I Just Couldn't Resist

I like to rag on my sister on occassion ;-)  So...I made her another fishing card to give her a hard time.

 

I used this picture of a trout that I found on the web and printed it out, backed it with the "salmon" color paper and attached the whole thing to the card base with photo corners I made with Fiskar's Diamond punch.

 I also found the inside picture on the web (which inspired the card idea).  The fish on the front (The Dream) and on the inside (The Reality) were made in Microsoft Word.

For the final touch I added the lure to the top corner.

A Fine Time Was Had by All

This is the card I made for my nephew after the fishing trip to celebrate his success.

 

This time I attached an actual lure with jute string and a picture of a trout.  There are four layers on the front and the last three are attached with more of my "homemade" photo corners.  The punch I used is by Fiskars (Diamond). 

Both the images on the front and on the inside are from a pair of 3D sheets I got from another card group I am a member of (3D Sheets 4 All).

Catch and Release

After the great "fish-a-thon" was over and Mom and Son were home again, I made a couple more cards.  This time I used a picture they sent me to make a kaleidoscope for my sister's card.  Since my sister doesn't like her picture displayed, the kaleidoscope was a perfect solution.  I printed it out in several sizes so I could make a pyramid on the outside.

 

The lake they fished in had a "catch and release" program.  The picture is of a trout my sister caught.  The star shape kaleidoscope went with the little tune that kept playing in my head.  The pocket also went with the song so I made a smaller version of the star and attached it to the pocket by a string.

Here is a close up scan of the kaleidoscope.  The scan colors are closer to the actual colors.  Look carefully and you can see the trout, a hand holding it and a peach colored jacket.

 Here is a close up of the pyramid.

Something Fishy Part Two

As I mentioned in yesterday's post I made a fishing card for my sister.  I also made one for my nephew and here it is!

 

I found some great pictures of fishing lures.  I enlarged them and printed them on glossy banner paper.  These were then attached to the green cardstock.  Again I made photo corners as I did for the last card and used these to attach the green to the base card.  If you look carefully you can see the fishing swivels hanging from the string.

I attached the inside and outside in the same way I did the last card.  I used Microsoft Word to make the inside by adding a greeting and pictures of fishing lures.  As an extra decoration I used my EKSuccess punch (Lines and Dots) to make a border on the right side.

Something Fishy

Last Autumn my sister and her son planned a "Mother/Son" fishing trip to Montana.  They live on opposite coasts and wanted to spend some relaxing quality time together.  I made each of them a card to get them off to a good start.  Here is the card I made for my sister.

 

I bought some pre-made fishing "accessories" to use on the front of the card which I attached to the green cardstock.  Then I attached the green to the base card with photo corners that I created using Martha Stewart's punch.

  

These photo corners are so easy to create and yet add so much depth!  See the tutorial below.

The inside I made using Microsoft Word, left over "accessories" and a couple pictures of flies.  I poked two holes two inches apart in the center and tied the inside and outside together with a piece of twine (to which I added a fish).

PHOTO CORNER TUTORIAL

 

The punch used on this tutorial was made by Fiskars and is called Diamond.

I Love You Mom

 

November 22, 1911-February 14, 2002

Red, Green...NOT Christmas

A challenge came up in my "Cardmaking" group to make a card using red and green but having nothing to do with Christmas.

 

I searched the web for pictures that only had red or green as the major colors.  I found nine of them and changed all of their sizes to 1 inch squares.  I mounted them on a slightly bigger square of black.  I cut one red and one green square and then cut those squares in diagonal quarters.  I arranged two red and two green triangles into a square and glued it to the black card base.  Lastly I arranged and glued down all the pictures.  This is not exactly a serendipity design but close.

Sketch in Bloom

Last November I did a sketch swap with Australia through my card group (Card Crafts).  Again I decided to go with a Southwest flavor.  I live in the desert and in the Spring the wildflowers can be gorgeous, especially if we had any rain in the winter.  Since Australia's seasons are the opposite of ours I thought it would be fun to do a Spring card in November!

 

The sketch I drew my inspiration from is shown below.

  

I traced a butterfly shape around the printed words, cut them out and attached them to the card only by the body so that it was "3D".  

The Organ Mountains in the picture are part of the Rocky Mountain chain.  I can see them out of my kitchen windows in the winter (leaves are off the tree in front of the window ;-).  Right now I can see snow on the Organs!!!

The mountaintops are said to look like the pipes of an organ and that's where the name comes from.

 

And when the setting sun shines on them...gorgeous!

Bouquet

Last summer I did a swap in my Paper Embroidery group.  I chose to do this lovely pattern by Erica Fortgens.

Tunnel Vision

My latest "Card Crafts" swap is a "tunnel card".  There are a couple styles for tunnel cards and I chose to do one that I found on Chia's Rubber Stamp and Asylum of Creative Expression (An interesting name don't you think?).

Since my partner is in Ohio I decided to do a card with a Southwest flavor.  I found a desert sunset picture and printed it out four times.  Each of the pictures has to be cut once, each at a natural division.

 

I used the template pattern provided on the Chia site but I made some adjustments to it.  I wanted it to have one more fold on each side and I changed some measurements to fit a 12 inch paper.  For my template click here!

Above you can see the template after being folded and the window being cut out.  Use a bone folder to make each fold crisp.

 

I started on the left side with the largest (whole) picture and attached it inside the last fold with double sided tape. 

 

I added the second piece to the next fold.

  

And the third... 

And last but not least the fourth!

Repeat this procedure on the other side.  I added a piece of matching lavender cardstock to the back (cut to the size of the finished card).  This is a top view of the folds and photos.

 

This view shows the "step" effect.

Here are some tutorials for you...

   Can't Stop Making Things  

   Sunflowers and Dragonflies 

   Chia's Rubber Stamp Art

And More

It is often hard to match a sympathy card with the person who has suffered the loss.  Sometimes a simple design works the best.  An acquaintance and friend of my sister lost her mother recently and this is the card I came up with.

 

I used the Cuttlebug "Swiss Dots" embossing folder on the white sections above and below the flourish.  I used a rubber stamp (Vintage Flourish 3) by Stampabilities for the flourish and printed out the word "sympathy".  The white paper I used was actually a very subtle blue and white cloud-like pattern.  The base card was royal blue.

I chose this verse for the inside.

Loss

A friend of mine lost her father last year.  I wanted to give her a special card.  I found a simple paper embroidery pattern and stitched the design.  I mounted the stitching on lavender cardstock and then on a purple card base.

Inside I added a simple verse.

Fold 1, Fold 2, Fold 3

Surfing the web one day I ran across the Craft Creations Magazine.  They had directions for a Christmas tree using teabag folding titled "Tree Folds".

 

I changed the direction of the tree from the original and used silver cardstock for the base card.  The stripes of the left I cut from some fancy patterned Christmas paper that I had.  Originally the paper strip had no spaces between the stripes so I cut them apart leaving silver between each stripe.  I cut a tree pot from the same paper and I added a sticker star to the treetop.

The most work was finding a Christmas colored tile for the folding and doing the teabag folding itself.  The tile needed to have a border around the outer edges in order to recreate the look of the original.  One of the ladies in my card groups had the perfect tile for this card. 

A Sense of Humor

My nephew and I have a very similar sense of humor.  I've always sent him humorous cards and often cards that are somewhat off color.  I made him a funny card for Christmas last year and he laughed his head off.

You might recognize the foil paper from other posts.  I backed the picture with gold and covered the card front with the red before adding the backed picture.

 

I followed the same procedure with the inside and voila!  I just love this dog, lol!!!

What a Flake

Now I know I have snow on the brain, lol...another snow card!  Oh well, as long as I am enjoying myself!!!

Using my Martha Stewart "Snow Flurry" punches, I created two squares of glossy banner paper with snowflake edges.  Then I cut two blue squares and rounded the corners with a punch.  I layered them all on a blue base card.  The crowning touch is a "jeweled" snowflake for the center.

On the inside I cut a square of glossy banner paper and a smaller square of envelope liner (from one of my many saved lined envelopes) and again rounded off the corners.  I used the same edger on the blue square and attached to the card base.  I had a holographic snowflake in blue that I added to the center and I printed out "SNOW FLAKES" in a matching blue and glued those above and below the center.

Traveling Valentine

Card Making International (another card group) also held a Valentine card swap.  I did a variation of the card I made for my sister.

 

I used a piece of the same red carnation paper that I used in my sister's card and the same punch for the edges.  This time I used a pink button with the bow and a pretty heart decoration for the center.

If the Shoe Fits

Another swap for Card Crafts was to make a card with a hat or shoe.  I chose to do a shoe using Iris Folding.

I did the "iris folding" with the red section and finished the design by cutting out the gold sections and attaching them in place.  I used foil wrapping paper for my folding strips and black cardstock for the backing.  I added red foil to the outside edges of the card front and mitered the corners.  The "shoe" unit was then attached to the card base.

 

I decided to leave the inside blank so my partner could use the card if she wishes.  I fancy cut the top and botton of a rectangle of red foil with "Scroll and Dots"EKSuccess edger punch and attached it to the inside of the card.

The pattern I used can be found here.  It is small, so I imported it into Microsoft Word and enlarged it before printing.  It will be somewhat blurry so you may want to rewrite the numbers onto your printout. 

Sketchy Snow

 February's sketch swap for Card Crafts turned into another snow card.  I think I have snow on the brain since so much of the country lies blanked by continuous snowstorms.  My swap partner lives in Israel, so I hope she enjoys a change of weather...so to speak ;-)

Since a sketch card doesn't have to be done exactly like the sketch, you are free to improvise.  I decided to forgo the bird and make my central theme a snowflake.  The buttons on the sketch became snowflake ornaments.

I used a piece of glossy banner paper and embossed it with Cuttlebug's "Snowflakes" embossing folder.  After attaching this to the card front I then attached the blue strip of paper to the middle.  This paper was punched along each edge with Martha Stewart's "Snow Flurry" corner and border punch set.

In the center I stacked two differently sized punched scallops with Paper Studio punches.  On top of the two scallops I glued a single embossed snowflake made in the same way as the other embossed paper.  The snowflake ornaments were glued on last and pressed overnight to assure good adhesion.

For the inside I scanned a piece of "snow flurry" embossed glossy banner paper with high contrast.  I imported the scan into Microsoft Word and added the greeting.

Bitter Sweet

February brings mixed emotions to my sister and I.  We lost our mom on Valentine's Day eight years ago.  Both of us have found Valentine's Day extremely difficult.  This year I decided to start the healing process and celebrate my mother's life and not dwell on her death.  Baby steps...

I love to make cards for my sister and this is the one I made for Valentine's Day.

 

I used my new Martha Stewart "Hearts" corner and border punches and created the red and the white rectangles.  I embossed the white piece with Cuttlebug's "Swiss Dots" embossing folder and the red piece with Cuttlebug's "Heart Blocks" embossing folder.  I topped it off with a pretty ribbon bow held together with a heart button and placed a paper doily heart below.

 

On the inside I cut red carnation patterned paper to fit and glued it on one side.  To make the greeting I punched three hearts with an Anna Griffin punch, and then I punched around each of the hearts with a scalloped circular punch from Paper Studio.  I glued the circular part and the center of the heart down and left the "wings" of the heart loose.  I bent the heart wings up and wrote "I", "Love" and "You" on the centers.

In addition to the card, I included a bookmark I made using red cardstock, a piece of Valentine ribbon and the same Martha Stewart "Hearts" punch.

To complete the ensemble, I used another piece of red carnation paper and formed an envelope using "The Enveloper".

  

Here are some tutorials for "The Enveloper"...

   Paper Pressings 

   Sara's Blog

   Crafter's Companion Video Clips  

   You Tube