Cards galore!

Hi! I know I've been away for a while, I don't even have an excuse... I've been job hunting, and have been a busy bee crafting.  Sorry for neglecting my blog, but when I sit down to make stuff, I just want to make stuff, not have to worry about taking pictures of it.  Though I do like to show off! :)

So without further ado, here is a little photo album of all the stuff I have been making lately.

This first one is an invitation I did for my grandfather's 90th birthday party.  The inside is just printed from the computer and mounted, but it took about 3 weeks to put 25 of these together.  That was a lot of die cuts, and a lot of poking the little pieces out of that die.

I started doing these cards with the sketched rainbow background, and liked it so much I made like 4 of them.  Here are two.

The layout for this one was inspired by one of Kristina Werner's cards that I found on Pinterest.

New dies from Avery Elle below!

This next one is probably one my favorite ones I have ever made.  When I started it, I was all, "I don't even like making baby cards."   But then I thought of the toys in the envelope, and now I love the way it came out!  The toys are stamps from Lawn Fawn, MamaElephant, and various Etsy shops.

And here's my Mother's Day version of that same card.

Whew!  So much fun to make all of these.  Thanks for stopping by and sticking around!

Make Way for Ducklings!

ETA:  This card also seems appropriate to share today, April 16, the day after the bombings at the marathon.  I love Boston, and always will.  I even left for 5 years, and purposely came back.  This is one of the cards I have made that I am the proudest of, because aside from all the fun techniques I used to make it, it also has a local sensibility to it.

Edited again to add that I'm also entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Travel/Cityscape challenge.

Just popping in one last time today to share this card I made today for a baby shower I'm going to tomorrow.  It's for a fellow Bostonian, so I wanted to do something kind of local, and I thought of the beloved children's book "Make Way for Ducklings."  (On the card, there are only 2 ducklings, because she is having twins.)

This card also gave me the opportunity to use that lovely building stamp I got from StudioMo on Etsy.  (I love buying stamps on Etsy, they're so much more unique!)

I love the way this came out, though it did take me all day to finish!

Thanks for stopping by!

Mix tape cards

Hi!  It's been a busy week or two over at Gabi's house of unemployed card making.  First of all, it was my birthday so I finally broke down and bought myself a die cutting machine.  I got a Big Shot, and I love it.  The learning curve of how to use it was actually a longer process than I expected, but in general, I really like to cut things, so of course a machine that does just that is right up my alley.  More on that and some cards I made with it later.

First, though, I had run out of ideas, so I asked some friends on Facebook to tell me their favorite songs to put on mix tapes.  I had a really cute stamp of a cassette tape that I bought from Drumchick Designs on Etsy,  and I was itching to use it.  I used their song suggestions and ran with them, and here's what I came up with.  I'm really proud of this series, they're all CAS and really fun.  (Plus, I got to use some new stamps and a do a little die cutting.)

I apologize in advance for these pictures being so dark, I must have been using the wrong setting on my camera and right now it's too late at night for me to bother with taking them again.

This first one is actually MY favorite song to put on a mix tape, "Livin' on a Prayer."  This is the only card I was able to get away with hand-lettering!  After many attempts at hand-writing some of the other cards, I finally relented and printed out the sentiments.  (Which I hate doing, because I hate pulling out the computer and futzing with the printer if I'm in the middle of paper crafting.)

It turns out my friends were really into the Bangles when we were young - I got requests for "Manic Monday," "Walk Like an Egyptian," and "Eternal Flame."  This next one is the only one that made it into the repertoire, partly because I just couldn't, in good conscience, put "Walk Like an Egyptian" on a greeting card!

I did agree to put "I Will Survive" on a card instead of "Walk Like an Egyptian":  (I got to use my Big Shot for this one!)

These next two are my favorites from this series.  My BFF Merav chose "La Isla Bonita" as her song, so I ran with the beach-y theme.  (Though everybody knows "Like a Prayer" is the best Madonna song.)

The first one is really CAS, the second one got a little more involved.  (There are cartoon fish involved!)

One more: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."

Spring cards

Also this weekend I did some spring-inspired cards, thanks to the Simon Says Stamp March card kit!

Here they are:

For this one, I thought the green paper straw would make an excellent stem for a flower, and I like the way it turned out.  The bee is from Technique Tuesday.

This one was inspired by a card in Paper Crafts magazine... I love the way the branch came out with all those different ink colors, and for the tree on the left, I cut a strip of the Simon Says Stamp white woodgrain card stock, and covered it in brown ink.

Enjoy, and as always, I love comments!  (Constructive criticism is welcome too - I am a beginner and could use suggestions!  Just keep it friendly, please.)

Clean and Simple Challenge #228

Hi again!  Over the weekend I had some crafty with a friend at our monthly craft day, and I wanted to share what I came up with.  This first card is perfect for this week's Clean and Simple Stamping sketch challenge, so I wanted to submit it.  The card is based on this sketch, and since I will be selling at a craft market right before Easter, I thought I would make a few cards for the occasion:

I switched around the words and the image, but it seems to work.  Let me know what you think!

CAS-ual Fridays Challenge, #90

I made this card with extra paper stuff I had lying around, and I wanted to enter it into the CAS-ual Fridays Challenge.  This is week's theme is "black and white +1," meaning black and white with one color.  Here goes:

     

Thanks for reading!

New baby cards

A friend recently asked me to make some cards for her to send to friends who were having new babies, so I went nuts buying some cute stamp sets from Mama Elephant and Avery Elle.  Here's what I came up with:

Here's the inside of this one:

The inside:

I also messed around with my camera a little, so I think these pictures came out better than they have been.  Thanks for reading!

...more new cards...

I've been using my card kits and techniques learned in Clean and Simple Card Making 2, and here are some more I came up with.  These mostly use that gradient technique that I am kind of in love with... but I'm also just starting to experiment with embossing, so here you go.

Please leave me a comment if you enjoyed it, or if you have any tips on how to improve these designs.

Card update and card kits

Hiya!  I have been kind of lacking in updating the blog the past week or so, but I have a ton of cards to share with you.  First up, some more cards using the Simon Says Stamp February card kit.  These 2 are similar, but in the second one, I cut the flowers out and popped them up.  Which one do you like better?

On the first one, I stamped the flowers in white ink, colored them in, and then went over the outlines with a white gel pen.  On the second one, I stamped the flowers on white cardstock, very lightly with purple ink, and then went over the lines with a white gel pen.  

Read on for more new card posts, and thanks for reading!

Clean and Simple Card Making, back to basics.

I keep going back to those sketches and designs from the first few days of class, so I made a couple more.

Here's one using that same sketch from day 1:

For this next one, I used one of the layouts from the gradient stamping day, but I wanted to see if I could something with my Spirograph!  (What?  It was on sale at The Paper Source.)  After many attempts, this was the best I could do... I think it's kind of cute.

Clean and Simple Card Making - back to day 1

I finally got around to trying out another technique demonstrated in Day 1 of our class.  I'd been itching to use this stencil, and I needed some Mother's Day Cards, so here's what I came up with:

I used another DIY supply - instead of those misting sprays you can buy, which I don't have any of, I mixed some watercolor paint with a bunch of water in a little spray bottle and used that to spritz the paper.  It worked beautifully!  That's actually orange paint mixed with water.  

I also made another card using a variation on the same technique.  I don't love this card, the stamping is a little messy, and the ink I used over the stencil didn't dry properly since I don't have a heat tool (other than my hair straightener!).  But I love the idea of the grey sky/trees with the red birds.

CAS Card Making, Day 6

It's late, so here's what I got for today:

My friend asked me to make new baby cards for her, so I used today's technique to make one of them.

I also made this Jewish-themed get well card for a relative, using that gradient technique from last week.

See you tomorrow!

CAS card making, day 4, and other things

I don't have much to say today other than I love the way these new cards turned out, so here they are.

This first one sort of utilizes some of the techniques we've learned in class so far, but mostly it's just cute!

This second one is my very broad interpretation of the white on black technique:

That's all I got for today, but I did love that I got to use purple a lot in these cards.

Clean and Simple card making, Day 2

I'm catching up slowly by slowly on the card making class!  Day 2's lesson was about making one layer cards, and using masking and watercolor techniques to make them stand out.  Making the card below was, for me, an exercise in figuring out how to use what I have instead of fancy tools I can't afford.

So, instead of a die cutter, I used a circle cutter (if I had had more patience it would have been an exacto knife, but, well, it's late); instead of sticky backed paper, I used card stock and respositionable adhesive that I don't use much; instead of making an embellishment out of an epoxy sticker, I colored in a stamp with my Glaze pens.  By the way, I love those Glaze pens.  The local craft store told me they weren't selling well, so maybe I'm the only one who loves them, but I just think they are genius and so much fun.

I kind of hate using up my stamp ink on filling in stencils though, and I don't have enough materials to really do it right.  I wonder if I could use colored pencils or watercolors instead?

Here's the card:  I don't love it, but it's sort of cute.  Let me know what you think!

Clean and Simple Card Making Part 2, Day 1

I found a great online class on Clean and Simple card making, and for day 1, we learned some tips on craftsmanship and some other techniques.  Our homework was to create a card based on some of the techniques we learned.  (I'm a little behind, as the class started yesterday.)

So here is the card I came up with, which combines several of the techniques.  I wasn't sure what to put on it, and then remember that I was intending on making some Passover cards, so I thought I would try out the techniques on one!

Can't wait to see what day 2 has in store!

All about buttons!

Last week, my partner in crime J came up with a great Valentine's Day card idea involving a button... and then I found the Neat & Tangled All About Buttons challenge!  It's sponsored by MossyMade, one of my favorite card bloggers.

Here's the card I came up with:

J is great at coming up with puns, and I love the simplicity of it.  Enjoy!