Doggie card and Dakota paper

August brings the "dog days of summer" and so H2H's challenge was to make a card with a dog on it.The dog stamp is an older retired stamp and it reminded me of a little boy baby card, could be for a baby shower or a first birthday or some occasion like that. The new Dakota paper pack has some super papers for boys. And the new stamp set B1405 Rugged Dude has this cute little pocket stamp. I didn't have small gold brads for the pocket studs so I created my own by embossing some using gold embossing powder. I have been itching to use our new burlap ribbon and it goes perfectly with this card. I added some tiny black beads to his eyes to make them stand out a little and a small circle from a circle punch made his tag.

Blessings,   Polly

Sympathy card using Avonlea paper and other new product

I love the colors in this paper pack, they are my comfort colors. I like that some of the papers look like they are textured.
Close To My Heart is always striving to stay on trend and they have added a feature in this new Idea Book that they haven't done before. They are offering some trendy colors to certain paper packs. The paper packs that offer these trendy colors are:
Avonlea with Avonlea Off-White, Avonlea Teal, and Avonlea Green
La Belle Vie with: La Belle Vie Mauve, and La Belle Vie Pink
Flirty with: Fliry Raspberry, and Flirty Yellow
  Now what exactly does that mean? It means in each of the above paper packs there is cardstock included with those particular colors and you can only get those colors when you order one of those paper packs. The cardstock or inks won't be available any other way.
  Why? That allows them to change some colors in each catalog to stay a little more trendy and yet, we won't have to be buying more cardstock and inks every little bit.
  How's that going to work? These paper packs have enough of our regular colors that there will still be plenty of cardstock and ink choices in the color palette to choose from and then we will have some extra color choices in cardstock in the paper pack to play with. And if your not quite as versed in the color wheel and pulling in colors that could be added, Tresa Black has done that fabulously for us. Go here to see the PDF's that shes created to share. Thank you Tresa, your fabulous! This is exactly what I needed. I plan to do the Avonlea card kit as a class in September and some of the ladies expressed a concern about the cards not being very colorful. Now I have this reference sht to pull in some color. I love it. We will probably do at least one card of each of the three designs and then we'll probably do some of our own designing from there. Or they will expect me to do that :)
This card was designed for a friend who recently lost an Aunt, but it also goes with the H2H challenge Sympathy card for Aug, the first wk.
Besides the Avonlea paper pack here are the other new products I used:
the fancy swirly frame- cut from the Artiste Cricut cartridge!  it's a must have and I will certainly be using and showing many more designs from this awesome cartridge.

Silver Shimmer Trim-its self adhesive!

Black and Grey Sparkles

 This flower isn't Close To My Heart and it wasn't created from one of the flowers on the Cricut cartridge. It was a preformed purchased one, but I colored it with my water brush and Juniper ink and then added some Glitz Glitter Gel in Stardust.

A simple card, but very elegant and appropriate for a sympathy card.
                                      Blessings,      Polly

Dress card

For this month's card group I switched things up a bit. Normally I decide on a card and I prepare all the kits and then they put them together like my sample- with some variations. I have been wanting to make a card using this dress template found here. So I thought it would be fun to put out several paper packs and let the ladies decide on which they wanted to use and create their own look. I encouraged them to use my scraps if possible. I made 3 samples to get their creative juices flowing. It was very interesting, a huge success, and I had a large mess to clean up afterward, what with all the paper packs, embellishments, stamp sets, etc! My only regret- that I didn't take pictures of each one.
Here is my favorite for more than one reason. I love this new paper pack-La Belle Vie, and I just love how this all came together, very vintagey ( if that's a word.) I used the weekly sketch challenge over on the Paper Craft Planet.

 

And a look on the inside

This one I used some of the yummy Dotty For You paper

and then an older paper pack, but I love how it turned out

these are so fun and I can think of more that I'd like to try. Hope this stirs up your creative juices to go "create"!
If your wondering where to find some of this wonderful paper which is heavy cardstock and double sided. Look to the right for a Shop With Me button and check out what we have. All new paper packs just came out this month!
                                              Blessings,  Polly

Playing with ink distress technique

I have been wanting to play around with the ink distress technique that you see Tim Holtz and others doing. I wanted to see if I could get this effect using Close To My Heart products. So here is my rendition.
I dropped a drop of Crystal Blue reinker on a sheet of wax paper and then a drop of Sky reinker next to the first drop. Next I spritzed over the drops with some water. I took a paintbrush and mixed the colors some, but left some areas with the original colors. I had previously used this same piece of wax paper to apply some gold Pearl Ex mica powder (not a CTMH product)  to some other project and I had put these drops of reinker right over the remaining Pearl Ex. So when I spritzed on the water it reactivated the Pearl Ex too. I then took a piece of Colonial White cardstock and drug it through the mixed reinkers until I had the piece covered in ink. I then let my piece air dry, only because I had to go attend some other chore that was calling me (bum). It could be dried with our craft heater if you were wanting to use the piece immediately.
I was really pleased with the color mix and the gold mica powder added a super touch, I thought. I then cut the circle shape and stamped the bird image.
The patterned papers I used are an older retired CTMH paper pack-Life Delights, but I thought the colors worked well together.
My card sketch came from Mojo Monday challenge #251.

Here is a close-up of just the circle part to show the ink distress technique a little better.

I even decorated the inside. I used the June stamp of the month - Life Is Tweet-and it worked beautifully to use part of the sentiment on the outside and the rest inside.

I will definitely be messing with this ink distress technique in the near future, mixing different colors and not just using monochromatic colors.
Hope you enjoy.                               Blessings,    Polly

Clean and Simple Wedding card

I have seen a lot of monochromatic cards especially in white and cream lately on Pinterest. They are so elegant and classy looking. Just right for wedding and anniversary cards. So this was the card we made in my monthly card class this month. I am entering this in the Stampin' Sisters in Christ Challenge #149. Their challenge happens to be a C.A.S, (clean and simple) card and in the Sweet Stampin' Challenge monochromatic challenge. I will have to say that it was very difficult for me not to ink distress. And as you can see, I didn't quite get it pulled off. LOL I ink distressed very lightly the sentiment label. I thought it added just the right amount of pop. I used the Timeless embossing folder from Cuddlebug, a 5 x 7 size. The label and the flower were cut from shapes on the Art Philosopy Cricut cartridge. The flower is actually a couple layers of different sizes of a snowflake and a couple of layers of one of the flower shapes on that cartridge. I misted each layer with water and  crumpled it up. Unfolded them somewhat and took a stylus and with each individual layer laid on a mousepad, I ran the stylus around the center to make the flower cup up. And then I let them dry. Glued each layer together one on top of the other, making sure to stagger the petals. I then added some Glitter Glitz around in various places. A clear sparkle in the center finished the flower. It was so hard not to do some ink distressing on those petals. I created a border using a Fiskars border punch and some sheer cream ribbon. A Rhinestone Designer Brad in the center of the ribbon bow was the finishing touch.

 

Sorry the lighting wasn't real great. Doesn't do the card justice. Here is a closer view of the flower.

Close To My Heart products used:
Cardstock: Colonial White and Black
Ink: Black
Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge
Glitz Glitter Gel-Stardust
Clear Sparkles
Rhinestone Designer Brad
D1192 Now and Forever stamp set (retired) for the sentiment
  you can find these products when you click on the "shop with me" button over on the right

Thanks for stopping by,    Polly

H2H challenge and a birthday card

This coming week my baby boy will celebrate his 19th birthday. Where have all those days and years gone? It's amazing, I remember clearly thinking when I had him, what am I doing? How can I do this? He was number 4 and I had a 3yr. old, a 1 yr. old, and now a newborn. We were blessed to have the oldest a daughter who was 11, but I was quite overwhelmed at the time. But, I survived and it's flown by. Since then I've done several things that I didn't think I'd be able to do. I've homeschooled the last 3, something I didn't plan to do and didn't really have a desire to do until it came the right time to do that. And I've even survived 4 teenagers! They've really all been good teenagers and we have been blessed. That's not to say we haven't gone through some trying times and some embarrassing moments, but overall, I am thankful. I am proud of them and love them each one.
So this week for the H2H challenge we have a photo inspiration and it had the colors and elements for a perfect boy card! Here is the photo.

And then Mojo Monday's 230 sketch was a circle or square card. And here is the sketch for that.

And here is my creation from this inspiration.

I find that sometimes its harder to come up with a boy/man card, there's just not as many things that you can use for them. No frilly stuff, flowers and whatnot, but I am happy with what I figured out for this one.
So go on over to both of these sites and check out a lot of other creativityness.
Hope you enjoy.                                                       Blessings,    Polly

Paper Doll card and H2H challenge

This week at  Heart2Heart we have a sketch.

And over at Paper Craft Planet-group: All Things Vintage for February we were to make a card using a paper doll image. I chose to use a Betsy McCall paper doll. What a fun project. I haven't played with paper dolls for many years. I thought this paper from CTMH's Mayberry paper pack had a very vintage look and went well with Betsy's dress.

and a close up.

After inking the tips and some of the surface area of the roses, I dipped a brush in some glue that I diluted with water and then dipped my wet brush in Pearl Ex Aztec Gold and brushed in on the flowers. You can't see it very well in the photo, but I love the shimmery look. I also, stamped Celebrate using Encore gold ink and then restamped almost on top with Staz-0n Jet Black.
This card meets two other challenges for this week.
The Shabby Tea Room has a photo to use for inspiration.

I took the colors, roses and gold trim from the photo. I used Gold leafing around the edges of all the papers. That is the first time I've ever used gold leafing, I like it a lot. And one of the trendy things right now is doilies, which we were to include in our creation. And last, but not least, at Frosted Designs for Fab Friday we are to take a geometric shape and use it 3 times. I have 3 squares.
Go check out all these places and get inspired to make some gorgeous cards yourself!
                                                         Blessings to you,     Polly

H2H Challenge and Mojo Monday

This weeks H2H Challenge is a 1 2 3 Challenge. Use 1 stamp, 2 patterned papers, and 3 embellishments. Doesn't sound to hard, but it was more of a challenge than I thought. I have a hard time using only 1 stamp!
I did enjoy using one of our new paper packs, Pemberly. It reminds me of vintage wallpapers. I love it and really liked the look of the card when it was done.
I cut some of the hexagons for one of the papers. Used some of our new color ready seam binding (I was so excited to see this in our new catalog). I put about 3 drops of Indian Corn Blue reinker in a small baggie and spritzed in some water and added the ribbon, which is a cream color. Smooshed that around, took it out and laid it on some paper and dried it with the craft heater. You can see I have some varigation, but i liked the look so I left if that way. Of course I had to use the Art Philosophy cart, that's the label. Therein lay the one stamp problem, I wanted to use the stamp that goes with the label, it's so pretty, but then I wouldn't be able to stamp a sentiment. So I cut the label from Desert Sand cs and stamped the sentiment. I think I actually like this way better.
I used Mojo Monday 228 sketch.

And this is my creation.

Go on over to H2H and Mojo Monday to see everyone else's creations.
Like this paper or other products that I used? Go click on the "shop with me" button to the right.
Thanks for stopping by and blessings to you.