In the mean time .....

My Heartfelt Creation order arrived - Moving more into the 3-d world.

They have flower shaping molds that work with Cuttlebug.  For me I love hand made flowers on my pieces.  I especially love creating them, painting/coloring and then giving them a bit of 3-d work.

However, it's time consuming and creating more than two or three flowers at a time is a lot on my hands.

SO.... I went and got the Rose shaping mold and the Basics Shaping mold which will work with my die cutouts that I already have.  Going to use the basics today to see if I can create carnations for the K8a project.

If these turn out to be as useful as I think they will be, I am going to invest in the dies/stamps and forms for several other types.

And I have a design for the Monthly Dies R Us Challenge.  Will post tomorrow the finished piece.

K8a - This is just going to be amazing

First of all I like the fact that I know who K8a is. I know who the card is going for, and I also know that I get the opportunity to make a showcase piece that we're going to use as an example of what you can do with a card that becomes a gift in of itself.

I like making gifts - and art cards are really one of the best ways to combine gift/card.

Another way is my mini album ideas.  Bigger than a card, but not completely a full album.  Usually 5-7 pictures.

So this one is a travel album. The palette was really easy for me to pull together.  I love distressed watercolor cardstock. I wanted one page to be a little more formal so I found this distressed damask pattern in my inventory.

Next was cutting out the base which I decided to do a 10" wide which is scored at the 5" and 6" in high.  7 pieces of that.  Then I cut up the distress cardstock at 9" wide and 5 1/2" high

I did a quick layout look and feel to get an idea of what I wanted for pages.  Mind you I have a lot of work still ahead.  The blue back is going to get a light big stamp ink impression that is slightly distressed.

I have to cut out a bunch of different components to create a raised layering.  I have a lot of real amazing craft yarn to do little tails on each center section of the pages.

I need to look through my flower dies and find the carnation die and start on those components.

But I ordered the metal pieces I want to add to the book.

I have some ideas for the cover, need to order my chip board.  But I found the perfect ribbon for the lacing.

I might add some additional flat metal fleur de lis  embellishments and a lion head.

Tomorrow I am working with K8a to pick out the photos for each page so I can make the mats for the photos.  I have some ideas of some fun mats. 

Once this is done it is supposed to become a Star Mini Album.  More tomorrow.

#kickstarter #Make100 #scrapbooking #albums #travel #crafting

The best lay plans of mice and ....me

Preface: The card has been sent and I would have posted the first part earlier but I never found enough time to actually finish the post.  So this will be a two part post - first part catching up, the lessons, the pitfalls and some interesting wicked ideas. I have marked the dates that I wrote and saved the draft so I can myself figure out how best to update and when going forward.  I like sharing the journey of each card.  It really is fun.


February 25th
I've been having a hard time with this design.  It isn't that I don't have an idea.  The ideas I keep coming up with are for ornaments.  And that while it is cool, isn't a very Happy Birthday card.

I love the idea of making this into a Victorian Christmas ornament similar to another design I have done.

But no matter what I did - it still looked like a Christmas Ornament.  Once I finish it I will post to show how cool it is, but it clearly is not a Birthday Card.

February 28th

I have at least picked out the colors and started making the components.  I love this purple, but when I went to do the inset embossing in the component, well no matter how light my sandwich was, the inset impression broke the paper apart.  SIGH.

It is a frustration of mine that I can't seem to get the inset embossing sandwich to work - and with this new Anna Griffith Cuttlebug it seems even pickier.  I ended up having to rescue the mat as it curled itself around the rollers.  I never had that happen before with the previous cuttlebug.

I have kept this and want to see if I can do something to make it a little bit more creepy and use it for a friend who's birthday is Halloween.

March 5th

ARGGGGG

I love how this looks.  I love the purple flowered paper (handmade), love how it is turning out.  My 2mm new bling arrived finally and I love the long lines, makes for a nice border.  Need more colors...and pearls...

So I was about to put the Happy Birthday sentiment on and it just didn't look right.  It felt...like a let down.  So thinking now.  Birthday going inside the card

Yes I put it at an angle.  I love making corners, found this square die that I cut into for pieces after cutting it out.  Made a nice frame.  I have to set this off to the side so I can finish packing the first one and mail it off.

Lessons learned so far:

I need more practice with embossing.  Not all paper can get wet (you're supposed to mist the paper) but some of the paper I use have a sheen. That streaks and looks like well it got wet and dried.

I did manage to get most of the dies re-organized so I found some ones I hadn't used in a while.  I need to make more.  I like them... easy to make center pieces with.

Depending on the card's deadline - if I can't get something the first week, I reach back out for clarity and conversation.  I really don't work well with very limited information unless the person says 'Do anything'.

Letters - need to figure out if I am going to start using my massive font collection and print out the name - on card stock and then cut it out into some nest-abilities shape.

#greetingcards #birthdaycard #kickstarter #make100

Throwback Thursday

#ThrowbackThursday

- One of the valentine cards back sometime in 2007-2009ish I made where I really stepped out of the box and started exploring what my style is.

I realized at this point I like 3d look and feel.