Purple Butterfly

Such a yummy card.  I gave it along with 14 others

to a friend for her birthday.  So if you have a 

huge stash of cards, give them as gifts.  

They are unique and everyone uses cards.

Share your art!

This begins card has a white card base.

Next is a textured layered created with a

Cuttlebug embossing folder over lavender card stock.

Two sizes of Spellbinder's Lacy ovals were die cut

and lavender ovals embossed in Cuttlebug's

dotted Swiss embossing folder attached.

Cheery Lynn Design's Victorian Flourish

was cut apart and place on the oval layers.

The butterfly was cut from highlighting foil attached

to card stock using a Cheery Lynn Design.

A darker purple paper is used as an accent

under the foil butterfly.

Dragoflies and Butterfly

 Let me begin at the bottom and work my way up, just

like you would do when constructing the design.

We have a white A2 (4.25 x 5.50 inch) card base.

Next is the textured layer that is done with an embossing

folder, cut to 4 x 5.25 inches, attached to 

the pale green card stock and trimmed to a

very narrow border using a Perfect Layers ruler.

Now die cut two of Spellbinders beaded ovals in white,

then cut two pale green ovals from Spellbinders nesting ovals.

The green ovals have been textured in Cuttlebug's dotted Swiss

embossing folder and attached to the beaded ovals.

Cheery Lynn Designs Victorian Flourish was used

to cut the lovely  flourishes that are over the

pale green dotted swiss ovals.  

The ovals have been raised off the card base with

layers of paper egg carton.  One has one layer and

the other two layers.

The butterfly and dragonflies are from dies by

Cheery Lynn Designs.

A green iridescent  and blue iridescent gift wraps was glued

to card stock to make the bugs.

I just love all kinds of gift wrap for my designs.

It is inexpensive and they make such shiny pretty papers.

For card projects a little goes a long way.  I am still

using gift wrap that I bought 15 years ago!

Christmas is the best time to buy, that is when

the shiny bling-bling stuff really shows up.

You can bend the wings on the insects to give them the appearance 

of being ready to fly off the card.  On several of them I have

attached very narrow pieces of paper egg carton

to raise them off the card a bit.

Hebrews 6:10

I asked Pastor Dan and his wife, Connie, if they

had a scripture that they would like to see on some

cards that I made them.  This is the scripture that they chose.

The two strips of green
DP (designer paper) are layered over dark green

card stock and then brushed gold gift wrap.

The narrow borders have been cut with Perfect Layers rulers.

The gold "tatting" is also from a gold gift wrap.

The gift wrap is attached to cards stock

before cutting.  This makes it look like those 

expensive stickers.  (which I am far to cheap to buy)

The die cut is from Cheery Lynn Designs.

The scripture is computer generated in PSP X.

It was cut out with a Spellbinders Label die.

This was layer over a dark green oval and 

a gold gift wrap scalloped oval, both 

by Spellbinders.

Cougar

PSX made this stamp at least 15 years ago.
It is so elegant and detailed. AND
since we have these critters in our hill pasture
I have a special respect for them.
The cougar is also the reason that we
seldom hike in our pasture without a pistol.
It just isn't safe and we humans are easy prey.
We jump up and down and make lots of noise,
but are basically very slow and an easy kill for a cougar.
No idea how good we taste. ; )

The cougar has been stamped on cream card stock
with Stampendous black pigment ink
and embossed with fineline black embossing powder.
The edges were inked with Rangers Archival coffee ink.
A thread cutter was used to rough up the edges,
followed by an inking of black Archival ink
for a faux burn effect.

Under the cougar image is a medium brown
card stock that has been die cut with a
Spellbinders Label.
This is attached to the card base.
The dark green pine branches are a Cheery Lynn Design die.
Pine cones are punched from an
Emaginations punch out of dark brown card stock.
They were then tightly scrunched up and
partially unrolled. I only smoothed them out
enough to be able to see the pine cone shape.
There is a lot of texture on those little pine cones.

The card base is an ivory and light tan parchment.
It has been sponged with dark brown and black ink.
By sponging the card base and the oval of the image
the look of the card is more "pulled together".

Isaiah 41:10

Here is a relatively simple design that showcases scripture.
The scripture was designed using PSP X.
Fonts used are CAC Champagne and ST Honeymoon.

After adjusting the size of my scripture in Word
it was printed in 2 column format.
A Spellbinders die was used to cut it out.
The edges of the die and the card base
were sponged with Ranger Archival coffee and black inks.
A very thin edging of black creates the faux burned look.

The pine branch stamp is from Hero Arts.
First I inked it with a dark green Distressed ink.
Stamp once on scrap paper and THEN
stamp on the card to give a shadow appearance.

The pine branches were cut using a Cheery Lynn Designs die.
The pine cones are the fun part. Just punching them
out and leaving them flat was very ordinary and boring.
So I tried scrunching the punched pine cone.
I really scrunched it into a tiny ball.
Then only partial smoothed it out.
That gave the little pine cones a lot of texture.
At least they look a little more real now.

Christmas Ornament Card

I don't normally do the artsy type pictures, but here is
one. I wanted to show the 3-D of the bulb over the
rest of the card front.

The metallic gold flourish and lines are a heavy gold foil gift wrap attached
to card stock with a thin layer of Crafters Ultimate Pick glue.
The Victorian Flourish from Cheery Lynn Designs was
cut apart to make the central focal point on the bulb.
The bands of gold are the finishing touches.
It just looked so much better with them in place.

The bulb is positioned over a "ribbon" of embossing folder
textured card stock layered over brushed gold gift wrap.
The Merry Christmas in the oval and the brushed gold gift wrap
large scallop oval under it are by Spellbinders, as is the
bulb die cut.

The Merry Christmas is a free font - Zenda.
It was created in PSP X.

Christmas Card Challenge

Split Coast Stampers has a Christmas Card Challenge.
You are to make a Christmas card or two or three or four
every month till December.
Now I just thought that was a great idea.
I have been playing with Spellbinders 2010 Christmas bulb die
and one of their original Christmas bulb dies.

Here are the results of my efforts.
The bulbs have been cut from Polished Stone.
Polished Stone uses alcohol inks on glossy paper.

The textured layer under the bulbs is also glossy paper
that has been textured in a Cuttlebug 5 x 7 embossing folder.

After the polished stone paper was die cut I began the fun
of decorating my bulbs.
For this us used Cheery Lynn Designs
Victorian Flourish and a border die from them
that looks like tatting.

The gold used for the Cheery Lynn Designs is
a fairly heavy metallic gold foil gift wrap that has
been attached to cards stock using a thin layer of
tacky glue. It works best when the glue is spread on the
card stock with some type of credit card tool or a squeegee
kind of tool. You want a thin layer to cover the entire piece
of card stock. After putting the foil on the glued card stock
I ran over it with a brayer, using a lot of pressure to get the
bubbles out.

These die cuts really do look exactly like those expensive stickers.
For the wider bands of gold I first scored it in my ScorPal, then
carefully cut it while still in the ScorPall with a click blade cutter.

The final touches involved black sponging all around the edges of the
bulbs. Next is pieces of paper egg carton attached to
the backs of the blubs to add a little dimension.
A very thin piece of gold foil was added at the top of
each bulb to "hang" it.
BEWARE!!!!
Decorating these little bulbs is really addictive.

And the final product will be on the blog tomorrow.
While I like these designs, there is one that is my favorite.
There also some also rans that are my trial and error
phase of designing. Don't think you are going to get to see those.
They are visiting my trash can.

Giraffe

The giraffe image is from a Bees Wax stamps. I have no idea
if they are still in business. The stamp is at least 15 years old
and this is the first time I have used it. I only used about
half the image on this design.

The giraffe is stamped in Ranger Archival coffee ink.
It has been die cut with Spellbinder's oval die.
I tried it on the card base with the giraffe skin print paper
after sponging the edges and it just did not work.
I knew that scallops would not look right. So I attached it
to another cream card stock piece, cut with a
deckle scissors and sponged again.

The greenery around the giraffe's head is from
a Cheery Lynn Designs die cut - Olive Branches.

Note that the edges of the card base have also been sponged.
By sponging the card base and two edges of the giraffe piece
the whole has been pulled together nicely.

Caring Butterflies

Where to begin? First of all I am running out of titles for
designs that are not repeats. I may just switch to numbers, LOL.

This card has a plain white base. The bottom two layers
are a soft peach with a tapestry texture in white.
The texture was created using an embossing folder.
These ovals were place on the card with the larger
being raised off the card using paper egg carton as the "pop dot".
A flourish from Bosscut was used in the center of the
larger oval.

The ovals were die cut using Spellbinders beaded oval dies.
Another Spellbinders die, Nesting Ovals was used to cut
the soft peach inside the beaded ovals. It was textured with
Cuttlebug"s dotted swiss embossing folder.

A Fancy Tag die from Spellbinders was used to
cut the layer underneath the computer generated phrase.
The phrase and the peach scalloped layer under it were
cut with more Spellbinders dies, this time the Nesting Ovals.
I love using ovals in my designs, they are so pleasing to the eye.

The butterfly is a Cheery Lynn Designs butterfly cut from
highlighting foil (found at most beauty supply stores) attached
to card stock or text weight papers. A light weight card stock
will cut much better than a heavy one and
enable you to slightly fold the wings up, giving an
appearance of a real butterfly that has just landed.

The flowers are punched with Punch Bunch punches.
The paper is card stock painted with Lumiere's.
They are then shaped and "diamonds" placed
in the centers.

The smaller butterflies are from an EK Success
Martha Stewart punch. They are also from
highlighting foil.

Birthday Cards

The rust and cream color scheme is stunning.
Note the differences in the cards and decide which
you like.
The top card has a metallic Cheery Lynn Designs
butterfly cut from highlighting foil from the beauty supply.
The bottom butterfly is cut from rust card stock.
Both have a peach "lining" second layer underneath.
The peach has been sponged with Ranger
Rusty Hinge Distressed Ink.
This color of ink was also used to
sponge the edges, inside and outside, of
the Spellbinders Label and Oval frames.

The happy birthday is computer generated
in Paint Shop Pro X. It was cut out with
a Spellbinders Label and the edges also
sponged with Rangers Distressed Ink Rusty Hinge.

The frame and the phrase are made 3-d with layers
of cut up paper egg carton. Two layers under the frame
and one layer under the phrase.
Note that there is rust under one phrase and
peach under the other.

The rust flowers are the same, but the leaves
are different. One is silk leaves
and the other is punched card stock leaves
with the flowers and butterfly.

Lattice Over Texture

I really really like this Cheery Lynn Designs
lattice die cut. It has so many possibilities.

I had this idea. Now like all ideas the
execution is often leaves you with something
far more different than the vision in your head.
This one is OK. Not earth shaking, but OK.

The biggest leaves are a Spellbinders die cut.
The flowers and branches are punched from
Punch Bunch punches.

A Sympathy Card

Recently the husband of a very very special aunt died.
They had been married for 62+ years.
I wanted to do something extra special for my
dear Aunt Donna.

Rust and cream are the colors.
I used a scrapbook paper under the stamped phrase.
The frame was created with two Spellbinders dies
used at the same time and then embossed.
Rusty Hinge Distressed Ink was used
to sponge the outer and inner edges of the frame.

The Cheery Lynn butterflies are cut from
card stock that has been stippled with
Lumiere paint.
I brushed it on first and then quickly stipple dabbed
more of the same color on to remove the brush strokes.

The flowers and leaves are Punch Bunch punches.
The flowers have been shaped.
The leaves have been lightly sponged
the Rusty Hinge Distressed Ink
to tone down the green.
It also blends the whole of the card together.

The lowest cream layer has been textured
in an embossing folder.
K & Company scrapbook paper was used
under the phrase.