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Hi everyone! Just a quick note about a special fundraiser that I am participating in to raise money for kids who are undergoing treatment for cancer. My wife's cousin, Daniel Smith, is going to get his head shaved (!) as part of an event for St. Baldrick's.
You can check out the organization at
and you can see Daniel's fundraiser page by going here. By coincidence, his dog's name is Baldric! Cute dog, huh?
Lots of people are planning weddings this time of year and might be considering creating their own invitations. The advantage in making your own invitations is that you can truly personalize them and create a keepsake for your family. As a papercrafter, many of the skills you've developed in cardmaking and scrapbooking - layouts, combining colors and selecting images - are easily applied to invitation making.
In the invitation above, we printed out the text onto white cardstock and then embellished with a simple border stamp image, our Flower Border (D1322). It has a flower image on the side of stamp, so that you can stamp the image in green and then go back and stamp the flowers in yellow, or pink or whatever color you choose!
You can see that it's pretty easy to position the flower image at the ends of "stems" along the vine. We stamped the vine image in Brilliance Pearlescent Thyme and the flower in Versacolor Lime. We added a layer of Pistachio Shimmer cardstock and then mounted everything onto a piece of Grass Shimmer cardstock - sized to fit in a matching Grass A7 envelope.
Making the text print in brown and green to coordinate with the paper colors is easy - and you'll truly impress your friends and family with a professional invitation (that you made yourself!).
Could you be planning a special spring brunch with friends or family? Here's an idea for creating an easy and beautiful invitation with the computer, a stamp and some jewel stickers!
After printing the invite information in green ink (and brown ink as an accent), stamp the Orchard Bird (D1342) in a rich brown ink (I use Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate all the time). There is a stamp on the side of the Orchard Bird that has a small cluster of 3 flowers - stamp the flowers in Turquoise Gem (Versamagic) ink at the ends of the branches - as if the flowers were blooming amongst the leaves.
The little cluster of flowers is easy to position and stamp on the branches! You can stamp as small a cluster or as big a cluster as you like - I tend to keep it on the small side.
The image is spaced about an inch above the text, and then embellished with some Lagoon Jewel stickers. The sparkle from the jewels is really eye-catching and will give the invitation a custom look. Mount the invitation onto a layer of Truffle cardstock and then onto a Grass A2 notecard for a spring-inspired color scheme that calls to mind brown branches and new leaves!
Are you the type of card maker who combines the computer with stamping techniques?
I will be featuring some ideas using this combination over the next week or so! We often use the computer with papers from our Soiree line of cards and envelopes, since they tend to look a little more formal than our selection of basic cards. The Soiree line has some terrific shimmery papers, like the Grass color used on the card above.
I used the Squirrel combo (B1320), which has a Big Squirrel on the front of the stamp and a little hopping squirrel on the side - two stamp images on one block. It's the same idea for the Log Home stamp (D1324), the stamp has an image of a log and then there is a tiny "tuft" of leaves on the end of it for creating foliage off the tip of the trees.
The log is stamped vertically, so that it's a tree (rather than a log resting on the ground) and there's a little bit of greenery growing from the branches.
The text is for a birthday invitation - I just set up the text in a Word document and then printed it out on a color printer. For large numbers of cards or invitations, I recommend going to Office Depot or similar printing center, and having them just run off pages of the text on their color copiers. It's quick and looks great - plus saves wear and tear on your home printer. For smaller batches of cards, your home printer works fine!
Getting the text to work with the image is up to you - I stamped the tree on the left, so that the squirrel would jump down and hop across some of the lettering! I colored everything in with Copic markers, then mounted the white layer onto a layer of Truffle cardstock and finally onto an A2 sized Grass notecard. For more instructions, you can visit the card gallery on our site here.
We enjoyed some (brief) beautiful weather over the weekend and managed to get out into the garden for a bit on Sunday. Breaking up soil between my fingers and mulching around the plants that are starting to poke up from the ground is so invigorating. Our neighbor's cherry tree hangs low over one of our flower gardens and we watched as birds perched and watched the kids cleaning up the beds below, which inspired me to make this card using our new D1342 Orchard Bird.
I love the image of birds on branches (as you can tell from our enormous collection of bird and branch images) and our newest one takes the image a little further. We've been including an extra image on the sides of our stamps for awhile now (thanks to customer suggestions) but this latest one is going to be really versatile. The image on the side is a simple flower cluster - stamped once it looks like a few blooms peeking through the leaves, stamped as a long string of flowers it can look like a lilac or even wisteria.
I wanted a soft, multi-colored look to the image so I used LePlume markers in #60 Salvia Blue (for most of the bird's body), #36 Manganese Blue (for the tip of the wing), #45 Sepia (for the branches and beak) and #92 Celery (for the leaves).
Once stamped, you can see the subtle change in blue color on the wing is really quite beautiful. It doesn't take much, just a little stripe of it.
Now, stamp the flowers from the side of the stamp in Versamagic Pretty Petunia ink near the leaves - it's easy to stamp them and avoid the leaves.
A little orange glitter glue dotted on the center of each flower adds some fun color.
You can read complete instructions on creating the card by clicking here.
It's time to start getting inspired for spring - take some time to look out your window this week, get out into the yard, and look for signs of Spring!
Adding a little sparkle always seems to bring a finishing touch to a project - so here's a few ideas on how to add some bling.
The D1315 Nesting Birds are the main image here, colored with a soft pink - and hearts from the D1312 Tree of {Love} stamp are stamped above the love birds. This would probably be fine on its own, but a few Petal Pink Jewel Stickers give the idea of berries on the branches - and look great.
The same idea was used here - the owl stamp (Owl Love You C1314) was colored in with some Copic markers, embellished with some crushed velvet ric rac, and then Petal Pink Jewel Stickers were applied at the base of each leaf.
Of course, if you are looking to make your cards really sparkly, think "Las Vegas" and squirt as much clear glitter glue onto the image as possible!. Stamp the E1308 Lovey Dovey Tree and color in all the hearts with various shades of pink and red - then spread glitter glue over each heart (I just use the tip of the bottle to spread the glue around evenly) and let dry. The color shows through the glitter - and this sparkly technique really gets noticed!
I hope everyone has a terrific Valentine's Day - spend it with someone you love!
A quick entry today - I have to help make snacks for my son's Valentine party at school tomorrow (30 Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Pink Marshmallow filling) in a little bit, so I thought I'd share a look at the Tree of Love project.
The stamp is a tree trunk image - and we attached little tiny heart stamps to the side, so that you could stamp out little heart "leaves" all over the tree. I found it best to stamp the hearts radiating out from the branches - if you stamp them all vertically, the tree looks very, well, "excited"!
The tree trunk, stamped in rich Brilliant Pearlescent Chocolate ink, looks beautiful next to the hearts which were stamped in Versamagic Pixie Dust, Versacolor Opera Pink and Versacolor Orchid. A little pink ric rac across the bottom of the image gives the idea of some ground.
This one is quick and easy (once you get the hang of positioning the hearts) - and leaves you enough time to eat some Whoopie Pies!
My daughter went to a Youth Leadership Conference this last weekend. She was away for 3 days, with 150 other 13 to 15 year olds. Leading up to the event, I had convinced her that it was a sort of "vacation" for kids who got good grades - and her eyes lit up when I said that! Eager to go to the event, she packed her bag a few days early.
She groaned at the requirement for a few "professional outfits", much preferring jeans and t-shirts to skirts.
"Does this mean I have to get a business suit?", she asked one evening.
"Yes - a business suit," I teased.
Monica and Emma picked up a skirt, cardigans and some nice shoes the evening before.
"Well, I am never doing that again!", she said after spending a half hour in the dressing room. Later on, we all laughed during dinner when she told us how she had to try on all sorts of clothes for hours and that she couldn't jump very far in her new skirt.
We made it to the check-in on Thursday. Bags in hand, insurance papers completed and orientation forms all filled out. The walk from the car to the lobby in new shoes created no less than 4 blisters on her toes and heels, so we had to quick put bandaids all over feet, so that she could make it until after lunch (when they could change into casual clothes and sneakers). In addition, just getting out of the car, she ripped her skirt open about 5 inches. One of the advisors walked by us slowly as we used no less than 12 bandaids to cover each toe and each heel - and after a quick discussion we decided that the skirt would be OK (though the thought did cross my mind that I could use some really strong double stick tape to fix it, or maybe some eyelets - where was my Cropodile...). Once bandaged up, she re-assured us everything would be OK and disappeared into the mob of kids.
The weekend went well and concluded with a kid-produced commencement ceremony on Sunday. She had a fantastic time, learned lots and was full of stories. She pointed out that it was not a vacation like I had said, but was satisfied with the experience. The first speech of the ceremony began with a fantastic quote from Robert F. Kennedy, talking about how we can effect other people's lives in ways great and small.
"...Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope..."
It was a great message for me to hear on a week when we are sending out messages of love to one another. Whether you are sending out a Valentine's greeting to a friend or loved one to spread cheer, or you are actively making a difference in your community, you are sending out tiny ripples of hope (and love) - by letting others know that they are cherished.
I was completely inspired by this quote - and thought it was such a timely message for me to hear this week as I discussed some Valentine's projects. The first project, using the Heart Wreath and Flower Soft, was probably our most asked about project in January.
The Heart Wreath (E1310) was stamped on some of our 12x12 Happenstance paper, then flocked with Flower Soft. A tiny bow made of 1/4 inch wide silk ribbon adds a little charm!
We stamped the Scripted Bird (E1309)on 2 pieces of paper to get this look. It was stamped once on Eggshell Cardstock and once on a piece of paper from the Gossamer 6x6 pack. Cut the bird's body out of the patterned paper and glue it to the image on Eggshell - and the body has a little pattern to it that makes it "pop" a bit.
The "berries" on the branches are made with a dot of Liquid Pearls (Baby Pink) and a dusting of clear glitter while the pearls are still wet and sticky. After the berries are dry, they are dimensional and glittery.
We're starting an exciting new program in March for all of you Memory Box paper collectors out there. For those of you who can't get enough colors of paper (is that even possible?), we will be doing limited runs of special colors each month in our notecard line.
We have let our stores know that they can be a part of this program so be sure and tell your local stamp or scrapbook store if you are interested in them getting these special colors each month. They can order this on a month by month basis, or be included for the rest of 2010 in the program - depending on the level of Memory Box collectors in their area!
For stores that carry this special program, we will include a display card of the special color - and we have teamed up with Tsukineko to have the card color coordinate with one of their beautiful inkpads!
First up, for March, is a color we are calling Seedling - a beautiful green color that goes great with the Memento Pear Tart inkpad!
