soap card

No, there is no actual soap in the card... but some time ago a got as a gift a few bars of hand-made soap, wrapped in brown paper decorated with a string and a blue hydrangea-like bloom...

... every fellow crafter will agree that it is extremely difficult to throw anything away; so, even though the blue flower had to wait a couple weeks after avoiding the garbage can,  it finally made its way into a celebratory card. Blue and green, my favorite color scheme. I've always preferred cool colors, both in clothing and craft.

explosive quotes on reading

Amidst Christmas cards and catching up on travel scrapbooking, I have finally finished the exploding box with quotes on books and reading. It's really a simple concept but the details may be rather time-consuming and if i don't finish the whole project quickly, it tends to linger forever.

So, here is the outside, including the lid with a precious stone...

..and, once you take the lid off, the box opens and reveals the quotes - I dyed them in coffee so they would gain the old-book look:

There is another box like this waiting to be finished - in pinks and purples, and the theme will be friendship.Quite flowery, I must say.

hummingbird cards finished!

It turned out that apart from the hummingbird purchased recently on Ebay, I also had one in the bird-and-butterfly Inkadinkado set purchased long time ago. It worked great with black embossing and watercolors - I just love these bright hues!

And here is how these little inchies were incorporated in the cards:

The hummingbirds from the previous post got a layer of Glossy Accents, so they looked enameled, and not like paper any more :)

Right now I'm mostly working on Christmas cards... as usual, I started with the blue/silver/white color scheme, but I really need to move on to the classic green-and-burgundy!

hummingbirding and such

One of the friends has asked for a hummingbird birthday card, so I found a set of stamps on Ebay and they arrived yesterday. Exciting! I couldn't wait to start playing with them - the birds are a little small (maybe an inch in diameter) but they will work perfectly well with the other components from the set - flowers and vines. For now, here are the colored birdie cutouts:

I'm also playing with some Christmas tags, planning to use them as freebies at the upcoming craftshows - I will be in Carol Stream on October 27th and in Oak Lawn on November 10th; possibly also in Elmhurst on November 3rd, but this is still pending.

So many ideas, so little time! This is going to be a recurring thought in the next two months :)

welcome, autumn

I can't believe the autumn is here already - with all its crispness and beautiful colors! We spent a wonderful weekend with our granddaughter, visiting a farm full of pumpkins and other harvest goodness. She had loads of fun and we did as well, as if discovering this season again through the eyes of the child.

Much is also going on at the craft table, including Christmas goodies... for now, I'm going back to a few French door cards, which open in the center and my customers say it's a nice, fun design :)

Also, since my birthday is coming up in October... here is a birthday cake!

cupcakes and cherries

A few weeks ago I got this little acrylic stamp - a cupcake in the size perfectly suited for the focal element of cards. So, I've been baking... somewhat literally, because the examples below feature hot embossing, which of course involves the use of a heatgun.

Before we move on to cupcakes, let's start with a cherry - I really like this little cutout and I wish I had more, but so far no luck finding them.

And here are the other sweets:

On the last three cupcakes there is an extra layer on top of watercoloror - I added Fran-tage, which is an embossing powder mixed with larger grains and glitter, so when it melts, it created an interesting texture, very fun to touch. One caveat is, though, that the paper has to be heated from underneath in this case, because otherwise most of this goodness will just fly away!

And then I'm working on more sticky note purses, and some Christmas stuff already, and a few mini-albums... lots of work, craft shows are coming up!

birds and insects

.I can't believe how time flies... hee hee, what a nice intro that just popped up for an intro to a post about cards related to winged creatures :) I've been working on travel photos, to finally upload them to picasa (still hundreds to go through), on cards (more will be shown soon), on the itinerary for the upcoming trip to Colorado Plateau... So much to do, so little time!

Without further ado - here are some birdhouses from a stamp bought at a supersale at Michaels...

... butterflies from the Mariposa paper stack...

...and a dragonfly - with the focal element created by papercasting in a mould, from... toilet paper :)

Can you believe we'll be thinking Christmas cards soon???