pop up cube card

Hi friends.  You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in ages.  I think there are days (maybe weeks, even) that I completely forget that I have a blog.  Must be senior brain cells at work. 

Anyway, today I made a couple of birthday cards for the neighbor boy and girl across the street.  They have birthdays on consecutive days. 

I made a girlie girl card for her. 

The stamp is one of the Prima mixed media dolls by Julie Nutting.  I did paper piecing for the dress, shoes and crown, and colored the hair with watercolor pencils and blender pen.  I added some streamers, which were cut with deckle scissors, and added some rhinestones. 

Because he is very involved in baseball, I had to make some sort of baseball card of course.  Some time ago, I made a fun pop up cube box following this video.  It's really a fun card, but the thing I don't like about it is that it isn't flat, so it doesn't mail easily.  I did a little browsing online and found some ads showing more of a wrap than a box, so I decided to figure out how to use that instead of the box.  I did see a video that made a cube inside of a card, but the dimensions were smaller and the girl doing the video used a tool which I don't have, so I would need to refigure all the dimensions, and I really didn't have time to, if I wanted to get the card done today.  Instead, I realized that the 3" cube would fit inside a 3-5/8"x6-1/2" envelope, so I made the wrap 3-1/2"x6-1/4" to fit that, and the cube fits inside flat.  This is the front outside of the wrap. 

This is the back side.  I made a slit and a tab to fit in it, which holds the card closed.  My camera died last week, so I've been using my phone to photograph my cards.  I've no idea why this came out vertical. 

The paper is kraft, so I used a sponge dauber and white pigment ink to press and twist a bit to make the baseballs white.  I heat set them to make sure the ink was dry.  When you pull the tab out, the cube inside literally flies out - really fun.  I think it actually works better than in the box, because if you don't pull the box out quickly, you really don't get the pop.

Here is the card open.  

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

birthday cards

Hi friends.  I'm trying to be a bit better at posting more often.  So here are a couple of cards I made for the neighbor kids last week.  They have back to back birthdays.  

 

The girl turned 9 and loved her princess card.  The image is a Prima mixed media doll stamp.  For the dress, I stamped a lace background stamp in pink, overstamped the dress part of the doll in black and then cut it out.  I added some shadows with a blender pen and ink pad.  I punched the corners with a carefully placed edge punch.   The lace is a Gina K stamp, seamed together, with the seam covered by one of the words, which were printed from my computer.  

This size card fits in a business size envelope.  

The boy turned 12 and this is his first year on the football team.  The shirt is my own pattern.  The numbers are die cut with Block Party alphabet from Sizzix.  

Thanks so much for taking time to visit today. 

a card or two

Hi friends.  I don't know where the time has gone.  Somehow, more than a month has gone by & I haven't blogged.  I made two cards this week that weren't for one of my classes.  They were for the technique challenge on SCS.  The challenge was for a cute little fold up on the front of the card. 

 

When I looked at the instructions, I thought they sounded more complicated than was necessary, so I changed mine a bit.  I cut a piece of cardstock 3" x 8.5" and scored it at 2", 4", and 6", so that when folded, the back panel extended 1/2" above the rest.  Also, instead of using ribbon, I used hemp twine & used a punched circle with a brad to wrap it around.  

The folded panel is perfect for using a tall stamp.  Since I have many of the Prima mixed media doll stamps, I thought they would work great.  

School started on Tuesday, so I made the girly girl card for the neighbor girl across the street.  And her brother, who plays all kinds of sports, got a super jock card.  

Thanks so much for taking time to stop by. 

a contest card

Hi friends.  I taught my cuttlebug class today.  We had a lot of fun.  I will post pictures of the cards, but I haven't yet taken photos, so that will have to wait.  I do, however, have a picture of the card I entered in the contest for the Rubber Stamp Event on Saturday in West Bend, Wisconsin.

The category of Saturday's contest is Cinderella, so I pulled out one of my newest Prima mixed media doll stamps, Aurora, and used her on my card.  Now Aurora is one of the largest doll stamps by Julie Nutting, so I knew that she was not going to completely fit on the card, which had to be an A2 size.  So I made made some adjustments. 

I stamped her a few times on different papers and did some paper piecing.  The background and both papers used on her dress are from the same paper stack, which was a birthday gift from my daughter.

I colored her hair with markers and then added some gold glitter on her crown and on her gown.

The sentiment is from My Sentiments Exactly.  On the inside, it reads, 'dream big'.

If you happen to be at the stamp show on Saturday, I would appreciate if you would vote for my card. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. 

word play - F

Hi friends.  Another spread in my word play journal.  I told my daughter that this was my 'F' word, and she just snickered.  But no bad language here.  My word for the letter F is friends.  You can find all the completed pages here. 

I wanted to make something for the weekly challenge on the OWSE facebook page, I decided to to make another spread for this journal.  There were some choices for colors, and I chose green and yellow.  This is really not one of my favorite color combinations, but I guess I need to step out of my box once in awhile.

Although the background of the pages was done previously, I added more color with both paint and ink.  Then I did a bunch of stamping and added some texture with modeling paste and a butterfly stencil (Red Lead).  In a couple of places, the ink underneath bled through the modeling paste, so I went over that with white acrylic paint.  It didn't completely cover, but I thought it wasn't too noticeable, since the background is pretty busy anyway, and I was going to cover up a lot of it with the dolls and the words. 

I used two of my new Prima mixed media dolls by Julie Nutting.  I have a hard time remembering the names.  I first glued a page from an old encyclopedia onto a piece of this card stock and then stamped the dolls on that and cut them out.  I paper pieced the clothes and the hair on one. 

Behind the dolls are die cuts of a French pastry doily die (Cheery Lynn Designs) and a Sizzix scalloped circle. 

The words were printed on my computer and cut out.  The edges on everything are sponged with vintage photo distress ink.  The letter F is done with zentangles or zendoodles, whichever you want to call it.

Thanks so much for stopping by.