Washi polka dots and another shaker card

Hello!  I'm just popping in for a minute to direct you to a little tutorial I have up on the Love My Tapes blog today.  I've made this fun birthday card featuring a shaker element and washi polka dots...




Supplies used: Love My Tapes - washi tapes and adhesive, Bazzill - cardstock, Me & My Big Ideas - clear sentiment stickers; We R Memory Keepers - circle dies; Other: silver seed beads, sequins, foam tape.

I hope you'll stop on over and give it a peek, and even better - give this technique a try for yourself!  If you do, be sure to check out and enter the giveaway they've got going on over there!

A peek at an Insta mini and a GIVEAWAY

Happy Friday, blog readers! I just wanted to pop on here quickly today to show you a little peek of a mini album I'm sharing over on the DCWV blog today.  It's a Valentine's gift for my hubby, so shhhhh.... don't tell! 

I hope you'll hop over and take a look, and while you're there make sure you leave a comment.  If you're name is drawn, you'll win a set of the popular Insta Photo Fun collection, available exclusively at Joann's. Good luck!

Love These Three: A Scrapbook Page

Hello!  I'm back again today to share a page of my littles, I put together awhile back, but never got around to sharing here, for one reason or another.  As I mentioned in a recent post, I often like to dig into my older photos to spark my creativity.  These pictures are from three years ago!  Hard to believe my babies were this little!  In fact, looking back on them now, I'm thinking it would be fun to do an updated version of these photos, scrap them (of course!) and put the pages side by side in an album.

Now onto the page details...Aside from some stamping and bits of embellishment, this page is all Jillibean Soup.  I color blocked the background using a one-third, two-thirds approach.  Using the full sheets of patterned paper for the background works in this scenario because of the subtly of the patterns.  The photos still remain the focus and the embellishments carry your eye throughout the page.




Supplies used: Jillibean Soup - patterned paper, stickers, diecuts, buttons; Queen & Co - goosebumps; Stampin' Up - large flower punch, inks; Technique Tuesday - Studio AE stamps; Other - ribbon, adhesive pearls and gems, veteran typewriter font, circle punch.

I built a sweet and custom stamped embellishment piece to accent the ribbon that covers the seam of the patterned papers on my page.  I love that stamping allowed me to completely customize this little cluster, in color and theme!

The floral elements appear to be 'spilling' down the left side of the page. This grouping of flowers was built with a combination of patterns, punches, stamps and various embellishments.  I love the eclectic and almost vintage feel to these flowers, that is achieved by mixing all of these elements. 

Another bit of stamping in the lower right corner, ties my journaling back to the rest of the page, making for a more seamless, cohesive design.

 

That's it for today, friends!  Hope your finding time to get crafty this week!

 

Shaker cards

Hi crafty friends!  Sorry for my unannounced absence!  I didn't intend to stay away from the blog for quite so long.  But with the holidays and new year's resolutions (recommitting to exercise!) thrown into the mix, I've had to prioritize a bit.  I'm sure you can relate!  The good news is, while I was away, I've also been busy crafting so I'll be around this week with lots to share!

Today I'm bringing you a couple of cards I created.  If you haven't noticed, shaker cards are making a bit of a comeback in the crafting world.  I was in need of cards for a few special people, so I decided to throw my hat into the mix and create my own version of the latest card trend.

For this first one, I resurrected some Imaginisce stamps from long ago.  Despite their 'age', they make for a sweet sympathy card for a friend who recently lost her dog.  I stamped the dog on white cardstock and colored her in using colored pencils and blending with gamsol, to match the coloring on my friend's beloved pooch.  I stamped and cut out two clouds to fit within the shaker window.  To give the background of my card some subtle interest, as to not take away too much attention from the showpiece shaker, I used an ink blending technique.  I stamped the cloud onto the sticky part of a post-it note and cut it out to create a mask for which to blend my ink over top.



Supplies used: Imaginisce - stamps (cloud and dog); Hero Arts - sentiment stamp, black ink; Diecuts With a View - cardstock and glitter paper; Simon Says Stamp - heart dies; My Favorite Things - oval die; Tim Holtz - distress inks; Scor-tape - adhesive; Fiskars - scissors; Other: colored pencils, foam adhesive, scrap sheet protector, glass beads.

I used an oval shaped die from My Favorite Things to create the window for my shaker card. Some ink blending behind the window, creates a nice sky look at the back of the shaker. Did you know you don't have to use any special material for the transparent part of your shaker?  For this card and the next, I cut up an old damaged page protector to fit in the window.  Talk about trash to treasure, huh?!  My shaker is filled with clear glass beads and sweet little hearts diecut from DCWV cardstock and glitter paper.  This DCWV glitter paper is my go to for manual diecutting.  It cuts wonderfully and leaves behind no mess!  I used a red sheet from the Holiday Glitzy Glitter Stack to cut my hearts.

On this next card, I thought it would be fun to create the shaker in the 'paper' part of the typewriter stamp.  It's kind of fun and unexpected touch, isn't it? Aside from a sprinkling of diecut hearts I kept the background pretty simple.  Because of that, I felt it was missing a little 'something', so I grabbed a small strip of glittery patterned paper from DCWV's Candy Cane Lane Stack to accent the right edge of the card.



Supplies used: Simply Iconic - stamps (typewriter and sentiment); Hero Arts - black ink; Diecuts With a View - cardstock, patterned paper and glitter paper; Simon Says Stamp - heart dies; Tim Holtz - distress ink; Scor-tape - adhesive; Fiskars - scissors; Other: foam adhesive, scrap sheet protector, glass beads.

More glass beads and tiny diecut hearts fill up the shaker.  This time I stamped the sentiment on the card base, so that it would end up in the background, inside the shaker box, for another interesting spin.

 

Thanks so much for joining me today as I dabbled in the shaker card world!  Hope you'll come back and visit me soon.