Watercolor Thank You Card

I think I've been drawing too much lately. When I needed a card, I grabbed a pen, water brush, scrap watercolor paper pieces (from making envelopes - but that's for a different post) and my paints.

It wasn't until I was done that I realized what a big change this was - no stamps, sprays, embellishments, stencils, stickers... just a pen and some paint.

Not that I don't LOVE all those things too :-)

Teal Tag Card

As is customary in Portland...

I put a bird on it ;-)

MAKE IT MONDAY #229: FABRIC STRIP CHRISTMAS TREES

The Capture the Moment blog has the cutest fabric strip tree card for this week's Make it Monday Challenge. I couldn't resist making one.




Of course my colors are a little non-traditional... no surprises there :-)

Click to see it all big and pretty.

Hand Carved Cake Stamp and Card Set

This year I'm going to try to be a bit better about birthday cards. I'm absolute rubbish. And Facebook made it easier to remember but I left Facebook last year so I'm right back to not.

Carving a cute new stamp seemed as good a place to start as any, no?

And this card set ensures at least four people will get cards this year. Which, sadly, will be a huge improvement.

All the cards were made the same way:

1. Stamp image on white card stock using black Staz-On ink

2. Stamp image on post it note. Cut out and use as a mask to protect the nice clean cake image.

3. Dab Ranger Distress Ink through 'stencil' with a foam cosmetic sponge - in this case the stencil was some old fancy cut out paper... KI Memories I think. Laser cut cardstock was quite a thing a few years back. Note: On the top card, I stamped a Hero Arts French Script stamp with distress ink, let it dry and then stenciled over top.

4. Add a sentiment - these are Papertrey stamps on bits of Gelli Prints.

This one was a little different, same idea but with a number laser cut, no ombre effect and I stamped the sentiment right onto the card like a ribbon.

This is my entry in the Inky Backgrounds Challenge at Simon Says Stamp.

Gelli Printed Heart Tag and Card

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer created a very cool challenge called CarveDecember where you carve a stamp a day all month. I couldn't resist. 

I was torn between making a heart or a texture stamp as I've been playing with clay recently and texture is always useful. After going back and forth a bit I decided to do both - a heart with a pattern so it could provide random swirly dots or be a proper heart, as needed.

One great thing about long hearts is that they interlock into a border very easily. 

For the tag above I simply stamped in Staz-On over top a gelli-printed tag. Then I stamped the heart again on white book paper, cut it out and attached it with foam tape.

For this card, I stamped the heart three times on book paper, cut them out and sewed through the middle of the stack. Then I added them to a stenciled, stamped and gelli-printed background and sewed around the edge. 

Happy December!

Mail Friendly Thank you Cards

My eldest graduated from high school this month

click to embiggen and see my dear, sweet boy.

With this joyous occasion came the need for thank you cards. 

I wanted to make something personal, simple, good for either gender and most of all, mailable.

Mailability in a card is very important as I hate getting them returned for extra postage when I've thoughtlessly added a button or other equally dimensional embellishment. 

This one is the lumpiest as I made a glitzy one for the relatives that will expect a little pizazz. A little bit of Gelli print does so much heavy lifting on a design like this. 

Simple. Classic.

This one I thought was clean, crisp and would be great for male recipients.

Er... this one I got a big thumb smudge of ink on so... GLITZY! 

I tell you, more design choices are made to camouflage my clumsiness than you'd ever believe.

Clean and Simple.

As you've read here before. Even when making a whole bunch of the same card (say for Christmas) I can never make them exactly the same. Mixing it up keeps it fun.

Gosh, this bird stamp is getting a work out. You can see more here

Monthly Moments Trading Card Challenge

Happy Saturday, everyone!

I'm back with another challenge celebrating Papertrey's 7th Anniversary. This time we're making a trading card.

Here's the details:

We are pleased to introduce The Monthly Moments Trading Card Challenge!!!  Based on the old ATC trading card days, you are challenged to do something amazing with a 3x4 flat card!  Stamp it, layer it, embellish it any way you wish!  Then share your creations here on our InLinkz list!  Your 3x4 trading card can be adapted for a scrapbooking layout or something that could be attached to a card front.  

As you can see, I've already attached mine to a card front. Normally I'd use it in my PL but I needed a card :-)

The base of it is a Becky Higgins PL 4x3 grid card that I use to mop up my stencils. It gave me a gorgeous fuchsia, orange and yellow base to start with. Then I added Delightful Dahlia Additions, some flush with the card, others popped up with dimensional foam. 

To finish it I added the quote and some sequins. 

WINNERS:

Valentine's Card:

Gill

Neon Rock 'n' Roll Envelopes of Ephemera:

Hazel Agnew 

Sherrinda Ketchersid 

Please send me your mailing address at nicole maki at me dot com and I'll get your envelopes in the mail.

Valentine's Cards: Love Notes

Only one week until Valentine's Day!

We don't actually celebrate V-Day but I do love an excuse to send cards to friends so I made up a few. 

Hearts are my favorite shape so when the Simon Says Stamp Challenge was Love Notes I couldn't resist.

Usually when I start making a card I dabble with this and that until the idea comes together. In this case, I made several related cards until I found the design I loved best. 

It all started with the quote: 

"Hearts are wild creatures, 

that’s why our ribs are cages/."

 As soon as I saw it on Pinterest I had to use it. In fact, I printed off a whole sheet of them -
 this V-Day found it's theme.

So I made this one. 

And then I tried it horizontally and with a felt heart instead of the three mixed-media punched ones.

And I tried washi tape and two hearts fussy cut from dp.

And I had a scrap of this glitter paper that I tried out too... it got a little messy when the ATG wouldn't stick and I had to ModPodge it all together. I regret attaching the front to a white card as the edges are gessoed and it looks really cool. On a darker card it would show up, this way it's lost unless you are seeing it in person. 

So I went a somewhat different direction and gave this horizontal card wings. It's very glittery and fun.

But in the end, it was a variation on the first card (aqua book paper instead of aqua dots, stitching on punched hearts) that was my favorite and if I was to make multiples this would be the one I'd choose. 

For me, it's more fun to work on a design in a way that creates lots of mail to share than to just tear things apart looking for that one best idea.

Which one's your favorite? 

Let me know and I'll pop a valentines or two in the mail for a couple of you lovely readers.

PTI: Timer Challenge Valentine's Card

Hey Everyone, I thought it would be fun to try my hand at the PTI Timer Challenge. Here are the details:

Welcome too our first ever Timer Challenge, in honor of the *time travel* theme for Stamp-a-faire this year. You are encouraged to grab a timer and get creative!

• You have 7 minutes to grab 7 supplies to use on your card.  This needs to include your ink, paper and stamps too, so maybe you should be sure to grab the basics first and go from there!  (You do not need to count adhesive as one of your limited supplies.)
• Then create a quick card in 17 minutes or less using the supplies you selected!

My supplies (can I say right now how happy I am that I picked full sheets of cardstock? I was going to just grab folded cards but that would have been a giant fail... wait and see.

1. kraft cardstock 2. white card stock 3. Live Love Life stamp set

4. doily 5. red sequins 6. black Staz-On 7. felt heart from Target dollar spot

So I set my timer and got started. First I glued on the doily and then I went to stamp and I didn't have a stamp block. Darn! What to do???

The only thing in my seven supplies that could double as a stamp block was the ink lid but you can't see through it. I have a bad feeling about this.

Oops! Do you think my valentine will notice that "+ ME =AWESOME" is upside down. 

So I used the other half of my paper and tried again.

EEK. Fail. So I flipped it over and tried again. 

Good enough (not great) but now I had to peel off the doily and put it on the new card.

It worked. No rippage. All that was left was gluing in some sequins and applying the self-adhesive heart.

Whew. And I only took 11:29 - time to spare!

Thanks PTI for the fun challenge and Happy Anniversary!

Make It Monday: Stamped Square Frames

Here's my take on the Capture the Moment Make it Monday Challenge 139: Stamped Square Frames

Create a project utilizing your take on the challenge. Your project must use at least one Papertrey product and a square frame created with Papertrey Ink stamps. 

 This was really fun as I haven't used my flourished borders as a frame before. 

Tip: cover the other side of the stamp with washi tape so you don't get confused. I got confused and forgot which one I had inked and made a big mess.

The stamps I used are:

Boutique Borders: Birthday Mini Stamp Set

Live Love Life Stamp Set

The cute little lizard hand carved. I found the image in the book Stamp It!

I LOVE him. So perfectly imperfect.

I think this stamp is great for boy/guy cards so I made a bunch of simple, very low-key cards that are easily mailable (not lumpy). 

They also make a great little gift set when you add matching envelopes.

And then I was playing around in my log book and my art journal. 

Yeah, I think I'm a little obsessed. 

Time to carve a new stamp :-)

Thanks so much for visiting.

Warmly,

~~~~Nicole