Asian Inspired Red Flowers

For the past several months, I have been creating a lot of Asian themed cards.  I really love this red flower paper.  It is from this Asian inspired heavy embossed pad that I got a few months ago.  I should of wrote down the name of the pad before I tore out all of the paper.  Live and learn.  The paper is really heavy and tearing the edges adds a great touch to the overall look of the card.

I layered the white card stock card with heavy burgundy paper first.  I sponged burgundy ink from a stamping pad to the paper to give it a little more color.  I then used some tan and green cardstock for the second and third layers.  I tore the edges and inked them with brown, burgundy, and black stamping pads to add some color and worn look.  I then mounted the red flower paper adding the same stamp ink to the sides.

The card itself is very simple but elegant.  I decorated the inside of the card as well.  If you are interested in purchasing the card, visit my etsy store
http://www.etsy.com/listing/48482927/asian-inspired-red-flowers-blank

Materials Used
Acid Free White Cardstock
Tan and Green Cardstock
Asian Red Flower Heavy Embossed Paper
Burgundy, Brown, and Black Stamping Pad

Japanese Fan on Pressed Flower Background

The Pagoda Cricut cartridge is fab. How can yoiu go wrong with a cartridge that features Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese writing). Check out Capadia Designs for great pictures of the booklet and information about the features of the cartridge.

There's going to be a lot that I can with this particular cartridge. I didn't even know here to begin. I figured I should start off simple and chose the fan design1. I love the flowers on the fan. A little painful for my machine to cut out the detail of the flowers. I had to help the cut with an X-Acto knife. Well worth the final product.

The white cardstock card is layered on textured light brown paper I found at Flax's. It was a bit expensive but I really love the texture. It is soft but a little but grainy. It went perfect with the pressed flower paper (also purchased at Flax's). Instead of a straight cut, I ripped the pressed flower paper to give the edges a little more of texture. I think the effect looks great especially with the fan die cut image.

For the fan I cut out several layers. For the base I used black card stock and then layered it with gold cardstock. The top layer with the flower detail was cut using sage green card stock from Bazzill Basics Paper. I finished the fan off by brushing black and gold stamping ink on the edges and on the flowers. The inside of the card is also layered with coordinating paper.

Materials Used
Acid Free White Cardstock
Textured Light Brown Paper (1st Layer)
Pressed Flower Paper (2nd Layer)
Cardstock Colors for Fan (white, black sage green)
Black & Gold Stamping Ink

Matryoshka Russian Doll Handmade Birthday Card

A bought a whole bunch of Cricut Cartridges a couple of weeks ago. CricutMachine.com was having a spectacular sale on all of their cartridges. I went a little crazy but ended up spending under $100.00 on 5 cartridges. You can't beat that especially when most of the great cartridges run anywhere $40.00 to $80.00. I usually buy my cartridges from ebay because I can get them for a fairly reseasonable price. But CricutMachine.com has great deals.

I love my Cricut and find it I find it helpful to get a really good look at the cartridges before I decide to purchase them. The web and blogs have great photos of the booklets for many of the cartridges. Capadia Designs has some good photos of the booklets. Diane posts great pictures of the booklets and has reviewed some of the cartridges. I really wanted to the from the Paisley cartridge for some cards that I had been thinking about but wasn't sure about the rest of the images. Checking out Diane's site sold me.

The Paisley cartridge is awesome and not only do I love the Russian doll image, the whole cartridge has sparked my creative juices. But I am in love with the Russian dolls. Lynn over at A Moment in Time has a great pop-up card design that I am hoping she will let me use for one of my creations.

The card is mounted in three layers (not including the heavy white cardstock paper that is used for the base of the card). Layer 1: I used is this burgundy cardstock that I had for years. I think I got it in bulk at Office Depot for a Psychology poster presentation I did way back in the day. Layer 2: Burning Ember form Bazzill Basics Paper. I love the color. I need to go back to Michael's and stock up on this color for my Fall cards. Layer 3: This paper is rather thin but I love the design. It's from My Mind's Eye's Complete Boy pad. The pad has some great designs for using with die cuts and background work on your cards.

The Matryoshka Russian Doll was made using several cut-outs of card stock from Bazzill Basics Paper. I used scraps that I had so I am not sure what the name of the colors are but I the shades I used are the following: white for the main card, then black to add a little more thickness and for the hair and eyebrows, red for the blush and center of the flower, pink for the lips, two different shades of orange for the head scarf and the flowers. The dress was mad from this gorgeous paisley paper from Anna Griffin, Inc. I love the colors.

The handwritten Happy Birthday tag is layered using the same paper for the used for the layering of the entire card. As usual, I also layered the inside of the card. I decided to add some machine stitching to the front of the card as well as the tag.

If you are interested in purchasing the card, I am selling it at my etsy store
(www.etsy.com/listing/49939832/matryoshka-russian-doll-handmade)


Materials Used
Acid Free White Cardstock
Burgundy Cardstock (1st Layer)
Bazzill Basics Paper - Burning Ember (2nd Layer)
Cardstock from My Mind's Eye "Complete Boy" Pad (3rd Layer)
Cardstock Colors for Matryoshka Doll (white, black, red, pink, two different shades of orange)
Anna Griffin Paisley Paper
Red Packing Cord
Machine Stitching (Brown Thread)

Ode to Clapton

I spent the day on filling orders for folks. This is the first of a few orders I completed. This card is for my god-sister to give my godfather. I was asked to create something that my pop would like and this is what I came up with. By the way, my pop loves it.

I mounted the card with Chantilly cardstock and then went through a few of my dad's Guitar Player magazines. I found sheet music for Eric Clapton's Layla and some blues cords and scanned them. Printed on heavy cardstock, I then stained the Layla sheet music with a tea bag and sponged the blues cords sheet music with a brown stamping pad. I adhered the the blues cord sheet music with glue and then machine stitched it to the base of the card. I also machine stitched the first bars of the Layla sheet music to the card. I printed out the greeting tag and adhered it to the card with glue tape. The card is embellished with gold brads.

Materials Used
Acid Free White Card Stock
Bazzill Basics Paper - Chantilly
Sheet Music
Tea Bag
Brown Stamp Pad
Gold Brads

Summer Solstice Sunflower Card Set

A friend from high school asked me to create some Summer Solstice cards for her fellow wiccans using sunflowers. I love sunflowers. They are my favorite flower and I have a huge collection of sunflower stamps.
I wanted to keep the design simple but elegant with. After spending an hour playing around with my stamp images, I came up with the design pictured.

The card was made using heavy white card stock. I layered the front of the card with Bazzill Basics Paper Cream Paper and this very cool olive green cream flower embossed decorative paper. I machine stitched the sides of the decorative paper to the base of the card using cream thread and added clear yellow buttons to the corners using some heavy brownish-gold packaging thread that I got at Flax's a few weeks ago.

For the sunflower, I stamped the image 3 times on white card stock using cream stamping ink. I cut out the main image and then cut out the flower portion of the image twice. The two flower portions of the sunflower are layered using mounting tape. I colored the sunflowers with yellow, brown, tan, and orange markers. For the center of the flower, I added gold micro beads. Once the sunflower was dry, I glued the image to the center of the card

The "Summer Solstice Greetings" tag was printed on heavy white card stock using a cool Celtic font that I had downloaded for my St. Patrick's day cards. I brushed the tag with orange and gold stamp pads.

The inside of the cards (which have been left blank) are cream and have been sponged with gold stamping ink.

Materials Used
Acid Free White Card Stock
Olive Green Cream Flower Embossed Decorative Paper
Sunflower Stamp
Cream, Gold, and Light Orange Stamp Pads
Clear Yellow Buttons
Brownish-Gold Packing Thread
Gold Photo Turns
Yellow, Brown, Tan, & Orange Markers
Machine Stitching

Flower Power

I can't tell you how much I love TV. My favorite show is Lost but I'm up for anything (except for reality tv). After watching some old episodes of the Brady Bunch, I wanted to do something creative with flowers and windows. So this is what I came up with.

The base of the card is white card stock. I layered the card with some burgundy card stock. I next cut out small squares of decorative flower card stock that I had from a paper kit and some plain off-white and pink card stock. I folded the off-white and pink card stock in half to form the windows. I painted the edges of the windows with some burgundy acyrillic paint and added iridescent glitter to the front of the window to give it some 70's feel. After everything was dried, I mounted the two small flower decorative paper and windows on different shade of burgundy paper and attached the windows using gold photo turns.

For the middle of the card, I broke out the cricut and cut multiple flowers in various shades from the Walk in My Garden cartridge. I attached the two outer flowers with a gold brad and the two center flowers were attached with glue on a strip of yellow based flower decorative paper. I added some decorative beads in the center of the two flower for some added effect.

I next embellished the card with yellow ribbon, decorative beads, and some multi-colored fibers (which I attached to the decorative flower paper). When you turn the photo turns, you will see that I added two pop-up flower stickers. As with all my cards, I also decorated the inside of the card to match the front.



Materials Used
Acid Free White Card Stock
Decorative Flower Card Stock
2 Shades of Burgundy Card Stock
Pink and Tan Card Stock
Flower Images from Cricut Walk In My Garden Cartridge
Gold Photo Turns
Pop-Up Flower Stickers
Gold Brads
Purple Beads
Yellow Ribbon and Multi-Colored Fibers

Lavender Shaker Note Card(s)

I love the smell of lavender. I keep lavender in my dresser drawers. I thought it would be cool to make a shaker card. I ran across some Rossler Papier sage photo cards at Flax that were perfect for what I was thinking about. I was just going to buy one, but thought that the card idea would be great for a set of note cards.
 

The card is a double-fold and perfect for shaker cards. It already had an oval cut out so no extra work involved. First, I cut out some transparent paper and attached it to the back of the first tri-fold of the card placing it over the oval cut out. I then sprinkled the organic dried lavender over the transparent paper. 

Using mounting tape, I then proceeded to mount Sage Bazzill Basics Paper over the dried lavender. I sealed the first fold over the card to give the lavender a little more security. For the front of the card, I heat embossed a decorative stamp image and added black and gold brads and accented the card with purple ribbon. I scraped the edges of the card to add a bit of texture. 

Materials Used:
Rossler Papier Sage Photo Card
Bazzill Basics Paper - Sage
Decorative Stamp & Pirate Gold Stampendous Embossing Powder
Purple Ribbon
Black and Gold Flower Shaped Brads