Easy and exciting wreaths…

One of the newest and hottest items in today’s card making community is probably the simplest thing on the market. And appreciatively, we have Gina K to thank for bring her “Wreath Builder” stencils to our attention.

I have found that making wreath designs was always fun but having a balanced design was not as easy as it looked – never got that technique perfected till now.

While attending the Mega Meet in Novi, MI. we had the chance to watch Gina in person as she demonstrated her Wreath Builders. I already had mine but was fascinated with her presentation. Such a pleasant and talented lady. She really captivated the audience.

I’ve created several cards using the stamps with Gina K’s Wreath Builders Kit and several using stamps from Altenew’s Beautiful Day (two of the smaller stems). I even had fun with a few unbranded leaf stamps. 

The cards pictured in this article are only a few of my finished cards (mailed the others before getting the photos). 

If you have not tried Wreath Building, I hope you will soon. The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

I have some Anniversary cards to make this week and might use this idea as the back ground with one of my foam flowers in the center…hum!

Thank you for stopping by today. I love sharing my cards with you.What are some of your upcoming project? Want to share your creations?

Till later,

May God Bless You and Yours

Special Note: Do you like country music? If so, you may want to watch for Josh Molletti. He has a YoutTube site and can be seen on Facebook. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAwiqvwBpZY&feature=share
And  
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAg7iE9U4PQ (he wrote this song for his two beautiful children)

F.Y.I. – A Do-It-Yourself 

Magnetic Work-Station

Many of you are acquainted with the newer stamp positioning tools. While considering my continuous problem with papers moving while coloring and painting, the thought of using magnetic surfaces became apparent. I just did not want to work in those surfaces and accidentally mess them up. 

Solution: Amazon.com carries an 8”x10” Adhesive Backed 60 mil Ultra Thick Magnet Sheets. There are 5 sheets per pack. The cost is under $20. Once they arrived we went to our local Alro Metal Outlet and obtained enough 8” wide 1/8” thick EDP plastic to make all 5 magnetic work surfaces. Just peel the backing off the magnetic sheet and place on the plastic. For under a total of $30, I now have 5, light weight usable surfaces. Now just use your rare-earth magnets and you are ready to create.

Hint: in your work area, if you are working on a wood surface, you may want to have something like a grip, non-adhesive, shelf liner under the plastic to protect both surfaces.

Mother’s Day 2018…

Thank you for logging on today. This card is for my 93-year-old mother. As some of you know, she has Alzheimer’s. Recently, she has started receiving Hospice Care support.

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About a year ago, I discovered the beautiful flower making art of creating handmade flowers using 0.6mm (about 0.02”) Foamiran. At first, we had to order our foam from outside the US (I was ordering from Ireland). We now have a few US businesses that carry all the colors.

Because of my disability, it is easier for me to use the electric Gemini embosser and die cutter. For this card, I used Heartfelt Creations’, Sweet Peony to cut White Foamiran from Whimsy Stamps. One of the most exciting features of using foam is that you can cut as many as 6 layers of foam at one time! Love it!

To give a little color, I randomly blended Gina K’s Prickly Pear into the centers and petals on both sides.

For the flower’s assembly, I would like to refer you to one of the best photo studies I have seen. Liz Marsden is well-known for her cardmaking and realistic flower talents. I have been a follower of her blog for almost year and have gleaned many helpful hints from her. Please, take the time to visit her BlogSpot and take a lesson from one of the very best:

http://lizscreativecorner.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/peony-styled-flower-tutorial-part-one.html and

http://lizscreativecorner.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/peony-styled-flower-tutorial-part-two.html.

Have you noticed the “window?” Well, that was cut from an unbranded, multiple piece die. I only used 2 dies from the center of this 7-piece set. 

The “You mean the world to me” stamp is from Gina K’s, Rose Bouquet. The rectangular tag was cut from Elizabeth Craft Designs, Stitched Rectangles #1120.

Till next time,

May God Bless You & Yours

My “Cabbage” Flower Garden…

 Each month, Jim and I have elected to decorate the tables for our monthly church pot luck. Coming up with ideas is both exciting and sometimes challenging. Some months are easy and simply done. Others, well we really do need pull our imagines together. (Wait till I show you the June project…)

For our May gathering, I wanted something way out of my usual silk flower arrangements (May is always a Mother’s Day theme). Several weeks ago, I noticed David Tutera’s Big Flower demonstration on YT and was fascinated by the flower sizes (8.5” to 12” across).  If you take a look at my April 13^th article, you will see my first Big Rose Flower.  

Well, last week my last three dies arrived. Since then, I have been rather busy. If you look at the videos, you will notice how smooth and elegant the flowers look. Since I really wanted to use a variety of the Indian Batik papers from USArtQuest, I just knew smooth was going to be out of the question. So, being me, I decided to crinkle those lovely large petals.  If you have ever crumpled a piece of paper to throw away, then you have mastered my strange technique for these flowers. I used hot glue to secure the petal layers. Let me warn you to use caution as to not burn fingers. (Experience speaking here!)

When I finished and covered my table with large flowers, Jim was ever so kind as to call them “Cabbage Flowers”!

This was really fun! If you want something exciting for those upcoming summer-time gatherings, you may want to give these oversized flowers a go.

Now that we finally have spring like temperatures, I think I will close for now and go outside!

May God Bless You and Yours

That Lacquerware Look…

Thank you for stopping by today.  For the first morning in more than a week, there was no new snow on the ground. There might be hope for a real Michigan spring yet.

Currently, I’m in need of a few Thank You and Thinking of You cards. Had sort of a direction in mind until I watched a Gina K Designs video entitled “Lacquerware Inspired” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WzF7RorNTg) and that changed my mind. I really love Gina’s videos. I’ve learned a great deal from that talented lady. If you have not discovered her yet, please look her up.

If you watched the video, you can see what products I used with the exception of using this beautiful cherry blossom from Stampin’ Up’s retired Indescribable Gift collection.

If you try this oriental lacquer look, let our followers see your work.

Till next time,

May God Bless

My First Big Rose…

Thank you for dropping in today. I just poured a cup of coffee and hoping you will visit as I share with you, my latest “practice piece” creation.

Design artist, David Tutera, has introduced a series of large flower dies for Sizzix. As I watched a quick video showing the ease of creating these larger than life flowers, I found myself clicking on the Order button.

Since I love beautiful roses, it is logical for me to start my practice and collection pieces there.

There is a unique feature with these dies that allow you to cut 2 petals at once which creates a connecting short tab. For this flower, cut 4 sets of each size. Since this was to be a practice piece, no accent coloring would be added.

Selecting the type of paper was also easy. USArtQuest is only a few miles from here. I have a collected a stash of Indian Batik papers in various colors from there. For the flower, I selected an off white with a metallic gold thread. For the leaves and stamen, I used a soft green marbled.

Now for the fun. Lightly mist the petals with water. Using your hand, crinkle the petals to form life-like shapes. Use a heat-gun to “set” or dry that crinkliness in place. You can use a ball-stylist or your fingers to create additional character.

Use hot glue to attach each petal layer. My preference is to not overlap the same sized petals. Continue adding petals till you achieve the look you want. With the ball-stylist, cup the layers of stamen and glue into place.

This flower measures almost 8 ½” across and almost 3” in height.

Hope you will give these big flowers a try – they really are fun.

Till next time,

May God Bless You and Yours

Just a Note...

At some point this April, maybe Spring, Not Winter, will begin to unveil its beauty to those of us in the northern states. We had snow on the ground yesterday! (April 10th).


Those of you who love the exciting stamps offered by Stampin' Up, you may remember this classic tulip. This was a practice project using my new Stamparatus and had was so pleased with the results that I decided to send it to my mother.

Last week we learned that my mother is having some more aging difficulties. She spent 5 days in ICU with breathing and swallowing difficulties. The hospital discovered other health issues we had not been aware of.  She was returned to her residents at the memory care facilitary. She is now receiving pre-Hospice (Palliative) care along with the additional assisted care at the home. If you would be so kind as to add her to your pray list, it would be appreciated.

Thank you for stopping by today. I hope you have a wonderful day.

May God Bless You and Yours.

The Dies Have It…

Have you noticed lately that so many of the card-makers are turning to creating with dies? If you are on line with any of the card-making groups, it almost has been one of those “frenzies” to see who found the most decorative backgrounds and accents. Guess you might say that yours-truly has been one of those active seekers of unique and hopefully useful pieces of metal. (They are such lovely, displayable pieces!) To be honest, I know just collecting those beautifully elaborately detailed items is (was) fun till I discovered exactly how much had to be stored! I’ll be using some of the more intricate pieces in upcoming projects.

For this featured project, I selected some less frilly and more fitting dies for some special people who will be celebrating their anniversary in a few days.

I used the tree arch before for our 50^th anniversary party. Thought it would be fitting as this couple hosted our event.

The trees are Memory Box’s #99159 -  Medium Forest Archway. The opening space between the trees is perfect for adding a message or figures, like this adorable young couple. The couple was purchased on-line from an unbranded listing. Both cutouts were cut from Elizabeth Ctafts’ Soft Finish Rich Black. I like the texture of this paper and also used it for the base card itself. It is black on one side and white on the other.

Hope you can see the background paper. It is actually a digital print that I found last winter as one of a collection from Whimsy Stamps. I selected a portion of the design and die cut it using Elisabeth Crafts’ Dashing Rectangle Die.

This has been a fun and easy project. Great for any level of crafter.

What have you been doing lately? Something fun, I hope.

Thank you for dropping in. Hope you come back again.

Till next time,

May God Bless You and Yours

Today’s Flower…

Hello and welcome. As you may know, my passion is creating, and sharing with you, my hand-made greeting cards. It is my custom to try to consider what a person might enjoy and create a card with just that person in mind. Today’s recipient loves the color purple so…

To my delight, Heartfelt Creations recently introduced a new series of dies in their Sweet Peony collection. For this card, I selected their Large Sweet Peony Die.

One of the many advantages when using 0.6mm foamiran from Whimsy Stamps is that I was able to cut two layers of Purple Foamiran and two layers of Lilac Foamiran at one time. (I have cut as many as six layers with no difficulty.)  To make my life easier, I use the Gemini die cutting and embossing machine by Crafter’s Companion.

To enhance the petals, I blended Memento’s Sweet Plum to the outer edges of all the petals. To give you a great visual demo, please visit Monika Weclewski’s video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EyKwC68SP8. Monika is such a talented flower maker, I enjoy her demos.

That beautiful background paper is from USArt Quest called Indian Batik Marble, Forest Green. I love working with this type of paper and because of its texture, will often use it to create some of my leaves. There are dozens of colors in this exciting paper line – you may want to check it out.

To set the flower off, I added a fantastic laser-cut chipboard piece from 14 Craft Bar. Their collection of delicate chipboard art forms is fantastic and well worth a look-see.

Hope you enjoyed Todays Flower and will stop by again.

For now,

May God Bless You and Yours

In Style…

Thank you for taking time to stop by today. Gee, this week has been a busy crafting week for me. I have to admit that I have really been having fun, especially with this card. It is for a young lady who loves to dressed-up. So, wanting to follow through with that idea, I decided to show a few stylishly dressed ladies…older styles and new.

Wish I could say who designed the two older styled stamps (I have had them for years) but the lady in the middle is from the Stampin’ Up’s the Beautiful You collection.

Using a Memento’s Gray Flannel ink, I stamped the images on Gina K’s Layering White card stock. To create more line emphasis, I heat set Ranger’s Fine Clear embossing powder.  To add the coloration, I used alcohol-based pens from Chameleon Pens: NUOO – Nude, YO3 – Warm Sunset, PK3 – Bubble Gun, and BG1 – Lagoon.  For the dresses, I infused the colors for a 2-3 second count – love how they blended.

I used Elisabeth Crafts’ Dashing Rectangle dies to cut the ladies and several layers of black cardstock. Wanting this project to have a little punch, I selected Elizabeth Crafts Time for Teal Soft Finish cardstock for the card base.

Again, thank you for stopping by today. I need to get back to my craft room as I have some new equipment scheduled to arrive in the next few days and I need to make more workable room.

Till later,

Have a Happy Easter and

May God Bless You and Yours