Project 101 of 365: Just Believe Birthday Card October 12, 2010

Well, as of yesterday I have been back at my old job of selling Mercedes Benz for one week….but I haven’t sold any cars yet….LOL!!  I expected it to take awhile to get back in the game.  I have to re-learn everything I forgot, and learn everything that has changed, plus become calmer so that I come accross as more confident to my customers.   Gee….its so much easier to “sound” confident on line…haha.  I’m sure the nerves will calm soon enough 🙂  Too bad “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, because I’ve “almost” sold a bunch of cars.  LOL!!!!!

I’ve also been too tired to post anything when I get home from work, as my body still hasn’t gotten used to my new schedule.  I was so used to staying up late (especially since my husband works late), so trying to get to bed earlier has been a struggle, but slowly all is settling in 🙂

As always, I have a huge PILE of projects just waiting to be blogged about.  Starting with this cute birthday card I made for my sister-in-law a few weeks ago.  This card is cased, and I will add the name of the original crafter as soon as I find it.  (I’m on a break at work, and my notes are at home.)

Project 101 of 365: Just Believe Birthday Card

101 of 365: Just Believe Birthday Card

101 of 365: Just Believe Birthday Inside

 

Supplies:

Paper:

• Crumb Cake
• Very Vanilla
• Early Espresso

Stamps:

• Just Believe
• Full of Life

Ink:

• Cherry Cobbler
• Crumb Cake
• Crushed Curry

Accessories:

• Stickles
• Vanilla Ribbon
• Modern Label Punch
• Punch Windows Set (for Sizzix, this is where that larger modern label is from)

Well, thats all for now.  Come back soon!

StampinBetty

Project 80 of 365: Black Magic Birthday Card September 2, 2010

So awhile back when I first discovered the Black Magic Technique I stamped and colored soooooo many images, but then they just sat in a pile waiting to be used, so today I decided to use a couple of them.  Not only this, but I also challenged myself to use colors I don’t normally use.  I decided it was time to be BOLD and use some bold colors, since I almost always tend to stick with Earthtones and Neutrals.  I just like “warm” colors 🙂  I do, somewhat, have a mixed feelings over my use of such dramatic and contrasting colors here, but in the end I do like it…I guess that is why they call it challenging yourself.

In case you have not yet discovered the Black Magic technique, it is so cool and so simple.  All you do is take a piece of black (or any darker colored) cardstock and stamp solid images using Whisper White Craft ink.  You then heat set the Craft ink, and when it is set you color over the white areas with either Stampin’ Up!’s watercolor pencils or PrismaColor pencils (I suppose any colored pencil might work, but I have got great results from these 2 types of pencils.)  Remember to use multiple shades of the same color to get results with more depth, and for that extra kick highlight with a white gel pen.

Maybe the reason I like this technique so much is because I get to visit one of my childhood favorite past times….Coloring 🙂

Project 80 of 365: Black Magic Birthday Card

80 of 365: Kind and Caring Birtday

Supplies:

Paper:

• Elegant Eggplant
• Cameo Coral
• Basic Black

Stamps:

• Kind & Caring Thoughts (retired hostess set)
• Teeny Tiny Wishes

Ink:

• Basic Black- Marker
• Whisper White- Craft Ink

Accessories:

• PrismaColor Pencils or Watercolor Pencils
• HodgePodge Kit- Silver
• 1/4″ Elegant Eggplant Grosgrain Ribbon
• Fancy Label Punch
• Tag Corner Punch

Thanks for checking it out.  I have more in store for you so keep checking back 🙂

StampinBetty

Project 74 of 365: Slot Machine Birthday Card August 17, 2010

First of all, the Bret Michael’s concert was awesome!!!  I am so glad my friends offered me their extra ticket.  I was able to get up to the front row and snap some close-up shots (of course security shoo-ed me back to my seat after my “allotted” 10 seconds of photo snapping was up.  LOL!).  Our tickets were in row 13 right in the middle area, so we had a great view, unfortunately this also meant that my ears were ringing so loud that even though I was totally beat and wanted to fall asleep as soon as I got home I couldn’t, because all I could hear was the ringing 🙂

Who knows….maybe my friends and I will even end up on VH1.  The Milwaukee concert was supposed to be part of the first Episode of Bret Michael’s new VH1 reality show (called something like Life as I Know It) set to air in October.  Hopefully it will be as mindlessly entertaining as Rock of Love or Charm School. : )

The card posted below is the Birthday card I made for my Father-in-Law.  He loves going to the casino with his uncle, sometimes even in those big groups on tour buses.  He’s not some big gambler or anything, he mostly just goes for fun, and this is a good thing since he is a widower, it gets him out of the house and keeps him from being as lonely.  He is such a GREAT guy, I would hate to think of him unhappy!

I wanted to use a slot machine as the inspiration for the card, unfortunately I didn’t have any Cricut cartridges with a slot machine, and I couldn’t find any vector images that would have properly cut with my Sure Cuts A Lot, so I decided to just make the front of the card look like the windows on the slot machine with the winning 777 showing.  I think it worked out pretty cool.

Just a hint…..if you have super tiny, intricate cuts that you need to layer, the best way is to use a Zyron sticker machine.  For the “Happy Birthday” I just used the cheaper 1.5″ sticker machine.  It worked great because I didn’t have to try to use (and clean up) glue on these TINY slivers.

…And I finally was able to pull out at least a couple Stampin’ UP! stamps for the inside of the card.  I used the “Game Night” set and a really old retired set for the “Happy Birthday.”

Project 74 of 365: Slot Machine Birthday Card

74 of 365: Slot Machine Birthday Card

74 of 365: Slot Machine Birthday-Inside

Check back soon as I plan on getting back in my craft room and back to some Stampin’ UP! stamping.  Let me know if you have any requests for a stamp set I should concentrate on.

StampinBetty

72 of 365: Birthday Movie August 14, 2010

Where to start, where to start…..the dentist visit or the concert????  Well obviously the concert 🙂

I am so excited.  Tonight I am going to the Bret Michels concert at the Wisconsin State Fair!!!  So actually 2 exciting things:  I have never been to the State Fair and, well… its Bret Michels.  Why, you ask, am I so excited over Bret Michels?  Well, that comes with a story.  It either starts with my brother and I constantly listening to an old Poison TAPE (thats right, a cassette tape, google it if you are too young to remember those LOL!!) and singing along when we were kids…Or more likely it comes from my guilty pleasure of watching that ridiculous VH1 show Rock of Love.  Because, even though I know every word to all the old Poison songs, my brother and I grew up without cable TV, so no MTV to actually see the band or the trouble they got into.  I honestly, did not know who Bret Michels was until the Rock of Love.  Too funny 🙂 Today kids would try to make claims of child abuse if they didn’t have cable TV, but back then it was just a thing for city kids to waste time on.  We lived WAY out in the country growing up, and it didn’t seem like we were missing out on anything….  Wow how the world changes (btw…I’m not “old,” will be 32 next week.)

I LOVED watching that completely ridiculous show…  All three seasons, thinking/knowing he was never really going to find that special someone on that show.  Heck, I probably would have continued watching and laughing my a$$ off even if it went to 10 seasons.  I think it was a way to wind down, and let my brain go numb since ,at the time, I was DEEP DEEP DEEP into my graduate studies and visions of statistics and patterns even haunted me in my sleep, so watching something completely senseless probably helped reduce stress.  LOL!

Well, there you have it…I’m going to my first concert in probably over 10 years (Last concert I went to see was Bob Dylan, on some kind of come back tour,  in Green Bay), and since our seats are pretty close to the stage I will probably behave like a star-struck teenager. 🙂

The first project I am posting today is a Birthday card my Sister-In-Law asked me to make.  It was for her friend whom she regularly goes out to movies with.  Her only real request for the card was for it to have a tub of popcorn on the front.  In many ways I actually like the inside of the card more than the outside.  Plus I personalized the inside message with an inside joke the 2 of them share.  To do this I just made some word art in photoshop.  All of the paper piecing is from my Cricut and Gypsy

Project 72 of 365: Birthday Movie Card

72 of 365: Birthday Movie Card

72 of 365: Birthday Movie Card Inside

I have quite a few things to post for you, so we will see how far I get today 🙂

StampinBetty

Project 41 of 365: All a Flutter Birthday June 29, 2010

Have any of you guys ever seen stamp set and thought  “I just have  to have that,” then ordered it right away, waited impatiently for many days for it to arrive, and then you finally get it and  you leave it sit for a month (or often times much longer) without ever using it? This is something I have done far more times than I would like to admit.  The main stamp used in this card is a perfect example of this.

As soon as I saw the All a Flutter a la carte stamp in the back of the Summer Mini Catalog I just HAD to have it.  I had so many ideas in my head about how I was going to use it.  The whole 1 1/2 weeks I spent waiting for it to arrive seemed like torture.  Well I got that stamp over a month ago, and have I posted a single project using it?  Nope….today is the first time I touched that stamp, even though it seemed so hard to wait for it to arrive.  lol!

Luckily, I’m really loving this first card I finally made with it.  In case you are wondering….the butterflies are stamped in versamark onto cardstock vellum, heat embossed with black embossing powder, and then colored with markers, and popped up with dimensionals.  It’s just such a happy card 🙂  I am  so glad I finally put this stamp to use, and I hope to use it much more often in the future.

Project 41 of 365:  All a Flutter Birthday

41 of 365: All a Flutter Birthday

Kinda makes me want to go to the park 🙂  In the picture it doesn’t show all that well, but the background was textured using the square lattice textured impressions folder.

This card was inspired by a similar card made by Wanda Cleveland, another Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator.

Supplies:

Paper:

• Cardstock Vellum
• Whisper White
• Basic Black
• Old Olive
• Pumpkin Pie

Ink:

• Versamark
• Old Olive

Markers:

• Tangerine Tango
• Crushed Curry
• Concord Crush

Stamps:

• All a Flutter
• Watercolor Trio

Accessories:

• Scallop Oval Punch
• Large Oval Punch
• 1 1/4″ Square Punch
• Black Emboss Powder
• Square Lattice Textured Impressions Emboss Folder

Thank you for checking out my latest creations.  Be sure to check back soon 🙂

StampinBetty

Project 14 of 365: All Star Birthday May 31, 2010

Today is my husband’s nephews’ birthday.  He has twin nephews who are very into baseball, and play on a little league team.  So when my husband mentions to me an HOUR before their birthday cookout that we needed birthday cards I was like what the heck am I going to be able to whip up in less than an hour (plus I still needed to get ready to go.)  I almost went to the store and bought cards….but I realized that would just not be right since I am trying to show everyone how easy it is to make their own.

As I thought about it I knew I had recently purchased the “Just Baseball” stamp set, but I wanted more that those 3 simple stamps, so I pulled out the trusty Cricut as I have tons of cartridges, and even the Gypsy, that have not seen their fair play time since I started on this self-imposed Stampin’ Up! Challenge.  I decided I was still going to post the cards here on my blog, even though I used my Cricut, because the paper, and the stamps inside are Stampin’ Up!  And since I’m the boss here I win 🙂

Jason and Brian play on a little league team called the Red Sox, and their jerseys look like the Boston Red Sox, so I decided that would be the theme for the card.  I cut the words “All Star” from the Baseball Cartridge, Their initials from the “black letter” cartridge, and “birthday” from the “Stamping” cartridge.  I had also cut out baseball player silhouettes, but I decided not to use them as the card was getting crowded.

Inside the card I stamped “Happy Birthday” from the “Birthdays Count” stamp set, and then stamped off with all the images from the “Just Baseball” stamp set.

Project 14 of 365: All Star Birthday

14 of 365: All Star Birthday

If you look close enough you will see that the glue is not even dry yet….but I had to get the pictures snapped, and get on the road because we were about to be late for their birthday cookout, so excuse the messy glue 🙂

Inside of the All Star Birthday Cards:

14 of 365: All Star Birthday inside

Supplies:

Paper:

• Whisper White Textured
• Night of Navy Textured
• Real Red Textured
• Yoyo Yellow Textured

Stamp Sets:

• Just Baseball
• Birthdays Count (retired)

Classic Ink:

• Real Red
• Night of Navy

Other:

• Cricut
• Baseball Solutions Cartridge
• Blackletter Solutions Cartridge
• Stamping Solutions Cartridge

I’m happy with the results since I only had an hour, and the boys thought it was pretty cool that their baseball birthday cards were homemade.  Even their mom liked the cards and she’s not into crafts….

Well I still have another project to post today, so check back soon!

Hope Everyone had a Great Memorial Day weekend!

StampinBetty