Polished to Perfection

Create a Love Notes mailbox from paper

Angela found this great template on Splitcoast Stampers.  We have been searching everywhere to find out where everyone is getting the larger metal colored mailboxes, in the search Angela found this great template from Brenda Quintana (aka Qbee) on Splitcoast Stampers just click on the link. A special thanks to Brenda for sharing your template with everyone!!! Angela arrived with her mailbox started but asked me to jazz it up a bit so- I modified the mailbox by adding a chipboard layer to the flag and the front of the mailbox.  I used a cuttlebug A2 embossing folder to dry emboss both sides of the flag and the interior of the front of the mailbox.  The paper is from Diecuts with A Views Spring Pack 2007.  The pink and White Polka Dot Ribbon is from Creative Impressions and the Shimmer letters are from Making Memories...they were originally silver - I colored them pink with my Copic Sketch Markers. You won't believe how much money I have saved in gas, time and supplies through the miracle of Copic.  No more trips to the craft store to find the perfect color embellishment and I am really getting much more out of my supplies!! Thanks Angela for letting me play with your mailbox...hope you had fun playing with my Outlines Rubber Stamps.

When Angela arrived for a playdate with this mailbox - I was thrilled since I had just made my Cupid treat bags.  She asked me to Jazz it up...which I did and look how sweet it looks with the Cupid Corn Treat bags inside...With these 2 projects you could be the coolest mom on the block!!

Here's the interior view with the candy isn't it sweet!!

This is the kind of mail - I wish was in my real mailbox!!  I think I will try to make my mailbox with chipboard reinforcement in the box...I am not sure if there will be too much tension from the chipboard for the adhesive to hold it in place. I let you know!! Thanks for stoppin' by!!

A2Z Essentials Paper Pumpkins for your Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Now in the midst of designing my Forest - It occurred to me that months ago I had started a Thanksgiving Table Setting...but I didn't really have a centerpiece...I have napkins and place cards and gift bags, but still no centerpiece and as many of you know once the creative juices start flowing it's very hard to turn them off so you can sleep at night...it is always better to finish designing before you try to sleep ( at least that's what I keep trying to explain to my husband when I am in the midst of the creative process at 1 a.m.).  To make this mini Pumpkin I used 1/2" x 2" Strips of A2Z Essentials paper - Carefree Collection - Sunny Circles and a 3" ball. I shaved just a hair off the bottom of the ball so that it would sit flat.  When I approached the top of the pumpkin I switched to strips that were only 1 1/2'" long so that it would lay correctly at the top.  I made the stem by cutting a 1/2" strip of paper and I twirled it up the pencil slightly overlapping the paper each time around the pencil. Remove it slowly from the pencil and form it into a stem. To make the curly vines I cut 1/4" strips of shamrock green cardstock and curled it around my pencil and as I pulled it off the pencil I made it into a long curl. When I completed my first pumpkin ( Yes--there is a whole patch of pumpkins coming), I decided that the paper I had selected was to pale and of course my husband thought so too!!  And his suggestion was perfect - of course - airbrush it!!! (why didn't I think of that).  Here is what my pumpkin looked like before it was airbrushed:

Wow!! What a difference a little airbrushing can do!!  I used my Copic Airbrush System and YR 09 .  For my second pumpkin I decided to use my peach glitter cards from Die Cuts with a View.  I airbrushed this pumpkin as well.

And if you have been reading my blog over the past few months you know I LOVE GLITTER PAPER!!

Here is a top view of the glitter pumpkin:

Aren't they cute??  Stop in tomorrow to see my Pumpkin Patch grow!! And don't miss checking in on Saturday - you just won't believe how cool Saturday's post is!! (Remember - no one has been sleeping at my house).  And don't forget that you have until Saturday at Midnight to vote for your favorite tree and for a chance to win my Christmas Blog Candy!!  Place your vote in the comment section of my October 31st Post.  Thanks to everyone who has voted... See you tomorrow!

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!!

3 Great Products with Endless Possibilities

                              

It's time to start thinking about Christmas Cards, and Secret Santa Gifts.  Every year I search for great Christmas Paper and I don't always find what I am looking for. This year I hit the jackpot when I found 2 great collections of fun christmas paper from One Heart ... One Mind - Merry Merry and Merry Merry too.  These papers are absolutely dynamite- tons and tons of Possibilities - Fun Double sided papers, great border papers, tags, invites, pillow boxes - they though of everything.  Now add 2 more great products to the mix - Spellbinders Nestabilities Dies and Glitter Cards from Diecuts with A View and Wow!!! You won't be able to leave your craft room for hours!!  I made 10 cards with matching envelopes, a Pillow Box and the great gift box in a matter of hours.  I just couldn't stop using the leftover pieces to make the next card, tag or envelope.  I literally had to pick up my scraps and pack them away so I would stop creating...you'll see what I mean as you visit my blog over the next few days.

What I liked most about these projects is that they were fun, easy and fast.  Which means if you have always wanted to make your own Christms Cards but never dared because you didn't have enough time or you were sure you would be bored after the third identical card this is the collection for you.  Just get out your cutter, some adhesive, this great paper, your nestabilitie dies and your glitter paper or cards and start the fun!!  First I started with their great Pillow Box Paper.

                              

The sheets come die cut and scored you simply punch out the pieces ,fold along the score lines and glue along the edges. Fill with your treats and then fold in the circled flaps.  The red polka dotted stripe is the band that goes arround the pilow box.  It comes with two slits which you simply interlock and slide around the pillow box.  Chose one of the diecuts from the top of the sheet and save all the extra pieces to make cards.  For my pillow box I used the Merry Christmas die cut circle. Next I cut a 6 x 6 square of  the Retro Squares and Red and Green Polka dotted double sided paper.  I then cut these into 6 one inch stripes. I chose for the retro squares to be on the outside of my bow and the polkas dots to be the inside of the bow.  I folded 5 strips and adhered then to the pillow box band, remebering to leave room for my finished embellishment.  Next I selected a scallop die from my Spellbinders Nestabilities set which was slightly larger than my diecut embellishment. I die cut the shape from a red glittered card from DIecuts with a View.( I love their glittered mat stack, but it doesn't have the red in it) and placed it in the center of my bow.

                     

In my shopping travels I found this great Octangle box already covered in paper. When I took it out to play with I was so excited that it matched the collection so well I could just spend time glamming it up. Since I am not a great bow maker I used the same method to create my ribbon bow.  I cut 5 -6" long strips of this great wide Sheer Polka Dotted Ribbon also from One Heart...One Mind.  I used the Be jolly die cut leftover from the Pillow Box paper matted it with leftover red glitter paper and added some red polka dotted ribbon from Creative Expressions.  Next I added this ribbon to the outside of the box bottom.  I recommend using Scotch Tacky Adhesive for adhering the ribbon to the box.  It is my favorite adhesive for ribbons, charms, buttons and metal embelllishments. To create the embellishment in the center of the bow.  I used the merry from a piece of the merry merry bit-n-pieces paper.(these are not pre diecut) but as you will see soon I was able to use almost every bit -n-piece in my paper crafting marathon. Then I used one of my nested circles from my Spellbinders Nestability Large Classic Circle Set and die cut a red glitter circle. Next I cut a slightly larger Scalloped circle from my Classic Scallop Large Nestability set in green glitted paper and placed it inside my bow. In just a matter of minutes I had created to great gift boxes.

                                    

As you will see this was just the beginning of a great papercrafting day.  I love it when I find the perfect mix of products to play with!! Just wait till you see all the fun cards and envelopes I made in just one afternoon.

                                 

                                    

Copic Sketch Markers to the Rescue

Now I must confess, that my husband help me design tonight's card.  I often use him to bounce ideas off, as I am designing and tonight he was on fire!!  Yeah, I know I'm really spoiled, he gets it -all of it!! Now sometimes there is an advantage to my husband helping with the design process and tonight's card is a prime example.

Using Stazon Jet black Ink, I stamped this beautiful F1480 Fish Stained Glass from Impression Obsession onto a sheet of transparent Laminating sheets from Judkins. I peeled off the backing and slowly sprinkled art glitter from the Art Glitter Institute (they have an incredible line of transparent glitters in way too many colors) by color into each section of the stamped image. For this project I used their Pee Wee Caribbean Set. To really make the image show off the glittered background you need to place the image on a light colored background. Robin's Nest Polished Stone Paper looked great behind the image, but as we were trying out Polished Papers and Glitter Papers, we came across this yellow glitter paper from Diecuts with a View and it just made the glittered image sing!!  I used the largest die from my Large Scalloped Nestability Set to die cut the yellow glittered scalloped circle.  Now what's extremely cool about these nestabilities is that you can actually nest them before you use them.  So I was able to use my Circle set to cut The Turquoise Polished Stone ring around my image, this was key because the glittered image did not work on the Turquoise Polished Stone. To accomplish this I placed the two largest circle dies together on the B Plate of my Cuttlebug and taped them in place, so they wouldn't shift during the die cut process.  This allowed me to create the beautiful Turquoise Ring.  I also ended up with the interior circle which I will save for a later date.  These dies were designed to all work together, so I could have also cut the exterior circle with a scalloped edge and the interior with a regular circle.  Once you get playing with these dies and all the great scraps circles and scallops you won't be able to stop designing. (I'll show you what I mean in tomorrow's post.)

After adhering together my image ,rings and scalloped mat, I placed it on the Robin's Nest Polished Stone mat.  I made a 5 x 7 card from Turquoise Polished Stone Paper.  Now I liked where my card was going but in the 5 x7 format there was way too much blank space.  So this is when I ask my husband for a little help.  He really wanted to edge the Robin's Nest mat with a black line (If only a Krylon pen came in black!!) So we decided to mat it with black glossy Kromekote paper leaving only a 1/16th inch border.  Next he decided it needed a fancy corner punch.  Of course I went to my bubbles corner punch, but remembered that it wasn't meant to be used on a card front , so we settled on the basket weave punch.   Again, he wanted a Black Krylon Pen to color the basket weave design, I reminded him that they don't make one and he said "why can't we use your Black Copic Sketch Marker", I was a little skeptical...but wow it worked on Murdock's Polished Stone Paper and looked just like Black Kromekote!!  Now I was still feeling like there was to much open space in the design,  my husband once again said "don't you still have Class a Peel seashell stickers leftover somewhere"  After a bit of digging I found some from Stampendous and additional stickers from Magenta. But some of my shells were plain silver and some were multi colored....but not for long, you guessed it...COPIC TO THE RESCUE!!!!! Just add a little yellow, a little green and a little pink Copic added to your silver stickers and now they are all multicolored!!! The ink dried instantly and I was dancing a happy jig!!  I decided to place the stickers on scraps of glittered paper and to give them a little more depth I added --you guessed a little more Copic Color.  These markers are truly amazing!!! I can't wait to add more to my collection!! For the finally touch I added a blue dot sparkler for the fishes eye. I love these, they come in tons of colors and each sheet has tons of dots in lots of sizes.  They work perfect for adding a little more bling to almost anything!! 

                                             

Thanks for visiting!!!       

How to create a stained glass effect using Copic Sketch Markers

Sheila at Silver Fox Stamps was kind enough to send me a few of her stamps to play with and they have been sitting on my workspace for weeks. Since, Sheila is sponsoring a contest and blog candy on Cheryl's blog, check her blog for all the details. I thought it would be a perfect time for me to  play with the SG851 Dragonfly Stained Glass Lg Stamp. I personally love dragonfly and Butterfly stamps, so I was very excited to play with this stained glass image.

My first thought was to stamp the image on glossy white paper and color it with my Copic Sketch markers.  I was curious to see how they would work on the glossy paper.  They worked great but since the surface is glossy the pigments atay on top of the paper and are much lighter than when you color on mat paper.  Since I was looking for a stained glass effect I opted for coloring on mat white so that my image would have a richer color.  I stamped the image with Adriondack Pitch Black and then colored the design with the following colors: Yellows- (Y17,Y13,Y11), Blues- (B06, B05 and I airbrushed the Polished Stone Paper with B29), Greens ( YG07,G07), Oranges (YR16,YR02).  For the wheat I used E33, and for the body of the butterfly I used BV01.  After coloring in the image, I cut out the oval and placed it on a piece of chipboard to give my card more dimension.  Then I airbrushed around the edges of an A2 sized card from Kellie Green Polished Stone Paper from Murdock Country Creations.  I found a great verse for this card from Impression Obsession - Dragonfly Dreams, which I embossed in black on Sherbert Polished Stone Paper.  I airbrushed around the edge of this lightly with Black 100.

For the next card, I still wanted to try to achieve a more stained glass effect. So I stamped the image and colored it with my Copic Sketch markers on mat paper.  Then I decided to clear emboss the image to make it look like glass. To achieve this look I cut out my image and placed it on chipboard.  I used the sketch end of my Black 100 marker to edge the cardboard.  Next I used a clean versamark watermark pad and pressed it all over the stamped image.  After holding it up to the light I covered the image with clear embossing powder and embossed it.  The first time you will see that there is an uneven look to the embossing. Repeat this step 3 or 4 more times until your image looks like stained glass.  I loved the effect, unfortunately my photo does not show you how beautiful the stained glass effect looks. But it does show you how rich the Copic markers look with clear embossing powder over them. This time I choice to make a 5 x 7 card because I wanted to show off the the image against the beautiful glitter paper from Die Cuts with a View.  This is a piece from their small glitter paper pack.  I used the B29 marker to aribrush around the edges of the glitter paper. Then I matted it with Black Glossy Paper. This tome I decided to airbrush around the edges of the Sherbert Paper with G07 to make the verse really pop.

Here is a side by side comparison of the two card fronts, so that you can see how rich and smooth the clear embossed image is.  I just love the effect.  To see Sheila's entire line of stamps visit her catalog at Silver Fox Stamps.

Thanks Sheila for letting me play with your toys!! It was almost as fun as winning Blog Candy.  Remember to visit Cheryl's Blog Inspire Me to find out all the details for Silver Fox - Stamp Challenge, Blog Candy and Contest.