The Flight Continues

I really find it interesting knowing the story behind projects. Inspiration comes from many sources: our surroundings, personal experiences, favorite colors, images or designs, and even favorite products. These are but a few of the many things that can inspire a project. This card creation was designed to thank so many people who thoughtfully and generously reached out to our family during the loss of my mother-in-law, Jackie.

Mom’s favorite color was cobalt blue, but she just loved blue in general, so that is what I made it the main color used on this thank you note. I wanted to include some symbolism of her transition from her life here to a life in heaven. I believe this montage of butterflies does just that.

Supplies: (Stampin’ Up!®) Asstd. Blue Cardstock; Sizzlits Beautiful Wings Die; Thanks So Much verse; Finial Press Texture Embossing Plate; (Offray) Blue Satin ribbon; (Glue Arts) Extreme Adhesive Squares and Glue Glider™ Pro with high tac adhesive cartridge.

Butterflies also are a visual symbol for me of the life/death/after life transition since my uncle’s death in 2000. I would often get butterfly visits on my walks and have many other tales of this connection, too. Using a monochromatic color palette (different shades of the same color) creates a very elegant look that you can use in all your card designs. The cascading size of the butterflies adds movement and interest. This also serves to remind us that even though a loved one’s presence fades, the memories remain even though their flight continues.

I wanted to share another butterfly card created by fellow card designer, Diane Bove. She created these 3-D butterflies using a brush from my Stylish Butterflies set combined with patterned background.

Here is a preview of that set art which contains, editable eps, jpeg, png and abr (brush files).

The set contains 3 butterflies: one solid, one with transparent swirls to use over color or patterned backgrounds digitally and one butterfly with white swirls. If you use the photoshop brush file you can change the black to a color or patterned background. I will be creating some tutorials to show you how you can use digital brushes and png art in Photoshop. So check back to my blog for updates!

Let your creativity take flight with using a butterfly on your next card creation.

Project 365/ Days 56 & 57/ The Shady & Flowery Side to Crafting

Being on a design team, you get to inspire others with your creations...the same as what I attempt to do here on my blog. Many don’t realize that the people doing the inspiring search for inspiration themselves. This next project was inspired by an idea I saw a number of years ago on Better Homes and Gardens website, a way to give an old lampshade a new look. So, I paired up some buttons with my favorite adhesives and revamped Kylie's lampshade. For more details you can check the Glue Arts blog for instructions and supplies. To purchase Glue Arts adhesives, go to their website.

Day 56/ Kylie’s Lamp Shade Makeover

Day 57/ Paper and Pencil Flower Bouquet

This was a project that I made along with a tutorial for reapplying to the Glue Arts design team.

The flowers are made from Marvy punches, some small flowers, pearls, ribbon, #2 pencils, lime green cardstock, patterned CS from Cosmo Cricket’s DeLovely collection, adhesive squares , hot glue and gun and fringing scissors from Martha Stewart Crafts. The vase was made from a upcycled salsa jar using May Arts ribbon for the fancy bow and rhinestones for bling! You can see it in the photo above, too!

Here is a closer up view of the flower buds...

And an overhead view of the vase...

I hope this inspires some creativity in your home crafting today and gives you some ideas for recycling, upcycling or creating your next altered work of art!

Project 365/Days 52-55 Sketching, Scrapbooking & Designing

Living Life Creatively makes for a nice variety in my life...one day, I may be sketching, the next scrapbooking and the next, designing. Life is full of variety and so is this post. I am trying to play catch up on showing you my daily challenges.

Day 52/Fluffy Bunny Sketches

Hey, you wanna help me decide on which of these bunnies to turn into my next digi stamp?

I have an idea in mind as to which one works best, but wanna hear your opinion!!!

Day 53/ Love These Girls Layout

When it comes to friends, both of our daughters have lucked out in finding the very best.

Kylie's group of friends requested a photo shoot at the beach in January. I have lots of great pictures to scrap. In this layout I used the svg files to cut out the flouishes from my new Swirly QZ’s digital set and add them to this layout. Just one other way to bring digital into your scrapbooking/crafting! For instructions and a supply list go to the Glue Arts blog at this link to the post.

Here is what the Swirly QZ's set looks like...

Day 54/ Peek-A-Boo Bug Digi Stamp

You may remember a while back that I gave you a sneak peek at part of this stamp when it was back in the sketching phase. Now the digi stamp is up for sale in my shop at www.mygrafico.com.

It includes 5 bonus verses to use to create light-hearted greeting cards. And it is only $2!!!!

Day 55 - Peek-A-Boo Bug Card Sample

Just wanted to give you a digital card example to show how you can color in this

stamp on your computer and pair it with one of my Framing Shapz 1 designs to create a faux layered card. I added a digital bow, one of the verses and have a cheery get-well card.

http://www.mygrafico.com/digi-tools-brushes-styles-/framing-shapz-1/prod_2884.html

Project 365 Challenge/Days 49-51 What’s Swirly, Sweet & Lovely?

What’s Swirly? Day 49 brings swirly flourishes. This is a collection that I have been working on of flourish brushes and svg files. It always seems that I can never find the right flourish element when creating a card or scrapbook page, so why not create a set of my own where I can have lots of fun ones to choose from. I can’t wait to use these large scale diecut elements on layouts and smaller size on cards. I already have plans to use them on my Glue Arts design team project later this week so be sure to keep an eye on their blog.

The end result of my designing is one of my latest releases on www.mygrafico.com called Swirly QZ’s. Just imagine pairing the svg files with patterned papers, digital or traditional or using the brush art to create flourishes of any color, texture or pattern. Pair these with florals, buttons, brads and more to create your own fun card and page embellishments!

What is Sweet? On Day 50 I paired hand-cut flowers from Crate Paper’s Restoration collection CS along with one of their coordinating chipboard designs and Stampin’ Up’s 5 petal flower punch for leaves to create this Sweet Cup of Friendship card. I chose to use this background patterned paper from Stampin’ Up’s Springtime Vintage collection to compliment the florals and add a soft vintage look to this card. I distressed the edges and dragged old olive ink over them. The verse is an old favorite of mine from a retired SU set. I stamped it in the same color ink, tore the soft vanilla CS and layered over Pear Pizazz seam binding with thin pink ribbon tied over the bow. I used a small chipboard flower over top of the verse and ribbon and finished off this card with a little rhinestone bling added to some of the flowers. I used my Glue Glider Pro with high tac adhesive for adhering most of the layers and used raise 'ns to pop up and add dimension to some of the flower bouquet.



What is lovely? On day 51, I created this Whole Lotta Love Card using paper leftovers from my keepsake box project featuring Fancy Pants Designs Love Birds cardstock. I used some diecut circle leftovers to create the layered paper flower with button. You may recognize the twine I threaded though the button on top of this card. It is from the Twinery. I tied a bow, then snipped the loops and trimmed the ends to create this feathery, bow. For fast card creations, you can use patterned papers like this one to cut out verses, phrases or to use as an overall background. Easy to create in a few minutes and perfect for any occasion you want to send someone you love a card.

Celebrate Life...here and gone

Today is a bittersweet kind of day. It was my Aunt Floss’s birthday, and is now her granddaughter, Brooke’s. I feel a bit of sadness being reminded that my wonderful aunt isn’t here with us, but her spirit and memory lives in my heart. And the joy of the day is that Brooke celebrates her very first birthday. You may have remembered me working on her birthday invitations. Well now that they are all mailed out and her party is this weekend, I can finally share with you the labors of love put in to creating these cards. The final version includes an embossed CS layer, many punched items, rhinestone flames on the candle with glitter glue sprinkles on top of the cupcake. If you scroll down you can see how I coordinated the invitations and envelopes to go with the party goods that Kelly selected.

Happy 1st Birthday, beautiful Brooke!

Project 365/ Days 42 & 43 - Twice the Love

We were away this weekend at my daughter's volleyball tournament, but I managed to get these two card projects created along with a Valentine's Day Love folio that I will share with you tomorrow. If you are still needing to whip up one or two more Valentine's Day cards, here are some cards for inspiration. Both use elements printed out and colored with markers and blender pens using designs from my Sweetness Collection.

Day 42 - Pure Sweetness Hybrid Card

using Epoxy Hearts and papers from LYB's Cupcake Love Collection 

and digi verse and gumball heart machine graphic from my Sweetness collection.

 

Day 43/ Country Charm Cuckoo Hybrid Card

featuring cuckoo clock graphic and button heart art

from my Sweetness Collection along with buttons

from Stampin’ Up!® and papers from Little Yellow 

Bicycle’s Cupcake Love collection.

This is a view of the inside of the card with cute

colored in verse.

Happy Valentine’s Day! Want to win some crafting supplies from Glue Arts? Here are the details of what you need to do...

Happy Valentine's Day Glue Arts Fans!! We would ♥ to see you change your Facebook picture to our new image. We'll enter you to win this amazing prize package + a Glue Glider Pro. Simply copy our picture, paste to your Facebook wall & then come here and leave us a comment. We'll give you all day today and pick a random winner tomorrow morning! ♥

Project 365 Challenge/Days 40 & 41 - Think Storage!

The theme for these past two days of projects is storage minded. Another common theme is repurposing...making a container into something completely different than it was.

Day 40 - Love Birds Keepsake Box

The focus of this project is on Fancy Pants Designs’ completely adorable Love Birds Collection combined with Glue Arts Adhesives, of course! For Valentine’s day, I wanted to make my daughter a box where she could keep all her memorabilia from her relationship with her beau. She is very creative so I knew that she would appreciate having a nice place to keep photos, ticket stubs, letters and other memories. I used papers and stickers form the Love Birds Kit and paired it with some other yummy stickers and chipboard from Little Yellow Bicycle’s Cupcake Love Collection...along with flowers and other bling, of course you know I couldn’t make anything plain. hehehe!  This project will be featured as my design team project on Glue Arts’ blog. So keep checking in there for it and be sure to leave a comment. Who know's you may just win something on their blog for doing it! Here are a few photos. You can check out my gallery for more showing the steps in making this. Big thanks to J.B. & K.W. for being good sports and letting me use their photos and allowing me to post on the internet. ;D

Day 41 - Sweet on You Container

In an effort to be more eco-friendly and eco-minded, I decided recently to turn the packaging from some Glue Arts’ refills into some fun Valentine’s containers. I shared the first one with you just the other day, Day 39’s May Arts Gift container, and now here is one I made for my sweet niece for Valentine’s Day.

A peek inside the lid!

Here is what it looks like filled with some goodies!

Did you spot these project at Winter CHA 2011?

If you just returned home from CHA, you may 

have spotted these projects for Glue Arts that were on display at the show. 

This fun apron was crafted from a white ribbon purchased at Michaels Arts & Crafts store

and transformed using amazing ribbons from May Arts, the Glue Glider Pro with fabric bond

adhesive cartridge, some buttons and extreme adhesive squares.

Or maybe this coordinated set made with Glue Arts adhesives 

Hero Arts Stamps and beautiful papers from The Girls Paperie.

If you haven't checked out Glue Arts Blog or facebook page, be sure to make some time this week to check it out. And if you are a fan of digital artwork that can be used to create digital scrapbook pages, used for embroidery, used for creating web banners, hybrid cards, t-shirts and more... then be sure to check out mygrafico's monthly giveaways. This month’s giveway is a sweeeeet deal!

Project 365/ Days 35 & 36 - Digi Art & A Hybrid Card

What do you get when you combine a digi design with traditional cardmaking techniques? In this case, you get two days of creativity and one hybrid card! What I didn’t mention is that this Sweetie Gumball card uses a different digi stamp from the one I designed on day 35.

Some of you who are my facebook friends know that it is has been a rough month of January searching for answers to some health issues my daughter has been battling. They say that art can be healing, and for me, it has kept my mind focused on things other than being a worrying mother. After a rough night on Thursday and wondering which direction to turn next for answers, I woke up with a cheery little image in my mind of a bug peeking through some flowers. I know that God put that image there to help Kylie and I get through the day ahead. It was a long day at the doctors followed by barium shakes, a CT scan and some blood work. I told her I was so proud of her acing that test, as we got some fairly good news. Now we just sit back and wait on the labwork results to see if we will have more clues before going on to the next specialist. So as you view this snippet of the digi art (can't show the whole image just yet!), if you will please send up a prayer for answers and healing. We would greatly appreciate it. I spent the rest of Friday evening working late to turn my sketch into a new digi stamp. Hope you like this sneak peek.

Day 36’s project uses a couple paper and a cardstock sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle. I can't get enough of their fun collection of sweet papers and embellishments filled with hearts, cupcakes and yummylicious colors!

To create this card, I scaled the gumball machine to size I wanted to use on this standard size card. I colorized the heart in red with the I Luv You verse in black, then printed these out with some other images from the Sweetness Collection, one of my current digital collections on www.mygrafico.com. I love working with blender pens and markers which is how I colorized the heart gumball machine. Afterwards, I used some 2-way glue on top of the hearts with some iridescent glitter to sugarize them and add some sparkle. I also added some shiny framing around the heart and sweetie sticker by re-using some silver mylar cardstock that I saved from some perfume packaging. It made these two items stand out a little more. On my next card, I plan to do some silver embossing on the digi stamp to make the gumball machine extra metallic.

Project 365/ Day 26 - Oh So Tweet Frame

Day 26  was spent working on my Frame Project for Glue Arts Design team utilizing their Accent-It-All vinyl with one of my digi collections, Lovey Dovey, that contains some bonus svg files. For those of you who don't know what an svg file is, it is a file format used with plotters and digital diecutting machines  such as Cricut, Silhouette, etc. You can use software that is meant for your cutter to scale, cut or print svg files for use on assorted projects. SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot is a very popular one used with the Cricut).

Here are some photos of the frame project. For a list of the supplies I used on this and complete step-by-step instructions, you can go to Glue Art's blog post. The one thing on this project that I really enjoyed was creating the sugared flower. I made it from punched cardstock using a flower punch from Marvy. This technique was inspired by flowers I created with a friend using a technique she showed me with Stampin’ Up’s five petal flower punch. I applied the same steps and adding a few ideas of my own. Try it out...perfect for a Valentine's gift or card!

Here you can see how I used scrap vinyl to add the Crystal Effects to the flower with a small paint brush. This is step one of the sugaring process.

I held the flower in my hands while brushing on the clear laquer, then I lightly sprinkled iridescent glitter on top to make it look sugary and sparkly.

This photo shows the finished flower attached to the frame.

Project 365 Challenge/Day 22 - Delightful Dahlia Card

Some projects are created early in the day and others from this personal challenge are squeaked out in the last remaining hours of the day. This one was created in the wee hours of the night using a digital stamp image printed out from my Sew Long Flowers digital collection.

If you saw my Dress up Your Embellishments article in the April 2009 issue of Scrap & Stamp Arts Magazine, you would have seen my tip on altering paper flowers to customize them. I shortened the petals and layered the center flower element with some Glue Arts U-Cut-It double-sided adhesive foam to create this 3-D flower element.

This card includes Springtime Vintage patterned paper, a hand-distressed turqouise Prima paper flower, Glue Arts adhesives, asstd. solid CS, ribbon scraps, blender pen, pastels and markers. Choose from a variety of flowers in my “Sew” Long Flowers digi set. I colorized mine in brown and printed onto some high quality presentation paper to create this hybrid card.

Don’t want to hand color? You can purchase this pre-colorized clip art collection.

To create the double bows, wrap a piece of ribbon around brown layer and attach flaps on back side with high tac adhesive and Glue Glider™ Pro. Cut two small pieces of same ribbon and tie onto front panel by placing ribbon underneath the horizontal ribbon and tying into two bows.

Project 365/ Day 19 - "Tweet" Photo Valentine

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Some of my favorite colors are in Cosmo Cricket’s DeLovely collection so I just had to use this collection again when creating a personalized photo valentine for my daughter Ashley. The fun colorful chipboard embellishments were perfect for creating this square valentine card. I angled the striped cardstock, layered a patterned paper square on top, raised up the chick with U-cut-It double-sided adhesive foam and attached the flowers with an extreme adhesive square, both from Glue Arts. For the main assembly I used my Pro with high tac adhesive. I added my own hand-lettered verse following the same angle as the stripes. I used an old technique for adding the bow accent which involves punching two circles close together, threading the pointed ends of ribbon down through the holes and back up through the opposite hole. I fringed the ends of the ribbon for texture and added the epoxy sticker with the word glamorous.

Try making a personalized photo valentine for someone you love. I am following this same project theme on day 20’s project. Check it out!

Project 365/Day 18 - Glue Arts & Girls Paperie Hearts Shadowbox

Tired of making boring covered boxes? Try taking them apart and making them into a fun item of home decor. That is what I did with this heart shaped paper mache box from Darice. Pairing it up with some favorite supplies, Glue Arts adhesives and papers from The Girls Paperie, I was able to turn this box into a fun little Valentine shadowbox of Dan and I. I had a harder time locating pictures than creating the project! LOL. See if you recognize any of the diecuts or punches used here. I also snuck in a crocheted poisie from Fancy Pants that I have had stashed away for too long now and a leftover flower chipboard from my favorite summer collection from Cosmo Cricket, DeLovely. The possibilities are unlimited when you have a little bit of paper and some endless creativity!

A little bit closer view...

The back view (great when it is set on a ledge and viewable from both sides)...

Keep watching the Glue Arts blog for a complete supply list and instructions on how you can make this fun project. Also, if you haven't signed up to receive email alerts for their blog posts, be sure to do that. If you are on Facebook, be sure to comment on their page. They are giving away products to celebrating hitting over 4,000 fans!

Project 365- Day 12/Wintertime Snow Layout

With the brisk winter we have had...a record cold December for Florida residents, I decided to scrap some photos from last winter’s trip to Philly where the girls, us and Bella got to enjoy the snow.

Wintertime Snow Layout - Day 12 Challenge

Supplies from these manufacturers:

Echo Park Paper Co., Scenic Route, The Paper Co., Glue Arts,

Fiskars, Cosmo Cricket, Maya Road, Prima & Recollections.

I really love this Echo Partk Wintertime Collection by Bella Road. I used many elements to create this fun layout of Ashley with Bella. But since Bella had on her pink winter coat, I selectively chose the papers and paired with a pink (Tinted Dawn) CS background from The Paper Co.