Merry Christmas {Rachelle Anne Miller Studios}

Hi, everyone!

I’ve got a pretty clean and simple card to share with you today. Some coloring, blue cardstock, a die set and some snowdrift sprinkles were all I used on this one.

I started by printing my little snowman scene from Rachelle Anne Miller onto X-Press It blending card, before coloring with Copics. I then used the shadow die from a die set from Papirdesign to partially die cut the shadow at the bottom of my scene. I trimmed off about 1/16″ on either side and glued it straight onto a card base made from Enchanted Evening cardstock from Papertrey Ink that I’d trimmed down to 4 1/8″ wide.

I die cut god jul (Merry Christmas in Norwegian) three times from the same color cardstock and stacked them for dimension, before adding the final touch of a few snowdrift sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

I used quite a few colors to color in this image. This was my first try at creating a glow in an image, and as far as first attempts go, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Hooray, hooray, hooray!

Hi, everyone!

I have a fairly simple birthday card to share with you today, featuring this cutie pie from Tiddly Inks. I colored up this image for day 21 of Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge in April, so it was about time I turned it into a card (though to be honest, I have images that have been sitting colored and unused way longer than that).

I like printing (or stamping) my images close to one corner of a quarter sheet of X-Press It blending card. That way, I know I’ll have lots of white space to play with and for the final card to breathe, I don’t like cards that are too busy and “crowded”, if that makes sense. I die cut my panel using my favorite stitched rectangle die from My Favorite Things, then actually went in with Memento Dandelion ink over my Geometric Landscape stencil from Altenew using a blender brush from Taylored Expressions. I rarely use yellow, and I rarely use stencils, but I wanted something other than my regular half mini doily behind my cluster of diecut scraps, and one of the hedgehogs is carrying a yellow heart, so I thought it was only fitting.

For the actual cluster I used scraps, which is a great way to use up all that oooold patterned paper (some of this is ten years old) I have laying around. These pieces are small, so it’s going to take me a while to use everything in my stash, but I’m working on it, one die cut at a time. I used the XCut Happy Days Ticket Stubs die for my cluster pieces. It’s one die that cuts nine different sized tickets in varying shapes, and I use it a lot on my cards. The papers are from (bottom layer to top layer) Imaginisce, Kaisercraft, and StudioLight. The little swirly line at the bottom of the cluster is a piece of paper from Fancy Pants, diecut using a die in the Tag Builder Blueprint 5 die set from My Favorite Things, the banner with the sentiment is from the same die set. The sentiment itself is from Norsk Stempelblad AS, stamped in Memento Bamboo Leaves ink. I thought it matched perfectly with the cardstock from My Favorite Things that I used as my card base. Those enamel dots from Papirdesign matched also.

Green is not a color I use often as my main color, but I’m trying to be better at using the entire rainbow and not just those gorgeous blues that I love so much. Even though blue IS the color of the year. Beautiful color for a crappy year, how’s that fair? 😉

You’re the best! {Mo’s Dream Team}

Hi, everyone!

I feel like every other day is Wednesday, and today’s another one. Time just goes by so incredibly quickly, it’s hard to keep up and keep track of the weekdays. I colored up Mona from Mo’s Digital Pencil on Saturday, that much I know. I’ve now turned her into a happy card. I diecut a panel with my image as I often do using the largest of the Stitched Rectangle STAX Set 2 dies from My Favorite Things, it’s probably the one die I use the most out of all the dies I own. I used double sided tape to glue it to a cardbase, which I made from Ocean Tides cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I haven’t made one of my cluster cards in quite some time, but I really enjoy the process of putting these clusters together, so I decided to do it for this card. It’s a great way to use some patterned paper scraps, and one of these patterned papers is actually from 2007! It’s from Autumn Leaves. Remember them? I think it’s been a while since they ceased to exist. Now, when you go to autumleaves.com, you get to a site for assisted living communities for those with dementia. It’s a Texas based company, and definitely not a maker of pretty patterned paper. The other papers I’ve used are also what we’d call old in the card making world, the yellow one is from My Mind’s Eye and was released in 2011, and the remaining two were both released in 2013, they’re from Maja Design and Inkido, respectively.

I use a couple of different dies to make these clusters, I make the banners using the Fishtail Flag Frames set from My Favorite Things, and I use the Happy Days Ticket Stubs die from Xcut for all those tickets. It’s one die that cuts nine different tickets, and I love that I get that many from one run through my diecutting machine. I mounted some of my diecut pieces on 1 mm foam tape, and glued others down using just double sided tape. Behind the whole thing I put half a mini paper doily from Doodlebug Design. I used the other half for the card I posted yesterday. On top I added a sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS stamped in Ocean Tides ink from Papertrey Ink. I mounted that on foam squares, and tripled up the foam squares on the left side of the banner. Finished off with a few pink dots from Papirdesign.

I have so many tickets left over, and with this kind of cluster you don’t even use whole pieces for all of it, so I have the off cuts from some of these also. I added half a ticket in the bottom left corner, too, and glued another dot on top. And that finishes my card for today.

I leave you with the colors I used for the adorable little girl. Not too many today.

Birthday hugs {Mo’s Dream Team}

Hi, everyone!

Another Wednesday, and after a three week summer vacation, I just started back at work in the beginning of the week. I wanted to keep sleeping when that alarm rang on Monday, it was hard getting out of bed. Oh, well, I’m hoping it gets easier. On a lighter note, I have a toddler birthday card to share today, featuring Wee One from Mo’s Digital Pencil. I colored up this cute little guy (or girl, the image is very gender neutral) for day 23 of the most recent 30 day coloring challenge hosted by Kathy Racoosin, and I decided to turn it into a very simple card.

I’m doing my best to make my pile of patterned paper scraps shrink and not grow. My biggest problem with that is that most of my cards are fairly simple without a lot of patterned paper, and my scrap pile feels endless. Still I keep chipping away at it, hoping it’ll be visibly smaller one of these days. For this card I used an old green scrap from Pion Design and a yellow one from Papirdesign. I diecut both, the green using the largest of the stitched rectangle dies from My Favorite Things, and the yellow one using a super old Quickutz die.

I also diecut the image using a smaller stitched rectangle die from MFT, and popped the panel up on foam tape centered on my card. I used some 1 mm foam squares to adhere my circle diecut with a stamped sentiment from Norsk Stempelblad AS.

I finished off the card by scattering veneer stars from Studio Calico at a diagonal across.

These are the colors I used to color the image. I also used B40, which is a color I’ve made myself.

Julehilsen {Mo’s Dream Team}

Hi, everyone!

I colored up Winter Present for day 22 of Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day challenge on Instagram and made a simple Christmas card with it.

I used the largest of the faux stitch rectangle dies from My Favorite Things to create a nice edge for my panel. I mounted it to a cardbase I made from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I dug through my scrap stash of Christmas themed patterned paper and got really lucky with part of a diecut ticket and some pine branches.

I made a little cluster starting with half a Doodlebug mini paper doily, then the partial ticket stub and the pine branches. I found a fitting sentiment on the bottom of a piece of patterned paper from Papirdesign, so I cut that bit out and added foam tape behind it. I finished the card with a few snowflake sprinkles from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

A little hello {Rachelle Anne Miller Studios}

Hi, everyone.

I colored up Balloon Ride for this round of the 30 day coloring challenge hosted by Kathy Racoosin, and I turned my image into a very simple card.

I diecut the panel with the image using the largest of the faux stitch rectangle dies from My Favorite Things. I glued it straight to a cardbase I created from Soft Stone cardstock from Papertrey Ink.

I added half a Doodlebug Nini doily, some diecut scraps of patterned paper (Papirdesign and Basic Grey, btw) and a white heat embossed Inky Wings sentiment on Papertrey Ink Autumn Rose cardstock. A few raindrops from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and my card was finished.

Happy birthday! {Mo’s Dream Team}

Wednesdays mean Mo Manning goodness around here, and today happens to be Mo’s birthday. What’s better than a bright and cheerful birthday card?

I colored up Lula Fairy Doll for day 13 of the current round of Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge over on Instagram, and I thought I’d turn her into a quick birthday card. I had already used the largest of the dies from the Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things, so all I had to do was create a cardbase. Harvest Gold from Papertrey Ink was the perfect sunny yellow to complement the sunflower.

This type of card has become my signature card style. I haven’t however, used those Doodlebug mini doilies in a while, so it was good to pull out half of one (a little less than half, actually) for this card. I used the Fishtail Flag Frames dies from My Favorite Things to diecut a couple of banners from yellow scraps of patterned paper. The bottom one is from My Mind’s Eye, the top one from Papirdesign. I also diecut the sentiment strip after stamping and heat embossing a sentiment from an old Papertrey Ink stamp set on that piece of Hawaiian Shores cardstock, also from Papertrey Ink. I added to more layers of cardstock behind my sentiment to make it a little more dimensional.

The last little piece of business was adding some enamel dots. I hardly ever make cards without enamel dots or sequins, and I tend to always place them near the sentiment, it draws in the eyes. Nice little trick for’ya.

Christmas in July {Mo’s Dream Team}

Another Wednesday, which means it’s Mo Manning time, and it also happens to be July already. What happened to June? It really flew by faster than ever. I actually have a Christmas card to share today, nothing is as natural as Christmas in July, right?

I’ve featured Gingerbread Man! on this card. It happens to be a free digital image, and I’ve flipped it, repeated it and rotated it all across a background before using four different brown Copics (E27, 25, 23 and 21) in addition to T2 to color all of them. Some are more burnt than others, I didn’t want a uniform look.

Once my panel of gingerbread men was finished, I glued it straight to a cardbase made from Dark Chocolate cardstock from Papertrey Ink before adding a diecut sentiment heart with foam tape. I used Pure Poppy cardstock (also Papertrey Ink) and a Papirdesign die.

I scattered a few Papirdesign enamel dots for my finishing touch.

One sheet of patterned paper – eight cards! {Hobbykunst}

Hi, everyone! Today’s blog post is a long one with lots of photos of lots of cards, so I suggest you get comfortable 🙂

I’m starting with a baby card. I made quite a few baby cards from this one sheet. Usually I make A2 size cards, but this image is so big that the card actually measures 5 x 8 1/2″. I used a knife and a pair of scissors to cut my image, keeping a thin white border along the edge.

I ran a piece of white cardstock through my Gemini Jr. using an embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers. The result is a background with a little bit of interest, while still keeping the image in focus. I used foam tape to add my dry embossed pane to my card base and some 1 mm foam tape from Rayher on the back of my image for a tiny bit of extra dimension. I also used 1 mm foam squares to add the sentiment strips to the balloon, and finished off the card with some sequins and crystals from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards.

The embossing folder I used is 6 x 6″. Since my panel was taller, I had to run it through from both ends. Along the seam I added a strip from another sheet of patterned paper from the same collection. The strip hides the seam and also acts as an anchor for the balloon image.

My goal was to use every little bit of the images on the one sheet, so I glued the left over branches to the inside of the card.

This is the sheet of patterned paper I’ve used for all my cards. It’s called Cuddles and is part of the Little Treasures collection by Kaisercraft.

My second card is along the same lines as the first one. I used the bunny in the pink hot air balloon and the stars that are scattered around the paper on this one. This card is a little more narrow, measuring 4 1/4 x 8 1/2″. On the background I used cloud stencil from My Favorite Things and Distress Oxide in the color Tumbled Glass to create some interest in the background without overshadowing my focal point. This time I glued the image straight to the cardbase using foam tape. I also used foam tape behind some of the stars, while others are glued down using liquid glue.

I used a Papirdesign die set to diecut the word babyjente (baby girl). I diecut the shadow twice in vellum and the actual word several times using white cardstock. I put a few layers behind the vellum, making it look like the vellum is floating, and the rest of the layers on top of the vellum. Diecuts really pop when they’re layered like this.

Even though the card is simple, all the dimension makes it a little bit interesting anyway.

I glued on some sequins from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards on this one too. The leftover stars I glued to the inside of the card.

My next card is a simple birthday card. I’ve gone back to my regular A2 size with this one. I used the largest of the dies in the Stitched Rectangles STAX 2 set from My Favorite Things and used an embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers to create a little bit of interest to my background. I glued the panel straight onto my pink card front, with no dimension this time.

I used 1 mm foam squares to glue my fussy cut flower to the front of the card. I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from Mathia design on a strip of black cardstock and used foam tape to attach it to the card over the stem of the rose.

I finished off my card by gluing on some Pretty Pink Posh sequins in a sort of visual path from the bottom of the card near the sentiment all the way to the top rose. I always glue small embellishments like this close to other elements on my cards, it creates a better visual effect than gluing them far from everything else.

Card number four is a very different kind of card for me. When I started the process of making these cards I drew sketches for each card. The sketch for this one was for a portrait orientation, but when I actually started making this one I realized that the image was a landscape orientation, so I had to flip my sketch and change things around a bit. This image is quite large, so this is an A7 (5×7″) card. I had two sheets of the patterned paper, so I used the back of the second one to create my frame, and glued it to my cardbase using foam tape.

I added the flowers to my cardbase using foam squares.

I wasn’t sure what to do for a sentiment since I had to turn my sketch 90 degrees and make changes to it. The idea I had for the portrait orientation didn’t translate to a landscape orientation. In the end I chose to put my sentiment in the bottom left of my card. That’s not a spot I usually use for my sentiment, but on this card I thought it was the best placement. The sentiment itself is a veneer piece from Rayher that I embossed using four layers of white embossing powder, glued straight to my flowers and frame using liquid glue.

A few Pretty Pink Posh sequins around the sentiment finished off this card.

My next card is another baby card. A square one, measuring 4 1/4 x 4 1/4″. No white border around the fussy cut bunnies, simply because the tip of the tail on the largest bunny intersects with a rose bud on the patterned paper, making me have to cut a little bit off his tail. Once that was done, I decided it would be best to cut right up to the edge of the rest of the bunnies as well.

The background paper I used on this card is part of the Little Gem sheet, so is the sentiment I used. I diecut an eyelet circle using a Cottage Cutz die and added it in the center of my card using foam tape. I added the bunnies with 1 mm Rayher foam suares, and did the same with the sentiment, staggering it.

I finished off the card with some matte gold sequins from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards. As usual when I add sequins to my cards, I glued them on near the sentiment. There’s another yellow bunny on the sheet of patterned paper, I fussy cut that one and glued it on the inside of the card.

The next card is a slimline card. I used a Memory Box stencil with some acrylic paste from Kreul to make a little bit of interest to the background, once again making sure it still remains a background element.

I glued the bunny to the cardbase with 1 mm foam squares and diecut Gratulerer (Congratulations) from Papirdesign multiple times from white cardstock, then glued them to a shadow made from colored cardstock (Fine Linen from Papertrey Ink). The stamped sub sentiment is from a Papirdesign stamp set (100 år), stamped in Memento Espresso Truffle ink on the bottom strip of the patterned paper. I added it with some foam tape below the diecut.

I finished the card by adding sequins from Pretty Pink Posh in a visual triangle. They’re all in close proximity to the sentiment and the bunny. Some of them glued on top of other elements, some of them tucked behind.

My next card is another regular A2 size card. I covered the cardbase using the same sheet of paper I used on the square card, only the reverse side. The small flowers are from that main sheet I’ve used throughout each of the cards in this blog post. These flowers were on the edge of the sheet, so they’re flat on one side, so I had to put them along an edge. I figured that this polaroid frame from My Favorite Things was perfect.

I made a white, dry embossed background on this card also and mounted it using foam tape. It makes the background a little less busy, and the little flowers I fussy cut a little more prominant. I stamped a sentiment from fra Mathia design onto the patterned paper and used it as my “photo” in the polaroid frame, which I created from several layers of white cardstock that I stacked on top of each other. Here you can also see a little bit of the inside of the card, as well, where I glued the flowers that didn’t fit on the front of the card. I was determined to use every single image from that one sheet of patterned paper.

I embellished with sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. This time in two clusters near the flowers to keep the focus on them and not so much the sentiment in the center.

The final card. I wasn’t entirely sure what to do with this one. The feathers were the only images remaining from that one sheet, and I didn’t know how to use them in a good way and turn them into a nice card until I realized I could make a background from them. There was only one turquoise feather on the page, so I fussy cut the turquoise feather from the second sheet to get a good balance of color between all the feathers.

Embossing folder on white cardstock once again, and I created a pretty wide margin on the outside with this one. I usually like my margins fairly narrow, but I think this turned out good. I added my feathers to the dry embossed panel using 1 mm foam squares, cut off the excess and used those bits to cover the empty spots left behind in the corners.

The sentiment is from a stamp set from Mathia design, stamped in black on a white cardstock strip. The turquoise strip behind it is from that other sheet of patterned paper that I’ve used here and there in the course of these eight cards. There’s a sentiment in white on that strip, but the strip I glued on top started and ended between words on the turquoise one, so only the turquoise is showing, I was really lucky that way. I finished off my card with some Pretty Pink Posh Sequins. This time I glued some near the sentiment and scattered a few others tucked between some of the feathers.

Pink floral birthday card

I recently received an order for a 70th birthday card for a lady from the Philippines who loves flowers, pink and purple. I didn’t really feel like coloring and had no idea what to do until Liz came to the rescue and offered me a few sheets from an old pad of images from Lili of the Valley. With the use of my trusted dies from GoKreate, the card actually came together fairly quickly once I sat down and started working on it.

Cards like this come together very easily, it’s basically a bunch of diecutting and you’re done. I use two full 12×12 sheets of patterned paper for cards like this, and the beauty is that there are no scraps left when I’m done. For this one I used two sheets from Papirdesign, one is Roseduft, and the other is stemorsblomst, blå.

I added flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts, Kort & Godt and Papirdesign along the edge of two opposite quadrants on my circle, used letter stickers from Papirdesign to spell her name and some diecut numbers for her age. I finished off the front of the card using diamonds from Kort & Godt.

I kept the insides pretty simple, with plenty of room for a personal message for the birthday lady. I added some more diamonds to embellish a tiny bit.

On the back of the card I used more flowers, more diamonds and stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment using Autumn Rose ink from Papertrey Ink. “Happiness is the art of creating a bouquet of the flowers within reach.”