Patterned Papered Dreams

A Moxie Fab Clean and Simple Xmas

Hi there! I'm sorry I posted so little in the last week, but we celebrated my son's second birthday and lots of stuff was going on around here. I missed crafting and blogging but you should have seen his big smile on his birthday party!!

Ok, let's get to the point. Sure you know Cath's Moxie Fab blog, a place chocking full of inspiration, trends analisis, spotlight on new stuff and... yes, challenges!!! Last week she focused on different trends on Xmas crafts, and I plan to give a go to all of them. It's a good way to get out of your comfort zone and try new things, so why not?
This card is for the "Clean and Graphic" challenge. Check it here.
I really like the results, and I'm sorry for the crappy image, the light today is awful because it's raining!.
Probably heat embossing doesn't really make it into "clean" cathegory but hey, I couldn't resist it. I just love embossing. So the stitched frame is embossed with super fine detail gold embossing powder and the holly was stamped with pigment ink and then heat embossed with clear powder. Also added a tiny dot of Xmas red stickles. But no mess. Still clean, you see? ;) The sentiment was stamped in red chalk ink.
Be sure to check all the challenges, they're fun!! And also a great way to begin building your Xmas cards stash in advance, which is perfect for me as we'll be moving back to Spain in november so I'll be way too busy unpacking and with little time for cardmaking. *Big sigh*
And of course, as every monday there's a new challenge at the Hero Arts blog. This week it's all about masculine. Have a look here!
Thanks for stopping by and have a great week everyone!

Supplies: White cardstock; Stamps: Hero Arts CL232 "Jolly Xmas", Hero Arts CL266 "Mix&Match Elements"; Ink: Colorbox Pigment and Chalk queues; Other: Tsukineko Clear embossing powder, Ranger Superfine Detail embossing powder in gold.

Cards for Kate and her family

Kate McRae is a beautiful 5 years old little girl who, along with her family, is facing a very difficult time. She was recently diagnosed with a very agressive form of brain cancer. Jennifer McGuire, Jana Millen and Kristina Proffitt have organised a "Cards for Kate Drive" and are asking crafters from all the world to send them cards for Kate and her family. Then they'll forward them all to  McRae family. Cheering up cards, comforting cards, religious cards, whatever you can do to let then know how many people is thinking and caring of them through this hard moments.
You have all the information here. Please, take a moment to make cards for Kate and her beloved ones. Thank you so much!

Here are the cards I'm sending them: one for each member of the family. I tried to make different styles, according to the different ages of the recipients.

This one is for Kate


For her parents, Aaron and Holly


For big sister, Olivia


And for little brother, Will


And the envelopes, of course!

Supplies: White and colored cardstock; Stamps: Hero Arts, Tim Holtz, Sassafrass Lass; Ink: Distress Inks and Colorbox; Patterned Paper: Basic Grey and DCWV; Other: Clear and colored embossing powder, diamond stickles, distress stickles, Perfect Pearls, Cuttlebug embossing folders, Nestabilities Labels 1 and Large Scalloped circles, blender pen, cotton yarn.

Have yourself a Merry (vintage) Little Christmas... and a giveaway

Good morning and welcome to Christmas in August! When lovely Lorraine from the Simon Says Challenge Design Team asked me to create a card as their guest designer for this week I almost couldn't believe it! It has been a big honour for me and I hope you like what I've created. I feel also very lucky to have been asked precisely for this week, the subject being... Christmas in August!! I love Christmas. Yeah, almost everyone does. But I mean I LOVE it very much!!! And the most traditional, the better for me. Gimme me tinkering lights, snow, the scent of spices and cinnamon, clover and apples and gingerbread, gimme candy canes, silver bells and kisses under the mistletoe, gimme carols by Bing Crosby, Santas and dwarfs and reindeers and pines, and family gatherings and miracles. Gimme all of that and I'll be in heaven.
Ok, so this is the thing. I'd love to give away this card and the three cordinating gift tags (along with a couple of surprise supplies!) to one of the participants in this week's Simon Says challenge. Once the winner of the challenge has been announced next week  I'll myself pick a random winner between all the entries.
I put a lot of love in this creations because I knew they were going to travel to another crafter's hands. I used a few stamping techniques on them: distressing, distress inks, embossing resist and stamping with glitter.
So tell me... what do you like most about Christmas?
Thanks so much for stopping by and... have yourself a merry little Xmas... in august! ;)

Supplies: White cardstock; Stamps: Fancy Pants Blissful Season; Patterned Paper: October Afternoon "Good Cheer"; Ink: Distress Inks in Pine Needle, Fired Brick, Old Paper and Scattered Straw; Other: Tsukineko clear embossing powder, Tsukineko "Glue Pad", glitter, cord, ribbon.

Sewing issues and dumb moments

Hello!!! I've been having a several months lasting dumb moment. Here's what happened: For weeks I've stared at awesome scrapbooking layouts, cards and tags with machine stitching on them. I loved the effect. But at the same time I was horrified of the amount of damage that sewing through glue would be doing to those poor machines. Begin to see the dumbness here??? Just a few days ago a cartoon lightbulb suddenly shined over my -prettily twisted- ponytail. OH. MY. GOD.

1. Cut the paper/cardstock/whatever to desired measure.
2. Sew through it.
3. and NOW you can glue it to the page/card/whatever.

See? Not dumb anymore -insert very proud smilie here if you wish-. No sewing machines are damaged in the process. People is NOT that dumb. Ok, maybe someone did it the wrong way too ;)

So here's one of my first attempts to incorporate sewed elements into my cards. This is an entry for this week's Hero Arts challenge. This time it's freestyle, and the requisite is that once we've finished our cards, we have to actually send them to beloved ones, maybe friends or family we haven't seen for a long time. "Just because" cards. The perfect challenge for me, living so far away from my country! So this one is for one of my best friends in Spain, and some other will follow for my mum and other friends too.
Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll be back tomorrow with some Christmas inspiration. Don't you hear the bells jingling all the way? ;)

Supplies: Green cardstock; Stamps: Hero Arts CL305, CL261, Basic Grey "Farmer's Market" (branch); Ink: Ranger Archival Coffee,Versamark; PP: Basic Grey Lemonade, Sassafras Sunshine Lollipops, K&Co classic; Other: Distress Embossing powder Mustard Seed, White EP, white gel pen, glitter gel pens, sewing machine.

Clothespins

Good evening! Have I told you that I love altering clothespins? With paper, with stamps, acrylic paint... there a lots of possibilities! I give them away to friends and they use them to keep papers together or to close snack bags. Sometimes I attach a slim magnet on the back so that they can be used in the fridge's door to hold notes, pics... whatever.

So this time I tried some stamping, embossing and ink staining on plain wooden clothespins. I just looked in my stamps stash for some long and narrow stamps that would fit in the clothespin, stamped with versamark and heat embossed (yeah, in the fireplace again, but no clothespins or fingers were harmed!). Then I rubbed some Distress Inks into the wood using the foam applicators and voilá!
As you can see the embossing is not perfect, but I had a lot of fun playing around and I love the wash of color that Distress Inks give to the wood. I may have to try doing it in some furniture next. What do you say? Do you have other uses for Distress Inks than the paper ones? I'd love to know about them!

Also, this little experiment doubles as my entry for this week's Simon Says Stamp challenge, which is about creating "Anything but a card".

Supplies: Wood clothespins; Stamps: Hero Arts, Crate Paper, Basic Grey; Ink: Distress Inks in Broken China, Shabby Shutters and Worn Lipstick; Other: Versamark, white, pink and teal embossing powders.

Thanks for stopping by!

Embossing in the fireplace

Good morning! Yeah, you read it right. While I keep waiting (and waiting, and waiting...) for my heat gun to arrive, I decided I may well try some alternatives. That's how much I love heat embossing :)
I decided against hairdryer because it would blow off all the powders, and against the toaster because... well, I don't need to tell you why... but the thought of blackened cardstock and embossed bread had something to do with it.
And then there it was... the fireplace!!! Carefully and holding the paper with long kitchen tongs... it worked!!! So now I can play with my embossing stuff while the heat tool arrives. A crafter has to do what she has to do.

And here's the result. Well, at least one of them, because I've been embossing a lot of stuff since I discovered the fireplace technique worked.

The flowers were embossed in white and the sentiment is embossed with clear powders on Broken China distress ink.

Supplies: White and grey cardstock; Stamps: S5101 Raindrop background, CL130 Frames&Messaged, Tim Holtz Nature Moments; Ink: Distress Ink Broken China and Shabby Shutters, Versamark; White and clear embossing powders; waxed twill.

Oh! in the challenge front, remember that there's a new one for this week in the Hero Arts blog. It's all about sketches this time and Shari Caroll created three great ones to follow.

And have a look at this. It's my fave one of all the new HA seasonal releases. Don't you love it?

Thanks for stopping by!

Two cards and two rants

Hi! See? No butterflies today ;) First of all I want to share two cards I made between yesterday and today. And after that I will start ranting about mail and other stuff.

So here's the first card, made for this week's Hero Arts Challenge. The point was creating something inspired in the several sneek peaks they're showing this week from their latest releases. My card was inspired by the use of red, green, pink, white and scallops on this sneak peek. I love that little bug! Actually, the whole set is adorable, with the owl, the bird with the super cool tail... Hubs asked me if the little bug was the influenza virus :P

Supplies: Green and red cardstock (DCWV and Coredinations); Stamps: Hero Arts CL231 Happy Hello; Ink: Colorbox Primary Elements chalk queue, Worn Lipstick Distress Ink; Other: Blender pen, corner rounder, ribbon (unknown source), decorative scissors.

And the second card is my take on Kristina Werner's Finally Friday video. I love those videos and watching them is always in my friday's "to-do" (with pleasure) list. Ok, so from now on the FF videos will be included in the challenge page over at Two Peas, so you can make a card inspired in the weekly video and if you're lucky, win some prices. Today's video is here.

I was inspired by the bright colors, the polka dots, gingham ribbon, use of a scallop, an orange stripe... really lots of things. But as you can see, the card is a bit different from Kristina's. I like both!

Supplies: Kraft, white, pink and orange cardstock (DCVW, unknown); Stamps: Hero Arts CL291 Hello Circles, CL292 Celebrate all Day, S5101 Raindrop Background; PP: DCVW Spring 2009; collection; Ink: Colorbox Primary Elements and Jelly Bean queues; Other: ribbon, bling accent, blender pen, sewing machine, decorative scissors, stapler.

And that's all my card related stuff for today. Now we can move on to the ranting department. Because what's the point of having a blog if you can't use it for ranting purposes?

There we go!

1st big rant: I'm still waiting for my embossing gun which I ordered MORE than 1 month ago. I'm all for free shipping except it that means that you have to wait years for your stuff to arrive. In that case, I'd rather pay for the shipping but get my package sooner.

2nd big rant: Why, why, why does an online retailer allow you to make a whole big order and pay for it, then sends you a mail saying it's alredy shipped and one day later sends a new mail saying that not a single item of those you ordered were in stock?. NOT EVEN ONE. After going through the whole checkout proccess. And the worse part is that I have a tracking number for a parcel that seems to be "in transit". An empty box perhaps? If you want to know, the retailer is Joanne's and I made the purchase through Amazon. Not a happy customer here. Even if they send me a 15% off coupon for my next order. Which won't be placed, I'm afraid. I don't want another empty box "in transit", thank you.
Ok, so if you made it all the way reading to here, thank you very much for your patience. I really needed to rant loud, what can I say.
Oh, yes! And I wish you the loveliest weekend ever.

Playing with perfect pearls

Hi there! What is it lately with me and butterflies? I promise when I sit to make something I don't plan it in advance. I don't say "let's make a card with a butterfly". But in the end, most of the stuff I've created for the past 3 weeks had butterflies. Maybe the next time I sit at my crafting desk I should actually plan to make something without a butterfly on it ;)
Anyhow, this week's Jennifer Mc Guire Thinking Inking classes over at Two Peas in a Bucket focus on Ranger's Perfect Pearls and several cool techniques you can make with them. It's super fun stuff, even if you finish with a (nice) shimmer all over your hands... Thankfully it's super easy to scrub anything from the Ranger Crafting Sheet. I own the smaller one but I'm planning on getting the bigger. You can find the monday Thinking Inking class here and today's is here.

I tried some of the monday techniques on tags but the only actual card I did was this one. There are several colors of Perfect Pearls, but the only ones I have are the "Interference" ones, which are very subtle shines of red, green, blue and violet. Maybe because of being SO subtle they don't show really well in the photo. But I promise the results in real life are super pretty, specially when the light shines on the parts where you used perfect pearls.
The butterfly was stamped with Dusty Concord distress ink and then I spread the violet interference perfect pearls over it as shown in the class. I also gave a go to my Pebeo glitter paint to make the tiny accents on the butterfly wings and it seems to work the same great way that Liquid Pearls, although with a glittery finish here.
Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Light purple and creamish pink cardstock; Stamps: Basic Grey Flutter set, Hero Arts Raindrop Designblock S5101 and Frames and Messages CL130; Ink: Dusty Concord distress ink, Colorbox Sand Dunes queue; Other: Perfect Pearls (Interference kit), Pebeo glitter paint, twill.

Vowel cards for my son

Hello! Today I want to share a fun little project I made for my son. I was inspired by a lovely ABC tag book that Ivy from the Hero Arts pool posted last week. I decided to go simple with mine, as my son is 23 months old, so by the time a whole ABC book becomes useful for him it will probably be quite damaged and distressed as only a toddler knows how to do it ;) So I made just the vowels in spanish and I'm going to cover them with clear adhesive paper so that they last around for a while and remain water-milk-juice-drools proof.
As you can see, A is for Arbol (tree), E is for elefante (no translation required), I is for isla (island), O is for oso (bear) and U is for uvas (grapes).

I think that this is the best use I've ever given to my Hero Arts Small Variety Alphabet set, which by the way is a great value clear set! You get 3 different alphabets in it. The rest of the stamps are also HA with Crate Paper (tree), Sass Lass (elephant and little birdie on the island), Technique Tuesday (the island and sea waves were created from their Hanging by a Thread set) and Basic Grey (the leaves and stem from the grapes).

I also used my Dove blender pen and Tim Holtz distress inks slightly rubbed on the edges with the foam applicator.
Super easy and yet lovely for a toddler! It feels good to be able to give my son something useful created by mama. Thing is I own a good sewing machine and I LOVE sewing but I'm not good at it. So stamped goods it will be! :D

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely week!

Ps: There's a new challenge starting today at the HA blog. You have to create something inspired in the sneak peeks from their new products, which are all awesome, by the way!

Supplies: White light cardstock; Stamps: Hero Arts CL137 Small variety alpha, CL291 Hello Circles (for the grapes), CL155 Playful Animals, Basic Grey, Technique Tuesday, Crate Paper, Sassafrass Lass; Ink: Various Colorbox queues and distress ink slightly rubbed on borders; blender pen.