Saturday, July 29, 2017

Saturday School week 7

Well here we are students,

This week, G is for Goat - the Hipsters are back!  Enjoy-


Since this is the last weekend of July I thought a red, white and blue theme would work one more time.  
  See you next week,
S@ndy

Friday, July 28, 2017

Greeting Card Gift Box @ Elizabeth Craft Designs


Hi Friends,

Hope to see you over at the Elizabeth Craft Designs Blog today for a tutorial on how I made this lovely gift box containing hand made greeting cards.  To visit, simply click here.




See you there,
S@ndy

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Saturday School week 6

Hi Students,

Today we are going with the letter "t" which is for turtle.  I used some fun dies from Elizabeth Craft Designs this time.  You can shop for the dies I used by clicking the links below


Keep on studying your phonics and I will see you next week.
S@ndy 



Thursday, July 20, 2017

Hey There Cupcake!

I have a fun card to show you today.  I've been making some sample cards for my friend Maria who owns It's Cheaper Than Therapy.com.  She is now carrying dies from Karen Burniston's new line of Pop-ups.  These are so much fun to make and even more fun to give.

For this card I used the Charm Accordion and then added a few items from some of the other die set all linked below.






Hope you have enjoyed this little visit and the card,
S@ndy


Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Technique Friday Inspiration

Hi my friends,

Welcome back - today is the monthly challenge for the Elizabeth Craft Designs Die Cutting Team joining up from now on with the Coloring Team.  That means twice as much inspiration all in one spot.  This time we were challenged to get our inspiration from our fearless leader - Els Van de Burgt.

Technique Friday with Els Inspiration - Every Friday Els inspires us with a new Technique Friday video to share all the wonderful ways to use ECD products. Take your inspiration to create your card for our challenge using one of these techniques. 

I, of course, had to put my own spin on it and decided to use my die collection from ECD to create some cute critters.  I was inspired by Els video on the Bonbon Box, you can see it by clicking here.  These are fun and easy to create.  This could be a fun activity for those kidos who are bored with summer vacation or a great kids party favor.  Here are my new friends.


To see everything made by the amazing Design Teams click here.  To see some tips for how I made these fun little guys, simply continue reading.

For today's challenge Elizabeth Craft Designs is giving away a $20 Gift Card to use on our website to 3 winners. 

To enter simply leave a comment on the Elizabeth Craft Designs Challenge post and tell us " "What your favorite technique learned from the Technique Friday With Els series". 

We will select 3 lucky winners in a random drawing 

The winners will be announced on Friday, July 21 on the Elizabeth Craft Designs blog.

*******************


 So here we go -


When creating this fun little guy you need to think of your die collection in a new way.
I used pieces that you would expect like the eyes from Hoppy the Frog and the Fitted Circles for the body but for the ears I used the sail from the Boat die. I also use lots of the different size circles from the Circles Background die to get the size I wanted.




As you can see - I used the Circles Background die here along with some hearts glued together from the Fitted Hearts die for the feet.  The Banners die was perfect for the beak of the owl.  The breast of the cute little owl was made using the Scalloped Hearts and then embossed with the Hearts Entwined embossing folder.




For the mouse I used Fitted Circles, Circles Background and some Scalloped Hearts cut into wedges for the feet.  A hole was poked through the back and twine added for the tail.  A pearl dot was colored with pink Sharpie for the nose.

Hope you will stop by the Elizabeth Crafts Design Blog to see what the rest of the team made for this inspired challenge.  Simply Click here.

Have a great week,
S@ndy


Saturday, July 15, 2017

Saturday School Week 5

Hi Saturday School Students, 

As much as I love the Hipsters, I'm taking a break for a couple weeks to share some other things made with items from my crafty stash.  The Hipsters will definitely reappear but for today, "D" is for dog.  As in Crazy Dogs.


Who wouldn't want to play ball with these crazy characters?

Have a wonderful weekend,
S@ndy

Thursday, July 13, 2017

A Little YouTube Inspiration

I don't know about you - but I love watching my favorite channels on YouTube for some inspiration. Yesterday I watched one where Jennifer McGuire did some watercolor block stamping with Distress Ink and a stamp block.  I used the same techniques with Oxide Inks and since I have so many lovely Elizabeth Craft Designs products, I used them, and here are the results.


After my prints dried, I cut out the 2 squares with the Stitched Squares from ECD and then stamped with VersaMark and added white embossing powder.  The other one was cut out using the Stitched Rectangle and stamped in the same way.  All products are linked below.

While it is fun to make what is seen on the video, it's not always necessary to have the exact same products to get a wonderful finished card or project.  I don't have any large stamp blocks so I used a CD case to make the larger prints.  As you can see for yourself, it worked just great.

I was quite pleased with the outcome of this little experiment and will try it again.  I made several more prints using this method so I may be sharing again soon.


Do something you love each day,
S@ndy

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Summer Road Trip

Hi Everyone,

Summer is here and you know what that means, ROAD TRIP.  We are about to set out on our annual RV trip so the packing and planning has begun in a big way.

The Paper Pros, an informal group of crafters, is doing a fun challenge today with the travel theme of Summer Road Trip.  For my card I used one of the new die sets from Karen Burniston called the Snowman Twist Circle.  No, I didn't make a snowman, instead I used the twist circle inside the card to make these fun girls from Art Impressions pop up in the center of the card.


I kept the front of the card rather simple using some stickers from my stash.


On the inside the girls are having some fun cruzzin' down the road in their little red car.  Girls just wanna have fun.  The sides of the inside panel were trimmed using the Nature Edges and then a couple more stickers finished it off.

I'm ready for a road trip, how about you?
S@ndy


Saturday, July 8, 2017

Saturday School Week 4

Hi all you crazy students, today we are going to look at the letter "E".  As we all know, E is for eye chart.  Since all the Hipsters wear glasses what could be more appropriate?


This #hipforsummer thing has really been fun and I've seen some pretty amazing makes out there.  This week I decided to go a little crazy with the colors.

Hope you enjoy,
S@ndy


Thursday, July 6, 2017

#53

Mac & I recently celebrated our anniversary - this time #53.  Since our 50th I have made something to commemorate the day and number of years for each anniversary.  This year I made a mixed media canvas using lots of Elizabeth Craft Designs products and I would like to share it with you today. 



Starting out with a regular canvas, lots of papers with all kinds of different textures were glued on the surface.  For added texture, some crackle paste was randomly spread on.  After letting everything dry, some embossing paste was added through 2 different stencils.  Since it is for both of us I used 2 different stencils from Karen Burniston's Stage it Stencils.  Gears and Flowers.  Finally everything got a coat of gesso.  I don't know about you but I hate to wait for things to dry!

Next came a spray from Memories Mist called Blue Martini, appropriate name for this occasion. Now that the base color was on - it was time for some contrasting paint.  Since I was planning to use the ModaScrap paper shown below I had to mix the color I wanted.  It is rather fun to go through the stash and find things that you had forgotten were there.

The word "Amazing" was cut from fun foam using one of Suzanne Cannon's fabulous dies from her A Way With Words collection.  It was then sprayed with the Blue Martini.  To add some additional color to the tag I mixed some spray with texture paste and scraped it across the tag with a plastic card leaving a hint of color. I had the word "together" in my stash so simply painted it to match the canvas.

Next came a plain piece of chipboard that was painted and attached using foam tape. Then the tag going in the opposite direction.  There was lots of coats of paint used and so much experimenting to get the desired color.   So far - so good.

Then the fun stuff begins, a double stacked die cut, Flower Lace 2, was added to another, smaller, piece of chipboard.  It was all coated with gesso and then painted.  I thought that the canvas needed a little more color so took the sprayer out of the bottle and dripped some on the canvas to add interest. Next came a piece of lace that was painted and sprayed to coordinate.

2 hearts were cut from fun foam using the Els van de Burgt's Entwined Hearts.  The hearts were painted and then added to the canvas.  Now all that was needed were the finishing touches.  A piece of twine was cut and died then added with a dried flower and some leaves.  A Grunge Board flourish, a clock face from Prima and some beads and it was done.  I found the #53 so added it after a little gesso and spray was added.

The very last thing was a small splat of watered down gesso.

Hope you like it, I have enjoyed sharing it with you.
S@ndy

Monday, July 3, 2017

Happy Birthday America

 Hope all of you are having a fabulous 4th of July holiday.  I made this card to celebrate the season.  I am a very patriotic American - always enjoying a way to use red, white & blue.


As you know, I like to find different ways to use my dies and came up with this fun way to make the stripes on the flag using Karen Burniston's new Nature Edges die.  I really like that it is stitched on each side of the cutting blade so that no matter which piece you use it is stitched.  Happy Birthday is from Karen's Word Set 2 and all the stars on this card are from the Charm Accordion.


For the inside, I used the Flower Pot Pop-up die set.  Instead of flowers, I added more stars, all double sided with a thin wire in between, and the cute flourish from the Cupcake Pop-up.  USA was stamped on labels from the
Katherine Label Pop-up.

All total, 6 die sets were used here and it is amazing how they all work together to give a
perfect result.

Enjoy your holiday,
S@ndy


Saturday, July 1, 2017

Saturday School Week 3

Ok my friends -the word of the week is "bird".  I have really been enjoying these fun phonics cards and I'm finding it so easy to use them along with dies and stamps from my collection.  Next time you are at a flea market or your local thrift shop don't forget to look at the kids toys and books.  That's where I found these.


Have a creative weekend,,
S@ndy