Category Archives: Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink

Thankful Card and Tutorial

Thankful Card and Tutorial

Heartfelt Creations Alumni Blog Hop October 2015

Hello, Friends!  It’s time for another fabulous blog hop with the Heartfelt Creations Alumni Team.  You should be coming here from the beautiful blog that belongs to Sarah Miller.  If so, you are right on track.  To start at the beginning of this hop (and why wouldn’t you….this alumni team is awesome!) go to Vicki Dutcher’s fabulous blog.  Be sure to visit each blog on the hop, and leave some sweet comments behind, because one lucky person will be chosen from one of the stops along the way and they will receive a $25 gift card to Heartfelt Creations.  The winner will be announced on our blogs on Saturday, October 31st at noon, just in time for Trick or Treat!

Kathy by Design/Thankful Card and Tutorial for Heartfelt CreationsWe are enjoying the most gorgeous fall weather here in North Carolina.  The sky is crystal blue, the weather is just cool enough to be invigorating and the fall colors put a song of praise on my lips.  I was inspired by the season to create this Thankful Card and Tutorial using the Classic Editions Paper Collection and the Delicate Asters Stamps and Dies.  These are “oldies but goodies” in my Heartfelt Creations Stash.  I used quite a few techniques in this card, and I’ll share them with you in the tutorial below.  But I wanted to show you a close up of those amazing pumpkins and asters first.

Heartfelt Creations Alumni Hop October 2015 03I love doing these asters in rich fall colors.  Filling the center with Czech beads adds an extra layer of glitz and glam.

Heartfelt Creations Alumni Hop October 2015 04The inside of the card is decorated with papers from the Classic Editions collection.  I confess a weakness for pumpkins. I love driving by a field of lazy pumpkins, snoozing away with their bellies baking in the sunshine.  It just makes me happy!

Heartfelt Creations Alumni Hop October 2015 05This is part of a beautiful poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I just hand wrote it onto one of the journaling tags from the collection.  Here’s a link to the complete poem, just in case you’d like to read it.  It’s my favorite Thanksgiving poem.

I’ve posted my Thankful Card tutorial below for your convenience.  And now you will need to hop on over to visit the always amazing  artwork of Amy Doria. I know she will have something special to inspire your creativity today.

If you would like to purchase this card, it is available in my ETSY shop.

Thanks for hopping by!

Cheerio,

kathy

Thankful Card and Tutorial

Materials

  1. Cut a 6.75″ x 4.75″ rectangle of the harvest stripe paper.  Stitch around the edges and along the lines as seen on the card, if desired.
  2. Fussy cut both sets of pumpkins from the paper collection.
  3. Use the Colorbox Chalk Inks and a sponge dauber to add more color to the surface of the pumpkins, blending as you go.
  4. Spray the pumpkins lightly with water and gently round out the edges with the largest nib from the flower shaping kit.
  5. Spritz lightly with Gold Glimmer Mist.  Set aside to dry.
  6. Use Versamark to stamp three sets of Delicate Asters and 2 sets of leaves.  Heat Emboss with Gold embossing powder.
  7. Sponge chalk inks onto the stamped flowers, blending as you go. Die cut, shape, stack and fill with Topaz Copper Lined Czech beads.  Spritz with Gold mist.  Set aside to dry.
  8. Place one set of the fussy cut pumpkins behind the other, staggering them as seen in the photo.  Glue one set onto the striped paper.
  9. Create added dimension in the other set of pumpkins by crumpling up a small ball of tissue paper and gluing it to the back of the pumpkin.  Apply Art Institute Glue to the edges of the pumpkin and glue just the edges onto the striped paper.
  10. Use a hot glue gun to place the leaves and flowrs.
  11. Glue the letters onto the card.
  12. Create a multi loop bow from Brown Micro Gingham.  Place a glob of hot glue under the aster leaf and use the point of a scissor or dowel to push the center of the ribbon into the glue.   Use the same technique to create a loopy bow from burlap string.
  13. Tuck autumn colored buttons in amongst the pumpkins and leaves.
  14. Mix a few drops of Ripe Persimmon Distress Stain in with Clear Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint and use this to paint the flower petals and leaves.  Brush onto the surface of the pumpkins as well.  I brushed a little onto the letters, too. Set aside to dry.
  15. Finish the inside of the card as shown.

 

 

Creating With Vintage Photos (Mama Said Card)

“Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This….

Good Thursday morning, folks.  Now that I’ve got you humming that nostalgic tune, how about we discuss creating with vintage photos?  Vintage photos are a hot trend right now, and you can easily use your own family vintage photos to create unique and meaningful gifts.  With Mother’s Day right around the corner, this is a great way to fashion a one of a kind gift for Mom that’s guaranteed to make her laugh (or cry, as the case may be) and feel especially  loved.

The Story Behind the card

I have a best friend who lives in Georgia.  We’ve known each other since we were both young wives and mothers….more than 32 years now.  Dianne is a girlfriend’s girlfriend!  She and I have been together through thick and thin –literally and figuratively!  About a year ago, we enjoyed a glorious girlfriend’s weekend together.  There was wine, laughter, fabulous food, shopping, shopping, shopping and late nights filled with reminiscing and girl fun.  Dianne is a fabulous decorator, and I enjoyed a tour of her beautiful home.  She has this photo of her mom hanging in her laundry room:

Mom fixed & smaller (2) Her mom lived in base housing in Massachusetts when Diane and her three siblings were small.  There was no dryer in the home…everything had to be hung out on the line.  Two of her kids wet the bed, so there was always a ton of laundry to be done.  On this very windy day in March, her Mom was trying to hang out the freshly laundered sheets, and the frisky spring wind kept whipping them and breaking the clothesline, causing the sheets to fall on the ground…which meant they had to be laundered all over again.  Can you believe this happened three times?  After the third time, Dianne’s mom went to her friend’s house and said, “Come and take a picture of this.  If I don’t laugh about it, I know I will cry.”  So the picture was taken, and the rest is history.  

The minute I saw this photo, a plan hatched in my brain.  I asked Dianne to e-mail me a copy of the photo, which she did, and this year for Christmas, I carried out the plan.  Here’s what I created with this vintage photo:

002 (2) Click on photo for larger image.

I cropped the photo, printed it on matte photo paper in sepia tones and matted it on brown cardstock,  I stamped a graphic stamp around the perimeter of the kraft card base using copper metallic ink.  The corners were rounded, and a cute little tag was affixed to the lower left corner of the photo:

004 I added twine to the top of the card and that, as they say, was that.  I kept it simple, wanting this fabulous vintage photo to be the star of the show.  I made 8 of these 5×7 cards for Dianne, packaged them in clear cellophane packaging and tied ribbons and twine around the top.  The day she received the package, she called me in tears, “The best present ever…” was her verdict.

Creating with vintage photos for special occasions

We all have these photos around the house.  The color photos are often not so great looking, but printed in sepia or black and white, they take on an elegant finish.  You could use a vintage photo of your child on the first day of school and put it into a set of thank you notes for high school or college graduation.  A vintage photo of a Bride to Be playing dress up would make great thank you notes or wedding shower invites.  For the expectant mom, you could use her baby pictures….there is no end of clever ideas for creating with vintage photos.  It’s inexpensive, meaningful and unique.  It requires very little crafting ability and almost no crafting tools.  The bottom line?  You can do this!!!  And you’ll look like a gift-giving rock star in the process!

That’s it for me today.  I leave you to get going on your own, creating with vintage photos…and humming, “Mama Said There’d be Days Like This!”  Hoping this is one of the good days Mama told you would come your way.  Until next time,

Cheerio,

kathy

Product used in this project:  Paper: 5×7 kraft card bases and envelopes from Darice; brown cardstock from Bazzil; Dies: Tim Holtz Alterations Tiny tags and Tabs; Punches: 1 3/8 ” circle punch; Inks: Ranger Distress Ink in Vintage Photo and Tea Dye; Colorbox Cat’s Eye Pigment Brush Pad in Copper; Twine: DMC cotton floss color 644; Stamps: Japanese fan, Maya Road; Flourish: Technique Tuesday.

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