out a little late.

Notice the difference in the 2 bowls of bubbles? You want your bubbles to look like the top picture BIG, not the little bubbles near the straw in the second picture. Small bubbles make a large dark spot on your card stock.

Hold your card stock over the top of the bowl and let the card stock smash or break your bubbles. Pick up the card stock and move it around to fresh bubbles and keep doing this till you fill the page with bubbles (you may have to blow more bubbles to finish the page).

This gets messy ,1/2 way through I added a plate underneath.

Above the card stock drying out on the table,
below you can see it brightens up after it dry's for 24 hours.

I do hope you decide to give this a try, it will definitely release the inner child in you. So now that you have your very own designer bubble card stock what will you create with it? I think it would be a great background to use as a frame on one of those cute images everyone colors in with their Copic's. Anyone else have any suggestions as to what you could do with your Designer Bubble card stock? Please share your ideas ~Diane

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Chocolate brown, white and teal butterfly card

This week's Challenge is a color-combo!!

Chocolate Brown

Teal

White or Ivory

... AND to use an image using your fave coloring medium.

This is the card I made for the challenge, I used some of my bubble paper! Thanks for looking ~Diane

Spellbinders is thrilled to announce the Top 5 Winners in the Pendant Project Contest!

And I am thrilled to be one of them!

Here it is this is it! I have kept quiet since Thursday last week when I was told my card was chosen among the top 5! You have no idea how hard that has been! I just checked with Beth at Spellbinders and I can show you my card on my blog too! I have already won $100.00 in Spellbinders Dies and I have a shot at the Grand Prize of $500.00 plus goodies from Scrapbook Adhesives, My Minds Eye, Clearsnap, core'dinations and JustRite Stampers! Woo Hoo!

It was a difficult decision, there were so many entries, and so much creativity! Take a look at the Pendant Project Gallery!
Congratulations to all the top winners I share this honor with, and the 3 honorable mentions too!
Diane of Rochester Hills, Michigan, USA! Diane’s creative card using acetate and S4-204 Fleur de Lis Pendant with vellum caught our attention. That's me!
Margarita, of Grand Junction, Colorado, USA! Her entry was an elegant mini heritage album using S4-207 Kaleidoscope Pendant and S4-216 Kaleidoscope Borderabilities.
Marion of Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia! Marion’s adorable Baby card incorporated S4-208 In Spades Pendant, and S4-217 In Spades Borderabilities (both pieces!).
Monica of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada! Monica wowed us with her Queen’s Necklace. Monica used S4-204 Fleur de Lis Pendant, shrink plastic and a copper leafing pen to achieve these results!

Nicole of Wateford, Pennsylvania, USA! Nicole’s Framed Butterfly Quilt is just stunning. She used the S4-204 Fleur de Lis Pendant on this 12 x 12″ framed home decor piece.
And the honorable mentions were Baby Card by Kathy of New Plymouth, New Zealand.
Foil Pendant Card by Sandy of Canfield, Ohio, USA.
Purse by Jan of Garrison, Iowa, USA., (Jan is a blogger friend of mine!)

PAY IT FORWARD

I have been on the receiving end of Pay it Forward through an Etsy store, JTDtwo, she sent me some lovely storage boxes for the price of shipping, how sweet was that? Not to mention the very good fortune I have had of late! So when I saw this post on Amanda's Crafty Paper Girl blog I jumped at the chance! So this is how it works.

The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me, especially for you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make but I hope you will.

2- What I create will be just for you.

3-They say I have a year to get it to you. But I promise it will NOT take that long.

4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It’s a surprise to both of us at this point.

The catch? You must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.

So the first five people who post, and are willing to pass it along, will get a handmade gift in the mail from me. When you get it, make sure you post a pic on your blog!

I hope you'll play along and pay it forward with me!

TODAY IS MY LUCKY DAY

Wow! My email started going crazy this morning, Claudia saw my name on the Spellbinders Blog! I am one of the Top 5 winners in the Spellbinders Pendant Project contest! Woo Hoo! Yippee! That means I have won $100.00 in Spellbinders products and I have a shot at the $500.00 Grand Prize! How awesome is that? I am so excited!!!

I also received a blog award "Circle of Friends" from my new friend and team member Margie this morning! I don't know how this day could get any better. Thanks for sharing my joy! ~Diane

And I'm passing it on to to these friends.

Carole
Sandi
Kristen
Jeni
Tara

Bubbles of fun Designer Bubble card stock

Hello and happy Friday! This is my newest card, I wrote you another tutorial, this one explains how to make the Designer Bubble card stock I featured in this card. I hope you enjoy it Thanks for looking ~Diane

Blog Award from Sandi at Paper Trail

I  want to mention a challenge near and dear to my heart, posted by my friend Sandi at Paper Trail "Adopt a Teacher". Stop by her blog and read about how you can help, it's a wonderful and rewarding way to share our love of crafting. Thanks Sandi, (my daughter starts her first year of teaching on 8/31) for your challenge, you are Awesome!

This is my homemade flower card.

Recipe:Flower was made with Cricut Walk in my Garden and vellum from Paper and More. Spellbinders Petite Ovals Nestabilities and Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Pendant Shapeabilities. Beautiful background card stock from DCWV THE SWEET STACK, rhinestone and ribbon.


Wow, how great is this! I have a blog award! My very sweet friend Sandi at Paper Trail sent me this blog award. My kids can hardly believe Mom writes a blog, when I told my daughter I received an award from a friend she just shook her head and said "I don't even know how to write a blog!" I haven't been blogging for very long, but I do love all the people I have met and all the inspiring sites I have visited. Blogging has opened a whole new world for me, and I love it. So now I need to list 5 things I love and choose 5 others to pass this on to.
The 5 things I love will have to start with:
1. My family and friends (including all my new blogging friends)
2. Don't laugh, I love to cook, I married my Italian sweetie, and became Italian through osmosis.
3. I love to make cards, that's a given.
4. Air conditioning, we Northern gals just can't take the heat and humidity.
5. Helping people. I know it sounds corny, but I feel like my blog gives me the opportunity to reach out and share what I've learned and help others in the process.

Now for the hard part, choosing 5 others to share this with. I have to say it will be my sisters in the Die Cuts R Us design team. This is a wonderful group of women whom I greatly admire.
Margie
Jessica
Cara
Amber
Gwen
Carole who introduced me to Sandi, also received this award from Sandi, so it's not mine to give to her, but I can't leave her off my list.
Please stop by to see their blogs, they have so much inspiration!
And thank you again Sandi! ~Diane

Come join us for some fun!

This is the card I made for the Tuesday Challenge.


Here's the recipe for this card: The fabulous card stock background is from DCWV NANA'S Kitchen. The flower pot is barely bannana SU, and has a sheet of vellum embossed with a Sizzix plate over the top. I molded the flowers, ladybugs and flowerpot around various items on my desk to give them shape. I added dimensional foam to the flower pot, and the ladybugs bodies. I had some chunky glitter I found on clearance at JoAnns a while ago, I added it to the black bodies of the ladybugs and used it for the centers of the flowers. The ladybug eye's are from dollar store. Oops, I almost forgot, the flower pot, flowers, stems, and ladybugs were all cut with my Cricut Walk in my Garden.

Well the Spellbinders Pendant Contest deadline has come and gone. Good luck to all of us who entered! I entered 3 projects which I can't show you yet, but here is one of my rejects that didn't make the cut and get entered.


For this card I used the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis , I added a few rhinestones and an embellishment to the center. I wanted to enter it into the contest, but my family voted it down and chose another for me to send in. Thanks for looking ~Diane

Spellbinders Pendant Party ending soon!

Happy Friday Everyone! The Spellbinders Pendant Party is ending Monday August 10th! I hope you are all entering your great Pendant Projects, I know I am! I have 1 already entered, and the other 2 are half done, I have to get busy this weekend for sure.

I've been so busy this week I haven't had a chance to tell you about the Heirloom's Novi Rubber Stamp and Paper Arts Festival I went to last weekend. I took a ton of pictures(with permission of course), and I have so many fresh new ideas swimming around in my head, I am almost dizzy with creativity! So much inspiration, I saw a lot of Pop Up cards- so cute, a lot of vellum and acetate too. I love working with different substrates. I was able to try out a few different things too. And oh the stamps! So many unusual and fun stamps. Next year I will be back for sure! Thanks for looking ~Diane

T is for Teacher, monogram card.

Here is a sneak peek at my monogram card, along with the recipe.

Monogram card recipe.

I used this great apple cardstock from DCWV the Sweet Stack to make my Monogram card. I also used Green Galore, Pixie Pink, and Apricot Appeal that I cut with my Spellbinders Petite Ovals. The Monogram T was cut on my Cricut using the Plantin Schoolbook in a 1 3/4 size cut, on the 1st cut and on the shadow. I added a little bling with some pink glitter and I cut one of the apples from the DCWV card stock and I used some of the Crystal Effects. When the apple dried, I touched it with some real red ink and added a bow. I used the 3 D Dots foam adhesive under the apricot appeal and also under the pixie pink card stock to give it some added dimension. Thanks for looking ~Diane

Paper and More Vellum

I am proud to say this card was out for Publication in Scrapbook News and Review.

These are the 3 finished cards

Punch vellum and glue together, add glue to top of the vellum flower,
then press the glue into the beads, it will pick them up for you.

Cut tracing paper to size, attach to card with glue dots.

Print sentiment on computer, cut into a strip and add behind tracing paper,
use glue dots here also.

Use glue dots to attach the ribbon to the tracing paper.

I really like the look of vellum, and I love to work with it. It gives you so many more creative opportunities. I found a fabulous source for vellum also, Paper And More has a beautiful selection of vellum and other card stock quite reasonably priced. I ordered the sample packs in both the light and dark colors, and I had a terrible time deciding which ones I wanted to buy! I used my birthday money to buy 2 - 100 sheet packages. I was able to split my 100 sheets into 4 colors for a few extra dollars, so I have 200 sheets, in 8 beautiful colors that I will be showing you from time to time. The flowers on the cards I am showing here were made with the Blush Pink Vellum. I used the StampinUp punch to punch out the delicate flowers, I then glued them together with Scotch quick dry adhesive. I used tracing paper on top of the card stock and it gave it a very delicate look. I cut the leaves with my Cricut expression. I posted pictures of the process with notes above. I hope you like these, I am pleased with how they turned out.~Diane

Step by step how to print an insert for your card.

For this card layout I chose Landscape (even though it is a portrait card)
The text layout is wide or landscape.


For this card I chose Portrait (because the insert, not the card, is portrait)
I have tried to highlight the actionable choices in blue, the rest is just explanation.
I have been asked how I print out the inserts I make for my handmade cards, so I thought I might share it with all of you. I have Microsoft Office Word 2007. I open a page in Word, at the top of the page I choose Page Layout, I can take portrait - the top half of this would be blank with the writing on the bottom 1/2 of the card. Or landscape- which means the left hand side of the card should be blank with the text writing on the right hand side of the card this all depends on the way my card is laid out. If I am choosing the landscape option (wide) I will then go to columns, and choose 2 columns, that will split your page in 1/2. Then I go to Size - More sizes is where you can type in the size of your full sheet of paper. My cards are mainly 5 x 7 so I would choose 9.9 x 6.9 or 6.9 x 9.9. I make the insert slightly smaller than the card itself. All of the above is done in the Page Layout, I then move back to Home (another title in your word document) and from there I can choose center alignment, (this is a picture not a title) to get the typing centerd on the page. I then type in my text, I click and drag to highlight all of the text and I then choose Font and Size. Some fonts are a small 14 and I have to increase it to a 18, or some are a large 10, that all depends and you have to eyeball it. If the text is highlighted, when you roll over the different fonts you will see a preview of what each one will look like. Now if you chose Portrait (long) the card will fold in the middle and the space above the fold will be blank. On this layout I have to press enter a few times to get to where I perceive the lower 1/2 of the page is. I then go to Print Preview, to eyeball it, or hold a ruler to the screen and see if it looks centered correctly. When I am happy with the results, this is very important, I then close the document and save it as Portrait or Landscape, or wide or long whatever is easiest for you to remember, and I save it in My Documents. The next time you want to make an insert everything above will be done and saved, all you have to do is go in to the document, highlight the existing text, start typing in the text you want for the current card and it will replace it exactly like you have it all set up. After you print the page and go to close the document it will ask if you want to save your changes, I usually say no and my original text comes back in place. Last - Printing, very important that you first cut your paper down to the size you chose. Then go to Print - Properties - Size, choose Custom 1, 2, or 3, then press the Custom button that will be on that box, enter your sizes, press Save and ok then press ok on the next page it takes you to , and then press ok again to start printing. The next time you go to print the new text you will still have to set up the printing by choosing your custom 1 or custom 2 however you saved it. Once you set this up it is a breeze to print anything you want in your cards.