10 layer card. Count 'em! 10!!!

Using my scraps again. This is not a new layout by any means. I've used "LOVE" and "NOEL" in this square before, but never with so many layers. This simple basic design took forever! I felt like every square needed a little "pop". So I matted each pp (discontinued MM) on white cs, trimming closely. The letters are stickers. Digressing here...when I first started to scrapbook 4 years ago, I only really knew about paper piecing, MM coordinating papers, and letter stickers. When MM discontinued these papers soon after I got bitten by the scrapbooking bug I actually thought, what am I gonna do now? Funny, huh? I've come a long way from that time. I was inspired to use my stickers and these papers again when Nathalia posted a blog entry where she used some old tired stickers that she made new and cool. Check out all her fab creations here: http://funkyphreshpapierkreations.blogspot.com/.

It all started with a scrap...

I needed to make a thank you card for my sweet sweet sister. She and her husband came over for Ledo's pizza last Saturday. (I grew up in Maryland, home of Ledo's pizza. If you watch Oprah, you may have seen that Oprah's friend Gayle rated Ledo's #1. Of course they are Marylanders too, so maybe a little biased!) Anyway, Angela (my little sister) and James brought some terrific presents for my girls and I wanted to make her a thank you card.
See the top rectangle of dp (mostly white background?) I had this scrap and decided to try to make a card with it. I thought it matched pretty well with a pack of American Crafts papers I received for attending a crop back in May. So I opened up the American Crafts papers and layered the three pieces on black bazzill, mounted my 4 MM brads, and mounted to the white DCWV card. The "Thank you" is an Anna Griffin stamp, and I used the SU! slot punch. I never would have purchased this particular pack of papers, but now I really like them! If I make this card again I think I will use the bottom paper on top and bottom. Of course I used my last 3 black mini brads on this card, and I'm having trouble finding a pack of just black (at Michael's the black is mixed with metallics, which I have plenty of.) Stay cool! It is hot and HUMID here...

Tags

Just playing around with my new QuicKutz revolution tag die. I had a lot of fun making these. I have not made many tags in the past 3 years, so it was fun to play! I made these double thick...e.g. I punched an extra tag to cover up the ivory square & leaves/ gold "happy fall" and the eyelet center of the vellum flower. What do you think?

Happy Birthday cards

More nearly complete cards completed (yea, me!) During the play date I had with friends (Mary, Holly, and Tracy), Tracy brought her "Happy Birthday" embossing plate (cuddlebug), her oval punches (scallop & regular), and her QK cupcake die. I embossed & punched enough to make 6 cards, which I just now assembled. Tracy designed this card on her blog," small smackerels". I love the sweet simple design. But you know, I just love Tracy's style no matter what she creates! My dp doesn't have as many "icing sprinkles" as Tracy's, but hey, I did use up some scraps(KI Memories). Check out Tracy's cards here:

http://smallsmackerels.blogspot.com/2007/06/i-love-ze-scallops.html

Make it a great day!

Gettin' buggy

It's been a little quiet out there...in bloggerland. Not a lot of new posts when I run through my daily blog favorites the past few days. Some ladies were at CHA and shared some wonderful photos of new products! Are the rest all reading Harry Potter? (Lucky gals...I let my husband have first dibs. I'm re-reading book #6 while he reads book #7). I find myself talking to the computer and chanting, "new post, new post..." All these wonderful blogs inspire me. Ahhh, but then I realize I've been a hypocrite and only posted a couple of time myself LOL! On Sunday I woke up with a cold/allergy something. It has knocked me off my feet both Sunday & Monday. I hope today will be better. When I take decongestants, I sleep a little, then I get wired but very fuzzy headed, even the ones without antihistamines. After the "wired" stage passes, I'm totally beat and off my feet again. Ah, so this is why I'm awake at 4am and babbling on my blog. This is wired stage. I hope this blog entry is coherent! My husband poses the following test question to assess exactly how bad I feel,"do you want to lay down while I watch the girls, or do you want to go in your craft room for a little while?" Isn't he a keeper? 16 years of marriage and he still cracks me up :) I don't have any brain power right now to create. So, during the "wired" stage, I've been blogging or going in my craft room and completing all the cards I've started recently. (Like the embossed card and birdie friend card from Sunday posting.) So today's post are cards I started last week, inspired by others, and completed today. The card on the left I CASEd from my friend Vera (see her post here: http://cropsandcards.blogspot.com/2007/07/ladybug-petals.html). I added acetate to the front of mine to protect the daisy ovals, but in the picture you can no longer see the lady bug's flight path. The lady bug is QK. The card on the right is a make-n-take my SU! consultant (Sue) had us do last week at her open house, but I did not finish it until today. I did the stamping and brought her home. Isn't that a super cute card? I love it! I did change two small details. Sue drew the flight path and the antennaes on her card. I used a paper piercer for the flight path and QK for the antennae. (I punched the lady bug body from black cs with QK and cut off the body. The QK head was too small for this body so I glued it under the circle Sue provided for her head. Get it?) So, no new creations for me, but my craft room is looking a bit better! It looked like a bomb went off in there, but now that I've completed a few cards that were in piles on my craft room table and cleaned up the supplies, it is a little neater in there, which makes me feel better :)

All About U card class

Lauren, this entry is for you! Check out Lauren's blog: http://llaurenb.blogspot.com/ (...all the GOOD blog names were taken...) This is the class I designed and taught at Ashburn Family Scrapbook Center in Ashburn, VA. The owner asked me to design the cards around the new Bazzill scalloped paper. Of course I incorporated some Marvy/Uchida scallop punches too (I love those punches!) I also took a pack of the Sandylion alphabet stickers "U" and used all six stickers in the pack; hence, six cards :) The rub-ons and ribbon are American Crafts. Most of the people in the class are beginners, though a couple are intermediate/advanced. I gear the class to learning techniques, without overwhelming them (hopefully). So they learned two ribbon techniques, how to use the crop-a-dile (hole punch & set eyelets), how to use rub-ons, how to create scallops with a slit punch or corner rounder, and fun ways to embellish scallops! No prize winning cards here, but good to have on hand.

Spring cards

Hi, blogger friends! I'll bet you were wondering what happened to me for the past week :) I spent my spare time preparing for a card class I taught yesterday. The prep time took longer than I thought, but well worth my time as it made the class run smoothly. These two sweet cards are not from my class, nor can I take credit for designing them. These cards were ideas shared by stamping friends Holly & Mary, respectively on our last play date (and I finally just completed them!) Holly brought her cuddlebug embossing plate and ink pads and we made the card on the left using our water brushes and my QK revolution die cut for the "happy birthday". The card on the right was an idea Mary brought. All stamps are A*muse. I'm not sure about the ribbon. I used diamond glaze on the little bird and the flowers.