Wedding Gifts

This past weekend friends of ours got married, and I like to give personalized gifts, so this is what I made for them:

My Silhouette sure got a lot of attention this past week! I used it to print the Love hearts, and to cut them into stencils to use for the glass etching...which was my first attempt! I think the glasses came out pretty darn good for my first try at glass etching! The Love heart came from Rivka's Renditions found here. Isn't it so pretty?! I used it on the glasses as well as the heart on the frame. On the opposite side of the heart on the glass, I etching the couple's initials. For that I used a font called Tangerine. Both stencils I cut out using my Silhouette. 

The lettering on the frame was also from Rivka's Renditions. It's a new font for her and it's called RR Rhapsody and can be found here. It cut out so beautifully! I typed out the letters and then welded them in Silhouette Studio. Gluing them to the frame was a little challenging since they are so delicate, but I think it was worth it!

The coasters were made using a stamp set from Stampin' Up that I don't believe is available anymore. I stamped and then colored in with Sharpies.

The card was made with Textile embossing folder from Cuttlebug and a Darice frame to make the oval opening for the sentiment. The sentiment was a clear stamp set and the inside sentiment is from SU.

SSD Progressive Challenge

Happy New Year!  Kids are finally back to school after an extended holiday break (due to snow - yippee!) and it's time to get back into the swing of things.  Today I've got my latest submission for the monthly challenge over at Sassy Studios Designs (it's on their FB page).  This month's challenge was fancy folds using Katniss, Girl On Fire!  She was so fun to color I colored two!  But I'm only showing one creation for the challenge. I wasn't really sure what I was going to make with her, but my daughter saw the first one I had colored and mentioned how she'd like her in purple, so I made this for her (shhhh...she doesn't know lol)  This was my first attempt at doing a side step card but I like how it came out.  I think I'll be making more of these in the future. The image was colored with Prismacolor colored pencils and fussy cut.  The shimmery mats are actually backs of business cards.  I don't remember where I got them, but someone gave them to me and I saved them for crafting.  I die cut the scalloped oval one using Nestabilities and the corner punch is from EK Success (Cardcreator - Interlaced Corner Punch). Katniss is popped up with pop dots. Underneath her is embossed using Cuttlebug's Organic Flourish border folder.  It's hard to see, but the ruffle in her dress is pink, so I folded a ribbon for the middle step.  The last step's mat was corner punched with Fiskars Multiple Circles. The sentiment was heat embossed in white and die cut with scalloped circle nesties.
Thanks for looking!

SSD Progressive Challenge

Hi All!  Here's my latest monthly challenge over at Sassy Studio Designs.  The challenge was to use Santa Pin-Up to create a white on white project and you can't use the traditional Christmas colors - red, green, gold or silver.  I think the white on white part was hardest for me!  In any event... the digi was colored with Prismacolor colored pencils. I chalked around the edges of all the die cuts/punches with Lavender Lace ink from SU.  I embossed the background and punched some snowflakes (I layered a small one on top of a larger one), added a tag and ribbon and there you have it!  Boy, that sounds so simple but in reality it took me forever! LOL  I hope you like it!

Prom Card

NO...not my prom...mine was too long ago! LOL  A friend of mine decided to have a prom for her 30th birthday party.  Everyone's dressing as if they are going to a prom!  Sassy Studio Designs has the perfect digi for this! She's called Ashelee's Prom (I know, fitting, right?!) Since my friend's favorite color is purple, that's what a chose for Ashelee's dress.  I colored her with Prismascolor pencils and added glitter glue on her hair tie, sash and of course her shoes!  A girl needs sparkly shoes for her prom!  I also had some shiny silver sticky paper (I think it's actually used for something electrical) that I cut with my Cuttlebug as a double mat.  I thought it would give it a disco ball kind of feel (not that the picture shows it that well, but it was quite shiny!)  I added 30's all over the background and some gemstones around the corners and Voila!  

(Sorry the pics aren't that great - the colors are more vibrant than what these show, but with the shiny paper it was hard to get a decent shot.)

Close-up - check out the glitter :-)

Trying to show the shininess of the silver paper

Softpencil Blog Hop!!!

Hello all and welcome to the second part of the Softpencil Blog Hop! This part runs from April 15th to April 20th....and I get to be a part of it! Thank you Elizabeth! :-)

We are celebrating the first year of Elizabeth's characters, the Tinytwinies™, the first year of Softpencil Studios relaunching and Elizabeth's 10th anniversary as a professional artist. We're also celebrating the opening of Elizabeth's new shop where all of her products are available: digi-stamps, clear stamps, stickers, rub-ons, kits for card making, scrapbooking and paper crafting - and more products coming soon! 

There are several prizes along the way:

• Elizabeth will be choosing a random winner (through random.org) from the players who complete the blog hop - the winner will receive a gift certificate for $15 to the Softpencil shop... and a surprise!
• All the players who participate by leaving their comments on each blog will receive a free digi-stamp of their choice. Yes! Only leave a comment on each blog and win a digi-stamp! Write to Elizabeth at elizabethpujalka@hotmail.com to let me know you commented on all the blogs. 
• And there is a "mystery blog" so all the girls who leave a comment on that blog will be entered on a drawing to win a digi-stamp... and a little surprise too! 

So be sure to leave a comment at each stop and leave 2 comments back at the Softpencil Blog! 


Now, onto my projects.  For this hop I made two cards - one using Easter Sunny, the other using adorable Lilly.

I colored Easter Sunny with Prismacolor colored pencils and cut it out and embossed it with my Scalloped Squares Nestabilities and my Cuttlebug.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up, "Spring Fling".  The words had little stars in it, but I didn't care for them so I put yellow flower brads over them :-)  

I colored Lilly with Prismacolor colored pencils and used Circle Nestabilities and my Cuttlebug to cut her out.  For the background I just layered three papers - I couldn't decide which color to go with so I used them all!  The flowers (SU "Close as a Memory") are stamped using SU craft ink in white and then embossed with white powder.  On Lilly, I added glitter to her bow, a brad for the center of her flower, and black glossy accents on her buttons and shoes.  Below is a close-up to try and show the details on her :-)

That's all I have for today!  Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered into the drawing!

Happy hopping!

1- Annette Bowes 

2- April Lower 

3- Stephanie Serrano 

4- Julie Masse 

5- Farida Rone 

6- Monica Torres 

7- Melissa Craig 

8- Carole Rinear Chesser 

9- Michelle Quinno 

10- Debra Miller  (you should have come from here)

11- Heather D ---  This is me!

12- Pauline Guttrey 

13- Cyndi Kim 

14- Mervi 

15- Lola 

16- Jessica Shelton 

17- Monica Flores 

1st Communion Cards

 Two of our neighbors' kids made their first communion together.  So, I made them matching cards :-)
The background/frame is D'vine Swirls embossing folder - I embossed and then cut the oval out using Lifestyle Crafts nesting ovals and my Cuttlebug (where would I be without it!)  The cross stamp I got years ago and don't remember who made it, but it was just a single stamp I bought.  I stamped it with SU Creamy Caramel ink and hand-cut it out.  To get the 'light' shining behind it, I flipped the cross over to the backside and chalked from the corners out.  This way I could cover all the area I needed while lining it up just right, and not having to worry about getting chalk on the front of the cross.  Then flip and adhere.

Tools used: Cuttlebug, D'vine Swirls CB embossing folder, SU Creamy Caramel ink, SU Stampin' Pastels, pop-dots.

Heidi Birthday Card

I literally made this card in 5 mins.  My husband had decided last minute, practically before walking out the door, that he needed a birthday card for a friend of his.  Luckily I had already colored this image but hadn't made a card with it yet.  A little matting, a little embossing, and BOOM, it was done!  Thank you Victoria @ Victoria Case Art Designs for the awesome Heidi image! I've had fun coloring her.  I will post another card featuring Heidi in the future, so be on the lookout! :-)

Tools used: Cuttlebug w/ d'vine swirls embossing folder, Heidi digi from Victoria Case Art Designs, Prismacolor Pencils, SU Sassy Suzie stamp set for sentiment.

Thank You Card

I wanted to use my border embossing folder so I decided to use it for this card.  It's one of the borders in the Pop Culture pack from Cuttlebug.  For the background I used Versamark and 'thank you' from the Wonderful Words SU set. The sentiment came from the SU Curvy Verses set.  For the piece of paper I used the SU ticket punch corner punch and the ribbon slot punch from Fiskars.  I tied the ribbon in both directions to change it up a bit.  I also cut the front of the card narrower so that the embossed border could be seen while the card was open or closed.

Tools: CB embossing folder - Pop Culture; Fiskars ribbon slot punch; Versamark ink (background); SU stamp sets: Wonderful Words, and Curvy Verses; SU ticket punch corner punch; ribbon; Cuttlebug machine

Anniversary Card

Friends of ours got married the same year we did...and they have the same initials as we do!  They live across the country from us and we always send them an anniversary card.  This is what they got this year:

For this I used the LOVE set from SU and matted the small squares on a piece of red paper that I used the border and corner SU punch for.  Don't you just love punching all the way around a piece of paper now?!  I cut the gold ribbon to resemble an arrow and for the background I used my Cuttlebug to emboss (using the Textile embossing folder).  I used SU Stampin' Pastels to highlight the embossing.  I chalked around the edges as well.  Inside I used the Full of Life set from SU and the 'happy anniversary' is from Inkadinkado.

Tools: SU sets: LOVE & Full of Life, Cuttlebug, CB Textile embossing folder, SU border and corner punches, corner rounder punch, ribbon, ST Stampin' Pastels, Inkadinkado stamp

Wedding Card

 I made this card for friends of ours that were getting married.  I like the classic blacak and white look, but I had to add some color to the flowers :-)  I also added glitter to the bride's vail.  The background/frame was done with my Cuttlebug machine and the Scrollwork embossing folder.  For this card I also stamped on the inside and back of the card.  I also used the two hearts on the envelope and wrote their initials in each heart. 

Tools used: Cuttlebug, Cuttlebug Scrollwork embossing folder, glitter glue, ribbon, SU stamp sets: To Have & To Hold, Greetings Galore, and In My Thoughts.

Cupcake Honey birthday card

I needed to make a b-day card for friend of ours - he's not the kind of guy to go for frilly things, so I used this image instead of my typical cutesy digis :-)  I hope he appreciated it! LOL  In any event, the image is from Sassy Studios and it's called Cupcake Honey.  The candle background is an embossing folder from Cuttlebug.  The sentiments (inside and out) are from SU Sassy Suzie set.  The digi was colored using Prismacolor colored pencils.

 Tools used: SU Sassy Suzie, Cuttlebug, Cuttlebug embossing folder, Prismacolor pencils



Dragon b-day card

Here's a birthday card I made for one of my kids' friend's birthday parties.  I used Dustin Pike's freebie image and colored with Prismacolor pencils.  I double matted him and put some ballon brads along the side.

Tools used: Cuttlebug, Nestabilities squares, balloon brads, Prismacolor colored pencils, Dustin Pike digi

Color Challenge

Here's a card I made for a color challenge at Softpencil on Paper Craft Planet.  The color challenge (if you can't already guess lol) was to use primary colors red, blue and yellow.  I just love these little girl images! Too cute!  You can't really see in the picture, but I put glitter on her bows.  For the background I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the dots and then I used my new SU corner punch for the corners.  The glitter flowers are leftovers from a craft we did for my daughter's 5th b-day last year.

Tools used: Cuttlebug, digi stamps, corner punch, Prismacolor pencils

Dad's b-day card

Here's the card I made for my dad's birthday.  I find it difficult to make masculine cards, but luckily my dad isn't much of a card person anyways, so I could be more simple and he'd be just as happy lol.  So, this is what I came up with:

Again, my black cards don't come out that good when photographed (guess I gotta work on that! lol) but the background is embossed with the diamond plate for my Cuttlebug.  The stamps are from SU (totally tool) and JRS.  I also used the silver sticky paper I have as a mat for the tools. 

Tools used: Cuttlebug for embossing, SU Totally Tool stamp set; JustRite Stampers stamps, circle punch

Girl with flowers

Look out digi world here I come! tee hee :-)  My girlfriend Diane got me into coloring...and hopefully I'll be making my colored images into cards really soon!  Here's one I did recently.  The image is from Softpencil.  Go check them out!  Very cute stuff! 

Tools used: Cuttlebug - die cutting and Nestabilities; Delight in Life stamp set from SU; Prismacolor pencils; flowers & brads

My first sliceform

I made this card for my mother-in-law's b-day.  It was my first attempt at a sliceform.  If you just read that and said to yourself, 'what's a sliceform?', you can read all about them below the pictures.  I'll paste the explanation from the wonderful lady, Jennie, who created this vase file!  Speaking of which, you can find her vase file here.  Jennie offers it in a variety of formats - I used the gsd format, naturally LOL.   

For this card, I cut everything out on one piece of peach colored paper.  The flowers I colored in with Prismacolor pencils.  The stems and random pieces of grass I stamped with a green ink spot and then used my blender pen to soften it up a bit, but to allow the lines from the ink spot to show as if it were the veins running through the grass and stems and to give it some faux texture.  The tops of the flowers were adhered to the card with pop-dots while the stems were just placed into the vase.  I embossed a piece of green cardstock for the background.  I hope you like it! I'm looking forward to see what else I can create from Jennie's very cool creations!

Tools used: Silhouette, Cuttlebug, Prismacolor pencils, blender pen, embossing folder

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What is a Sliceform?


A sliceform is an object normally made totally from paper, where all the different parts slot together (normally no glue is ever needed apart from any embellishments) to form a 3D object. These sliceforms fold totally flat with the simple push of a finger, making them perfect for including inside a card which has to be mailed to a friend or loved one,or even inside a pocket on a scrapbook page. Then either by lifting the sliceform, or again pushing it with your fingers, it will pop back into its 3D form.
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Hubby's b-day card

I find it challenging to make 'men' cards, but I think this one came out okay.  I used the diamond plate embossing folder for the background and some 'screw' brads in the corners.  The sentiment is from JustRite Stampers.  The silver stuff is like sticky paper that I came across.  I cut a strip to use down the center of the card.  I also covered a punched circle in it to mat the sentiment.  The second picture was taken to show that I used a pop-dot for the circles to give the card a little more dimension. 

Tools used: JustRite Stampers, Cuttlebug, Embossing folder

Block Stencils

For these cards I took two blocks of the block stencil kit and enlarged them to 2.5x2.5" each.  They come either in the sheet, or as individual blocks, so once I enlarged them and centered them on a rectangle (4.25x5.5") I removed the outline of the block so that the stencil part would stay on the paper I was making for my card.  This created the centerpiece, if you will, for my cards.

For the hearts card I cut a frame out using my nesties and cuttlebug and put it over the stencil part.  I used a scrap piece of red paper to put behind the hearts.  Chalked the border of the paper I cut on my Silhouette and then stamped "love" and added some flowers to the end.  Voila!

For this card I followed the same kind of thing as above, but instead of the red paper, I used - get this - a part of the blue plastic bag that covers our paper each week.  Good way to recycle, right? :-)  I was going for more of a stained glass look.  I wanted the blue to really show through, but I wanted it on a black card, so I layered the blue plastic and then white paper behind the stencil (blue plastic on black would've been too dark).  Then I added bling, a ribbon, a stamped sentiment and then adhered to the black card and I was done!  Well, except that it's hard to write on black, so I put a white piece of paper inside to write a note on.

Tools used: Stencils, Silhouette, Cuttlebug, Nestabilities