birthday subway art

Hello friends!   I hope your summer is off to a great start – it’s been hot and humid here – normal for us.  Our vegetable garden is in full swing with tomatoes, peppers and squash.

Here is a quick and easy birthday card I made with a free printable.   The printable is available from several different sources and I cannot remember whose blog I downloaded it from.  I did a google search of “birthday subway art” and came away with several sites that listed this particular piece so I don’t know who originally created it.

Anyway, I printed it out twice and cut one section to “pop up” on the card  so that there would be a little dimension instead of a flat card.  I hope you like it!

clean and simple monday

Sometimes “clean and simple” becomes “clean and not so simple“!  Such is the case with today’s card.  The challenge is to make your own background and I’ve got this covered two ways with this card.

The “simple” background is the black and white base card.  I started with a black card and simply used rub-ons to create the mottled look – like the composition books used for school.  The rub on is from EK Success called Confetti and I bought a large sheet of it at a Big Lots store over a year ago for less than a dollar.  I knew I would get some use out of it and it works perfectly here  to make the look I was going for. 

The “not so simple” background is the notebook paper.   It’s a digi image that I made.  It’s only the second time I have attempted to make anything digi and it took much longer than it should have. 

Look at it – all it is is a bunch of blue horizontal lines and one vertical red line – how hard could that be?  For someone who knows what they are doing it would have taken them less than a minute to create this.   For someone like me it took about 1/2 hour, which isn’t a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but considering how simple this ended up being it should not have taken that long. 

I started out by creating a file in Photoshop Elements  about 5.5 x 6.5 – thinking I would use this  both as a journal page and card front.  I flipped on the rulers and grid feature and started to draw the horizontal lines.  Well, first I had to find the “line” tool – that took a few minutes.   Then  I drew a few lines and realized they were black, not the blue I wanted.    I thought I knew how to change colors – seems I forgot the specific steps and after several minutes of  trial and error ended up going through the “help” feature to find out the correct way to do this.  Now I’m on a roll – I changed the few lines to blue and realized – duh – I can just use the “duplicate layer” feature and copy as many lines as I need.  (There may be an even simpler way to do this but it is beyond my expertise at this stage!). 

So I get all my blue lines done and create one red vertical line for the margin and print out a sample.  It looks weird because it has no border.  So I go in and add  black lines around the edge and print out another sample.  Perfect….or so I think.

Since the file is 5.5 x 6.5 it is too large for my card front – so I just resize the file down to the size I want and print it out. Easy, right?   It looks terrible.  Because of the smaller size it makes the lines look very narrow – the scale is completely off.  Sheesh!!!

So I make a copy of the file and set out to remove half the lines!!!    Finished with that I print it out and – yes!!! – it looks perfect!!!    I can continue on with my clean and”simple” card!!

So…I now have two “notebook paper” digis and I have posted the files for you to have and use to your hearts content.  They are posted over at SCS on this thread HERE.

The card is a birthday card for my hubs –  whose birthday is Wednesday – and he’ll probably see it on here first (happy birthday honey!).  Two of the images have special memories for me.  First is the corvette image – it has no company name on it so I don’t know its origin.  But I purchased it at one of those little roadside shops on Route 66 – how appropriate is that!  We were on vacation in the southwest and traveled part of the way on this famous road and using the image brought back memories of that trip. Plus hubs loves corvettes.  The “keep the shiny  side up” sentiment is typically a motorcyle saying, but can work with sports cars as well.  It from Our Lady Of Rubber and was purchased during a trip to Santa Fe (another favorite vacation spot of ours).  The shop is called Guadalupe’s Fun Rubber Stamps and it is near the plaza in historic Santa Fe on the second floor.     The happy birthday is one of those $1 Studio G stamps.

The car was colored with prisma pencils and odorless mineral spirits.  I punched three circles from black cardstock and glued them on to the side of the notebook paper to make it look more authentic.  The panel was mounted on red cardstock to make it stand out a  bit more.

Whew! 

Thanks for stopping by today – I hope you join us this week for the CAS challenge at SCS – and I hope your card goes much faster than mine!

clean and simple monday

It’s “clean and simple” monday once again and today’s CAS challenge is to use the color combination of chocolate chip, kraft, wild wasabi and white. 

I am so glad I was able to finally use this super cute ribbon I picked up at my LSS about a month ago.  It’s a 1.5″ wide grosgrain with the large polka dots.  I snagged a yard of this in the green – which was such a good match for the wasabi paper, as well as in blue, bright pink and a marigold-yellow.   With a ribbon this wide and bold the rest of the card needed to be a bit more subdued.

I embossed a piece of Crane’s Letter paper (this paper was made for letterpressing and it works wonderfully for embossing) with a cuttlebug folder, mounted in on kraft, then chocolate, then the wasabi card.

I threaded some raffia through the button holes and attached it to the ribbon.  The sentiment is from Papertrey and was stamped  on white with cocoa ink and punched with an SU label punch.

I hope you will joins us this week for the CAS challenge!  Thanks so much for stopping by today!

the never ending card…..

This card has the same layout as yesterdays, but its been months in the making!  And it  has more lives than a cat!  I thought I would never finish it – here is how it started.

I began by making the main panel with Memory Box Provence paper last year ( before Thanksgiving!).  I liked the panel but just could not get a card out of it.  Nothing looked right, so I did what most of you do – set it aside in the “partially completed” pile.

So flash forward a few months….I’m  cleaning my stamp room yesterday and come across the panel and try once again  to do something with it.

I look for  a different card base than I had started with months ago – looking through the DCWV textured pack  I find a color that works well with the Memory Box – I’m on my way!

Ribbon – I have tons of blue and green ribbons but of course none that are the right shade.  Step back and look at the card again – it has muted tones and more of a natural feel, so I pull out the twine and decide that it looks better than ribbon – yay!!

Now to embellishments –  Buttons? Don’t have any.    Brads?  None that are the right size or color.   Tags?  I try a bunch but nothing looks good.   I try to  make one of those paper flowers I see everyone doing, but I don’t have the  correct scallop punch, although I do think that a paper flower from the same paper pack would look great.  I’m beginning to get the feeling of deja vu that this card is going  back in the stack of partially completed pile.

 I finally find this soft blue flower – the only one like it in my stash – and decide it looks fine!  Things are moving along.

Finally – the sentiment.  I realize that even with all the stamps I have I need more sentiments.   And I need them in the right size and font.   Geez – that means I need to buy more stamps……..After going through almost all of my stamp sets, I decide on a sentiment from Rubbernecker.  It’s a birthday sentiment and I’m always in need of birthday cards, and its the right size and shape for the card.    I stamp it in blue to go with the flower, then decide that the panel itself needs to be mounted on blue just to give it a little more pop and to comply with that design “rule of threes”.  So I have a blue panel for the mount, a blue flower and blue sentiment.  

I am done!!!  And it only took several months to create this clean and simple card!!!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Melon mambo with kraft

Today’s color challenge was to use melon mambo, kraft and black.  The bright burst of melon really pops against both the black and kraft neutrals.

The stamps are from Flourishes All Wrapped up set and were stamped in Palette Noir ink.  Now here is something odd – I started coloring the gift boxes with melon ink, but the color did not look right especially when placed against the paper.  The ink looked more orange-y than pink – not sure how that happened!! 

Anyway – here is a good tip…if you have prisma pencils try and match up a pencil color to your ink.  In this card I ended up coloring the boxes with a mix of prisma pencils #993 Hot Pink and #994-Process Red along with  #107o French Grey 30%.   These colors were a nice match to SU’s colors.  You probably can’t tell from the photo but I added a little sparkle to the boxes with a stardust get pen.  The colors overall in the photo are a bit off because of the weather here – its been rainy all day and looks like it will continue through the afternoon, so this was the best I could do.

The ribbon is a black satin overlayed with a sheer polka dot.  The black satin by itself seemed to heavy and the sheer dot too light.  Combining them gave the look I wanted!  The flowers are sizzix die cuts with black rhinestones for the center.

Thanks for stopping by!

My latest favorite color combo

I’m seeing these colors in some variation all around me – a light blue/aqua paired with a rich red/violet.  They can be found in Basic Greys Eskimo Kisses line, in the latest holiday line from Cosmo Cricket and I even saw this color combo at Cracker Barrel the other day on one of their holiday tree displays!

Materials Used: Stamps - Flourishes Holiday Greetings; Paper - Flourishes (white), SU (blue and pomegranate); Ink - Palette Ballet Blue, Marvy Aubergine, Other: ribbon, rhinestones, cuttlebug folder, slice machine

I first paired these colors a year or so ago (or was it longer?) when SU issued its beautiful pomegranate paper.  I wish they had made this a permanent color – I’m running low on my supply!  I used it with their soft sky and immediately fell in love with the look!  So this year several of my holiday cards will be made using these colors.

This card was a snap – the blue panel  was embossed with a cuttlebug folder and a panel of pomegranate dp was added on top.  The die cuts were made with a slice machine.  The sentiment is from Flourishes Holiday Greeting set and was stamped with a Marvy marker and sponged with Palette Ink – ballet blue ink.  Rhinestones and ribbon complete the card.

Materials Used: Stamps - Flourishes (sentiment), SU (flower), Rubbernecker (background); Paper: Flourishes White, SU Pomegranate; Ink - Palette Ballet Blue, Marvy Aubergine; Other: Ribbon, pearls nestabilities

With this color combo fresh in my mind, I decided to make a  birthday card – somthing I am always in need of!  Using the same color scheme I put together this card – soft and feminine.  The hardest part was lining up the pearls on the ribbon!  I used circle nestabilities to cut out the shapes and sponged some color on the circle before stamping the image.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Greetings!

I took my inspiration from a Riley Fitzgerald card, with the sketch from 2redbanana’s sketch blog.  The easy part was done – I had the image already stamped and colored from a previous project and it was just waiting in my box of stamped images ready to be used!

Materials: Stamps: Flourishes (gift box and sentiment), SeeD's (background); Paper: Flourishes, SU; Ink: Palette Charcoal, Copic Markers; Rhinestones, Stardust Gel Pen

I colored the image with copics – see my post HERE for a video of how I colored it.  It’s one of my favorite images, from the Flourishes All Wrapped Up set, because it can be used for so many occasions.  Its used as a birthday card here but just change the colors and you can turn it into a christmas, baby or wedding card!

Thanks for stopping by!

RAK’ed again!

Take a look at this cute and colorful RAK I received from Sheri Thomas – I love the pinks and blues and she added sparkley glitter in several places to add some dimension. Sheri, thanks so much for the card. Please check out her blog at http://www.stampernmore.blogspot.com/.

Two more RAK’s!

Today I received two more RAK’s in the mail!! I just love getting mail and SCS RAK club is great.

This first card is from Debra Tack. This card is so pretty with the green and yellow color scheme. Debra – just last month I ordered the vases set, don’t know how I overlooked it for so long. I love the paper you used – thank you so much!!

The second card is from Shannon Erskine and is just as pretty!! The pink and green color combo is so soft and I love the polka dot ribbon. Thank you Shannon!! Visit Shannon’s blog at http://www.hoppycreations.blogspot.com/ for more.

Hey – Shannon and Debra – did you guys get together with the color combos? These cards go great together!!

Another RAK!!

I received this pretty RAK from Deb Albright over the weekend. I love the polished stone technique she used for the front – the photo does not do it justice. Thanks Deb for thinking of me. Check out Deb’s great blog at http://turtlechronicles.blogspot.com