I {Heart} ribbons cards

I saw a post the other day over on the May Arts Ribbon blog and was inspired after watching the video Latrice did making her Textured Valentine's Day Card Set.  I can imagine using different die shapes & ribbon colors for any season & greeting!  After shuffling through my partially organized ribbon stash & leafing through my die sets, I too settled on the heart shape and then a combo of blue ribbons with sprinkling of red. 

Here's my basics for my prototype card.

Ah, Kraft did not go well with this ribbon selection (esp. with the white & blue floral ribbon), so it's a speckled white (scrap from my Christmas cards!). As with any prototype I make, even tho I like it, I need to change it up a bit to make more than one!  I really wanted to use Kraft paper, like Latrice did, for something different for me and because I like Kraft with blue & red.  So that was my challenge to myself.  Back to the ribbon stash & playing with combinations. :)

The end result!  There's still some variations in the last 3 - angle of heart, order of ribbons and embellishment type. The Kraft was still an issue for me, by itself, but to tie it all together I used the next larger heart die to make a frame of blue and used the blue as the card base also.  The swirl stamp with white chalk ink helped to dress up the background.  

Now, who to send these to.... :-)

Paper: DCWV, JoAnns 

Ink: Memento Danube Blue, VersaMagic Cloud White Chalk ink    

Stamps: Autumn Leaves-Swirls, Love (word from I Love You) unknown

Tools:  Spellbinders Heart dies; Ribbons-various (JoAnn's, Michaels, Walmart), Puffy Hearts-May Arts Ribbon; Zip Dry Glue, Foam Tape, Heart rhinestones

October HYCCT cards Part 2

Here's a few more of my cards for the challenges:

Sparkling Season - make a glittery holiday card. I used glitter paper for the punched snowflake, clear embossed snowflakes on the background and used a star dust pen on the dots of the sentiment to add sparkle.

Stamps: Penny Black-snowflake, PrintWorks-sentiment    Paper: DCWV-Linen closet-glitter & matte   Ink: Memento black, Versamark     Other: Clear Embossing Powder, EK Success large snowflake punch, Sakura Stardust pen

Keep it under wraps-decorate/alter a notepad. I liked the glossy brown cover this little notebook had so I just added a strip of pink polished stone background with this encouraging artsy Life stamp and foil (ish) butterfly stickers. The font really is like that. :)

Stamp: Stampendous    Paper: Glossy    Other: Alcohol, SU reinkers, Corner rounder punch, 

Studio C purse book, Sticker King stickers

Strength of Steel - use metal on card. I adhered a foil container cover (from prescription eye drops, a nice long rectangle) to cardstock then embossed it with a folder and colored with alcohol inks.

Stamp: Inkadinkado  Paper: DCWV  Other: Foil, Darice EF-Fall Leaf Background, 

Ranger Alcohol Inks, JoAnn's fall ribbon

Mixing it up-Mixed media. It was fun to pull out some of my different things I was hoarding to try something like this 'someday'.   I painted textured paper with the metallic acrylic paint, both sides, then let it dry for about 20 of the 24 recommended hours. It die cut & embossed nicely. The grunge paper (for sentiment) was painted with metallic pearl with dabber then smacked with the paint brush of the colors I used for the flower, as I finished painting each color. I had to use a stamp-a-majig to restamp the sentiment a couple more times to make it show up boldly.  It would take off some of the acrylic paint the first couple of times I had to peel the stamp off of it. The background was made with a stencil & Perfect Pearl mister in gold. I love the gold tone of the paint and the shimmer of everything, tho hard to photograph!

Here's a close up:

Stamp: Stampendous  Inks: Stazon (stamp), Lumiere Metallic Acrylic Paint-Met. Olive Green, Halo Violet Gold, Adirondack Met. Acrylic Paint Dabber-Pearl  Other: Spellbinders Poinsettia dies, Heidi Swapp Chevron Stencil, Perfect Pearls Mist-Heirloom Gold, Stickles-gold, May Arts black mesh, Gold wired fringe

My Lockhart flower collection

Yes, I love floral stamps.  Here's a few cards I made recently with flowers from Karen Lockhart Stamps.  She doesn't sell stamps on her website but you can see what she's designed and look up what stores in what states carry her stamps.  I buy mine at my local stamp store (LSS), just 11 miles away! : ) 

 My LSS has a monthly challenge and Linda gives out goodie bags for them.  We have to use at least 3 things from the bag and a stamp from her store on our card as part of the challenge.  The goodie bags usually have about 9 things, a small (3x3?) piece of double sided paper, 2 buttons, 1-2 brads, 1-2 pieces of ribbon or floss/twine and 2-3 dew drops or other little items.  The cards are due the last Friday of the month, then that Saturday, card class participants vote for 2 - $10 card winners and 2 - $5 card winners.   Everyone who participates and doesn't win, gets a free stamp on their discount card (like a punch on a punch card).

This card is for the June - Summer theme challenge, can you tell?  I colored the floral image with Tombow markers to go with the patterned paper piece provided, found a 3rd matching button to use and was barely able to tie the tiny bow in the little piece of twine.  The little greenish butterfly was also part of my goodie pack.  The Summertime stamp (Great Impressions?) was a freebie stamp from her store last year, I thought it fit with the Summer theme, and I can say I used that stamp. :)  Being I'm so late in posting this, I know now that I won one of the $10 gift card prizes with this!  Whoo Hoo!  Already spent.... :)

I made this pink card for my neighbor Lore, on her birthday!  Lore cares for our pooch and comes over to water our 45+ houseplants when we are out of town.  She's not a pink gal but she grows lots of flowers, lots of roses, lilacs, big blue poppies and colorful peonies like in this image!  She also used to crochet so I thought this was a fitting accessory to the card, and despite all the pinkness here, it all matches the flowers!  She didn't complain, in fact, she let me know that she's "still expecting a handmade Christmas card, this pretty card" won't get me outta that!  I have a few months. : )

This card is for the August challenge - Celebrate in celebration of the 5th anniversary or birthday of our LSS!  I colored the image with pencils then used the Sakura Stardust pen to highlight all of the flowers and give it some shimmer.  The Happy Birthday is part of a larger sentiment stamp from Great Impressions.  That patterned paper provided isn't really my style but it's different and a good challenge for me to use it.  Now if I would use all of the other paper in my stash that I'm not really fond of! : )