Baby Brother's Turning 50!

I mentioned a few days ago that I used the Sunburst Technique to make my mom's birthday card. I wanted to see how it would work on a card for a man (many of us struggle with masculine cards), so in the interest of time, and since these cards are so quick to make, I decided to use the same technique on a card for my brother who is turning 50 today.

I used paper from the Recollections "Rue Regent" Stack (you'll find the same paper in the DCWV "Haberdash" stack), a piece of ribbon and the Print-and-Cut feature on my Silhouette Cameo to make the sentiment and label. And of course the brads are ages old and come from my stash!

Project #31 of 50

I'm pretty jazzed by the way it turned out and glad that I finished it in time to get it in the mail on schedule.

So... thanks for looking and a Happy 50th Birthday to my baby brother Craig L. Atkinson!

Happy Birthday Mom...No Foolin'!

I'm spending more and more time at "YouTube University," trying to learn new techniques and ways to use up my stash. On Saturday, I watched a few videos and learned how to make cards using the "Sunburst" technique. Talk about easy peasy!!!! And quick! And a great way to use up your scraps!

I ended up making two birthday cards... one for my mom and one for my brother (whose birthday is Saturday). As I kid, I thought it was too funny that my mom was born on April Fool's Day and as kids do, loved to think of a ways to fool her on her birthday. For instance, I would often wrap an empty box, or put her gift inside of a small box that was nested inside of many larger boxes.

These days though... I try to tap into the elegance that is "Gracie," my mom. Since becoming a card maker I've made almost all of her birthday cards, and while this one was quick and simple, I think it still captures that elegant essence.

So, here's the card...

Project #30 of 50

And here's to you mom! Happy 78th Birthday to Grace B. Strauther!

Thanks for looking!

WrinkleFreeDiva

50 - Happy Day

This card was created for my soror's 50th birthday. All of us were supposed to wear stilettos to her party, so I thought it only fitting to put a sassy shoe on her card. 

I pulled out my *gasp* Cricut and used Summer in Paris to cut the shoe. The "50" was done with DIY Thickers and some really ancient Martha Stewart glitter. All of the paper, including the portion with "Happy Day", is from the DCWV Haute Pink and Green Tea stacks. I added the embossing on the background panel using a Cuttlebug folder.

And this makes Project #21 of my 50 Project challenge. Not too shabby considering it's only the middle of February!

Thanks for looking!

WrinkleFreeDiva

Friday Night Challenge Cards

So here I am, 19 days into a self-imposed challenge to use my stash in all of my creations; the goal being to make 50 projects prior to buying any craft items other than adhesive. Below are projects #9 and #10. (If I buy anything, then I have start counting all over again!)

I was able to participate in Friday Night Challenge over at SOC on Friday hosted by Mazella. I created both of these cards. The first card was supposed to be all black and white, include bling or pearls, and a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King.

The flower rub-on came from my Clip-It-Up and was purchased at Big Lots many years ago.
The black and white paper is from my stash and is also many years old.

The second challenge was to create a birthday card with lots of flowers. (Now that I look back at everyone else's pictures, I think I was supposed to use some ribbon too LOL! Oh well...)

The foil chipboard flowers came from Tuesday Morning several years ago.

Stay tuned for my next projects!

Thanks for looking!

See What It Can Do!

This weekend I was quite productive in the crafty sense. And I'm just tickled pink (and green!) about it.

Last fall I purchased a Silhouette Cameo but hadn't had lots of time to play with it. Well this past weekend it was all about the Cameo and coloring digital images.

First, I colored my images (a larger size than needed) using Copic markers. Next, I scanned them into my computer, saving them as JPEG files. Then I brought them into my Silhouette software, traced then resized the images. Finally, I printed the images (using registration marks) and then cut. *I could have actually cut out the space between the little girl's neck and the stem of the flower, but time was an issue and I didn't feel like fooling around with it. Next time though, I'll be a little bit more meticulous!* A BIG thank-you to Miss Alice B for offering the suggestion to do it this way because now I not only have the images stored in my computer for future use, but I can resize them for use on any project. I am very slow (and not very patient) when it comes to coloring so this might actually motivate me to color more and help me to build up a collection of colored images for use on projects.

Both images are from Robert Jackson

 I used the first image to make a card for my soror's 40th birthday which we celebrated last night.

And the second image is for my cousin's birthday card.

So today's lesson is especially for those who have expensive die-cutting machines, other crafty tools, and heck...even computers! We've shelled out megabucks on all of these toys and many times we only use 5% to 10% of their capabilities. So today, commit to learning a new feature on one of your crafty toys. You can use the manufacturer's user's guide or website, YouTube, discussion groups and forums, google it or just sit down and start playing around with your machine. You just might be surprised at what that toy can do and how it can enhance all of your craft projects!

Printing Card Sentiments

For the longest time, whenever I needed to type an inside sentiment for a card, I'd type it into my computer, insert my 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock into the printer, and then trim it down to the size needed for the inside of my card. Inevitably, after cutting it down to size, my printing would be off center or the text would be too large or too small for the space. Sometimes, I'd print it again and other times I'd just say to heck with it and leave it the way it was.

There had to be a better way. Then it dawned on me! I could cut my paper first and then print on it, instead of the other way around. For this card, I needed the white inside piece to be 5" x 3.75". I went into MS Word's page layout and changed my paper size to custom, entered the paper dimensions, changed my margins to 0.5, and typed my perfectly-sized text into my document.

I cut my cardstock to the same size, inserted my paper into the printer, adjusted my paper guides accordingly and printed! Voila! A perfectly sized and typed sentiment!

I used it inside of this slider card (the cut file came from the Silhouette Online store)...

Bazzill cardstock in white; DCWV Dots, Stripes and Plaids; RYAN sticker and metal dots (really old from my stash);
American Craft Alpha rub-ons, 

So today's lesson is this, let your printer do the sizing work for you when making the sentiment panels for the insides of your cards.

1. Decide on the size panel you want.
2. Go into your word processing software and change the paper size. Adjust your margins if you'd like.
3. Cut your cardstock the same size.
4. Print! 

And that's it!

I want to close by saying that today is my only offspring's 12th birthday. Happy Birthday "Skootch!" aka "Delawoo!"

Thanks for stopping by!

WrinkleFreeDiva!

If at first you don't succeed...

So today was my first experience with the "print and cut" feature on my Silhouette Cameo. I watched a great video on Youtube and had no trouble importing and preparing my images to print with the registration marks and then cut. When it came time to cut, that's when I nearly said to heck with the whole project. My Cameo wouldn't (or couldn't) detect the registration marks. I looked at Silhouette's support page and a checklist on the Silhouette Plus forum and checked and double-checked everything they told me to, or so I thought. First thing I missed was that my Cameo had switched from "load mat" to "load media." Don't know when or how that happened since I never told it to do that. OK... problem solved, or so I thought... again! Still no registration mark detection after NUMEROUS trys and adjustments. Finally, I decided to just turn the darned thing off, let it rest a moment and then start it up again. Voila!!!! It detected the marks and cut like a charm! So what you see below is a card made with my very first "print and cut" images. Big hugs to Alice B. and Charice for sending the files to me.

This card if for my honey-do's friend. Said honey-do used to sing in a band, and his friend, who's name is Sol, used to love to hear him sing Mustang Sally. So I thought it would be cute to make a play on words for this card. I didn't know the lyrics so I looked them up online and used one of the line's for the inside sentiment: "Guess you'd better slow your mustang down! Happy Birthday" It's kind of hard to tell, but I pop-dotted the new mustang to add some dimension.

So today's lesson is this: If at first you don't succeed with your die-cutting machine, go to YouTube "university," check out the manufacturer’s support page, look for any forums related to your machine… and, when all else fails, turn your machine off, let it rest for a minute and then turn it back on!

Thanks so much for looking... I promise I'll be back soon!

Karen,
Your WrinkleFreeDiva!

Anything Goes - Inks and Such Challenge #19

One of my sorority sisters celebrated her 50^th birthday this evening and I needed a card. I haven’t colored in a while and so got it in my head that I would do an image for the card that I was making. *All I can say about THAT is that my coloring needs a lot of WORK! I wasn’t 100% pleased with the way it came out, but I didn’t hate it either. Sadly, when you take pics of or scan your work, all the imperfections show up. But I’m gonna keep it movin’!*

Anyway, I decided to use a Robert Jackson image *this one is called Girlfriend* and kind of scraplift a card I had seen on Okie's blog a long time ago.  For the first time ever, I chose my paper BEFORE coloring my image. I must say, that made matching things up much easier. Usually I do the image first, and then try to find paper to match. *For someone like me who is challenged when it comes to choosing paper and matching different patterns and whatnot, that’s just asking for trouble!* Knowing what paper I was going to use made it very easy to go to my Copic Hand Color Chart and choose the right colors.

BTW...This is going to be my first submission ever over at Jackson Digital Expressions for the Anything Goes - Inks and Such Challenge #19!

I had drawn little gold stars in the background, but didn’t like those. My choice was to recolor the image *no time to do that*, cut around the image *wasn’t gonna do that either*, or fix it somehow. I chose option number three and added bling to the stars. Not perfect, but not horrible either.

I used Spellbinders Mega Oval Dies to cut out and emboss my image and the mat behind it. I didn’t realize until now how much I DON’T like the way that particular set of dies nests together. There’s too much space between sizes. So when I put the image in white on top of the mat in green, there was too much space in between and I didn’t like it. I needed something to fill in the space but wasn’t sure what. Then it hit me…fiber! I traced around the image with a pencil, and then using my trusty ATG applied adhesive just inside the line. I placed the fiber on the sticky line, making an oval with it. I had just enough with about an inch left over. And this is the result…

Robert Jackson image, Copics, patterned paper from SEI - Bright Blossom stack, and fiber and scraps from my stash.

Not too bad and the birthday girl loved it! That’s all that matters!

And so, the lesson today is…

1. Before coloring an image to use on a project, decide on what other papers you will be using first. That will make matching everything up so much easier.
2.  If you put a project together, and something seems to be missing or not quite right, think about what you have in your stash that will help you to complete a project you will be happy with. You just might be surprised at how it turns out!

Thanks for lookin’!

Karen aka WrinkleFreeDiva