Make a Difference

I’m underneath a mountain of laundry and unopened mail as we’ve had a busy, busy week at the Craig house, so I’m keeping the blah, blah to a bare minimum. This is a super fast card for my sweet hubby who has really helped me this week! Hope you have a wonderful, restful weekend.

You can see lots of inspiration if you visit Beate Johns, Cambria Turnbow, Charmaine Ikach, Laurie Schmidlin, Mary Jo Albright and Sharon Harnist.

• Stamps: Everything - Stampin’ Up!

• Cardstock: Brown linen - Archivers, Spring Willow Light Prism, Poison Ivory

• Ink: VersaMagic Dew Drops: Jumbo Java & Gingerbread, Tsukineko Glue Pad

• Accs: Build a Brad, lace (Making Memories), Glitter

Working with this Elvis is… Backgrounder is like having an entire hip sentiment collection on one backgrounder. I used the words ‘hunka burnin’ love’ and ‘dreamy’ and a marker to accent my shipping tag. Wouldn’t this be cute tied to a pair of flaming boxers for your man on Father’s Day!? Of course, I’m not going to post men’s flaming unders here on my blog, but you can imagine how fun that would be….right?

I started with a regular manilla shipping tag that I ‘rangerized’ using Distress Inks, cut and dry foam and a water mister. Then I overstamped with my new Vintage Ledger Scrapblock (TM) from CHF in Pitch Black Adirondack. These huge hunks (Scrapblocks (TM)) of rubbah (6×6) are being released next week. At 6×6, you are not confined to either portrait or landscape for your card design..either works! Added my Elvis, glitter with a Tsukineko Glue Pad (I use a stamp-a-ma-jig to over-stamp my glue), sentiment stamp and the backgrounder words ‘marked off’ with a black marker and a romantic swirly-do from the Rummage Bin Beautiful set,  heart shaped brads and ribbons. 

See you in the morning…

CHF is releasing a fun Elvis backgrounder today. Lots of little sentiments that will make fun vacation cards, postcards, tags and silly cards for pop-culture lovers. For this thank you card, I masked off Elvis and overstamped the whole backgrounder, but then used marker to ‘omit’ the extras and only get ‘hip swiveling’.

For this fun altered tag, I stamped the whole backgrounder over the polka dotted paper in a light blue ink, then used the marker again to ink up ‘Rock & Roll’. Jumpsuit Silhouette is my FAVE of ALL THE ELVIS IMAGES! I love this black and tiffany blue combo. The black rhinestones are from Archivers… The Prima bling charm was a gift.

This super simple card uses only the ‘Rock & Roll’ words, too.

Here’s a snapshot of the entire backgrounder…

I’ve got one more fun Elvis project to show you a bit later this morning.  Thanks for stopping by…

My oldest nephew turned 12 this month. This is a slight variation of the card I sent him. I love that Kim Hughes images work for any age, any gender.

I had trouble photographing this at first because there was loose glitter all around the keys on the guitar. (Are those frets?) Finally, I took a toothpick and brushed away the excess glitter..much happier now.  Thanks for stopping by.

• Stamps: Supah Star by Kim Hughes for Cornish Heritage Farms

• Cardstock: My Mind’s Eye (OK! I’ll burn what’s left!! or at the least put it away!!), Suede Dark Brown Prism, Teal Prism and Cryogen White

• Ink: Adirondack Espresso & Tsukineko Glue Pad (solid color under your glue image REALLY helps the finished look of your project - I learned the hard way)

• Accs: brads, chocolate glitter and stamp-a-ma-jig (MUST HAVE tool for me)

So according to this sweet little girl, Adrianna, I’m the ‘caller ID’ friend…today, I’m the Rhinestone Elvis friend.  I know she’s cooking something up with her Jump-suit Elvis today, and I told her I’d come up with something, too! 

I paired Jump-Suit Elvis with a new Elvis backgrounder called, “Elvis is…” (available this Friday) to create a pretty simple CELEBRATE card! What’s Elvis without a few rhinestones? LOL! These black ones are from Mark Richards, and I love the size. I get mine at Archivers.   To glitter Elvis up, I stamped him in black ink, then used a stamp-ma-jig to stamp over with Tsukineko Glue Pad - then covered with Black Martha Stewart Glitter.

 So make sure you check out Adri’s cards and give her some love!  Have a great long weekend!

Every good little southern girl needs monogrammed notes! Sweet Ashley doesn’t know it yet, but she’ll be needing several notecards this afternoon. LOL! So, I used my new JustRite monogram stamps (a birthday gift from a sweet, sweet friend) and the sketch today to make a few cards. The monogram stamps are great for quick, easy and personal gifts!

When I got done with the cards last night and was stamping her monogram on the back of the envie, I thought that a scalloped edge would be oh-so-pretty. So, I used my large scalloped rectangle Nestabilities from Ellen Hutson and did just that! Here’s how:

Supplies: scalloped rectangle dies, envelopes and your die cut machine

Put the sealing edge of your envelope through the center of the die, and align just the edge of the envelope with the edge of the die. Make sure your scallops will point downward. If you used the other side of the die, they would be inverted.

Layer the envelope and die with the appropriate plate sandwich for your die cutting machine and press as normal.

One other thing I wanted to comment on: Square cards sometimes present a problem with square envelopes, so I try to use standard when I can. Don’t be afraid to hang your ribbon off the edge. This will still fit the envelope just fine without bending or messing up the tags.

Check out the other sketch samples by Cambria,  Charmaine, Jenn, Mary Jo, Laurie, Sharon and Beate while I encourage a 7 year old to complete her necessary social notes. I bet you’ll be done before me, and a whole lot happier! Have a wonderful Friday!  

Thanks for all of your sweet comments. I just drew for a winner, and here is your random number:

46

Timestamp: 2008-05-21 13:57:14 UTC

Congrats to kim3timemom ~ send me your snail mail, and I’ll get this out today. I’m in the middle of about 5 projects: glitter and spray paint cans everywhere. Hoping to post a card in just a little bit. It’s the last day of school, and I’m trying to cram 9 months of work into the next 3 hours. Have a great, great day!

The last time I was in my fabulous local stamp store, Stamper’s Ink, who carries a large selection of Thomas Kinkade, they had the most gorgeous display board of samples. Several of the cards used a shimmery, texured cardstock and acetate. The shimmer and texture combination gives the stamped image a lot of depth and dimension. I snatched up some of that cardstock, and the technique was perfect for the Challenge Chicks Acetate challenge this morning.

The image is stamped on top of the acetate with Timber Brown StazOn and then layered onto the shimmery cardstock. Here’s a close up:

The scalloped topper allows for plenty of adhesive to hold the acetate from the top. Brads hold acetate and cardstock images together from the bottom. Brads solve the pesky, hide the adhesive issue. Then to hide the brad prongs on the inside of the card, I put a layer of capaccino metallic cardstock as a mat for the shimmery white layer.

I can’t wait to see what the other CHF gals have done with acetate today. The full team is playing today, so you can check any of their links to the right: Cornish Heritage Farms Designers.

Have a great day!  

I found the latest issue of Stamp It from Paper Crafts and CK Media on my doorstep last Friday. I was very excited to have several projects published here, a real honor considering the Splitcoast Rock Stars and Dirty Girl representation in this issue.  There are cards for almost every holiday and occassion in these pages. 

This is one of my projects in the issue. The santa image (WhipperSnapperDesigns) was one that I got in an image in a swap with my Portland Pals when we all traveled to Portland, OR back in October. I came home and colored Santa with Copics and glittered him in all the right places.  I loved how this came together with non-traditional Christmas colors.

The sweet folks at Paper Crafts sent me an extra issue to give away, as well! So, leave a comment here, and I’ll choose a winner tomorrow afternoon and send this out on Wednesday morning.  If you want to look for this issue locally, it’s a bargain at $5.99 US, and can be found in even the most remote Wal-mart stores or probably your local grocery. Thanks for letting me gush!