Grateful Greetings

Hello there.  Today I'm sharing another card I made with the Jillibean Soup, Country Pumpkin Chowder collection for The Memory Nest. The brown scallop border and orange strip are both from the coordinating punch out die cuts.  For the button I used the cute plaid die cut button and covered it with Crystal Effects to give some dimension and shine.

Jillibean Soup - Country Pumpkin Chowder

Hello!  This week, for The Memory Nest,  I'll be showing a few projects I've made with this adorable collection, Country Pumpkin Chowder,  from Jillibean Soup.    I just love all the colors and patterns in this collection.  The Die Cut sheet makes it quick and easy to put together cards as well as layouts.
For my first card I cut two strips from the patterned paper and cut the bottoms into a banner shape.  Then I layered a couple of the die cuts together with dimensional adhesive and a stamped sentiment for the center.  I rounded the bottom corners of the card base then added some faux stitching with a white gel pen for some extra detail.

Enter code Fall30day for 30% off your total order at The Memory Nest!

Exciting News!

I'm thrilled to be designing for a new online scrapbooking store, The Memory Nest.  I'll be showing some cards that I've created starting next week, so stop by next week to check them out.
There's also a fantastic promotion going on right now.  Get 30% off your total order with code Fall30day now through 10/29/2012.   You'll also be entered into a drawing for a prize!
While you're at it check out the store blog

Happy World Card Making Day!

Kick Start Challenge

One of the homework assignments in the Kick Start Class is to give yourself a challenge.   For this challenge I've teamed up with another Kick Starter, Debby, for a product challenge.  We've picked two stamps (Stampin' Up! Woodgrain Background and the Reason to Smile set) that we both have and see what we create with them.   She rocks the clean and simple style so I'm anxious to see what she does with these products.
Although I've used the Reason to Smile set several times before, I've never used this particular flower in the set.  It's always fun to try a new product.  I also went a little out of my comfort zone and did a little distressing with ink and tried to add a little vintage feel with some layering of stamps, but I'm not sure how successful that experiment was.

Moxie Fab World Challenge

I created this card today for the Moxie Fab World Challenge to use Natural Elements, which was also the theme of the card I had published in this months issue of Paper Crafts Magazine.   This challenge is totally up my alley.  

I was at work and remembered that I had some samples of wood veneer wall covering that I thought was really cool.   I work at an Architecture firm so there's a ton of inspiration in our resource library.  I brought home a couple of wood veneer samples.  I was planning on die cutting it, but then decided it might look cool to emboss it with white embossing powder.  I added some wood grain patterned paper, linen thread and a wood button that I cut off a shirt years ago.  This challenge was perfect timing because the topic of Kick Start today was to find a challenge.  Here's my card:

Kick Start

I'm taking an online class called Kick Start over at Online Card Classes .  It's about how to get out of a design rut and get going again - tips on finding inspiration, etc.  I suggested this class topic to one of the teachers and I'm so glad that she decided to do it.  It's a great class for both beginners and experienced crafters.  Everyone loses the mojo from time to time :)

Anyway, the day 4 homework was to use something old in our stash.  I found a pack of preprinted cards my mom bought from the $1 bins at Target a few years ago.  She thought I could incorporate them into my card making.  I've been meaning to do something with them for a while.  I also created the brown tall label on my Silhouette and cut a few in different colors so that was sitting on my craft table.  The cards and that label inspired this card...

10 minute craft dash challenge

This was a fun challenge, but I was nervous that I wouldn't finish because I'm a slow crafter.  I set the timer and finished this up in 9 minutes 52 seconds - just 8 seconds to spare.  I knew this would have to be a simple card.  I chose to use washi tape for the diagonal side pattern because it already has adhesive even though it would probably would have been faster to use a piece of patterned paper.  I had washi tape in my head for this so I went with it and I had never used it before.  The stamp and flower die I had out so went with those even though I wanted to cut a butterfly.  I couldn't find my butterfly die because I was rushing, but it was right where it was supposed to be.  Anyway, this is what I came up with...

{9 minutes, 52 seconds}

Yay!

This year I decided I would give it a go and submit a few cards to Paper Crafts Magazine.   I'm so excited to share that one was picked up for publication in the September/October issue which hit the stores yesterday!   I'm on page 36 :)

If I had a bucket list, getting published in Paper Crafts Magazine would definitely be on it!

More Tie Dye, but by my daughter

I showed Sophie how to do the Copic Tie Dye technique that I found at Nichol Heady's blog and she loved it.  She made bookmarks for all the ladies in my book club - they're going to love them!  Didn't she do a fabulous job?

Tie Dye Cards

I saw this online and had to give it a go.   I used Copic markers and rubbing alcohol.   They were very fun to create.

Today's Card

For this card I used some 6x6 patterned paper from My Mind's Eye and the background paper is a retired Stampin' Up! paper from a couple of years ago.  I used my Silhouette to cut the hot air balloon and a Fiskars punch for the clouds.   The sentiment is from a Stampin' Up! called Up Up and Away.