No Card Today

I was helping a teen aged girl with a project she had to get done for a benefit. I hope I can get one done tomorrow, but her project isn't done yet. (She is home schooled, so she was with me all day).

I really liked helping her, she is a great girl, but I'm having card making withdrawal!

Quad Twisted Easel Card

I made this card from this tutorial.

The top picture is what it looks like closed. Ooops, I just noticed, I photographed the card so the saying upside down. It's not upside down if you hold the card in the right direction!

This photo is from the top while it is open.

As you turn the card, each side shows a beautiful Birthday bouquet.

All DP and die cuts are K&Co, and the sentiment is Anna Griffin.

Front Pop Out Card JRC_073

I made this card for JustRite Friday Challenge #073 - "Anything But Square".

I don't think this card has a name, so I just called it something that fits the style. I made one of these once before just by trying to figure it out, but Marianne Skjelstad was nice enough to make a tutorial on how she made her beautiful card, so that is what I used this time.

This card uses K&Co. paper, and JustRite's JB-09755 By The Sea Borders & Centers. I used Spellbinders Labels Twenty One to cut the card, and one of their oval dies to cut the stamped part. I used Antique Linen Distress on the edges and creases.

The top photo is the card closed, and the bottom two are what it looks like opened.

Thank you so much Marianne for your wonderful tutorial!

I am excited to say that this card won at JustRite Stampers!

Butterfly and Daisies Card and Paper Holder Problems

Today I had to do a fast card. I'm giving a review of my paper holder thing which was the reason why I had didn't have time to do a complicated card. Maybe some people had luck with these things, but I had nothing but problems. If you have one and had the same problem as I and countless other people had, I hope my solution helps.

When we were in NY last Christmas, I got one of those wire cube paper holders at Hobby Lobby. You put it together using plastic things, but the plastic things kept breaking even though I didn't have it over loaded, and I did put it together correctly. I kept putting it back together, but it kept getting shorter and shorter because there weren't enough plastic things to make it full sized.

This morning my paper was again on the floor, with the cubes collapsed. (I had used some of the cracked ones, trying to use only the parts which weren't yet cracked). There weren't enough left this time to put it back together. Then I got the idea to use cable ties to hold the thing together and to hold the shelves in. (Every time it would come apart, some of the little plastic "S" shaped shelf holders would also break). Luckily, they actually had cable ties at a store here on the island, so I got a package. I wired it up with tons of them to hold it together, and it worked, and it feels much sturdier than it did.

Rather than making the tower three cubes high, I decided to make two cubes because I was afraid it would come apart again. One is two cubes high, and the other is only one cube high. I now have my paper nicely sorted again, even though it isn't as nice as it was. I can't remember the brand name of the cube thing, but when I first got it home I saw a bunch of bad reviews for it, so I'm not the only one who had problems. Anyway, if anyone else gets one, it has a black cover to go over the stack. The picture on the box shows the cover as having a zipper so you can protect your paper, but also have easy access to it. Mine didn't have a zipper, so you would have to lift the whole cover off every time you use it. I didn't dare use the cover because the rack was so flimsy, and I was afraid it would break just by lifting it off each time. The thing actually broke within an hour of using it for the first time.

Anyway, I hope the cable tie suggestion helps someone else who doesn't have enough parts to put theirs together again.

The card I made today uses K&Co. paper, and a MS Punch Around the Page. The butterfly is the MS Monarch Butterfly Punch, and the butterfly's body is Liquid Pearls. The saying is a very old Anna Griffin Resin saying I had in my stash. It's not my favorite card, but I don't hate it either.

Flip and Fold Card

I made this card from a tutorial here. I had seen a card on another blog, and it was called a Four Fold Card, but when I googled it to find out if there was a tutorial, I found out that most of the cards called "Four Fold" were either quarter fold cards or accordian type cards with four folds, so I'm calling the one I made flip and fold because that's what it does, and it has a lot more folds than four.

I made my card with K & Co. DP and generic pink and white paper. The pearls are Queen & Co. This is the front of the card.

When you flip out the four sections, it looks like this.

Then you open each fold out section and this is what you see. I cut the message section with my new Spellbinder Labels Twenty Two.

We are leaving in the morning to stay at cabins way up in the Maine Woods on the logging roads, on a beautiful lake. I hope everyone in the US has a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, and I'll see you all on Tuesday!

Shell Box

I didn't get a card made today, but I made this box for my gift shop.

To make it, I sanded an unfinished box, and painted it brown. Then I traced around a JustRite By the Sea oval stamp and painted the oval a cream color. After that, I stamped the shell image on the stamp with a dark Brown Anna Griffin stamp.

Next, I used the border from the stamp and stamped it outside the oval using Memory Box Frost. Big mistake. I'll tell you why when I get to that part. :-P

Well, it seem that neither of these inks dry on top of acrylic paint, so I had to dry them with a heat gun.

Once dry, I painted them with acrylic paint and a gel medium so they would be more blended and translucent. Then I painted over the oval's border with cream paint, and added little swirly things around the box with the same cream.

Next, I began to varnish the box with acrylic varnish. That's when disaster struck. The frost ink around the oval didn't like my varnish and smeared all over the darker brown paint. Anyway, since it was only on the dark brown, and the brown ink on the stamp in the middle didn't smear, I decided I could save it. In order to have it all match without redoing the box, I had to varnish the whole top. I varnished from the inside out so the white would only smear outside the oval, then I let it dry and put a couple of coats of the dark brown paint around the oval to cover up the stamping and smears. Since I hadn't really liked the stamped border anyway, (it looked a bit heavy for the design after I painted it), I just added little swirls to match the ones on the outside of the box. After this I added more varnish to the outside of the box, and everything worked out fine.

Chiyogami Paper and Flowers Card

I've had this really pretty embossed Chiyogami paper for a long time, but it was so pretty I was hoarding it. Today I decided to use it on a card. I made a white 6x6 card, then layered purple, gold mirror, and pink CS, with the Chiyogami paper on that. I wanted the paper to be the focal point, so I only added a few flowers. The flower in the center is one of the ones I made from those Prima parts. The roses are some my craft store packages, and the tiny roses on either side of the corner roses are some silk ones I had in my stash. Then I just put Three Queen and Co rhinestones in the opposite corners.

This photo is the inside of the card. I layered it in the same way as the front of the card and added strips of the Chiyogami paper on either side of the writing space.

Cross and Ribbon Wedding Card JRC_073

This is another card I hadn't planned on making for a JustRite Challenge. I wanted to make a wedding card using a beautiful piece of ribbon I have, but it always seems like on most of the cards I do, the most perfect stamps for the cards are from JustRite, so I'm entering it into JustRite Friday Challenge #073 - "Anything But Square".

This card uses JB-09925 Peace On Earth Borders & Centers for the frame, and JB-09935 Rejoice Borders & Centers for the cross. Even though they are really Christmas stamps, they don't look like it on this card.

I started with a pice of Core'dinations pearl white paper and cut it to size for a 5x7 card. Then I embossed a smaller piece of the same paper using a Spellbinders M-Bossability in my Grand Calibur, and mounted the ribbon and embossed piece onto my card. The shape behind the label is a Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Shapability, which I cut out from the same paper.

I wanted the cross and frame around it to match the card, but they couldn't be plain white or they wouldn't show up, so I kept stamping them with VersaMark and mixing various embossing powders until I found a mixture of four different powders that I liked. They match the embossing on the ribbon and keep the all white theme, but have just enough fine detail gold to let them show up against the white pearl paper. I used a blue pearl, pink champagn glittery powder, a silver sparkly powder, and fine detail gold. (I'm sorry I can't remember the exact names and brands, but I've always poured my EP into plastic food containers and I put the stamped item into the container to coat it with EP. Before I had a blog, I just wrote color names on the containers, but not brands or exact names). Then I die cut these with Spellbinders Labels Seventeen.

All three die cuts were mounted with dimensional tape. I added dots of Crystal Stickles to the die cuts and in the centers of the flower shapes of the embossing.

Some flowers I made from Prima flower parts

I had a bunch of Prima flowers in those inexpensive cans. The ones where the flowers really aren't finished, with no layers, leaves or centers. I was playing around with stamps and running the stamps over them and layering them and adding centers, and this is what I came up with. None of them are masterpieces, but they were fun to do, and a way to make those flowers which were pretty much unfinished into something that might look pretty on a card.

I didn't add my own color to the yellow and pink one, that was already colored that way, all I did was add a pink and yellow rose I made from those little single Recollections flowers in little bottles.

For the yellow ones, I added just a touch of green to the bottom yellow flower and layered two together and put yellow roses I made in the centers.

For a couple of the flowers I put yellow Liquid Pearls into the center before I added stamens.

The center of the light blue one is made from three tiny flowers I separated from a little Darice bouquet.

All of the stamens are from Darice, and all flowers and centers were glued with silicone glue I got at the hardware store.

Like I said, none of them are masterpieces, but I thought I'd put them on here as inspiration for anyone who can't think of a way to use less than beautiful ready made flowers. These and a ton of simpler ones, such as daisies I added stamens to or added Flower Soft or pearls to the centers, were made in about 3 hours time.

Scalloped Flower JRC_073

I hadn't planned on making a card for the JustRite Challenge #073 - "Anything But Square" until my new JustRite stamps get here, but I was playing with my new Spellbinders Die and the JustRite Elegant Frames Set went perfectly with this card. Since it isn't square, I decided to enter it.

I was holding my new die over some of my paper, trying to find something that was different, and when I held it over this large flower on some Walmart paper, it looked kind of neat. The paper is much pinker than it looks in this photograph. In the photograph it looks red. I mounted it on some green linen textured paper, but I'm not sure what brand it is, and then onto white CS.

The frame is stamped with Distress Peeled Paint, and the saying with a Dazzles Pink, which matches the actual color of the flower much better in real life than in the photograph. Then I cut them out with Spellbinders Labels Ten. When I tried them on the card, the smaller die cut looked too white, so I used the Dazzles Pink on a sponge and sponged it so it would be lighter than the lettering and have kind of an uneven color to give it more dimension. The card also needed something else, so I added some really old Wright's Trim to the top and some roses I made to the bottom. Then I added gold stickles, which give it a touch of glitz. The stickles are really sparkly in person, but it's raining here today, and the sparkle doesn't show up much in the photo.

Cool idea for making flowers from plastic packaging

I just saw this on the Cheery Lynn blog and had to share it with you.

It shows flowers made from plastic packaging colored with alcohol inks. They are beautiful. It looks like we could make lots of beautiful die cuts which are translucent to decorate our cards.

Lighthouse Card ODBDSLC109 Sketch Challenge

I made this card for the Our Daily Bread Designs Challenge 109. It's the first time I have entered one of their challenges, and I thought this beautiful Keep My Lamp Burning Set would be perfect for the challenge.

To make the card, I mounted a brown K & C0 paper with a subtle print onto an ivory colored card. Then I mounted two panels with Blue K & Co paper onto generic brown CS. The blue panels have bits of kelp at the bottom. The lighthouse was stamped using black Stazon onto more of the background paper and cut with Spellbinders Labels Four, and mounted on the darker brown paper, which I cut a little larger to create a border. Then I stamped and cut the compass out of the blue paper and mounted that on darker brown paper. Both stamped pieces were mounted with dimensional tape. The compass is on a higher level than the lighthouse.

The card needed something in the corners, so I added K & Co shells, and mounted them with dimensional tape. I used dark brown jute twine to add a square knot on the left hand side. I hope this knot qualifies, a bow just didn't look right on his card.

I am excited to say that this card won at ODBD!

More goodies at AC Moore

Last week I mentioned getting two Spellbinders dies I already had. The Grand one I opened before I realized I already had it, but the other one was still sealed. Today I got back to AC Moore and exchanged the unopened one for Labels Twenty-Two. I've really wanted that die for a long time because it works with JustRite stamps, and they don't have it on their web site, so you can't order it at the same time.

Then I got two more Spellbinders M-Bossabilities Folders, Elite and Regal. I really like those folders, and the price is right because you get two different designs on each one. If you have only a Grand Calibur but not the raspberry plate, and a Big Kick, see this post I made last week about how to use them in your Big Kick. (Libby, I did good, I didn't have either one of those folders)! (In case anyone didn't read my mother's day post, Libby is the wonderful girl in charge of the scrapbooking section at our AC Moore).

Then, another of my favorite card artists, Elly, showed a new die she got and some examples of cards she made with flowers from it on her blog. I looked for the die last week but they didn't have it, but this week it was there. It's the Sizzix Tim Holz Alterations Tattered Flower Garland die. It has lots of flowers, and leaves in a lot of sizes, and looks like it is going to be so much fun to use for flowers!

I also got the Spellbinders Wonderful Wings Grand die, so now I have larger butterflies. Before I only had the little Cheery Lynn set. I love that set, but it's nice to have both sizes!

I was lucky today, I had my AC Moore Rewards certificate from spending so much money on Mother's Day, plus today there was a 50% off on one item coupon as well. Now I have so many beautiful new dies and embossing folders I won't know what to use first!

Spellbinders, Stamps, Wood Veneer and Copics

Yesterday I posted a tray with stamps on wood Veneer and cut with Spellbinders dies. People who come into my shop really loved it, so today I made four more. One of them I added a touch of color with Copics. Since they are so popular, I am going to do wooden Tissue Box covers to match.

This is the same lighthouse as in yesterday's photo, only this one I colored with copics. The colors don't show up well in the photograph, but the grass is green and the water blue, with a yellow light in the top. They do show up well in person. The wood grain and stamping show through the colors and it looks like the wood is stained.

The other three I made today are below. I didn't color them, and the photos of all of these are before they have all of the layers of varnish. I may do other colored ones as well after I do the tissue boxes and some other things I plan on making.

Spellbinders, Stamps and Wood Veneer

Today I tried stamping on wood veneer and cutting it out with Spellbinders dies, and this is the result. It worked very well!

Quite a few years ago I got some paper thin wood veneer. Some of it had self adhesive backing, and some didn't. For the veneer without the backing, I ran it through the Xyron. Since some of it is fairly brittle, I am thinking that there is less chance of splitting it in the Grand Calibur if it's stuck to paper than if it isn't.

After using the Xyron, I put one coat of water based varnish on the veneer to seal it just in case the wood is porous. (It's just the hardware store kind of water based varnish, not the fancy, expensive artists stuff). I then stamped it with Stazon. The stamps I used are JustRite's By the Sea set. The darker background was cut with my paper cutter to the size of the tray, then I used Spellbinders Labels Eighteen and ran the stamped veneer through my Grand Calibur. It cut perfectly in just one pass.

After adhering the layers of veneer to the tray, I gave it three coats of the same varnish.

I may try this again by cutting out the background and then cutting out a stamped image in another kind of wood so that they are flush rather than layered to see how it looks. I also want to try coloring one lightly with my oil color pencils. (I think they were from Walnut Hollow).

It's fun to see how many things we can make with our Spellbinders dies and stamps!

Playing with flowers and Spellbinders

For the last few days I have been busy moving all of my paper crafting things to my summer shop, so I haven't been making any cards. I have been playing around with making flowers. Mostly I've been taking the Prima ones that are just flower parts in the inexpensive cans, and wiping my Dazzles ink pads on them to add extra color and dimension. Then I layer them to make interesting flowers for later use. I need to photograph some of the more interesting ones to show what neat flowers you can make with them.

I don't particularly like the flowers cut from some of the louder patterned paper they used, but by adding ink and glimmer mist, I can tone them down and make them look more natural.

I've also been using all of my Spellbinders, cutting them out on cheap white Walmart CS so I can have templates of each to play around with. Using the cheap CS to make templates makes it easy to try different die cuts to see what works and what doesn't for interesting layered effects. It also makes it so I can try the size and shape on a particular card to see if it looks the way I envision it before I try it with good card stock.

Hopefully I now have enough of my supplies in one place so I will be able to create something tomorrow. I have some paper thin veneer, and I'm going to try stamping an ODBD lighthouse on that and mounting it on a wooden box. The lighthouse is quite rustic looking, and hopefully will look really nice stamped on wood.

I also have some oil color pencils I bought years ago and never used. They are made to work on wood, so it should be fun to try other designs on the veneer and color them with the pencils. I want to see if the veneer will cut well with Spellbinders Dies as well. I hope I will have some good ideas to show you on here tomorrow, but if I just make a mess while experimenting, at least you will know not to try what I did!

Using Spellbinders M-Bossabilities in the Sizzix Big Kick

When I got my M-Bossabilities yesterday, I didn't realize that you had to have an adapter plate, (Which I had never heard of), to use it in the Grand Calibur. Then I looked at the instructions for the Sizzix Big Kick, and it said you needed a Spellbinders Grand Calibur Junior Base Plate to use them in the Big Kick, but I didn't have one of those either. (The M-Bossabilities are a lot thicker than the Sizzix and Cuttlebug embossing folders, and that's why they need a different sandwich).

I had always read that the Big Kick and the Big Shot were basically the same machine, so I followed the cutting instructions for the Big Shot, and it worked perfectly. I got very nice, crisp embossing with my Big Kick.

For my Big Kick M-Bossabilities sandwich I used the multi purpose platform with all tabs closed.I put down two layers of that cheap GP CS that you can get at Walmart, then the M-Bossabilities folder with my CS in it, then the top plate. I used no bottom plate, because it would be too thick. This worked perfectly. I hope this helps others who have the Big Kick and the Grand Calibur and get home only to find the instructions say they need to buy special plates to use them!

Over all, I am very happy with my M-Bossabilities folders. They have some beautiful designs and work well with that cutting sandwich. Since I also make doll houses, I can see that many of the folders would make gorgeous "tin" ceilings in a nice scale for my houses!

Mother's Day Goodies

What a wonderful day I had today! My husband took my mother and I to Bangor, ME to JoAnn's and AC Moore. I went to JoAnn's first, because I needed some Core'dinations paper. They had it all on sale for 5/1.00 !!! I got a bunch of their Gemstones paper, a lot of gorgeous jewel tones, those really deep intense colors that look like jewels and are so hard to find, a couple of packs of their pastels, and a pad of their white pearl paper. At least around here, Core'dinations seems to be the only company that has those intense jewel colors. Rich teals, lilacs, pinks, and colors like that. They were gorgeous!

Then I saw a VersaMark Dazzle ink pad which looked interesting, and it was 40% off! As I was leaving, I went through the Spellbinders aisle, expecting to see no new dies as usual, but they had the Moroccan accents and Motifs!!! I was very glad I had decided to go in there, since I usually only go to AC Moore.

Then it was off to AC Moore. I have been there a bunch of times, trying to get refills for my ATG. Today, they finally had them, so I bought two packages! Then I went to the Spellbinders aisle. The last time I was there, I bought one regular die set and one Grand set, only to find out that they were both sets I already had. Bummer!!! (They were both sets I wasn't crazy about and had never used, but the Spellbinders always seemed to be the same old sets every time I went, and I was desperate for new ones). Today, they had the Persian Motifs and Accents, which I wanted very much!!! They also had the Grand Peonies and Grand Labels seven!!! It's a good thing I sold a bunch of photographs last week so I could get those!

As if that wasn't enough, they also had a bunch of M-Bossabilities, so I got Enchanted and Mystic. I can't wait to try them!!! I also picked up the Flourish Impressabilities. Libby, if you read this, I'll try to get some samples of the M-Bossibilities on here, and tell how I like them in the next day or so. (Libby is the wonderful lady who is in charge of the scrapbook section at AC Moore. She makes shopping there fun)!

I have always really loved that red double stick tape, but had only found it in New York, but for the first time, I found that at AC Moore too. It's Ranger Wonder Tape, and much more expensive than whatever brand I bought in NY, but at least I can now get it here. I'll just have to use it sparingly in places where I can't use the ATG.

I hope you all had as wonderful a mother's Day as I had!!!

How I made my Inside Pop Out Card

Note: when I first made this card, I didn't know where it originally came from. I saw the fold on a lot of card sites, but none gave directions or a link to the original. Today, Feb 8, 2013, I found the original card, as well as a diagram for it, so I want to give credit to the lady who, I think, did the original card. Her card and diagram are here: Bente Årstad. I am so glad she shared her beautiful card and diagram with all of us!

I've had a lot of questions about how I made my inside pop out card. What I did, was start with a 5x10 inch piece of paper, and measure 1 inch in on all four sides. I then scored all the way down vertically at 5". Then I scored down vertically at the 1" marks on either side, and 1/2 " in toward the centers from the 1" mark scores. For those two scores, I only went from the top to the bottom 1" horizontal marks. This forms the pop out part. (I hope that was sort of clear).

Then I cut the two horizontal lines at the top and bottom over to meet the 1" marks on either side. That way the middle would pop up and leave the top and bottom flat.

For the middle "v" part, I probably should have scored at least two inches or two and a half inches out from the center score, but on the first one I made it 1 1/4", and the second was 1 1/2". The cards I saw had much wider "v's".

Today, Marianne Skjelstad made one on her blog. You can see that her "v" pop out is much longer than mine. She also made her jacket larger than the inside card. I made mine the same size.

For my outer jacket, I cut a piece of CS the same size for the first card, but there was too much bulk on the inside, so the next one I cut to 5 x 10 1/4 and scored at 5" and 5 1/4". It was better, but I think it would have been better cut to 10 1/2". It wasn't quite enough for the inside bulk.

Sorry this wasn't very plain, I just got home, and wanted to make a post about the goodies I got for Mother's Day when I saw all the questions. I'll try to make up a diagram and add it to this post tomorrow or the next day.

Okay, I can edit photos with Photoshop, but I had a lot of problems making a line drawing. Anyway, this is a diagram of how I made the inside of the card. I hope it helps.

Ooops, I wrote inside of the box instead of inside of the card on the diagram. I was having an awful time making this because the lines in Photoshop are really paths, and it kept disappearing on me over and over again. I made it a bunch of times before I finally figured out how to get the lines to stay, so by the time I wrote the instructions out for the hundredth time or so, I was getting burned out!!!

Wild Orchid Crafts Candy

Wild Orchid crafts is giving away candy here!

Tea Bag Holder JustRite Friday Challenge #072

I made this Tea Bag Holder for the JustRite Friday Challenge #072 I'm really enjoying this challenge because it's forcing me to make a bunch of three dimensional items I've wanted to make for a long time, but haven't gotten around to making. I made this box from another StampARTic Tutorial by Marianne Skjelstad.

For this box, I used JustRite's Peace On Earth Borders & Centers even though it is really a Christmas set. The saying was nice for a gift, and by using Copics to make the holly look more like a rose, and using pink in the coloring, it really doesn't look like Christmas. I cut the saying with Spellbinders Labels Eighteen, and mounted it with dimensional tape. It is stamped with Distress Peeled Paint. The DP is some I got at Walmart. The back of the box is cut with Spellbinders Grand Labels Four, and the box is distressed with Distress Antique Linen.

The top photo is the box without the teabags in it.

This shows the box with Teabags. Unfortunately I didn't have enough matching tea bags to fill it, so I just grabbed what I had for the photo.

This shows the box from the back.

Tissue Box Cover JustRite Friday Challenge #072

I made this tissue box cover for JustRite Friday Challenge #072.

The box uses JustRite Stamps By The Sea Borders & Centers and JustRite's discontinued You Are My Anchor set. The DP and the shell die cuts on top are from K&Co. The box is distressed with Distress Antique Linen, the images are stamped and distressed with Distress Peeled Paint, and cut with Spellbinders Labels Eighteen and their circles die.

The tutorial can be found on the SCS site.

What to do when you can't get Inspired

I just answered a post on a blog that I follow. The blogger asked for ways to get inspired when there you are in a creative slump. Since her blog isn't in English, I thought it might make a good post to my blog for English speakers.

One way to get inspired is to do a challenge. Then you will have guidelines to follow.

The thing I do the most is to sit down and make lots of pretty parts for cards. Make a bunch of pretty flowers and sort them out and store them. Cut a bunch of die cuts from pretty paper and sort and store those. Die cut some shaped cards without decorating them. Stamp some things and if you like, color them, leaving enough border to die cut them either at the same time or later on when you do have a project in mind. Frequently I get inspiration from a part I have just made.

Anything you don't use will be available for another project. The next time you are uninspired, go through your ready made parts, and you will often think of something beautiful to make with them!

Hybrid Warbler? ... Nope, it's an Oriole!

Update, Snoopy thinks the bird is an immature Baltimore Oriole. We've never had them on our island before, but the photos on the internet do resemble him. As I look at more Orioles, it may even be a female. That would explain why she was so interested in the Japanese Quince. Humming birds love that bush too. It's funny, because my mother always had Baltimore Orioles in her yard in Mass, and I asked her if it was an oriole, and she said no. I think she was wrong. She must have only recognized male adults when she saw them!

Giff Beaton also confirmed that this is an oriole! It's so nice to have so many helpful people on the internet!

Cornell Lab of Ornithology also confirmed that this is a female Oriole.

Unfortunately she must have been just passing by, she hasn't been back for two days. I'm glad we got a chance to see her, and that she had such a nice rest and meal on her way to where ever she was going!

Today at my mother's there was a bird none of us had ever seen. In person, my mother, my friend and I described him as pumpkin colored, much more orange than he appears in these bad photos. He is about the size of a robin, and was eating something out of her Japanese Quince blossoms. He is also very fat!

Al of us thought that he looked like a warbler, but couldn't find him in any of our field guides, and so far, my friend and I can't find him on the internet. If anyone is a bird lover and can identify him, please let me know. :-) We are located on the coast of Maine on an island in Penobscot Bay.

If anyone is really interested in identifying him, I have photos of him taken at every angle, back, front, top, bottom. Unfortunately, my mother's house has old wavy windows, and these were taken through two layers of wavy windows covered with salt spray and raindrops, so they aren't wonderful.

Tealight Card JustRite Friday Challenge #072

This week's JustRite Challenge #72 is to make something three dimensional. Since boxes count, I decided now was the perfect time to make this tealight card and gift box combination that I have been wanting to make for a very long time. I made this card following a tutorial on the StampARTic Blog. The tutorial was done by the very talented Marianne Skjelstad.

The card uses K & Co paper and die cuts, and JustRite's By The Sea Borders & Centers. I colored the stamped images with watercolor pencils which matched the background paper as much as possible. The images on the front and on the inside pocket are mounted with dimensional tape, and the crabs on the front were already dimensional.

On the inside there is a tag with DP on the front, and another layered stamped image from the same set. The back is plain for putting your own sentiments on. This tag slips into the pocket. The box has acetate over the opening, and holds either six tealights, candy or other small gifts. I used Spellbinders Labels Four, Labels Eight and Labels Eighteen on this card.

Free Download Lobster Label

This Free Download was up for over a year. I finally removed it to save room on my blog.

Free Download Jonesport Lighthouse Label

This free download was up for over a year. I finally removed it to make more room for my blog images.

Floral Inside Pop Out Card

Note: when I first made this card, I didn't know where it originally came from. I saw the fold on a lot of card sites, but none gave directions or a link to the original. Today, Feb 8, 2013, I found the original card, as well as a diagram for it, so I want to give credit to the lady who, I think, did the original card. Her card and diagram are here: Bente Årstad. I am so glad she shared her beautiful card and diagram with all of us!

I really don't know what this card is called, so I made up a name. :-)

When I started making it, I wasn't thinking about making it for the JustRite Friday Color Challenge #071 - "Perfect Pastels" , but while I was trying to decide how to decorate it, I realized that a lot of the flowers in the paper are pink, peach and yellow, so I decided I would use this card for the challenge.

I also decided to enter it in StampARTic's May Challenge, which is to use flowers we made ourselves. It's the first time I have entered their challenges.

The front of the card uses K & Co paper mounted over Bazill. I made the flowers with punches and added Liquid Pearl centers. The center motif is from JustRite's Elegant Frames Set, and is stamped with Peeled Paint Distress and Pink Brilliance. As usual, when I photograph the pearlescent ink, it doesn't show up as well as it does in real life, because of the reflection from my phone's flash.

I cut the motifs with Spellbinders Labels Four and JustRite's custom Nested Frames Die. I think Nested Frames Die must be discontinued, but it looks like JustRite's Nested Sentiment Dies might work to cut the sentiment in the middle out with. Then I added more Liquid Pearls and one Queen and Co pearl.

I wish I had some wider ribbon for the bow, but I don't, so I used what I had.

There was so much pattern in this design that the only decoration I used inside was Spellbinders Floral Doily Motifs Dies, Liquid Pearls around the lace, and a peach Daisy I made. The space on the right is for signing the card.