Large OVal Punch

Love You

~ moanaj ~ Leave a comment

Love, love and love.  It is in the air like crazy and I can’t seem to get enough of looking at it, feeling it, and most of all, sharing it.  What a great thing in life to experience.  Less than two weeks now and my oldest will be married!  How exciting!!!

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Simple layered card today.  I stamped the background paper with the floral heart from the Bloomin’ Love stamp set.  Real quick work there.  I did a tiny love you stamp on a scrap of whisper white and punched it out with the soon to be retired large oval punch.  Sad days there.  I matched it with the scalloped oval punch in bermuda bay.  That was sponged along with the card front and the card inside.  The inside also got a bit of stamping, my favorite. Then the ever so lovely, and larger than life, striped ribbon got to be used once more.  What a fun and huge bow.  Yes, this will need a custom envelope and extra postage, but it is worth it!  What a great project for today!

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Have a creative day!

Moana

 

English Garden with Rose Wonder

~ moanaj ~ Leave a comment

The morning may be trying to run away from me, but I am trying to keep up.  I did get this set made yesterday, but haven’t had the chance to get it shared yet.  Let’s hear it for lunch breaks, everyone needs one.

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The card was the beginning of this trio, and the paper was the focus.  It is sad to say that this paper is retiring soon, I sure have loved using it.  What can be better than water colored floral paper?  With my kind of projects, not much.  Unless I sit down and paint my own, with paper this pretty I don’t have to.

The designer paper is layered on a piece of blushing bride cardstock and then on a pear pizzazz card base.  Old olive is actually the light green used in this paper, but I wanted a lighter tone and thought it looked nice.  All of the sentiments come from the Rose Wonder stamp set, there are some lovely ones in there.  I stamped, did a banner punch, sponged and then sponged another one to layer underneath.  The strip is 1/2″ wide and was left over when I cut the piece of whisper white for the inside card panel.  I love those little leftover strips, they always come in handy.

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I made a couple of gift bags with totally different dimensions in mind.  I usually work with tall rectangle shapes, but went with a short clutch concept.  The cardstock version could hold heavier tall items, but the designer series paper needs to keep it light.  I had several ideas of gift items that would fit inside easily inside, lots of chocolate to be honest.  I love sharing a chocolate treat or two, you should give it a try.

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Have a creative day!

Moana

Peek-a-boo to Someone New!

~ moanaj ~ Leave a comment

Adorable and adorable.  With a sentiment like this, any project is bound to look adorable. However, the dandelion puffs do help tremendously.  This is the third in a gift series focusing on one set of paper from Sale-a-bration and just one stamp set.  With a few punches and some ribbon I was able to create a dozen cards and a container to hold them. Enjoy them like I have.

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One piece of paper for the card front, one tag layered with a scalloped background, and a simple bow.  I do think of a new baby with this card, but it could work for other situations I suppose.  There are several ladies in my life who are expecting little ones, so this just might get made a few times over.  Easy and fun to do.

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Have a creative day!

Moana

Hello and Bonjour!

~ moanaj ~ Leave a comment

Can  Sale-a-bration be any more fun?  How about getting another free stamp set just so you can have it in french?  I saw another awesome demonstrator, Mary Fish, use this set with the bonjour stamp and I knew I wanted it as well.  Isn’t that just how we work?  Well, it was worth it.  I love it!

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The dsp I am using here is also from a free Sale-a-bration set.  Most of the patterns are floral, hence the wildflower fields title, but not all of them.  These simple stripes are adorable.  I thought I would create two color choices and a gift bag that could go with either one.  It worked out great.

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I thought for sure the bonjour card would be my favorite, but the birthday boy is also very adorable.  I think the party hat stamp really made it.  You can never have enough birthday cards, especially when I get to share most of them with my mother-in-law.  She is so good about remembering literally everyone’s birthdays.  And she loves sending out special ones much more than a store bought card.  Who wouldn’t?

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Have a creative day!

Moana

Picture Perfect Hummingbird

~ moanaj ~ Leave a comment

Is it possible to be defeated by a stamp set?  It was surely happening with this project.  I decided to tackle a four step stamp, yes, this innocent looking hummingbird.  I took a photo of my study series, or my path of frustration to say the least.

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I am much more used to sitting down, getting out whatever I want, and having it turn out pretty darn amazing.  This was not to be the case.  However, if I was to come across 3-D glasses, I might have had more fun.  My first two attempts obviously were poor color choices.  The hummingbird I had in mind was not going to come together.

I changed to monochromatic thinking that might help.  It did some, and I improved, but was still unhappy.  Keeping this guy all lined up, even being able to see through the stamp, was proving harder than anticipated.  I switched to water color paper and played some more.  I gave it one more try, with elegant eggplant, night of navy, gold, and black stazon.

Stamp one was in elegant eggplant, stamp two in gold (the little neck), stamp three was done in night of navy, and the final stamp (which included the beak) was done in black stazon.  I got to work with my aqua painter for the background wash, in soft sky, and then added coloring to the bird.  It got out of control fairly quick and I thought I was done for sure.  I was being so careful, so I thought.  I ended up putting a thick layer of paper towels over the image to seep up the crazy color mess.  When I peeled it away I got a little hope, it didn’t look so impossible.

When I had finished I fell in love with it.  I am not sure if I could duplicate it, because of all of the water color layering effects, but I won’t be scared to try.  It is such a pretty image and I love it in water color.  Especially with the gold ink and the wink of stella added in.

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Have a creative day!

Moana

White Christmas

~ moanaj ~ Leave a comment

I had intended on making a matching bag for yesterday’s card, but I spent so much time on the card I had to call it and move on.  Yet the large piece of velum was still waiting for me to finish it up.  I made an effort or two.

White Christmas

My original plan didn’t work because I didn’t punch my holes along the bag top evenly and the ribbon stitching looked horrible.  I cut off the top and tried again.  There were improvements, but it is still uneven.  It did look really nice with the card, but this is like the Where’s Waldo of crafting goofups to be honest.  Can you find them all?

White Christmas

How about this obvious one.  I was chatting to my daughter and not paying attention to my scoring and the measurements got off.  You don’t waste foil velum though, so I continued on.  That is when I goofed up the hole punching the first time, and a bit again on the second time.  I didn’t bother putting treats inside because I don’t know if I can let this goof off the desk.

But, the set does look nice even if I made mistakes.  I always tell my ladies that there are no mistakes, only opportunities.  I don’t know about this one, maybe an opportunity to learn from my mistakes?

White Christmas

Have a creative day!

Moana

Merry Wishes

~ moanaj ~ Leave a comment

Red, red, red, I love holiday red.  Plenty of that going on here for sure!  More of a rustic look with the crumb cake card base and chunky twine combo.  How fun is that?

Merry Wishes

I used the last of my snowflake embellishments on this card.  Sad but happy.  I have loved putting them on everything, but will miss their sparkle.  I did just get a box of Stampin’Up! product yesterday though, with two packs of metal rimmed pearls.  They will keep me going just fine.  Not to mention the beautiful ribbons that I got on a steal of a deal with the holiday sales.  So much ribbon to play with.  All about that satin ribbon these days.

I also got a new die cut that makes all kinds of flower parts.  Not just the lay flat those are so pretty kinds, but roll and layer and make 3-D looking ones.  And a bunch of glimmer paper.  I see sparkly flowers in my immediate future.  Can’t wait to get off work today!

Merry Wishes

Have a creative day!

Moana

Journal Inspired Butterfly Basics

~ moanaj ~ 4 Comments

My husband bought this pretty journal and I immediately took it to my desk to stare it down.  I just knew there was a card in there somehow.  Well, after sharing swaps for nearly two weeks my creative bug was on high alert.  I sat down last night and gave myself some time to go at it.  And I did.

Journal Inspired Butterfly Basics

Isn’t is uncanny how close the colors are?  I guess that is why I migrated to it.  I have other off market stamps that might have gotten closer to the tree, but I really wanted to get my brain in gear for workshop this weekend.  I couldn’t be happier with the end result.

Journal Inspired Butterfly Basics

The borders are a narrow 1/8″, my favorite.  I bravely opened up my new elegant dots embossing folder and rubbed Stazon all over one side and then ran it through the  big shot.  I loved the result, and most of the ink came off.

Journal Inspired Butterfly Basics

I used lots of butterfly framelits and layered everybody up.  The smaller one has two black die cuts over the delightful dijon layer.  Light sponging made everything look a little grungy and tied it together.  There is a little stamping inside, as well as more sponging.  I used plenty of glue dots to hold the butterflies together and layered like crazy with dimensionals.  So fun!

Have a creative day!

Moana