Polished to Perfection

Decorate a CD Gift Box using Lockhart Snowmen

I absolutely adore these snowmen from the Lockhart Stamp Company...they are individual stamps ..so you can make your own family.  I also love their holly and bough border (9002 Holiday Ribbon from the Millinery Collection). Anyone who know me persoanlly knows I love snowman, they adorn all of my handpainted christmas ornaments and my snowman paper designs.  I absolutely love the possibilities these cute little snowman have.  I found these great CD Boxes at the Dollar Store - they come 3 in a packet with a variety of fun designs. I am always looking for great gift ideas and I thought these would be cute with a CD or even with a Gift Card inside the box.

So to start this project I cut a 4 1/2" x 4" piece of white cardstock, then I stamped the Holiday Ribbon border. The border was longer than my paper, so I used a mask on both sides of my paper so that I could make a square frame with the bough border.  Next I cut a Scalloped Oval using my Spellbinders Nestabilities I used Steel Blue Elan Metallics from World WIn and dry embossed it with my Snowflake A2 Embossing Folder. (choose the size oval that fits inside your bough frame).  To color the bough border I used YG67 Copic Markers to color the holly leaves and then I used Apple Green Prismacolr Pencil to color the boughs.  Then I highlighted the holy with my Olive Spica Micro Glass Flake Pens and the boughs with my Melon Spica.  I colored in the berries with my Red Spica.

Using Adriondack Pitch Black I stamped all four snowman and colored them with a combination of Copic markers and Spica Pens.  Then I cut each one of the snowmen our and placed 3 of them on my scalloped oval using foam squares.  I used 2 layers of foam squares to add the smallest Snowman to my family.  For the snow I used snowtext writer and Crystal Glitter from the Art Glitter Institute.  I used a pallete knife to put the snow in place, since my snowman were 3-D.  I placed the tallest snowman on the right hand corner.  To balance the red in my card I used American Crafts Rudolph paper to mat my image.

Know if you have been reading my blog - you know I always like to do one more step...so as I was writing this blog it occurred to me that the Tonic Snowflake Border Punch...Punches the cutest scrap baby snowflakes - so of course I retrieved the the snowflakes from the belly of my punch and they just happened to be this beautiful pale blue and a perfect size to add to my card.  So here is the upgraded design: 

Aren't the baby snowflakes cute??  In the larger version of this photo you can actually see the shine of the microglass flakes- I was so hopeful that you might be able to see them in this photo post...it really makes my cards just pop.

Make it 3-D - Poinsettia Christmas Card

Several of my students have been looking for a great Poinsettia stamp - I found this great stamp from Inkadinkadoo, and I can't wait to show you a couple of cards I made with this stamp and how dramatically different I could make the same image look.  This week I have been playing with some 3-D images from Ectasy for a later post..which inspired me to try and 3-D this image and I am so happy with the results.  In order to 3-D this card I stamped the image 4 times using Adriondack Pitch Black Ink. Using Copic Sketch markers - R29 and R59 I colored in the Poinsettia's petals on the first image, I used G07 for the grean leaves. This will be the base of the 3-D image. On the second image I colored most of the poinsettia with the exception of the petals and the leaves that were in the far background. Next I cut out these and using foam dots I placed them on the 1st image creating a second layer. On the third stamped image I colored the petals closest to the top of the flower and cut these out and popped them up as the third layer.  On the fourth stamped image I colored just the centers of the flower and popped them up as the fourth and final layer.  Using my Swirls A2 Folder I dry embossed my red cardstock mat using my Cuttlebug for a little more dimmension and texture. the next mat is this great Holly Paper from Magenta and the cardstock is Shamrock green from World win treasures collection  The embellishments are all buttons from Jesse James. 

For the second card I chose an entirely different technique to show you how different you can make an image look.  I stamped the image using Stazon Jet black on a laminating sheet and let it dry for a few minutes.  Then I removed the backing.  To make a mini shovel I cut a coffee stirrer at an angle and slowly began placing red micro beads on the image where the poinsettia petals were.  I placed green micro beads on the leafs.  Using the coffee stirrer I was able to scrap off any beads that inadvertently landed where I didn't want them.  When I was finished placing the microbeads I used a white glitter from the Art Glitter Institute to fill in the remaining exposed lamenating sheet. To highlight the beads and the glitteron the image I placed it on a piece of darkgreen cardstock and adhere it to the cardstock by adding small dabs of designer dries clear adhesive to the backside of the microbeads. I cut a mat from Worldwin Bronze Elan Metallics and punched the corners of the mat with my tonic corner punch.  The Rhinestones are self-adhesive and are from Kaisercrafts.  The Noel is from the same button assortment as the previous card, but I altered it and made it gold using my Gold Krylon Leafing pen.  The paper is St. Nick Vintage Snowflake from Making Memories.

Stained Glass Poinsettia Card using Copic Sketch and Airbrush System

Do you love the look of dry embossing, but never have the time to dry emboss?? Help is here!! You can now dry emboss you brass stencils by using a Wizard or a Cuttlebug. I found that I did get a deeper dry emboss from my Wizard, as it exerts 3000 lbs of pressure. This is the second card I taught at Silver Fox Stamps and More.  The stained glass Poinsettia Stamp is from Silver Fox also.  I love the stained glass effect you can get with Copic Sketch Markers.  After Coloring in the stamped image with the following Copic Colors : Y13,YR07,B28,G07,R29,R59. I used Y26 to color the bell. Next I cut the image out and inked the entire image with a Versamark Watermark pad and used clear embossing powder to heat emboss the entire image. This makes the Copic colors richer and deeper in coloring and gave me a beautiful stained glass effect.Next I cut a Black Kromekote mat for the stained glass image.

To create the background mat, I used a Dreamweaver stencil LJ882 Diamond Grid and dry embossed it in my Wizard. This technique is called faux tile.   Thanks Theresa for teaching me this great technique!! You will see more cards using this technique next week.

Here is the Wizard Sandwich Recipe for Dry Embossing a Stencil:

White cutting mat, stencil, paper, Polymer tan mat, 2 thin pieces of chipboard and  White Embossing mat. To get an even deeper dry emboss, spritz you paper with paper glide just before you run it through the Wizard.

Here is the Cuttlebug Sandwich Recipe for Dry Embossing a Stencil:

A plate, b Plate, stencil, paper, Polymer tan mat (from Spellbinders) 2 thin pieces of chipboard and your second B plate.  Note: the Polymer Tan Mat is what makes the image dry emboss. To get an even deeper dry emboss, spritz you paper with paper glide just before you run it through your Cuttlebug.

Next I airbrushed the stencil with Y13 and Shaded the outside edges by airbrushing with Y17.  Leave the stencil in place and ink with a Versamark Watermark pad.  Remove the stencil and apply clear embossing powder and heat emboss.  Next I used my Tonic Holly Corner Punch to Punch all four Corners of the mat and placed micro mini red brads in the holes made with the punch for berries.  I added two balck Kromekote mats as shown in the photo.  The ribbon from American Crafts was pure white and I airbrushed it with Y13 to tone down the ribbon so it wouldn't draw your eye to it first.  I added Kaiser Crafts Rhinestone stickers to the ribbon and place the image on Kellie Green polished Stone Paper from Murdock Country Creations.

Snowman Christmas Card using Spica Micro Glassflake Pens

Sorry for the lapse in my blog.  I have been busy teaching and designing new projects and enjoying the beauty of Autumn. This is a really fun Snowman Card to make.  The snowman stamp is Sam from Silver Fox Stamps and More, if you are not familiar with Sheila and John's line of stamps click through to their website to see their entire catalog.   I designed this for a class I taught at Silver Fox, on using Spica Micro Glassflake Pens and Spellbinder's Nestabilities. When I started creating this project I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with Sam, first I cut him out using a rectangular nestabilities die..but I didn't like the white background. so I decided to cut him entirely out leaving scalloped bottom that had been created by the die. Next I used Christmas Stripes from Pebble Inc and cut out a rectangle using my nestabilities die.  The Shamrock Green cardstock is from Worldwin's Treasures Collection, it's a great Christmas Green.  In the past I have used my spica pens for highlighting areas of an image but for this card I really wanted my snowman to shimmer and for my students to really get a feel for how beautiful the Spica pens are on an image. Spica Microglass flake pens are a waterbased pigment ink (not alcohol ink like Copics), which means if you color in one location too many times the Spica will eat the paper (when the water content becomes too high).  But the Spica's are Copic compatible which means for larger areas of coloring I color first with my Copic Sketch Marker and then I highlight the area with the Spica pens. What makes these pens better than a traditional glitter pen?  These pens will last twice as long as traditional glitter pens with over 350 yards of writing pigment and micro glass. They have been designed with a no clog tip and write with a very fine line. They add just a touch of shimmer to any project and dry instantly.  Currently Spica's are available in 13 colors and are now arriving at stores nationwide.  Here is your Checklist so that you can collect them all.

	Spica Micro Glass Flake Pens
	Collect all 13
Sku #	Color/Description	Have
01	Lavendar
02	Pink
03	Red ( Great Xmas Red)
04	Orange
05	Lemon
06	Melon  (Bright Green)
07	Olive (Great Xmas Dk Green)
08	Turquoise
09	Sky Blue (Blue)
10	Black
11	Gold
12	Silver
13	Clear
	Waterbased Pigment Ink
	Acid- Free, Non-Toxic, Archival
	350 Yards of Micro Glass Flakes
	Twice the writing length of other pens
	Dries instantly for maximum sparkle
	Copic compatible
	Transparent ink with lots of bling
	Perfect Stocking Stuffers
	Retail is $2.99 ea

My favorite color of Spica is clear, since I can use it over anyone of my 322 colors of Copic sketch Markers. Isn't that cool - one pen - 322 colors.

When I was coloring Sam's Hat, I added a red band using my Spica Microglass flake pen and colored in the rest of the hat with my Copic Sketch marker YG03.  I shaded the left hand side of the hat with  G... and then colored the entire hat area with the Melon Spica.  I colored his twig arms with E33, and then shaded with E08., then I used my clear Spica to highlight the arms, since Spica doesn't have a brown. For the scarf I used my Red & Melon Spica's to color direct on the stamped image as these areas were small.  I used my R29, and R59 to color in Sam's vest which I then highlighted with a red Spica.

I shaded the snowman and the scalloped edge with C1, and then added some clear spica to Sam to make him shimmer.  For the green mat I used a slightly larger Spellbinder Rectangle scalloped die and cut and embossed the image.  For a little more blink I added Rhinestone Stickers from Kaiser Crafts.   The card base is a white glitter card from Diecuts with a View, which I airbrushed with YG07. The snowflake ribbon is from American Crafts.

Here is a close -up of the Ivy Embellishment from Making Memories - the dark green lines are my Olive Spica Micro glass flake pen...Finally a photograpgh that shows the Spica sparkle!!!

Just a little More Merry from One Heart..One Mind

Now I must admit that everytime I made a matching envelope....you got it!!!  It inspired another card!! Any of my students will tell you that before this One Heart.... One Mind Marathon I had never made an evelope...okay don't shoot me!!  True confessions..I make cards to teach classes with...I never send them.  Athough I guess that will have to change too since my mom recently announced that she now expects a handmade Birthday card.

Now part of the reason that I had not made any envelopes is that I didn't have a great template...but One Heart ...One Mind has thought of everything they have 3 great templates.  One for square cards and one for rectangular cards.  The third template is an envelope lining template.  Which I used to dress up some of my plain white Diecut with a view envelopes left over from all the glitter packs of cards I have cut up.  Since all the envelopes I made with the two Merry Merry Collection were DOUBLE SIDED!!  I love double sided paper- it's like having twice as many scraps!!

Next I created yet another glitter card... I couldn't resist playing with the border piece of paper that said "I've been naughty...I've been nice"  and thought this would be a great gift certificate holder card. To make the card fit a 5 X 5 envelope I trimmed down the 5.5 x 5.5 Red Glitter Card and while I was cutting I also decided to trim one inch of the bottom front edge of the card so that you could see the I've been Naughty...Nice verse both from the front of the card and from the inside where I made a pocket to place a gift card.  I thought that whoever I sent this cute card to would certainly have to think about whether they were naughty or nice.   So that's the end of this marathon...and I made everything that you have seen on the last 4 Posts in one afternoon!!  I love it when it all just flows without any designer blocks!!

Thanks for visiting.   The Merry Merry Border Paper is an absolute must have as it can be cut into tons of cards.

One Heart....One Mind Invitation Paper

                          

Planning a Christmas party or Cookie Exchange...One Heart...One Mind has a paper designed with 4 Invitations and 4 Jingle embellishments with card bands and Coveralls...I used the first invite to create an openface invite, used pieces of the Jingle Jingle Coverall to create a fun Christmas Tag.  My 3rd  Invite used their diecut coverall to enclosed my invitation like a matchbook. What I loved about this project is that once you combine the Spellbinders Nestabilities dies with this great paper line the possibilites are just endless.  The jingle circles on the invitation paper were not die cut, but using the scallop nestabitilies I could easily die cut them, even when the images were very close together.  Unlike a punch I did not have to worry about how far in I needed to punch to match the image ( i.e. whether my punch would be deep enough to reach the right spot). The other great thing about the Nestability dies is that I can Nest the dies and get mutiple scallops or circles from the same sheet of paper. So if you are cutting up Red Glitter cards from DIe Cuts with a View you can be frugal and die cut the center of the scallop too and save it for later.

 

See how close the jingle embellishments are..don't worry..just use your nestabilities!!

Currently I use my Spellbinders dies in my cuttlebug, and I do not yet own a magnetic sheet so when I am using two dies together I simply tape the dies down with removeable scotch tape, this ensures the my dies do not shift in my sandwich recipe.

Here I used the Jingle invitation for the inside of the card.  If you normally send Photo Christmas Cards, this jingle invitation would be a perfect place to adhere your Christmas Photo and then stamp your message on the left side of the card  (this square hides where my ribbon is adhered.  Now here is a view of the outside of the card.

   

      

For some reason while making this card I kept thinking of olives...which made me think about Martinis..which reminded me that I had a very cute martini stamp..which was now calling out.."what about me...try me.." so here is where I went next:

    

Now see what I mean about the olives....the edge of the cover all paper really looks like olives!! Here you can see a great example of how creative you can be with all the sizes of Spellbinders Scallop Nestibilities.  I chose to mat them off center, just to be a little playful ....now if only I had my rectangle nestabilities too...I could have punched up my be Jolly mat as well!!  If you look really close you will also see that I used one of my circle nestabilities as a mask and I colored the edge of the light green paper with my Green Spica Micro Glass Flake Pen. Doesn't it look like I have another mat.   

Isn't this just Fun Paper....and remember this is the third post with projects I made in just a few hours and I still have more to share.  Still having way to many scraps of beautiful paper - remember I just couldn't stop.

Here I used the leftover, reverse images from my nestabilities diecuts, The Green Spica pen show up better on this card.  I also used a Silver Spica Pen to highlght the liquid in the glass.  Well I still have one last posts with this great paper...See you tomorrow!! Because remember not only did I make cards,I made matching envelopes too!!

Tonic Studios Border Punches - Holly

                           

For this card I made cut an A2 card from the Retro Squares/Polka Dot paper.   Then using one of my Scalloped Circle Nestability dies I die cut the jingle from a sheet of Invitation paper, then I die cut a slightly larger scallop from the red glitter paper from Die Cuts with a View.  Now the Merry Merry Border paper is an absolute must have. I used it everywhere.  It is a solid sheet of diamond strips alternating with merry merry verse plus it is double sided with a beautiful stripe.  Have any of you seen or used a Tonic Studio Punches yet??  Even my husband was intriqued with their incredible design and great price point. The punches are designed with a boot Punch - an elongated base with a mushroon shaped plunger cap for extra Power Push..which gives you a crisp clean cut with less fatique.

They are available in 10 Corner Punches and 14 edging punches.  Add the New Border system and these punches will all make beautiful borders.  Do you own any fiskars border punches??  Did you wish they had made them to punch cardstock not just copy paper...well leave it to Tonic Studios!! These punches will effortlessly punch even card stock. 

The corner punches are designed with unique wings which separate from the punch to convert your corner punch into a border punch.  I created this holly border using the holly corner punch without the wings in the border system.  Simply remove the wings and place the punch on the Border system with the Boot punch facing the grid. Position and punch your first design. Move your paper line up your marker(the blue arrows) with the center of the first design and punch your second punch.  To create this border on my card I started in the center of the paper(using      also form One Heart..One Mind) and punched to the left and then punched to the right.

I found the great red mini brads at Creative Expressions at CHA and they are the perfect size for the berry holes created from this punch.  Make sure you put them in place before you add your green cardstock mat so that the backs of the brads will be hidden within your card. Next I adhered the merry merry border to my green cardstock mat and added the punched border.

                          

These two great cards were created with more great pieces from One Heart...One Mind.  The Striped paper and the Mat print for the Merry Embellishment are both from a great piece of paper designed so that you can make 5 cards ( all different sizes from one sheet of paper).  I chose to use them as mats on my glitter cards. Don't you just Love the wide sheer Polka Dot Ribbon!!

322 Copic Sketch Marker colors where do I start?

                      

When I first saw these Glitter cards from Diecuts with a View, I fell in love. Then I found the red glitter cards and all I could think about was that I was not in Kansas anymore.  These red cards look just like Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers from the Wizard of OZ. Just wait til you see this week how this glitter paper will make your projects pop. The cards come in White, Green, Blue, Pink and Red and come in 2 sizes A2 and 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" squares complete with envelopes.  Diecuts also has glitter packs of paper in various sizes.  Unfortunately, the glitter packs do not contain this gorgeous red paper though.

If you have been reading my blog since July - you will remember me telling you that I was working on my friend Angela -who is traditionally a scrapbooker, but I could see the cardmaker in her blossoming.  This is Angela's first Copic Christmas card and I was right......She's a great cardmaker! The stamp is from Northwoods Rubberstamp and the Christmas paper is from American Crafts.  This paper is double sided and is a great card weight.  Angela used my nestability dies to crop the stamped image as well as cut the mats for the image. She used used the Classic Scallop Circle Circles Large and the Standard Circle Large Set of Nestabilities to create this card. Congratulations Angela your card is beautiful!! Thanks for letting me post it on my blog.

I have been playing with my Copic Sketch Markers over the last month trying to decide which colors should be the first colors you purchase.  I know eventually we will need them all but to begin with this is my recommendation for the first 25 colors based on using them for a variety of themes,seasons and paper maufacturers. Since every marker can be a blending marker, I chose a light color and a medium dark color to start with since you will be able to blend the medium tones.

Here is my recommendation of where to start with your Copic Sketch Marker selection:

Yellows -  Y06,Y11,Y17   Orange - YR04   Reds - R08,R29,R59  Pinks - RV02, RV34 Purples - BV01 V09

Blues - B00,B06,B97   Browns- E08,E29,E33,E37 Greens-  G17,G21,YG67,YG03 Gray- C3  Black - BV29

Colorless - 00

A special thanks to Mary who posted our most recent store visit (including pictures of us) on her blog today with a link to our blogs. You can visit Mary's blog at It's all about the Journey. Congratulations Mary for being selected to join Cornish Heritage Farms Blog Design Team!!

Cards with Outlines Rubberstamps and Polished Stone

  3-D Inspiration Card

I absolutely love Outlines Rubberstamp's Inspiration Stamp.  Inspiring is truly what this stamp is and the possibities are endless what you can create with this stamp especially when you combine it with polished stone paper from Murdock Country Creations.  The first card was created by stamping the inspiration stamp and embossing it on Turqouise Polished Stone paper with seafoam white embossing powder. Then I stamped the image a second time on Daydream Polished Stone Paper. This stamp gives you 16 beautiful architectural squares to design with.  I used a 3 x 3 Square of the Daydream stamped image as my base. From the remaining squares of Daydream I cut out six of the interior architectual shapes.  From the Turquoise stamped image I cut out six more shapes. I used pop-up dots to pop the embellishments and used the snowfalke stamped image in the center of the Inspiration design. The center snowflake image I stamped twice and cut out the frame of the second image and popped it up a third layer. Next I placed the decorated image onto a piece of Turquoise Polished Stone Paper as shown on a piece of Jack Frost Polished Stone Paper.  I then matted with Turqouise and placed it on a 6x6 card made from Day Dream Polished Stone Paper.  Here is a closer view of the card so you can see the detail:

                         

I love the architectural elements of this stamp, my house has a very victorian flair.The next card I made with this stamp was inspired from the first card.  I love making cards that have gifts in them.  So this card is one of my favorite Christmas cards, because it has a christmas ornament as a key element in the card.  It is simply attached with a brad which can easily be removed, and hung on your tree for generations to enjoy. 

The first step in creating this card is to use the single tree branch from Outlines Rubberstamps to create the beautiful christmas tree.  I stamped and embossed the image with a green embossing  powder on Peppermint Twist Polished Stone Paper from Murdock Country Creations  and added the snow using a Deco Art Snowtext Writer. Here is a closeup of the tree.

                      

The decorative corners are buttons from Buttons Galore, they give the card a finished flair. When attaching buttons and metal to your cards I highly recommend Scotch Tacky Adhesive.I added a small Merry Christmas verse also from Outlines to the front of this card.Here is a closeup of the ornament embellishment.  This is made using the large inspiration stamp and the lg stocking square.  I used an additional 9 x 9 square on the back of the ornament, so that it would be decorative on both sides if it were to twirl on your tree. I used Raspberry, Cotton Candy, Peppermint Twist and Fruitcake Polished Stone Paper to create this card.  The Green Metallic paper is Rusted Metallic from Bazzill. I wanted to share these cards with you tonight in all this detail so you could see how beautifulMurdock's Polished Stone Paper is when used like traditional cardstock.  Once you start using this polished stone paper, traditional cardstock will seem very flat.  These cards have so much dimension to them because each layer has a 3-D element to it.  And by the way, I am never responsible for any addictions that may occur from products I have introduced you too!!  (Don't you hate friends who are enablers).  Hope you enjoyed tonights cards.  See you tomorrow!!

Pastel Snowmen

This Snowman Family oval stamp from Northwood Rubberstamps was just calling for a little Copic Markers.  I thought it would be a great to show you a Christmas Card in pastels.  And to show off the Pastel Petallics from World Win.  These Petallics, like Bazzills Metallics emboss in the Cuttlebug beautifully.  The images are crisp and clear and look awesome on the Pastel Stripes Polished Stone Paper from Murdock Country Creations. I chose the snowflake and swirl A2 embossing folders, I thought the swirl would look like wind behind this cheery snow family.  I used my purple Spica Mica Glass flake to highlight the oval edge of the stamp.  This is card 3 for my Copic Christmas Card Class.   The next classes are Wednesday August 29th at 10 a.m. and Saturday September 1st at 10 a.m. Class fee for all 3 cards is $20.00.  If you would like to attend this class but the dates do not work for you please email me when you are available to take this class and I will set up a class around your schedule.