Hi!

I'm sharing a very flat and simple card today.  I used the Lawn Fawn paper and the quinn's ABCs dies.  I got the new louie's ABC dies but have not yet used them.  Oh well, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities.

Inlay die-cutting usually involves some sort of overlapping of the dies.  However, I didn't do that for my card.  I die cut the banner out from the blue plaid paper, then cut a circle out from it.  I used the same circle die to cut a red piece of paper, out of which I cut "hi!".  Finally I cut "hi!" again from the yellow polka dots paper.

The next step is to put them together.  I put the yellow polka dots "hi!" into the red circle, then put this red circle into the blue banner.  Because there is actually no connection between the die cuts except for the edges, I put quite a lot of glue on the background patterned paper "Oh Happy Day" and I made sure that each of the die cuts stay put.

I made this card for my friend who lives far away.  I know she will appreciate the simple lines flatness of the card.  She once complained that the heavy handling has ripped off part of the card, despite the bubble envelope I've used.

I saw a rather new challenge called Virginia's View Challenge, which was started by Virginia Lu, the star crafter!  I checked out the challenge and found that Virginia has shared a lot of tutorials and samples related to die cutting for us.  How can we not appreciate her efforts?

I'm also linking my card to:
A girl who crafts - Anything Goes
Craftyhazelnut's Patterned Paper Challenge - patterned paper
Just for Fun - Anything Goes
Reves 2 Scrap - Anything Goes
Sister of Craft - Anything Goes
Creative Moments - Anything Goes
Moo-Mania and More - Anything Goes
Crafty Girls - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by!

Best Wishes

Happy Wednesday!  It has been a long long long time since I last played a color challenge.  While I was looking for one to play along, I saw the Lawnscaping Challenge.  This challenge runs twice a month and wow, it is the 85th challenge this time.  Where was I for their past 84 challenges?

This time, the challenge is about summer colors:

I used some teeny tiny floral images from Lawn Fawn Flutter By set to create my own background.  They are in orange and yellow.  Then I used Mustard Seed and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks to create full color coverage on white card stock.  I used the same technique to create the blue bands with Salty Ocean.  I stamped the butterflies on the orange-yellow piece and fussy cut them out.  Boy, I cut three butterflies with my own pairs of scissors!  Have I been spoiled by coordinating dies?

The antennae of the butterflies are too thin to be cut (for my skills, but yes for those who are expects these antennae are no challenge) so I stamped the antennae onto my background using masking technique then I stuck the fussy cut butterflies on top.

I was looking for a great sentiment to go with the cart and thought that "best wishes" would be nice.  It is an older stamp set from Lawn Fawn So Much to Say.  I found it in a local craft store recently and have been playing with it happily.  To add some finishing touch, I added the Wink of Stella glitter onto the butterflies.  The glitter is best captured by the butterfly anchored to the sentiment.  In real life the glitter makes it very nice.

My collection of Lawn Fawn stamps and dies has been growing steadily but I never forget this Flutter By set.  It is my very first Lawn Fawn stamp set bought in a craft store while I was travelling.  Yup, I can't omit the visits to local craft stores while travelling.  This is a must in the itinerary! :)

I'm linking up my card to:
Crafting from the Heart - Anything Goes
Fantastic Tuesday - Anything Goes
Lawnscaping Challenge - see above

Thanks for stopping by!

A Tag on a Christmas Card

I'm doing it again.........

I'm sandwiching the cute summer fun card between Christmas cards on my blog........

It is just a simple Christmas card.  I used a patterned paper as the background, then added a band towards the bottom of the card.  The band itself is decorated with a strip of patterned paper from the same 6x6 paper pack.  Then I die cut the tag, stamped the tag image onto cream-color cardstock, trim it to fit the tag's size, then added an owl, a sentiment and a row of hearts.  I didn't spend much time coloring the owl, but because of the red tag and the red band, I've given him a red scarf! :)

My card is linking up to:
Tag You're It - Include a tag
Crafty Boots Challenge - Christmas in July
PDE Linky Party - Tags
Inky Chicks - Christmas in July
Holly Jolly Christmas Challenge - Christmas critters
Scrap-Creations - Christmas in July
Digi Choosday - Tag it
Crafty Sentiments - Christmas in July

Thanks for stopping by!

Summer Birthday

If my biological clock follows the cards I make, I will be exhausting to keep up with the constant abrupt changes of weather.  I was sharing a Christmas card yesterday and now I have a summer birthday card:

This card was made with the card sketch at Sketchbook Saturday as a basis:

Do I need to say anything about Iwona's sketches?  I love her blog and her cards!  Of course I love her sketches and her challenge - they are always a great source of inspiration.  There have been many times that even though the time to link up to her challenge has passed, I still "played along" just to have fun and be inspired.  Check out her blog and I'm sure you'll love it!

I first played with my Lawn Fawn Life is Good stamp and die set to create this card (Oh this card was posted in between Christmas cards too, see what I mean about adjusting my body to accommodate different weathers shown in my cards?).  It was a lot of fun and I wanted to see if I could play with the set with Iwona's sketch.  This time I colored the images with color pencils and gamsol.  Just as fun as coloring them with distress markers!  As much as I love butterflies on my card, they must yield to a beach scene this time!  Among all the elements on the card, my favorite is the flip flops.  They are so cute and they are the signs of beach for me. :)

I do think I have another Christmas card lined up but........let me see if I can get something else posted so I can feel the summer breeze on my blog for longer. LOL.


I'm linking my card to:
Through the Purple Haze - Happy Birthday
Stamp and Create - Birthdays
Craftin Desert Divas - It's summer time
The Crazy Challenge - my summer vacation
Crafty Calendar challenge - summertime fun
Little Claire - Summertime
Stempelsonne - Summer
Fashionable Stamping - Dreaming of Summer

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas!

I was flipping through the *new* Close to My Heart Annual Inspirations and found a card that I really like.  It was made with the *new* Artfully Sent Cricut Cartridge. 

Sadly, I don't have the cartridge yet, but I wanted to make something similar so I explored my cartridges and found that I could create an overlay with the Artbokking cartridge and made a simple card:

This card is not as nice as the one shown in the new Annual Inspirations but very similar.  My guess is that the overlay created by the new cartridge was made specifically for cards while this overlay on my card was made for scrapbooking layouts or mini-albums so the size look a bit different.  I used last Christmas's Sparkle & Shine paper pack, the red shimmer trim and washi tape for the banners.  The sentiment came from the cardmaking workshop on the go and I put it on an Artbooking cut label shape.

Five more months till Christmas.  I gotta catch up with Christmas cards more diligently!

Thanks to the following challenges that I'm linking my card to, making Christmas cards in the summer seems more fun:

My Bestie Norge - Christmas in July
My Perfect Life - Anything Christmas
Completely Christmas - Anything Goes
The Glory of Christmas challenge - Anything Goes
The Squirrel and the fox - Christmas in July
Aud Sentiments Challenge - Anything Goes
Crafting by Designs - Anything Goes
Creative Moments - Anything Goes

Thanks for stopping by!

Hello!

Hello!

For those in the US, I hope you are enjoying your July 4 weekend.  Mine is filled with a lot of good (barbecue) food, friends and laughter, World Cup and a lot of fun.  The only thing I could complain about is that I didn't get to craft as much as I would love to, but that's okay.  I'll get to those projects later.

I did start playing my Life is Good set from Lawn Fawn and wow, once I started I couldn't stop.  It is a fun "build your scene" set and I can't decide how I want to set my scene.  Coloring each elements took me quite some time too, then it was laying the pieces into their right place.  This Hello card looks very bright and cheerful:

It is based on the sketch from Atlantic Hearts Sketch Challenge:

Perhaps it's July 4, perhaps it's the hot weather.  I really wanted to create something with a summer or beach theme.  Just by making this card I feel that I'm enjoying the sun and the sand already. :)

I'm linking my card to the following:
Catered Crop - Summer lovin
Come and get it challenges - Cool things for summer
Crafty Calendar - Summertime fun
Hiding in My Craft Room - Think Summer
Chocolate Coffee and Cards - Summer days
Fussy and Fancy - Summertime
Crafty Little Fairies - Summer fun
Time Out Challenges - Fun in the sun

Thanks for stopping by!

Simple (and quick) Christmas cards

Time to work on building the Christmas card stash again!

This time I'm sharing one that is an extremely simple and quick to put together:

I can't think of anything that can be simpler than this.  This is based on the sketch from Sketchbook Saturday Challenge:

My honest self will tell you that I wasn't in the mood of making Christmas cards.  I just wanted to play but I knew that I should get some Christmas cards done.  I saw on Iwona's blog that I didn't play this particular sketch so I used it as my template of my Christmas card.

I did want to stamp the entire background with snowflakes but for some reason the snowflakes were not random enough and the colors didn't quite coordinate to my pleasing.  The solution to that problem is patterned paper, I thought.  So I took out my 6x6 pad and used one sheet for the background, cut some pennants from red cardstock, embossed the greeting in gold and it's done.  Even though it is extremely simple, I hope it will nonetheless serve its purpose.

I'm linking up my card to the following:
Christmas card challenges - Anything Goes
My Perfect Life - Anything Christmas
The Squirrel and the fox - Christmas in July
Completely Christmas - Anything Goes
CHNC - Let's get sentimental
My time to craft - Christmas in June

Thanks for stopping by!