Father's Day

With Father's Day rapidly approaching masculine cards are always in demand, especially ones that show a father's relationship to his family/children. This year I decided to stick to a favorite subject of mine: scenery cards.

The first card is a landscape with deer made with nothing but die cut images: from the backgrounds trees, to the rolling hills, to the birch trees and even the deer family.

The second card is a landscape with a colorful pheasant taking flight made with nothing but stickers. The twist is that the scenery is seen through an opening in an embossed tree design with the pheasant overlapping the connection.

As always, these are simple easy cards to make because you don't want to be making cards when you can be spending time with dad!

Easter 2016

I wanted to make a really special card for some one very special - hope it worked!

I started be making a 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" white card for the background. I then cut a piece of 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" piece of white paper; which I mounted on a piece of mirrored gold paper and trimmed. I added a piece of patterned paper to the center of the card. Before I attached the panel to the card I cut a 4" circle using a Spellbinder die. Next I cut a ring from  more mirrored paper (again using Spellbinder dies) and attached to the front of the panel. The card front is raised from the background to allow the 3D flowered rabbit and egg to be flush with the card front. Next I added the 3D lilac branches overlapping the one edge of the opening. Finally I added a gold text to the background. 

Happy Easter to every one!

Old and New flowered card!

Over the years I've collected a lot of products, especially since when I like something I tend to buy extra for the future knowing that most companies quickly discontinue or retire lines. What is really nice is when old products can be matched to new products. I recently found some great 3D glittered flower stickers that reminded me of an old line of papers and coordinating stickers from around 10 years ago. Since I had the old, I had to buy the new and here's what I came up with.

The background paper is a wonderful old embossed paper in pastel colors from K&Company (I believe it dates from before K&Company merged with E.K Success. The 12" x 12" paper actually highlighted various different spring flowers with some geometric patterns intertwined and luckily I had saved the portion with the daffodils. The 3D stickers are from a new collection from Michael's Recollections. To combine the two, I started with a size A2 white card to which I added a piece of orange paper and then a piece of the embossed daffodil paper. To this I added the 3D glittered daffodil sticker. As always I cut apart the larger sticker and re-assembled it better fit the card and the background. Before doing the final adhering, I placed a gold edged sticker tag from Martha Stewart to hold text (which will be selected and added in the future). 

Something different for Easter

I had gotten a die for birch tree before Christmas having some great ideas for Christmas cards and then ended up not using it. Instead I decided to use it to create a background for a couple of Easter cards.

For the first card I used a Basic Grey patterned paper for the birch trees which I mounted on a simple blue background. I colored in some of the details on the trees with a brown pencil to add depth. I added a K&Company dove sticker to which I added a small branch. Perfect representation of Easter. 

For the second card I used a different patterned paper and again colored in some of the details but this time using a grey pencil. For the background I used a beautiful sky design from Cosmo Cricket called Chicken Little. The look was very spiritual, so I added a glittered Peace sticker text from K&Company.

I will be using this die again ... but I'm thinking that can make it more adaptable by cutting out some of the center trees next time I do.

Multi Layered Die Cut Christmas Card

I have been wanting to really go crazy with some of my dies but had not found the right reason ... and then came Christmas. I love using deer in my Christmas cards (remember last year silver and gold glittered dies or the sticker deer card), so this year I decided to just use layer upon layer of die cut images to create a Christmas nature scene and here it is.

This is how the card came together. Starting with a square white piece of paper out of which I die cut a circular opening in the center. Next I used a Swiss dot embossing folder on the paper to create the illusion of falling snow. I then layered a deer die-cut from Memory Box and a birch tree die-cut from Impression Obsessions.  I used 1/8" thick raised adhesive squares for the deer, trees and snow bank (cut free handed from another piece of white paper). I added the embossed paper using 1/4" raised adhesive squares to create the snowy background. Next I made a circular frame using two circle dies from Spellbinders. Merry Christmas!