WOYWW #213

WOYWW -- 1st Time

I've joined the What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday Blog Hop....so what's on my work desk? 

Remnants of the Navy and Lime set of 10 Whaley Thank You cards that I just finished, and now I get to make a couple more of the same card -- seems that I was showing them off, and the viewer was interested and requested 2.  Excellent!

I have one made and will probably throw 4-5 more together because they are just too cute!  And I seem to have a few whales, clouds, starfish and sentiments left lying about. Might as well put a few more together.  

That is always when I seem to make up time -- when I have the parts cut for a set and can just assemble them. I try to always make additional parts. I probably shouldn't worry about it, but I just have a hard time justifying taking 2 hours to make 1 card.  Part of the enjoyment is looking through my supplies, and finding JUST the right paper, and JUST the right sentiment or focal stamp, and JUST the right embellishments, so I should just write it off as time well spent. It's supposed to be relaxing, right?

Thanks for stopping to look at my messy desk! Oh -- and the card is on yesterday's post! Happy Wednesday!

A Flowering Thanks

It's getting close to that time -- YUP!  When the June Stamp of the Month is NO LONGER AVAILABLE...

For this little dreamy card I stamped the floral garden from the JUNE SOTM, A Flowering Bunch, onto a piece of White Daisy, and edge punched the corners.  I used watercolor pencils on the flowers. It's matted on buttercup cardstock, which is also the card base. 

The mat is also heat-embossed, using an embossing marker around the edges.

A sweet Chantilly background perfectly sets this off.  And the sentiment is heat-embossed right on the background paper.

I finished it with a sheer ribbon wrapped and tied in a bow!

Get your JUNE SOTM for ONLY $5 with a qualifying purchase before it's too late...it's so versatile!

Whale of a Journey

CTMH New Baby

I spent the weekend working on a special order for a set of Thank You cards. It was quite a journey of creativity. SO this will be a LONG blog - LOL!

The request was to include whales, navy and lime green, so I made 3 samples to play with the stamp first.

The adorable whale is from the CTMH New Baby set. 

CARD #1

It was difficult finding a good patterned paper for navy and lime -- WITHOUT using Later Sk8r for a change :). I settled for a Nice stripe from the DCWV My Sunshine stack.  My DH showed me how to make an angled cut with my paper trimmer. [give me a comment if you would like to see a tutorial]

First Try

I heat-embossed the whale on a tag cut with the Cricut Artiste Cartridge. 

The background paper is dry embossed and I layered 2 borders on the side.  The sentiment is from the For A Friend stamp set.

CTMH For A Friend

I liked including a nautical looking ribbon, (Michael's package of Navy Melodies & Lace ribbons) but something was just lacking. Mr. Whale was floating all by himself, and I didn't care for the scalloped borders -- even though they suggested water. 
CARD #2

2nd Sample

Frustrated by my sad 1st attempt, I searched splitcoaststampers for whales. This card is a straight up CASE from Hazel.  [Thanks, Hazel!] 
(http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2310200?&si=Hazeltje)


I used a rick-rack stamp from a Hot off the Press set, Stamped Stitches, in Juniper Exclusive Ink as my water. 

The sentiment is from a stamp set bundled with the exclusive CTMH Cricut Artiste cartridge. Word Balloons, but I actually <gasp> cut the word out of the balloon to use it independently.

Mr. Whale is heat-embossed with Blue embossing powder and colored with a gray watercolor pencil and a blending pen.

It was way cute, but I had NOT successfully used Navy and Lime Green -- it was only hinted at in the striped paper. 

CARD #3

3rd Time's a Charm

I had a TON of triangles from my angled cutting that only produced 3 straight strips...so what could I do with them? This time, I changed the background paper to Outdoor Denim to get a strong navy "anchor" to the design. (LOL). I dry-embossed it with a chevron embossing folder.

I used a piece of Later Sk8r -- couldn't resist, it's a great lime color -- as the background for stamping Mr. Whale, and heat-embossed and fussy-cut several.

I then used the same rick-rack stamp to create the water, but added one row in Pear ink. I stamped just Mr. Whale's head and spout in Versamark on White Daisy cardstock and heat-embossed it in blue so I could position the cut-out whale on top of it. The whale scene is layered on Pear cardstock with punched rounded edges.

 Mr. Whale looked lonely, so I added a cloud -- which I cut at 1" from Pear cardstock using the Artiste Cartridge, and gave some surface touch-up using one of the stamps in Distressed Backgrounds with Outdoor Denim ink. Then, I realized that you can't just have a cloud -- how about a sun?  The shape that coordinates with the April Stamp of the Month, My Sunshine, can be cut at 1" to make a tiny little sun outline -- PERFECT!!!  I cut it in half to get the most out of my 8 little suns.


The banner sentiment is from the Word Balloons set, layered with Pear cardstock. But, again, it looked lonely.  

Back to the New Baby set, and it has an adorable starfish. I heat-embossed several, colored them with watercolor pencils in lime green, and fussy-cut them all. (they are very small)

The finished set!

I moved the positioning of the nautical knot, and was VERY pleased with the results.

It seems my biggest challenge is to make clean and simple cards -- they always seem to need more to me. Although I LOVED the CASE on my second example, it just seems plain. I just want to add more...

All that was left was to assemble 10 of them.  While doing so, I had an adhesive FAIL, which forced a LOT of re-work. 

So stay tuned for more information about adhesives!

Thank you for stopping by and staying long enough to read this Moby Dick of a tale.

....and I do not even OWN the CTMH pun stamp set...wonder why?


I also entered this in the SplitCoastStampers TLC435 Angled Background Challenge.

Avonlea Thanks

I put together a quick Avonlea thank you card using the Pirouette MyAcrylix stamp. 

First I cut the stamp shape using the Cricut Artiste cartridge, and stamped on it with Twilight ink. It is so easy when you don't have to fussy-cut your shape!

I used the Avonlea paper as a background layer on a Slate cardstock base. I stamped the sentiment with Versamark ink and heat-embossed it with Zing Chestnut embossing powder.

Thanks is in the June SOTM, A Flowering Bunch, but I masked off the part that said "a bunch" with a sticky note so it just said Thanks. I used a piece of the Avonlea patterned paper zip strip horizontally to give added dimension.

Then I cut a few little shapes on the Cricut, again with the Artiste cartridge, at 1 to 1-3/4 in complementary colors, and layered them with a small punched circle on top. They look really yellowish - they are not that color at all. It's more of a muted gold which coordinates with the goldy-olive in the paper. (\[is that a color :) ] A bronze brad matched perfectly and holds them all together. A sheer ribbon bow adds just a little accent.

Thanks for stopping by! 

Skating Through June

I tried a free-form shape first -- 

just rolling with it!

Yes, I know...more Later Sk8r cards.  But they are SOOO awesome & gnarly - LOL! 

[Did I mention that I was sick over the Memorial Day holiday and made over 20 cards using this paper?  I was supposed to be grounded to the couch, but ended up sitting at the kitchen table. After a few trips back and forth to my craft area, I had the entire kitchen table covered. It was fun, but I didn't want to over load my blog with Lagoon & Pear cards all at once. So I tried to intersperse them with other card posts!]

These 3 cards all use the CTMH Later Sk8tr Workshop on the Go stamp set as the main focal point. 

The Gray and Navy card also uses the Perfect Fit-Birthday stamp set and Recollections silver chevron washi tape. It's actually my VERY FIRST washi tape usage.  I think it satisfies my need for ribbon when creating a masculine themed card.

This is one of my favorites.

I used my Spellbinder's Wonky Rectangles to highlight the skateboarder, using Pear cardstock and the Later Sk8r paper from the paper pack. 

The circles are leftover holes from Lagoon gears I die cut for my previously showcased gear cards. 

The AWESOME sentiment (LOL!)  is from the paper's zip strip. I just cut it into a pennant/banner shape.

Both stamps are in the Later Sk8r Workshop to Go package. I didn't use any discipline in creating these cards, but my next WOTG project will use ONLY the paper in the package, and we'll see how many cards that will make!

The third Skateboarder card uses a lot of different elements. I distressed the white card base with Outdoor Denim exclusive inks pad, and created several layers, using Slate and Later Sk8r papers. 

The Gears were cut during my extended Cricut Artiste cutting session, from Pear and Outdoor Denim cardstock and I just layered them up here. 

The sentiment is from the Perfect Fit-Birthday stamp set. I am finding that set VERY useful. 

I will just add that the double dark gray ribbon is some **GASP** Stampin' Up ribbon I had in my stash.

These masculine cards will make my entire summer's worth of grandson/nephew/son/brother-in-laws and brother's celebrations go smoothly, so I was glad I had the chance to make all of these great cards!

Thanks for stopping by!

Congrats

I made a quick card this morning using CTMH Avonlea paper.

Since I happened to cut the background paper with the flower centered on it, that became my starting point. I layered the patterned CTMH Avonlea paper with Twilight and used Slate as the card base, after inking the edges of the layers with Twilight exclusive ink.

The sentiment is from the Cricut Artiste collection Kudos stamp set. This set comes with the Artiste Cricut cartridge.

Even though I added ribbon and a bow, it seemed a little plain to me so I used the Artiste cartridge (still finding new ways to use it) and cut out the flourishes from both Twilight and Slate cardstock.

Then I used punched a scalloped circle from Twilight paper and punched a one-inch circle from the reverse side of the Avonlea duo paper. I layered those in the middle of the background rosette and finished it off with a gem from the Later Sk8r workshop to go packet.

It was a snap to put together! Thanks for stopping by!

Father's Day - My Dad's REAL CARD

Created for my dad.
The inside is stamped with a Father's Day Sentiment.

The stars and frame were cut with the Cricut Artiste Cartridge. I loved just dialing up a size and getting different stars. These are 3", 2" and 1-1/2". 

Then I ran them through my Sizzix for some dry-embossing texture.

The Star stamped on white daisy with Lagoon ink is from the Pinwheel stamp set...I may be able to find a set if someone needs it!

I've added some detailed pix...

 
Paper:  CTMH Later Sk8r, Lagoon, Outdoor Denim, White Daisy
CTMH Inks:  Lagoon, Outdoor Denim
CTMH Stamps:  Pinwheel, Perfect Fit-Frames 2
Stamps: Lucky Guy (Studio G)
Other:  Stars Embossing Folder, Baker's Twine, brads


Thanks for stopping by!