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...

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Project 365/Day 13 - Monogram Notecards

Since creating my digital Mod Monograms 1 set, I wanted to make a project for myself...some personal notecards. From the moment I bought DCWV’s the Natural Stack, I have fell in love with the papers and have used them on several card creations. I chose two of the foil papers in this 8" x 8" stack paired with brown and beige solid cardstock from the Paper Co. to created elegant hybrid notecards. I created 4 matching ones and one alternate version. I colored the initial C in brown to coordinate with my notecard paper stock and left the monogram frame in black.

I matted it in brown and raised up the layer using U-cut-it double sided foam from Glue Arts.

You can purchase this digi frame set on mygrafico.com...

So if you are at a creative road block, make something for yourself today. I did and am so glad to be at the receiving end of one of my creative projects.

Velvet Chic Hybrid Card

I made this card for my Aunt Carole, yet another belated Birthday card mailed off! I am hoping that my new 2011 calendar with photos of upcoming birthdays will keep me ahead of things in the new year! LOL, probably just wishful thinking! 

I created this card using velvet embossed paper in black and ivory from Me and My Big Ideas Sassy collection, a pad I have been stashing for a while. I paired it with deep red precut cards that I also had stashed away...are you noticing a trend here? Yes, I am finally using my papers and goodies instead of storing them away for a bigger, better project. Are you guilty of that too? Now don’t be lying, I know most crafters do this. The frame is from my Elegant Frames digi collection for sale at Mygrafico.com and the verse was typeset and colorized  on my computer and printed out with the frame. I added distressed sponging in black and dragging using a black ink pad.

The background ivory textured panel was created using my Sizzix Big Kick with the Cuttlebug Divine Swirls Embossing Template. For added elegance, I folded a wide black satin ribbon between the layers and held the loop in place with an adhesive square. I assembled the card using my Glue Glider™ Pro with extreme adhesive. I found this to be a good choice in cartridges for this project due to the texture of the layers. To finish the card, I added a strip of adhesive pearls on top of the ribbon to make the black pop.

You can use this card design for creating cards for any occasion. This digital frame set is very versatile and always elegant! Don’t know how to use digital art, then use stamps to recreate this project.

Hope today you are living life creatively!

I’m a Repeat All Star - what an honor!

I don’t really like to do horn tooting, but I am pretty excited to be honored for the second year in a row in the January 2011 All Star issue of Scrap & Stamp Arts magazine. This is a favorite magazine of many stampers and scrapbookers for its informative articles and wonderful card samples including instructions.

Here is a peek of a few of my featured project samples. The digital artwork used in these are from mine and Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff shops on MyGrafico.com.

You must pick up a copy and read my article on Stamping Hybridization. Hint: it discusses 5 ways to combine digital techniques with traditional stamping methods. The article will inspire you to take a leap into going a little bit digi!

I will be posting later this week the tutorial on how to create a faux tattoo on a photograph, like the one on this photo greeting card, so be sure and check back!

Things Aren’t Always Black & White

...Or Are They?

Just as in life, there are always some grey areas, and this card uses a clean and classic design playing on high contrast b&w colors with a grey pinstripe patterned paper from Doodlebug Designs as a neutral background. The punch and verse are both from Stampin Up!®.

The graphic is a digi stamp design from my Hip & Happy set, available for purchase on www.mygrafico.com.

Also using digi art from the Hip & Happy set, this next birthday card introduces aqua as an accent color to make the designs pop. I used the swirled element in this set colorized in white to create the black & white border strip. That is the exciting thing about working with the editable eps files in Illustrator...you can colorize them to what you want them to be or simply print in b&w or shades of grey added, as shown here for equally fun results.

A close up view of the border and digi art.

Border and Celebrate You verse from Stampin’ Up!®

Patches of Patriotism

Remember the days of coloring in coloring books as a child or maybe as a grown up showing your child how to color? Relaxing, fun memories. Well, digi stamping can be very much the same. You can scale and print out the designs in your computer software program such as Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Corel Draw, InDesign or Illustrator on your inkjet printer. Let the ink set for a few minutes, then color to your hearts content. This is just one way to incorporate digital stamping into your craft projects.

Today I want to share with you some cards I made using Lindsay’s Stamp Stuff set named Patriotic Collection. It has great card kit elements for you to cut and paste, or if you have a photo editing program like Photoshop, you can incorporate layers of the stamps and add computer colorized backgrounds along with other digi stamps. I loved the quilted feel of her stamp design, so I used the Stitches set by Mels Brushes, also from Mygrafico.com to add the white stitchery to this card. I printed it out, hand colored the center using markers and blender pens, and I mounted on a deep red linen 5" x 7" card with blue and white panels embossed with the Divine Swirls cuttlebug embossing template and some gold metallic ribbon. I also embellished with the raised up star button and a couple more buttons, too! This set would be so awesome for making cards for the troops or for celebrating U.S. holidays like 4th of July, Memorial Day and Labor Day.

This Pockets of Patriotism card showcases another way to use digi stamps...print them onto colored cardstock. The pocket was printed on blue CS and shaded using an ink pad and sponge. I matted and layered the other hand colored digi stamp over an embossed dotted white background which I matted in red and placed on top of a hand stamped background using a distressed dot stamp from Stampin’ Up!’s Extreme Elements set. I alternated using Pacific Point and Real Red ink. And I added the red bow with white stitching as a vibrant accent.

Lindsay & I swapped sets to show our friends and followers what you can create using one another’s designs. To check out the card creations Lindsay made with my Elegant Name Plates set, check out her blog. To see some other card samples I made using some of her designs, be sure to see yesterday’s blog post. Also, check back on Monday for a spring card version using this very same pocket stamp! With digi stamping you never run out of ink, supplies or creativity!

Working on Samples

If it isn’t enough work creating the sets, I had to get busy showing samples of how to use them. There just aren't enough hours in the day it seems. One minute I am consulting on Prom Decor, the next giving boyfriend advice, next cleaning (which I try to avoid until it is time to evict the dust bunnies), then it’s writing, designing and creating. I know you can all relate to me! Right? I am well behind on cards for friends and family too, but here are some sneak peek photos of some cards I just posted to my mygrafico albums. For all the details on what sets I used, you can check there. These range from fairly simple to more complex hybrid . I will be posting more ideas today and tomorrow in the gallery. Happy Friday!