Hopefully this post takes me out of the running for the worst blogger ever

Wow so I'm posting twice in one week! Please don't fall over in shock! I finally broke through my crafty block! And have been hard at work on a couple new cards that I needed to make for some July  birthdays coming up.

For first card I made is a 5 1/4 square card and I'm calling it French wishes. I used a 12 x 12 SEI paper stock called  Couture. I used a clear stamp set from Stampendous called Orchid greetings for the greeting on the outside of the card and also the sentiment on the inside of the card. The Eiffel Tower and the Vintage flapper are cling sets from two separate Recollections stamp sets that have no names listed on the packaging. I think they have been discontinued because I have not been able to find them again at Michael's where I originally bought them. Making the flowers was super easy using a Spellbinders Shapeabilities spiral blossom one and pattern paper from the stack. I added small Recollections pearls to each rose and then I dabbed some of the silver Colorbox ink directly on the flowers. The small writing area that I created I used the larget Spellbinders Nestabilities Deckled rectangles large, CC designs 110 lb Copic quality card stock, background stamp called old letter writing and silver ink I did not emboss anything in this area because I wanted people to be able to write on it.  So I stamped, distressed the area with my blending tool and set it aside to dry because pigment inks especially this silver one take a long time to dry.  I also used a hero arts in creating the background paper for both stamped images.  Creating the background paper for both stamped images was really fuand easy it just takes several step.  So with a little time-consuming. I started out by stamping both images on CC designs 110 lb Copic quality card stock in silver Colorbox ink. I embossed both with clear embossing powder.  Then I stamped the Hero arts stamp in the same silver ink and embossed that with clear embossing powder as well.  The final step was to take my Tim Holtz distressing tool and more silver ink and distressed the edges and over and lightly brushed ink over the surface of the entire area. The next step was to sprinkle clear embossing powder over the surface one more time and heat. It gave it an interesting shiny texture And that was it for creating the focal images. I repeated the same process on the front sentiment except I used Memento tuxedo Black ink to stamp the Happy Birthday. So it would stand out.  The rest of it was just a matter of matting paper and adhering it to the card base which is also CC designs 110 lb Copic quality card stock.  I'm very happy with how it turned out!





  This next card I'm calling Sweet Birthday.  I went for a much simpler approach on this using  only pattern paper, Copic markers, clear stamps, a tonic distressed tool, some bakers twine from the The Twinery and Memento Tuxedo Black ink for this 5 1/4square card.  for the pattern paper I used Authentique free bird series  Nest Blush & Delight.  I cut each of the pattern papers to size distressed all sided and inked with Tim Holtz  distress ink in Old Paper.   For the images I use a prima stamp.  Stamped them both on CC designs 110 lb Copic quality card stock  in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored them with my Copic markers and fussy cut around the edges and adhered them to the pattern paper squares using tombo glue.  I wrapped The Twinery bakers twine in pink sorbet  around the card and secured on the back. The sentiment stamps come from  another recollections stamp set that also has no name. I stamped those in the Memento Tuxedo Black ink  on the patterned papers I had cut and previously distressed and inked.  Adhered it altogether and Wah-la! I was done!


If you made it this far in my ramblings! Hee hee hee Thanks for stopping by.
More Later
Tae