Tutorial Trials

I thought I'd give making a card tutorial a try. The first had to be deleted as almost nothing was in frame. Please understand, I don't have any of the equipment needed to do this! Just a Samsung tablet that a friend got free when she signed up to a new bank account and she gifted it to me.

So the second one I just redid the card again. I just added a little more adhesive. It was okay, but in order to get everything in, I filmed it vertically. Of course the best videos need to be horizontal.

Now for the third. Figured out how to film horizontally so I gave it a try. This time it worked really well. I did forget however my scissors, so I had to go quickly to get them. Other than that I think it was a good video.

So here it is and don't forget to comment.

Thank you.

Long overdue card making.

I seemed to have lost my mojo for all things crafty, lately. I am assuming it's this long cold miserable winter!

I set about last weekend to making a few cards, not because I wanted to, but because I thought it would help inspire me to find my motivation. It didn't!

I made a card for my niece's daughter, Talia, whose birthday is March 23, and a card for my dad, just telling him I was thinking of him.
I found the sketch for Talia's card at Freshly Made Sketches after seeing it on The Redheaded Crafter's blog.

Talia's card. She will be turning 5 this year.

Flip it card for my dad. I miss him, and he has been on my mind a lot lately.

Once I brought the Stephanie Barnard stamps out, I thought I might try something simple with them, and came up with this. I found a honeycomb embossing folder at a craft store recently on sale and used it after stamping, then went over it with yellow ink on a sponge.

Then I tried the same stamped image on top of a hexagon shaped Happy Birthday stamp I found at the same sale.

I didn't like the way it turned out. But it was worth the try anyway. 

I am hoping that I can get excited once again for card making, scrapbooking, knitting, book making, or any of my other crafts that I usually enjoy.

What helps to inspire you?

Black and White

LOVE these cards. Black and white always looks so clean and sophisticated.

Stamp by www.stephaniebarnardstamps.com. Butterfly punch by Marthastewart.com. Scrollwork embossing folder from Provocraft.com

Flowers stamp by Autumn Leaves. Swiss Dots and Animal Prints Alligator embossing folders from Provocraft.com

Stamps by www.stephaniebarnardstamps.com

Not Black and White, but could easily be. Stamp by www.stephaniebarnardstamps.com. Divine Swirls and Measure By Measure Scrolls Embossing folders by Provocraft.com. Pearls from The Dollar Store

New cards with Stephanie Barnard's Trees4Christmas stamps

I love this set, I think it is quite versatile.

I still have at least 40 more cards to make. I may have already missed the mailing deadline.

Butterflies are Free

Didn't have time to make the second post, but will later when I've got time. Here is a quick one showing the 2 cards I made for a set to give to the principal of the school I work at. She is going to another school in September so I wanted to give her something. When people leave a school they always get gifts or cards, so I made these thank you cards. She loves butterflies, which gave me the opportunity to use Butterfly2build from Stephanie Barnard.

 And this is the folder I made to put them all in.

Thanks for looking.

Valentines for the Sweet

I wanted to enter My Pink Stamper's challenge so I decided to make these sweet little Valentines cards for the kids at school. They look good enough to eat!

I used brown card stock, some Martha Stewart Christmas paper from a couple of years ago, pink ribbon, glitter covered Styrofoam hearts from the dollar store, some punches and some Stamps of Life stamps. I got the idea from something I saw on dollar store crafts last year.
First I cut the Styrofoam hearts

I used a serrated bread knife to slice them in half

Then I punched out the circles and labels and stamped them.

I added red ink to the edges

I added brown ink to the edges

I tied small bows and cut thin strips for the stick, then assembled it all together.

Admit it, you want to eat them!

No Valentine stamp, so I combined 3 stamps to make this

The perfect stamp for the back of the card

Thanks for looking.

Saturday's cards

I was checking out my email this morning and saw some card sketches that really spoke to me, simple but beautiful. They offered a free download, so I took it and made these 4 cards. It is unfortunate that the website I took it from is having a contest that I can't enter because I don't own any Papertrey Ink products. This is a must to renter their contest. I did try to order some products once, but when I saw how much the shipping was, I screeched to a halt. I do get stamps from another American company, and they charge me $1.50 USD for shipping. So I order from stampsoflife every month.
Anyway enough gripping, here are the cards

A gift for Frances

Frances is one of the lunch supervisors in my school. She helps out with the senior school, and I usually go to her lunch room with the child I work with during the week.
She is leaving on Tuesday as she is retiring. I know she is looking forward to it, so I wish her all the best.

I made two sets of cards for her, and here they are.

Owl Miss You

I got word that the OA at school was leaving, and decided I needed to make her a little gift.  For some strange reason I felt that Veronica and I had a connection some how. Anyway I set to work making this pack of cards using an owl, because it just seemed right.
However, shortly after making the cards, I discovered that I had wrong information, and that she isn't leaving.  Then over the winter break our connection made itself known. Veronica knew George, my partner who died 15 years ago. She used to babysit his kids!
I held on to the cards to give her at a later date, but in the end I wanted her to have them, and explained my mistake. Turns out she loves owls, because she is a Brownie leader!

Here they are:

I added a mini pen, pencil and eraser, and stamped all the envelopes too.

Stephanie Barnard Stamps

I am a member of The Stamps of Life, have been for over a year. That means I get a new stamp set each month. I got the owls2love set and loved the little owl, but wasn't sure what I would do with it. I was checking out the gallery on Stephanie's site and suddenly had the funniest idea for this set.

So after working it a bit, I ended up using 5 of the sets from her collection, and here is the end product...

That large fish is actually the owl's body!

Anyway go check out the site and see if there are any stamps you like. They are very reasonably priced, and fun to use.