A Birthday Card and SVG Purses

Today is our daughter-in-law's birthday. Their family is vacationing in Hawaii to celebrate it and to also celebrate that she recently passed the last of her radiation oncology boards. She's really amazing and scored in the top 10 in the nation! She did this while working long hours at the University of Washington, doing research, writing papers . . . and being pregnant. We are so proud of her. I know that our son and grandson are happy to spend more time with her!

I created a cut file based on a card featured in one of my online die cutting classes. The words were cut out using my Silhouette and I backed it using strips of colored cardstock.

In my last post I showed a purse Mother's Day card made using a file of purses I purchased from SVGCuts. I made two of the smallest purses which actually serve as gift card holders. There are also pictures of the two medium size purses I recently made as well as the large beach tote I made today. The last is my favorite, and I'm going to use it as a gift bag.

Happy Mother's Day

This was the first Mother's Day I spent without my mom so it was a little sad. I had one less card to make :( Here are the three cards I did this year.

The first card I made for my awesome daughter-in-law. I adapted a gift card holder from an SVGCuts file and added an organza flower and some bling. I was lucky it made it to Seattle in time because I mailed it at the eleventh hour!

Next was one for my sister using the ombre ink blending technique that Laura Bassen demonstrated in my Stretch Your Dies class.

The last card I made for a friend who always remembers me on Mother's Day! It uses a hodgepodge of techniques, chalk inks, and a favorite flapper stamp.

Happy Spring!

SYD: A Few Additional Cards

Even though class has been over for a few days, there were several techniques I still wanted to try.

Day 2: Flower Dies
I loved the simplicity of Yana's card. Her color choices were wonderful so I used them on my card as well. I have a central large image surrounded by several smaller die cuts and bling.

Day 6: Border Dies
Using the same die cut stencil that I used on my original Day 6 card, I totally CASEd an Easter card that Laura Bassen posted on Flickr. Thanks for all your wonderful ideas, Laura!

Day 7: Alphabet Dies

Before class started the only alphabet dies that I had were Sizzlets and the thick Sizzix original dies, neither of which would work for Kathy's hidden letter card. The Kaisercraft alphabet dies I ordered arrived late, so I am experimenting with them for the first time. Instead of doing a wonderful stamped background like Kathy did, I used a Graphic 45 print for my card. The letters (FRIEND) are almost totally hidden even though I used 3 layers of thick packaging card beneath the cardstock letters. My husband didn't see the word at all until I pointed it out, so it is likely to be hidden from the recipient of the card as well LOL. Maybe the pattern is too busy but you must admit that it's hidden. Maybe if you look really hard you can spot it!

I've thoroughly enjoyed my 6th OCC and enjoyed viewing and commenting on other participants' cards. The only down side I saw was that it didn't seem like very many other people visited or commented on them. Often I was the only comment posted for many of the cards I viewed. That was unlike my experience in the other classes and it was disappointing.

SYD: Alphabet Dies

This is my first ever shaker card which was inspired by Jennifer McGuire's alphabet shaker card. The shaped design was roughly modeled after several Over the Hill cards found on Pinterest. 

SYD: Border Dies

The examples in class today were awesome! I especially liked Debby's ship card with the inlaid waves. My one and only border die is a Tim Holtz's On The Edge die that may have worked had I liked the edge it made. However I have quite a few EK Edger punches that did the trick. The butterflies are from a Hero Arts/Sizzix die & stamp set, Butterflies 3, and I stamped the butterflies and embossed them in white over navy paper with tiny blue polka dots. I was inspired yesterday to try stamping on patterned paper! Instead of using VersaMark embossing ink, I like to use SU white ink when embossing in white because it seems to take the powder better.

I also loved playing around with the ink shading done by Laura. Defeating the purpose of using a border die in a novel way, I hand cut my die on a sheet of acrylic. The flower is from SU Flower Patch. I haven't decided what occasion I will use this card for, so I haven't added a sentiment yet.

SYD: Coordinating Dies and Stamps

I was looking forward to today's theme because I have quite a few coordinating die and stamp sets. I wasn't disappointed. There were so many great ideas today and since I'm trying not to drive myself crazy by trying to do them all in one day,  I chose Shari Carroll's card as my inspiration. 

I used the Hero Arts/Sizzix Butterflies 3 stamp and die set and cut the scalloped oval using a Spellbinders Nestabilities die. I watered down some Picked Raspberry DI and painted around the edges of the oval so it didn't just blend into the card background. The coordinating papers were from a 6 x 6 stack I've had forever. I might add some additional bling after I've looked at it a while! 

SYD: Mini Dies

I loved all the videos today, but I didn't have a word die to try Kristina's card layout.  I decided to create a Silhouette file for this and had mixed results. After blending my background using Spun Sugar, Picked Raspberry, and Barn Door distress inks, I backed the Neenah cardstock with a double sided adhesive sheet. Because the adhesive backing was so slick it kept shifting on my cutting mat, but I eventually secured it with painters tape and got it cut out :) It would probably have been easier to glue everything in place so maybe I will try that the next time. To create the shapes surrounding the word I used a variety of font dingbats.

The companion card seemed to need spicing up, so I used a clear glitter Wink of Stella brush to add a bit of sparkle.

I'm going to try Jennifer Rasa's card next using actual dies!

SYD: Basic Shape Dies

My 91-year-old mom recently passed away, and I wanted to use a childhood picture of her as the centerpiece for a personalized thank you card. Today's card by Jennifer McGuire was one that I wanted to adapt for my thank you card.

I started out using plain cardstock for the card base, but I liked the look of this vintage cardstock so I ended up using that instead. The cutout is a Spellbinders Nestability, and I mounted the hand colored photo of my mom on the next larger size diecut which I embossed and shaded with Distress Ink.

inside view

SYD: Flower Dies

Fortunately I have a lot of flower dies to choose from. I cut a variety of them from a piece of card stock that I had colored with distress inks and then embossed. Once the shapes were arranged I kept them grouped using Post It tape a la Kristina in her video. Using a large oval Spellbinders Nestabilities die for my shape, I cut and then adhered the piece to a white A2 card using foam. My 'hugs' die finally arrived, was used on black card, and attached to my oval piece. Since the card seemed a tad bland, I added some faux stitching around the card edges.

Online Card Classes: Stretching Your Dies, Word Dies

I'm happy to be taking my fifth OCC, but this time I'm not going to make myself crazy by trying to make a card for every video. Let's see how that works out! For the first day I set out to try Jennifer McGuire's technique of shrinking craft foam. It was a challenge just to find a word die in my stash, but I managed to find a Sizzlet that said Happy Birthday. It turned out to be (1) too small and (2) too fiddly and hard to separate the words from the background card and foam. Then came the disaster of heat shrinking the words. Here you can see my disastrous results. It was so mangled that I had to come up with a Plan B.

After sleeping on it, I thought about die cutting the words out of glitter cardstock and setting it in among all the other Happy Birthdays making up the faux embossing. Although gluing all the script words to the card was time consuming, I was fairly happy with the outcome.

On to Day Two!

Online Card Class: A Cut Above Part 2

The second part of the OCC Cut Above class focused on using your Silhouette. Although they used an earlier version of the software, it was similar enough to mine to be really useful!

This CASE card was based on a Laura Bassen card that I loved.
I created the 'happy' cut file on my silhouette and mounted it over an inked background.

This was inspired by a Kristina Werner card in Part 1 of the class. I didn't have a word bubble die so I used the trace feature in the software to create one.

I bought 99¢ files for these flip cards from the Silhouette Store.

This was inspired by a card from one of the Jennifer McGuire videos in the class.I stamped the butterfly & used my PixScan mat to cut the image
and created a file for the sentiment.

The white front is an intricately cut Silhouette file.

Online Card Class: A Cut Above Part 1

This winter I took three Online Card Classes, but because they were not current classes I was no longer able to post to the galleries.  A Cut Above Part 1 used die cutting on standard machines such as my Big Shot while Part 2 used a Silhouette. The videos and projects on both were excellent. Here are a few of the cards I made for Part 1.

Stampin' Up Flower Patch stamp and coordinating die sets

partial cutting of the butterfly using Sizzix Framelits & Stamps: Butterflies #3

layered cutting using Nestibilities

The white embossed square and the four circles were cut with Spellbinders Nestibilities
while the polka dot embossed flowers were cut out using a punch.

Valentines

Having lived in the Midwest my entire life, you would think I would be used to winter --- or at least tolerant of it. However, I HATE WINTER, especially SNOW. Very depressing. This year I decided to cheer myself up by keeping busy taking more Online Card Classes.

Right after Christmas I bought a Silhouette Cameo and I really love it! When looking at the card class offerings, I saw a 2-part die cutting class. The first part was getting the most out of your dies and the second was about using your Silhouette to create cut images. I was really excited to get a ton of card ideas plus I got so much better acquainted with my Cameo's features. Many of my valentines used ideas from the die cutting class.

There are so many free svg cut files online, and I modified one to make these candy-filled treat boxes for my Bunco group.

This valentine for my husband was inspired by a card made by Jennifer McGuire in the class. Even though I wasn't that happy with the angle of the heart on mine, it was a good technique exercise and I loved the color combo.

My Silhouette bundle came with two $25 cards to use at the Silhouette store. This valentine was for my older son and his wife and I a purchased this card file from the store.

I then bought a file that had 3-layered blocks spelling VALENTINE. All the letters needed to spell my grandson's name, Nolan, were there except for the 'O' so I was easily able to match that letter to the others. However when the blocks were assembled, they were too big for the front of his card. Since Nolan loves construction vehicles, I used the scan, trace, and cut feature to make an excavator. By adding a mini envelope to the excavator's scoop, I had a place to hold the letters of his name so that he could remove and play them. I also decorated his envelope.

The remaining valentines were mostly stamped with a few die cut elements sprinkled inside and out. The 'be mine' card was for my younger son, the middle for my mom, and the bottom was one of two made for my sisters-in-law.

I hope to post more cards I made from the die cutting class. I also took two additional classes - Stretch Your Stamps and Stretch Your Stamps 2 to while away the winter and will try to post those cards sometime soon. Hope your Valentine's Day was great!