Card in a hurry!

My seven year old niece, Kristen, has begun writing to me, and the first time I was able to find a card appropriate for a little one.  But the few kid/cute cards I have are primarily for birthday occasions; it's not my favorite kind of card to make.  I have been swamped, especially with my final papers/exams for college before my one week break (in just a few days, hurrah!), but I've put off responding for too long.  Today I had a short free spot of time, so I whipped through my stashes of card "parts" and came up with these. The card was clearly from my earliest days of cardmaking; I always back paper panels with another cardstock panel before attaching now. Additionally, I always, at least until I stopped making cards to sell, hid the prongs of my brads behind the panel, and the brads on this card were straight through it.  The God Keeps His Promises image had an ink smudge on it, so I had never used it, but didn't want to pitch it.  Perfect for a child!

So, I just switched brads, and made a quick panel to go behind the ark. Card in just a minute or two ... if only it could always be so quick!

I decided to post a couple of cards I made with the Spanish version of this image.  Did you know that Biblical Impressions carries Christian Spanish stamps? In fact, it was in searching for Christian Spanish stamps eight or ten years ago that I discovered Biblical Impressions!

I have been enjoying all the butterfly stamps that Eureka and Biblical Impressions have.  This butterfly comes as a three part pattern, two pairs of wings and the body.  The birthday text can be found here.

I love using vellum for butterflies because it echoes the substance of their delicate wings.  This purple vellum has subtle swirls in it that adds a sublte depth to the wings.   Vellum is a little more challenging to make the curled up look for the wings than paper.  After assembling the butterfly, I weighted it down for a couple of hours to allow the glue (diamond glaze) to dry.  Then I took a long, heavy, narrow tool, and laid it across the body.  Then I took two easy mount stamps that happened to be lying near by, and pushed them under the wings.  I left it for a couple of hours, then attached it to the card.  I then lay the tool across the body again to make sure the glue adhered.

I put two pictures of the card because one better demontrates the actual purple color (it really has a rich, lovely color, not the greyish look you see in both), but the other is a much better (other than the color) representation of the card.

Card Quilt!

Somehow, a packet of fabric squares from my Grandmother ended up with me, which is rather ironic as I do not sew. Evidently, her parents had a factory that made fabrics, and these were some left over samples. I have a daughter who has done some basic quilting, so eventually I'll pass them on to her. However, it occured to me that I could make some fun background papers with the samples. I have a really shaky hand, so I didn't want to try laying them on the floor to photograph, so I chose several to overlap each other, and scanned them! The first time, I printed it out on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of cardstock, but then realized I'd get only two or three patterns that way, and little detail. So, I reduced the scan to a card sized panel. Then, using a stylus, I followed the scalloped edges of the swatches to add depth. I chose pale yellow and a rose pink to add to the antique look of the card. Happily, I had scalloped-edged scissors, and used them to trim the make quilts text.

This is the first time I've made my own printed cardstock, but I have enjoyed making "card quilts" with pre-printed papers, in which I tried for an actual look of a quilt, rather than just the "scraps." Click on the label for card quilts if you'd like to see that approach.

Biblical Impressions Blog Hop!

Welcome to the last stop on the Biblical Impressions blog hop! If you are arriving here from Jessica S., then you are at the right place! If not, then head to the QKR Stampede blog for a complete hop order. This month’s theme is WINGS!



This abstract dragonfly is part of a full sheet of stamps that I really love!

This second card was layed out last night, but I wanted to see the butterflies in the light of day before putting it together, and I'm glad I waited. I want to redo the butterflies, but the teacher in me can't resist demonstrating errors for everyone's edification, lol! So ... the butterflies were done with Gold Leaf (available from Biblical Impressions, but you'll need to go HERE to the Eureka page to see the colors). Why do they look so, um, ragged? Well, I have a plastic container with a lid where I place the item that needs foiling, and then when I brush off all the flakes,they are there for reuse. This is a good thing ... but one needs to recognize when the foil flakes have essentially become foil dust! My thought was that it would essentially just be like a variegated embossing powder, but as you can see here, it makes for not-quite-complete coverage. So, hopefully I've given some good instruction, but still given you an idea of how perfect these images are for gold leaf! I am working on a card with fresh gold leaf using a larger version of this butterfly, and hope to finish it this weekend or next. For now, college assignments are calling me!

The Matthew 7:7 stamp is found here.



Thanks for participating in our hop!

Eureka blog hop!

Welcome to the last stop on the April Eureka Blog Hop! If you are following the Hop, you should have arrived here from Roxie at "Paper Scraper"! If not, but you would like to start at the beginning, hop over to QKR Stampede for the entire hop!

This lacy butterfly comes in large and small sizes. I just recently ordered the large lacy butterfly, and thought it might work as a suncatcher. As you can see, it worked perfectly! The thick body makes a perfect spot for sticky tack to hide, so very easy to place.

I embossed the butterfly with versamark and fine black embossing powder. The transparencies were 3M brand for copiers. I used Sharpies to color. There are hairline areas where color did not seep in, repeated coverate did not work. But, they are not noticable from the window.

It was suggested I try sanding the transparency next time around, but the scratches showed through significantly. Unfortunately, my camera is much more forgiving than I am, and it's not easy to see from the pictures.

One last thing I wanted to show in my coloring, is the different style, not just in the basic differences in how I colored the wings (and I didn't test my sharpies out first; the bottom green, from the cap, looked like a much lighter green, which would have resulted in a more subtle color difference!), but how much I colored. On the blue/green butterfly, I did not color the edging, nor did I color what looks like a "gap" in the wing pairs.

It had also been suggested that I try alcohol inks on transparency. However, for me, it was an epic fail. Only one color actually really stained the transparency, other inks either did not show up, or worse "erased" any color there. It was odd, as though I were working with two families of ink, but they were all Adirondack. It was so challening, I finally threw out that particular butterfly. However, it is possible that I was using a poor quality transparency, and that a different type might work better. Since I had planned originally, before thinking of the suncatchers, to do a butterfly on a glossy cardstock with alcohol inks, I went ahead and made a butterfly that way:



I haven't made anything recently with the smaller buttefly, but you can click HERE to see a card I made a few years ago with it.

Blessed are the Peacemakers

This dove background stamp makes a beautiful image without any coloring at all, and so, a very simple card. However, I wanted to do some coloring ... well, some coloring ended up being coloring everything!

I stamped the image with Brilliance blue, and used chalks and colored pencils. The "makers" does not stand out well, so I darkened the letters with pencil. It's not visible, but I used a little grey chalk on the dove.