Sunday, April 21, 2013

Karber Challenge 51: You are delightful

For my last card to enter in the Karber Challenge, I used "Happy Millie" once again.  I used kraft cardstock to make the 4.5x5.5 base and added faux stitching lines around the edges after corner chomping one corner.


I decided to focus on green for this card, so that's why I colored her dress and headband green, chose a patterned paper that featured green, and used some of my green bling!  The sentiment is from K. Andrew Designs set called "Amazing You."


Though the cards I made today weren't too complicated, they're a lot different than what I normally make since I varied the shape of the card and didn't feel the need to use a white mat for each one.  I had so much fun, but of course, I'm eager to know who will win the great prize!

Karber Challenge 51: HELLO!

Since we were allowed to enter the Karber Challenge a maximum of 3 times, I definitely had to increase my chances and make another card!  I used "Thinker Leslie" for this one.  I absolutely love her round glasses!  I like how a lot of other crafters make her glasses different colors, but I'm so used to glasses having to be black (well, other than my first pair of pink ones from when I was in 4th grade!).


I recently ordered from Papertrey Ink. Well, by recently I mean in February when they had a sale.  As I state on almost every blog update, I'm just so busy that I don't have much time to craft, so I only had the chance to really play with some of my goodies today.  That included the Block Alphabet Die and the Chevron Stripes Border Die.  I just love how crisp and clean it looks .


I rounded the corners of the card to get it a softer look since I had the sharp points of the chevron stripes.  Then I added the bling in a set of 3.  As you can see, I really do like the whole square 5x5 card look!

Karber Challenge 51: You Make Me Happy!

These past few weeks have been rather hectic what with the New York State exams during this past week and this week ahead.  Being an ELA and math teacher for the middle school classes can be quite stressful on a normal basis, but throw in a new test that's based on common core, and it creates even more tension!  But I'm not going to get into it too much because I know that I did my absolute best in preparing my students.  Whether they followed my constant instructions to memorize formulas and study is an entirely different story though!

But moving on to better things ... I bookmarked the latest Karber Challenge because the prize is superbly awesome!  The winner for Challenge 51 will get a $30 gift certificate to Paper Issues Shop (they have some super cute washi tape!) AND A Silhouette Cameo!  Um, what now?!  Lately I've seen so many people making such cute projects using their cameos because there are so many talented people out there designing SVGs.  I want to be part of the Silhouette world too!  I kept checking to make sure I would have enough time to complete this challenge, so this Saturday rolled around and I actually made sure that my day was free for CRAFTING!

For my first card, I used "Happy Millie."  I purchased this digi a while back.  I purposely chose it because her huge smile could be used for so many occasions and match up with a million sentiments.  This sentiment is from Pink by Design's set "Our Kids."



I decided to change up my same ol' same ol' by making a square card at 5x5 inches.  I also knew that I wanted to use some of my patterned paper from my Recollections stack called Bold Basics because I LOVE the colors and patterns and don't really use it that often because I tend to think that I need to save good paper.  Nope, it's time to use what I have!


I added bling to the flower in Millie's headband because it fits so perfectly and because the challenge was to also use my favorite embellishment.  I love the little packs of Queen & Co rhinestones because you get 60 of them for just $1.


Since I hadn't crafted in SO long, it actually took me a bit to try to get this together because all the other plans I had in my head didn't work out.  It's funny how even the simple cards can sometimes require a lot of thinking and trial and error!  In the end though, I really like how it came out!  I think I'll use the rest of that star paper to make multiples of this card.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

For My Brother and NEW Sister!

On March 24th, my older brother Jonathan got married!  It was a great time to celebrate his marriage to my new sister-in-law Theresa.  I love Jon and Theresa together; they fit each other so well.  


I'm absolutely thrilled that we have a new member of our family.  The funny thing is that Theresa and I were born on the exact same day in the exact same year!  Plus, we are also both teachers (she's in elementary school, and I'm in middle school).    


There are plenty more pictures that my husband took (I was Instagramming the whole night!), but for now, I'll just focus on the craft part of the wedding!  My brother has had a fish tank for quite some time, and he even got Theresa into it too.  Their centerpieces were these light up fish tanks with a beta fish in them, so knowing that, I knew ahead of time that their wedding card would definitely be based off of the fish and fish bowl from the Create a Critter cartridge.


I didn't write down the exact measurements especially since I ended up cutting it twice!  I made the envelope using my Martha Stewart scoring board, so it was a 6x6inch square.  The first fish bowl I cut was much smaller than that, so I had to cut it all out again.  I used the flip to cut out a mirror image of the fish so that they could be facing each other.  I also needed some advice from Howard to help me choose the shades of blue since there were many different ones on this one card!


After piecing everything together, I actually made a "mistake" when I stamped the word "love" from Pink by Design's set called "Scripted Year."  It was way too crooked for me!  I was really bummed out by it, but Howard suggested I cut out another sand piece, and he cut that one down for me so that it just looked like mounds of sand.  I actually like how it turned out with that addition as it gave it more dimension without using adhesive squares like I did with the fish.  Personally, I was very happy with how this card turned out since it was very specific for the two of them, and I hope they liked it too!