Recycle Holiday Cards

I thought you might enjoy 2 recycling ideas for all of your beautiful holiday cards that might be hard to just throw away.

St. Jude's Ranch has a program where they take used Christmas and other occasion cards and recycle them into new cards to help raise funds for their children's ranch. Click HERE if you wish to learn more....and Operation Write Home takes your new handmade cards or cards that you recycle yourself to make new cards and sends them to our brave men and women serving in the military. The shipping addresses and postmark deadlines can be found on the far left side of their home page HERE. They also give basic guidelines for sending cards to them. (I was surprised to find out that embellishments on the card fronts are perfectly fine AND they prefer no clear envelopes to hold the card and envelope together.)

Lately, I've been donating my new (and upcycled cards received from friends) to the Thrift Box. This wonderful organization and its volunteers benefit the Lucile Packard Hospital in Northern California. See their website for more information: 

https://www.thriftbox.org/

It always gives me a great feeling when my handmade cards actually help others in such a big way. Cheers and Happy New Year!

Happy Little Opportunity

I forgot to mention that when my husband added the cupcake brad below, he put the hole for the brad right in the center of the white circle of cardstock --- as per my instructions...but I didn't notice that the brad flaps were actually at the bottom of the cupcake brad, so that made the cupcake sit up higher on the white circle...."No problem!" I said...."This is not a mistake but a happy little opportunity to put a few extra gems below the cupcake!" I love it when those "opportunities" actually enhance the look of the project!

Zutter Fun!

After my very crafty friend, Katie, showed me how to use her Zutter machine, I had to put that little toy on my Wish List...and here are my first creations with my very own pink bundle of sheer joy! These are Post-It note holders and they are so easy to make that my husband made the one on the right for his assistant's January birthday! She enjoys paper crafting and will really appreciate his handmade efforts!....and not to take anything away from my dear husband, but it's so easy to make items with the Zutter that even a husband can use it --- hehe! (Some of you who took classes with me at MLO will recognize the papers used for these little books.) BTW - I used the extra large Stampin' Up oval for the sayings done on my computer.

Paper Crafters' Christmas Poem

Here's my last Christmas Cricut card that I made with the Winter Woodland cartridge...I haven't had this much fun with a new crafting toy since I got my Cuttlebug!

My good friend and fellow paper crafter, Michele, just sent me the poem below. It gave me an extra big smile, and I hope it does the same for you ;-)

Twas the night before Christmas, I’m glued to the tree.
I’m wondering what Santa will bring just for me.
Could it be cardstock or inkpads or lace?
Or stamp sets, I said, with a smile on my face.
And that’s when I heard him...Hi Santa, I said.
To which he replied, You should be in bed!
Oh, dear! I said, I’ve just been caught...
But I was excited to see what you brought.
Well, let’s take a look in this room where you work.
Then he shook his head quickly, and left with a jerk.
And I heard him exclaim, as he put it in gear,
You’ve got enough crap, I’ll see you next year!

Now I ask you...can one ever have too many paper crafting supplies?!

Happy holidays and here's wishing you a plethora of creativity in 2010!

Cards from My November Class

Here's a pic of all 7 card projects from my November class....and I've just posted a sample of the sheet you will receive when you're a member in my card & craft club. Each month I mail out a sheet of project photos and a supply list about 2 weeks before the written instructions and YouTube video tutorial links are sent to CLUB members. You can check it out by clicking HERE.

Christmas Card Idea

Are your Christmas cards ready yet? Here's one that you can whip out in a hurry: I used 3 shades of blue for this one. The background card base is navy blue, then I added a baby blue layer cut 1/4" smaller than the width and length of the card base, then came a white layer with a lighter blue strip of cardstock across the white layer. I added a circle of white below a metal snowflake embellishment and stamped the snowflakes and sentiment using white pigment ink and SU's Ballet Blue ink. Note: All stamping was done prior to assembly. If you are impatient like me and don't want to wait awhile to assemble the card after stamping with white pigment ink (since it needs extra drying time), use an embossing gun to set the ink or add white embossing powder to the white ink and hit it with the embossing gun for a nice raised image on the snowflakes. The SU set used for this card is called "Warm Winter Wishes" and it's one of my favorite sets!

It's been too long since my last post, but I'm getting ready for the big launch of my card club on January 1st, 2010 and Christmas is coming too fast for me on top of that! Will somebody help me slow time down a bit?! Happy holidays and enjoy these next two weeks before Santa arrives.

The Cricut Addiction Continues!

Oh, I am having the time of my life with my new Cricut Expressions machine! I finally made some Christmas cards with it - complete with a red gem on Rudolph's nose (using the Winter Wonderland cartridge), then I made more cards with the new Pagoda cartridge --- and refined my previous attempts to make a panda card. Using coordinating Cricut images, I can customize the inside of the cards as well. Those bamboo stalks were the perfect thing for the inside of my panda cards! I keep telling myself that I'm building all sorts of new brain cells because I'm learning something new every day when I use my Cricut - oh, dear!...Aren't rationalizations a sure sign of an addiction - hehe!

BTW - I made the reindeer cards using a brayer loaded with blue ink (SU Ballet Blue) over a circle and a hill I cut out of cardstock and temporarily adhered them to white photo paper. Once you brayer over those two pieces of cardstock, simply remove them revealing the white photo paper underneath. The white glossy photo paper lets you brayer back and forth very quickly with a lot of pressure to blur all ink lines initially created by the brayer. It's a nice technique when using multiple colors of ink on the brayer as well. Give it a try!

Santa Claus has ARRIVED!

My dear husband surprised me last night by giving me a Cricut for our anniversary, and here are my first attempts using the new Pagoda cartridge. I have to tell you that I am OVER THE MOON with happiness because of my new toy (and being married to my Bear for 29 years, too)!!!!...the only trouble is that I can already see that this Cricut will send me down the path of no return! Last night, my sister gave me a set of Asian stamps from Inkadinkado called Asian Influences, and it had the bamboo stamp as part of that set --- what are the odds that it would go together so nicely with this new cartridge?!....and my in-laws game me some "mad" money to treat myself to some shopping...and I think you might be able to guess where I was this morning at the crack of dawn?....YEP - at Michael's buying more Cricut cartridges at 60% off. Oh, please....help me now! I can thank my friend Rachel for that suggestion -- she wrote me late last night that she would be out shopping on Black Friday starting at 5:30 am. I had never done any shopping on Black Friday before....but that 60% off Cricut sale at Michael's with a 25% off of everything else coupon just lured me right out of bed and through the drizzle at 7 am this morning to get more cartridges!!! BTW - the picture below shows my first rendition of the panda card --- something was missing --- he needed a bow and some black added to the bamboo with a .005 micron pen to add that little bit of extra pizazz!

MAGNETIC CARD BOX plus Quick Card Ideas

These were the projects for my last regular class at Memories Live On. Everyone got to make a card box AND 7 cards!

Personalized Water Bottles

Here's an idea for a meeting, office, party, class, etc. and use up your scraps that you hate to just throw away!

Give a water bottle with the WOW FACTOR by using an oval or circle punch: Punch out an oval or circle on the top layer, then stamp a saying or write a name on a separate piece of white cardstock, place adhesive on the wrong side of the oval punched paper, center and adhere saying/name in oval. Adhere one layer of designer paper to the bottle, then adhere the oval/circle layer on the top.

Your guests will never loose track of their water bottle when you use up your scraps this way!

Stamp Set: Stampin' Up Spotlight On Christmas, but you can use any stamp you desire.

More Card Party Pics

Here are a few more pics of the beautiful cards we made from Katie's Stampin' Up Card Party last weekend. Oh, what fun we had! True Bliss for sure! The first pic shows the favor box she made for us filled with peppermints. The dish beside it was a cute little Christmas dish that Rina gave every person at the party. She got them at Safeway -- and the wrapped box it came in added such a lovely touch!

Michael's Contest

Michael's is having a contest now to showcase handmade items....did someone say CONTEST?! Well, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to promote my new card club by entering my Santa pants box....so if you get a chance, please click on the 5th star in the lower left corner to enter your vote for my project seen HERE on their site - THANK YOU! The YouTube video and details for ordering the Santa pants box can be found HERE.

Best Christmas Present EVER!

Yesterday, my very talented card maker friend named Katie, once again gave her friends the best Christmas present EVER! She had a Christmas card making party where we each got to make 6 gorgeous cards. It's going to be REALLY hard to give any of them away, and I thought you'd enjoy seeing this one made from a small and slightly larger Stampin' Up tag punch. The result was a stunning card with the 100% WOW! Factor. Thank you, Katie!!!

I Support Operation Write Home

Confession: It's REALLY hard for me to throw away larger left over scraps of paper after I finish a craft project! I definitely don't have the space to save them all - and what are the chances I'd ever go back and use them?!....so now I create cards with these perfectly good scraps for the brave troops serving our country. This was a flamingo I made for a friend out of my left over pink cardstock scraps. (Confession No. 2: The background had the birthday cake already on it - so that made it super easy!) I had enough scraps to make two cards: One for my friend and one for Operation Write Home. Visit their website if you are interested in learning more:

http://operationwritehome.org

Fall Card

Here's a quick card that uses VersaMark clear ink for the background grass and white craft ink for the large flowers. It's a quick technique that produces such a lovely effect that you can try with stamps you already have! Craft ink produces a dense stamped image and does require extra drying time, so if you can be patient, set your cards stamped with craft ink aside before tying ribbons or adding embellishments. If you're in a big hurry, use a heat embossing gun to speed the drying time....and I'm getting close to the BIG announcement of my next teaching endeavor --I'm literally working day and night to get everything ready for the November 1st debut, and I'll announce it right here on this blog next weekend!

FREE Halloween Download

I just put a FREE download on my MLO site that will let you create tags for all of your Halloween craft projects using various circle punches. The photo shows 3 out of the 5 projects we will be making in class tomorrow, and a 1" circle punch was used on the TRICK or TREAT saying (= FREE download) for the pixie stix project in the background. Click on my picture above to go to my MLO site to get your FREE download!

Quick and Easy

Here are two new cards suitable for the males in your life! They are quick and easy cards made from a variation on a Thanksgiving card that I demo'd in my last class. The formula is simple -- start with 4 rectangles that are 1 x 3" and adhere side-by-side on a base layer. (Hint: Trim the right-hand edge after adding the last rectangle.) Finish by adding additional background layers as desired. These cards are a great way to use up scraps -- and oh, how I hate to throw away perfectly beautiful paper scraps! I also like to have some cards on hand that don't have a specific saying on them. I could have used the top one today for a Bosses' Day card. We took my wonderful boss of 30 years out for lunch today -- and I completely forgot that we had this lunch planned for today soooooo I had no card to give him - oh, RATS! Well, I hope you have a terrific boss to take to lunch this week - and maybe you can use this design for your card!

Fall Happiness

My wonderful sister gave me the most fantastic present last week --- she cleaned out a bedroom and found tons of ribbon she knew that she would never use --- so, she gave it to me and I was in HEAVEN! There were several spools of ribbon with wider widths than I normally would use for card making, but I discovered that I could attach a length of that wide ribbon around 2 layers of cardstock (cut 1" longer than the width of the cardstock), add a brad along with some cording in the middle of the wide ribbon, smooth out any folds in the ribbon, attach each end with adhesive on the back of the cardstock, then finish by adding a saying. YAHOO! I love it when the light bulb goes off and it takes me in a whole new direction! (Simply open up the 2 flaps on the brad, attach the ribbon in the middle of the brad, criss-cross the flaps over to close it around the ribbon and attach the brad, then adhere each end of the ribbon on the back of the cardstock.) Thank you, Janie!

BTW - to make the front of this card, take 4 different but coordinated 3x5" sheets of paper, and stack all 4 sheets on top of each other. Turn the whole stack over and draw your 3 cut lines in the pattern you desire. Cut through all four layers at once, then separate each segment into 4 piles and reassemble back into a rectangle. Prior to adhering the segments to a black piece of cardstock for the background layer, the first segment will require a 1/8" trim along one side due to the 1/8" spacing between each segment.

The stamp set used for the "happy fall" is Seasonal Swirls by Stampendous. It's a set of 9 clear stamps that I recently purchased at Beverly's. You can view the complete set HERE. The "Thinking of You" on the inside of the card is from a Stampin' Up set called Bird on a Branch....and the leaf on the inside is from a retired Stampin' Up set called Botanicals.

Bargain Shopping Alert!

Yesterday, I was shopping with my coupons at Joann Fabrics, and low and behold, I found large spools of ribbon in the 2 for $5 bins near the registers in several wonderful colors!!!! I squealed with delight to myself - YIPPEE!! You can buy 100 yards of 3/8" luscious satin ribbon for $2.50! (A perfect size for card makers!) OMG - I nearly fainted, but managed to walk out with several colors. Don't you love a GREAT find like that?! Be sure to completely remove the blue tape by pulling back the cardboard side. It's very sticky and can damage the ribbon. (Obviously, the packaging was not designed by a crafter - hehe!)

The Perfect Hostess Gift for the Holidays

I mentioned THE CAKE WORKS below and they also sell pre-assembled gingerbread houses that they package with a supply of pre-made royal icing and a variety of treats to add to the houses. (Pre-orders are required.) It's one of my favorite hostess gifts to give during the Christmas holidays and it gives off a wonderful gingerbread fragrance - oh, the memories that aroma brings back! Here's a pic of a house my sister and I made -- yes, I finally bought a kit for myself -- and the two of us had a blast putting our creation together! We bought frosted mini shredded wheat cereal for our roof...and you won't believe it, but my sister-in-law kept this creation from 2006 and it still looks great!

Halloween Ghost Pretzels

Here's a fun idea for your little goblins this Halloween: Take white melting chocolate disks (I buy mine from The Cake Works on Bascom Avenue), melt them for one minute intervals in the microwave, then dip pretzel sticks in the chocolate and place on glossy sparkling paper cut slightly larger than the sticks, add edible eyes and bats (also from the Cake Works), put them in the fridge or freezer for 10 minutes, and add bat stickers or punches. Once they come back to room temp, package the sticks in cellophane bags (also available at the Cake Works). Can you tell I love shopping at the Cake Works?! (BTW - they're closed on Mondays.) One year I made a zillion of these for my kids' school Halloween parties and they were a BIG hit!

Revised Measurements for Pleats

I had to revise the measurements for the pleated card I just posted last night! (See it HERE.) I think I need to go to bed earlier so my brain can function properly - LOL! The first pleat is created by scoring the paper at 3/4" and 1" , then the next pleat is created by scoring at 2" and 2 1/4". Continuing adding a score line at every inch and quarter inch until you get the number of pleats you desire. This birthday card shows 5 pleats and is an A7 (5 x 7") card. The trick is to make sure your score lines are straight!

Any Occasion Fall Cards

Here's a set of fall cards I just finished. I was running out of cards without sayings on the front that could quickly fit any occasion - and it's always nice to have some of those on hand!

The dark brown portion of the card (next to the fall leaf paper) is pleated using my Scor-Pal. Simply score a piece of lightweight paper at 3/4", 1", 2", 2 1/4", 3" and 3 1/4" then fold to pleat, adhere to the card front, turn the card over and trim all 3 sides for an exact fit. Finally, add the top DSP (Designer Scrapbook Paper) and the ribbon of your choice. Give your cards an unexpected dimension with this simple pleat technique!

Next, try creating a 3-D accent for any card by using a square of the matching paper and adding at least two complimentary but contrasting layers, then adhere it to your card or layout with foam tape. Here I used a 1/16" border of black and a 1/4" border of metallic gold behind the black layer to complete the rich look of this card. The card pictured in the front also shows how to take a large brad and some cording (or narrow ribbon) to create a little picture hanger effect with the 3-D accent.

The DSPs are all from K&Co. and the dark brown ribbon is BASIC BASIC (from Michaels). It's a dream to tie into knots! Grab a card and some ribbon then follow along with my YouTube videos on how to tie the perfect knots HERE.

Martha's Bat Punch

As previously promised, here is my Halloween bat card using my favorite Halloween punch from Martha Stewart. I used little amber gems for the eyes, and in person, those gems really make this card stand out! (FYI: The HANG IN THERE was printed on my computer and a stamp from Stampin' Up's ITSY BITSY stamp set was used to make the tiny black dots on the aqua blue background paper. The small star brads are from Making Memories at Michael's, and the skeleton ribbon was in the $1 bin at Michael's - gotta' love those dollar bins!)

A Chance to Spread Happiness!

Stamp: Bear for Paige (Whimsystamps.com)

Nestibilities: Labels 4

Note: Shading done with 2nd to largest Label 4 Nestie in place and sponging on Stampin' Up Bordering Blue ink.

I found this posting below on the whimsystamps.com website today. (See purple text.) If you enjoy using digital images to color with your Copics, please consider helping their cause by purchasing this cute little bear image shown here for $3. I have just donated a pdf with a bear saying that can be used with this bear image. To get this free saying - with 6 of the same sayings on one page for layouts or greeting cards, go to my MLO site and download it from the MLO DOWNLOADS page. If you purchase this image, thank you for making a difference in this girl's life! My saying to go with this bear image is:

In my next life,

I want to be a teddy bear…

EVERYBODY loves you,

the OLDER you get the more

valuable you become, and

you never have

to WATCH your weight!

Recently, Paige Welch, a young NH girl, was seriously injured in a boating accident. This child is the neighbor of our DT member Erin Bailey. Paige will be facing many months of recovery and many more medical bills.

In an effort to help, Whimsy Stamps has designed a special digital image in honor of Paige. “A Teddy for Paige” is now available for download. All proceeds from the sale of this image will go to Paige’s Account at Seacoast Credit Union in Exeter NH.

Start Your Holiday Shopping NOW!

The second Used Stamp Sale at Cranberry Hill started today at 10am. Over 80 sellers and TONS of stamps, cutters, paper, tools...something for everyone. The sale runs through Sept 30th. I'm participating and dropped off a lot of new and nearly new stamps for the sale (at ridiculously LOW prices!), plus many other paper craft items and supplies. Check it out at:

Stamp On Over @ Cranberry Hill Mercantile 1014 W. El Camino Real Sunnyvale, CA 94087 408-736-9151 http://stamponover.com stamponover@yahoo.com NOTE: Cranberry Hill is between S. Bernardo and Mary Avenues

Cards from Creative Friends

Here are two cards from my VERY talented card club buddies: The top one is from Mel Morgathaler and the lower one is from Janet Shannon. I love Mel's use of clear VersaMark ink to stamp a background on the gold (More Mustard) and green (Mellow Moss) cardstock. She also used a background stamp from Stampin' Up called "Linen" to put a subtle texture on the gold cardstock. These details enhance the overall style of this card, and the saying she used on this card is one of my favorites!

Janet's adorable little monkey card included a lined coordinated envelope - such a nice surprise when I opened the card! You can simply trace an opened envelope on the paper of your choice, then cut it out by cutting in approximately 1/2" along the top flap area (so the envelope glue is exposed), then adhere this piece inside your envelope with your favorite adhesive. Try this wonderful technique on your next card!

Another Pocket Silhouette Card

I LOVE this Stampin' Up set called Pocket Silhouettes! I used the butterfly punch by Martha Stewart, added some diamond gems to the center of the butterfly body, and stamped the card with the "Thinking of You" sentiment from SU's Bird on a Branch. The punch used in the background card is SU's label punch along with SU's scallop punch. I waited a long time before I ordered that scallop punch. I kept asking myself if I REALLY needed another punch (i.e. an exercise in delayed gratification - hehe!)...and it has turned out to be one of the punches I'm using the most these days -- so this time, the answer to my question was "OH YES YOU DO!"

Sneak Peak

I'm busy getting project samples ready for my October class and this is one of the projects we'll be doing for that class. I love this little owl and I hope the people in my October class will love her, too! This was a prototype and I'm still deciding on the final colors... I sure am having fun with this project :-)