February Expressions - Cards and Tutorial!

Ahh, tutorial for one of the cards I made with the Expressions Kit. Enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy happy! The Expressions card kits came out this week from Express the Moment! You all might have heard me gush before about what a great value these card kits are. This month, I was beyond boggled by Kim's selection of fantastic products for making valentines! Just look at this kit. . . (this is what the kit looks like BEFORE I tear into it and it is all over my crafting table.) :D Look out, this kit is huge, and so is this post!!!

There are so many adorable products from Making Memories in the kit this month. . . there was an entire two-page package of rub-on's . . . One could not possibly use them all! But I gave it a good try! Here are a few card ideas using this months' kit.

My good friend Julie taught us how to make this style of card at a meeting of the CDC last year. The patterned papers in this kit were just soooooo tempting to make this style of card with! This turns out to be an A-2 size card and as soon as the kids go back to school I will do a video tutorial on how to make it. The Expressions kit even has an envelope template this month. It was the perfect size to make a matching envelope for this card!

The kit also includes several adorable greeting card bases - pre cut and scored - all you have to do is pick your embelishments and you have an adorable valentine! I added a pink sticker, some ticket stubs, some ribbon, and I cut out a sentiment for this one. I used some rub-ons as a sentiment inside the card as well!

Here is another on a pre-made card base! I simply layered a strip of the patterned paper onto a strip of this really neat polka-dot embossed paper and added a few more embelishments. The ticket stubs were my favorite. :) Kim also threw in a few clear acrylic hearts - I used one here by gluing it down to a piece of that dotted paper and I added a rub-on on top. Here is a close up of how that acrylic heart worked out.

I traced the heart onto the patterned paper and glued it to the paper using a clear dimensional glaze glue. What a fun 3-D embelishment!

Here is an example of how the rub-ons were used as a sentiment and an embelishment. Did you know that you can add rub-ons to silk flowers? It works! How fun. Also - how cute are those paper clips? I distressed all of the edges of my patterned papers on this card with a brown Tim Holtz distressing ink, to match the brown cardstock card base. Don't forget to also use those rub-ons as sentiments and embelishments inside your cards too!!

The rest of the brown cardstock was used as the base of this card. I distressed a bit of the polka-dot paper using a nail file. (you could also use sand paper, I could not find any in hubby's tool box!) I used a strip of the pink polka-dot ribbon and looped it as an embelishment on this card. The trick to this is using TONS of glue dots to hold the ribbon in place. I added some more rub-on sentiments to this card. See the "Love You" in the heart in the bottom right corner? Cute. :) And there is another paper clip. Love them!

Another adorable piece of the Expressions kit this month was some of these teeny tiny tags! I used some white floss to tie mine to a pink button. You can also see another use of those clear acrylic hearts. The trick to using the clear acrylics plain is to glue them down in a way that the glue does not show. I simply stuck mine to the paper using glue dots and used the button to cover the edges where the glue dots were. The pink buttons were not included in this months' kit - I raided my own stash - but look, there are some more of those TICKET STUBS!!!!! :D

I cannot tell a lie. the Tiny tags and acrylic hearts and ticket stubs were my favorite things this month. So I used them on the 8x8 page that I created from this month's kit. Even still - I have tons of leftover pieces and embelishments from my February kit. Plenty to make more cards and Valentines for next year! But wait. . . there is one more card to show. . .


Here is my use of another card base. I have added some 3-D paper flowers to this one. Kim turned me on to this technique of making these awesome flowers - I searched around and found a great tutorial for making these flowers! They are really fun to make and they are perfect for making flowers on Valentines. I used another button as the center of the big flower - and added a rub-on to the button!

Cardstock, patterned papers, notebook papers, embossed paper for sanding and distressing, stickers, tags, ticket stubs, paper clips, ribbons, acrylic hearts and rub-ons. . . can you imagine what it would cost to find samples of all of these things at the craft store??? Craziness. I am so glad that Kim has asked me to help design cards from her kits so that I can share this great value with lots of other people. The cost of this kit is just $15.00 plus shipping. . . I love my kit this month!!! Don't you want one???

Thanks for stopping by!!! I will be back soon with some more video tutorials!

Card Day Club- Valentines and Babies!

The *CDC gathered this month at Hanna's house for a day of making Valentines - and what goes best with Valentines? Well babies are sure to follow right? :D So we made Valentines and Baby cards. Here are the goodies!!

Jan's Mon Amie card with Cricut cut flowers - very very fun and springy indeed. :) Jan's mom made a donation of the card bases and cute cute matching envelopes! Thank you, Jan's mom!!!

Deb came up with this super cute Valentine with loads of ribbon and hearts that are 3-D - we popped up each layer with lots of dimensional glue. I got a little carried away with the white ribbon. I like to call my version, "bondage."

Steph's cute Valentine with a Cricut cut heart - I am thinking that the card base was embossed using a Cuttlebug. And she chalked it - very awesome Stephanie!!

Steph also made these amazingly cute baby cards - each one was different but this one was my favorite. :)

Deb also came up with these adorable tag cards. The embossed paper in the background came from JoAnne's and the letters were cut using Storybook. Too cute and none were exactly the same as we were allowed to chose our backgrounds, tags and letters from oodles of different pastel colors.

Hanna gave us a tutorial on making these cute "Sweet one" stamped images using layers from a Stampin' Up set. She also brought the cutest little onesie papers and card bases too. Love this one!!!

Leave it to Hanna for also introducing us to her other passion - beading - she shared her beading wire with us and made these adorable wire hearts. She also had these super cute mini punch tags and tiny heart and key punches for making the dangly tags to hang from the wire heart! The card base has embossed edges and foil - the sentiment is printed and mounted on glitter cardstock - this card has everything! I love those teeny punch tags!!!

A confession - I did not make a Valentine this month - after all of the Valentining I did for other projects - I just didn't have the heart for it. Heh... but I did bring along kits for this baby card which is mostly made with Cricut cut circles and flowers and a little flourish embelishment from the Storybook cartridge.

After enjoying some of Hanna's awesome Taco soup we adjourned our meeting of the CDC for Febuary - next meeting will be held March 8th at my house. Our theme will be St. Patty's, spring, and Easter cards. Thank you ladies for another awesome day!!!

*The Card Day Club meets once a month to trade and swap completed cards and card kits - it is a day of crafting and food and fun and food and friendship, laughter and food. :D If you are a local and would like to join us for a meeting of the CDC in person or remotely, please contact me!!! :)

Stamping Outside The Box

I have time for one more challenge before heading back to *real* work for the weekend. :) Stars and Stamps initiated a COLOR Challenge - the idea being to be inspired by a photo of a dress and make a card duplicating the colors shown there. How fun! Here is a photo of the dress we were given.

Now then. . . we didn't have to duplicate the pattern, just the colors. But I really did love how these colors came cascading down the dress - mingling together like a little spring flower party. :) Hooray! (It is snowing outside today - and I am in denial.)

Here is my card for the challenge and a quick fun tutorial for doing something UNUSUAL with your stamps. (What, me?)

First of all, I have about a dozen of those really cute little Studio G Alphabet stamps - I found them on sale in the dollar bins at Michael's I think. I snagged up as many of the different fonts as I could find. Sadly, I haven't used them as often as I thought I would. Look closely at the flowers on my card - why, they aren't flowers at all, they are letters! In fact, I used the letters "D" "A" and "Y" and "!" to reflect the "Happy Day" sentiment at the top of the card. Here's how I started.


I used a 4.25 x 5.5 " teal Bazzil background and matted with a yellow DCWV cardstock that I ran through my cuttlebug to emboss with the dot pattern. I made an A2 size card today. (Half of an 8.5x11 cardstock.)


I used a 3.5 x 4.5" white cardstock as a background for my stamping. I used Color Box chalks to stamp with in these colors: Ice Jade, Prussian Blue, Teal, Yellow Cadmium, Fresh Green and Blue Iris. I used the "D, A, Y and !" stamps, starting with the "!"


I stamped "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" all over the paper in yellow and green, starting at the bottom and stamping less and lighter towards the top. I made little flower patterns with the stamp. Hehehe.



Here is another closeup of how I proceeded with the "D"s and the "A"'s and the "Y's" . . oh, I guess I used the "." a few times too, as centers for the flowers. When I was finished, I chalked all of the edges of the white cardstock with the teal chalk.

All that was left was to stamp the "Happy Day" sentiment on a strip of white, mount again on teal, and add it to the card. I used the chalks to stamp the sentiment as well.

That is all for today - and I will be back next week, Happy Day!

More Challenges Lie Ahead

Stars and Stamps has posted another fantastic sketch challenge, and has some pretty fabulous instructions this week for tying ribobn. If you are ribbon impaired, like myself, there are some really good pointers available. . . thanks S&S!!!

Here is a copy of the sketch:

I like this one because there are so many possibilities. I love how a sketch can give you a basic idea or idea, and your mind can work from there! I am still madly cranking out the Valentines this week. I wanted to participate in this challenge, make some more Valentines, and I had some other challenges in mind too... I made two goals out of this one - to use my old supplies, and also to learn a new technique! Boy was I in for a CHALLENGE!

The patterned paper is an old one that I bought when I wanted to make an antique-looking album of sorts. The album hasn't happened yet - but I love how this paper looks for a Valentine. I chalked the edges with a creamy brown antique looking color. I layered the card with a strip of lace that I had in my fabric / ribbon stash. I layered again with another strip of pink cardstock. My ribbon goes the long way - rather than across the top strip like in the sketch. Finally, I made the rose embelishments by printing the roses on a cream colored cardstock (I did a google image search for antique roses.) I finally made use of a set of Spellbinders that was sent to me as a gift! I must say that I was scared to death of these things - and it did take some practice to get the finished result. The Spellbinders Nestablilties are templates that both cut and emboss. . . they work in most cutting machines apparently, I did mine in my Cuttlebug! I'm pleased with the results - and I do think that I will be experimenting with Spellbinders again. :)

Lessons learned this week: I am glad that I did not discard my old things - the patterned paper and the scrap piece of lace that I didn't think would be good for anything. Even if I just have a bin on hand that I store old supplies in, it is good to keep these things. You never know when you may be able to bring new life to old things that otherwise may have ended up in the trash. I am also glad that my friend sent me the Spellbinders - I have sat here staring at them for a few months now - wondering how to proceed? I am glad that I listened to the advice of other friends and gave the Spellbinders a try - they really ARE fabulous and it was fun to learn a new technique. Even if it took lots of practice and I made lots of mistakes along the way. Growing is half of the fun.