Paper Pumpkin Kit

When we went to the Creative Keepsakes scrapbook convention, we got a Paper Pumpkin kit as the gift for per-registering. My guess probably this kits were done just for this event as I don't think the kit was worth $20 IF it was a paper pumpkin. It had two little stamps, two little ink pads and supplies to make ONLY 4 cards. The strips and flags are supposed to be self-adhesive BUT VERY low tack so probably kind of washi tape or even less adhesive as for example the flag kept moving so I had to add a little glue dot. The message was a thank you banner BUT I wanted birthday cards.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!
We hosted Thanksgiving dinner and it was great we enjoyed everyone's company. We had lots of food that I can probably skip food for a couple days :0) As a little treat for each of the guest I decide to use SU October Paper Pumpkin kit. I like pumpkin pie so I pretended it was pumpkin pie and even though I don't like whip cream most people do, I used regular 2" white pom pom from Michael's and JoAnn's for the "whip cream" and then a thick twisted cord from JoAnn's for the "pie crust". I put 3 different candy bars except for one that the auntie is like me and doesn't like chocolate. The tags were driving me nuts either it was my kit and no one else had the same problem or we all did and it was a quality problem because either the kraft paper or adhesive just didn't like each other, it kept peeling off, more likely was the kraft paper as I try using washi tape so it would be easy to open without tearing the box and it was also peeling. I added the name of the guest on top and on the side just because there was that one slice with different candy so it wasn't taken by mistake and it wouldn't have been nice just one with name :0). Since I used the cord even though it was the size of the slice it didn't fit nicely
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Shoebox Thursday

Since Thanksgiving falls on Thursday we changed it to the day before Thanksgiving and it was my turn to provide the shoe-box and of course it had to be Christmas, my favorite Holiday and it's just around the corner :0) the embossing folder is Cuttlebug and everything else I made with the Brother Scan N Cut

Bulls eye

I don't remember if it was last week's Sunday tip or technique or the week before but the tutorial was Deb Valder's bullseye card.. I don't have SU's circle dies to see the size in circles and although I do have Spellbinders dies I decided to use my Brother Scan N Cut machine to make my card.
I was able to cut the two white pieces together and the two brown pieces together and then the ornaments. Also I made it bigger than A2...about 5.75" x 5" just because I don't have to make my cards regular size :0) I have tried to plan my cards ahead BUT seems like no matter what I always do my coloring and main part then I pick papers and size :0) after I'm done I worry about envelopes.
I just got this stamp set so decided to kill two birds with one stone...use a new set plus the technique, I decided on the ornament as it was easier to cut...the SNC machine wouldn't recognized the pine cone and it's hard to fuzzy cut :0).

This is the view when you get it out the envelope

Personally I didn't think Deb's card was as pretty on the inside as it was on the outside ONLY because her inside layers were too short (4" x 4") and looked like was short of paper; anyway my two middle layers were about 4" x 4" but the layer that you see inside was about 4-3/8" x 5-1/4" giving about 1/4" even border frame so other than the hole it's just like another layer

I pretty much follow the designed from the front to the inside

I used about 1/16" brown border on bottom layer

tiny cards

Long post with lots of samples :0)

A couple weeks ago we had a Sunday Tip or Technique that was making little cards out of scraps. When I first saw this challenge it thought I couldn't do this as I don't keep scraps anymore. Since I re-organized my craft room I toss away anything smaller than 3.5 x 5, yes sometimes I feel bad about tossing paper to the recycle bag BUT I had the bad habit of pulling a full sheet instead of digging on the scrap boxes, anyway we were told we could also use full sheets but the challenge was meant to use up scraps.
Over a year ago I had too many scraps (2 boxes) so decided to work on cards using ONLY those scraps, I  did use a full sheets for the base card in the bigger size BUT mostly were the scraps, most cards were not bigger than 3" or 3.5" x 5. The main reason was because I use a lot of 12x12 paper and when you cut off 8.5" x 11" you have a 3.5" x 12 piece left over which is perfect for these little note cards. I also had a bunch of paper that were 4 x 5.25 or 4.25 x 5.5 which I folded in half and ended up with tiny notecards...about 2.5" x 4" or 2.75" x 4.25"
Some of the cards were the same design BUT in different colors. It was fun and was the first time I did that. Normally when I do multiple cards are 98% identical :0) At the end I ended up making more than 300 cards most of them were donated, A lot I kept for thank you cards as you never have enough specially when my birthday & Christmas is coming up :0) as I like to send thank you cards for the people that took time to send me a card and/or gift.
For my online friends from Yahoo Groups I only post a thank you email as well as people I have their email address not because they are not important but I get an average of 50 birthday cards and double the Christmas cards and not always my health permits me to work on cards BUT I do want to let them know I received their cards.
I send hundreds of cards a year other than the Yahoo groups that cards are counted and a few other people say "thank you I got your card" the rest never take the time to let me know so I don't know if I wasted my time and postage because they didn't get it or maybe they just don't think it matters, I do consider the cards I sent a RAK (Random Art of Kindness) so don't expect anything in return but is always nice to know the cards I mailed got to their destination. I HATE when people move expecting their 6 months to a year expiration at the PO to let me know of their new address which by then my postage was wasted so after a few times I decided to remove from my mailing list EVERYONE that do not send me their change of address figure they don't want my cards as there is 100% chance they were going to get mail from me :0) I only changed address 4 times in my life and the moment I moved I let everyone know my new address, you never know when someone would want to send me something or stop by if they were coming to my city.

Any way these are some of the cards I did with the scraps which are great for any occassion

These other cards were mostly between 4" x 4" or regular A2 size but I used the scraps for the punch art or main part of card

 Thanks for reading and looking at ALL the samples hope it inspire you to work on little note cards using your scraps :0)

Shoebox Thursday

We made this cute box as the shoe-box project. Candee had all the stamping done for us...we just had to die-cut the message and wreaths. I did most of them as I used the TH vagabond and went quicker :0) They didn't match perfectly. With this stamp set you have to be very careful to align the stamps, I suggest to use a stamp positioned and not trust the “tab” as it really doesn’t work and just because its clear doesn’t mean you can actually see to align the stamps perfectly or maybe is just me that have bad sight anyway, if you don’t align perfectly, the die won’t match, as you have to match either to the main image (light green) or “leaves” (dark green), guess with the berries it wouldn't matter too much but its best if they do go in centers of petals instead of "flying"

 Also, either I didn't hear about the gluing but my glue dots showed on the inside I know it’s probably just my OCD kicking in, so I would probably cut and extra wreath without stamping as it would be just to cover the adhesive...pretty on the inside as on the outside :0)

Fancy fold classes

November 7 & 8 was the Creative Keepsakes Scrapbook Convention in Bellevue WA. We normally only go one day, Saturday, unless my birthday falls on that day :0) anyway for the first time since we started going to that show we took some classes as for the most part most classes have always been scrapbooking and none of us are into that. All 3 classes were making 3 fancy folds cards and pretty much we did finish them. Surprisingly when I register for the classes it said it was fast-paced/advanced class which I thought was great. All classes were one hour, they had timed each card so after so many minutes we switch to the next card and then after so many minute to the last card. If there was time left you could finished whatever you hadn't done.
I like this...I know we all have to start somewhere and taking classes is a great way to learn BUT I think we all should know our limitations...what I mean is if you know you're a slow card maker then you shouldn't sign up for classes at shows because more likely you'll slow the rest of the people, at least at the other classes I've taken the instructor wants everyone to be at the same pace and if some are slower we don't move on and we barely end up making one card and then we take home supplies for one or two more. I think the classes are pretty expensive $30+ to just make one card even if we get freebies which technically we paid for those freebies :0) any way just my 2 cents as always :0)

The first class was with Stephanie Barnard of The Stamps of Life. All supplies were either Sizzix or hers. For the most part all pieces were provided pre-cut but we did have to do just a few things like on this one we stamped and cut the felt

This first view is flat as you would mail.

This is standing front view

This is the inside view

On this second card we did the embossing and stamping as well as die cut the center

This last card we also did the stamping. This is the flat card

this is the back view

The next class was Easy pop-up cards by Dollar Scrapbook using Elizabeth Crafts Design,again all supplies were pre-cut. We did everything except color and I did some stamping

We used peel-off stickers on shimmer paper so it doesn't show much on the photo. I colored the black part with Copic markers

For the bees I also use my Copic markers and I used a Savvy Stamp that says Hello with trail

This one the bench die is my favorite but the card itself my least favorite...just because I didn't care too much about the papers, also it was the easier of all as we didn't have to color or anything...I just stamped the message and added some leaves to follow the tree design --sorry not a closer look but somehow they kept being blurry :0(

 

And the last class was easy Pivot cards also by Dollar Scrapbooking and using Elizabeth Crafts Designs. Once again we had all papers pre-cut and we had to do the coloring which I did with Copic markers plus I did some stamping

On this card I didn't like how the front was too plain so I stamped SU gorgeous grunge and part of a stamp by Savvy Stamps...the stamp said just saying hello so worked out perfectly since the inside said hello

This one I didn't follow instructions just because I thought it was too much work the way they wanted us to do it and it ended up having the same view as their card but less work :0) I'm not much of a following instructions person anyway LOL

and the last card which was the easiest as there wasn't anything extra to do...I just stamped the message

I decided to add the small butterfly on the message part instead on one of the butterflies

All in all I like all 3 classes mostly because I love fancy fold cards. I remember when we had to do the marking and cutting and now we just have to use a die and it does the cutting, scoring plus all the extra layers to decorate :0)