Happy 30th!

A friend's daughter turned 30 this past weekend, so she commissioned me to make a special card for her. The main element she wanted me to include was a Rottweiler image colored to look like her daughter's dog, Mocha. She sent me several photos of Mocha for reference for her colors & markings, & I found a Rottweiler coloring page that proved to be perfect for this card.

I first printed the coloring page, since it was a pdf file & I wanted to make it a resizable image file. I scanned the printout into my computer, & opened it in Photoshop. I created a blank "canvas" in Photoshop, sized to 4x5-1/4", which would be the final size of my main panel. I used that to help me resize the dog image. I used a greeting from Dreamees, from a CD that I'd gotten in a papercrafting magazine several years ago. I positioned & sized the greeting on my canvas in Photoshop to work with the dog. Once I knew what size I wanted the dog, I created another blank canvas & moved the image to that so I could print just the dog onto a panel of Strathmore vellum bristol paper.

I colored the dog with my Prismacolor pencils, referencing the photos of Mocha my friend had sent. Thankfully, it wasn't hard to get the markings & colors right. After I finished coloring, I fussy cut it out.

For my background, I wanted to create a little scene with a light blue cloudy sky. Because the ink in my printer smears if I ink blend over it with Distress inks, I needed to add my stenciled clouds before I printed the greeting. So I cut a panel of Canson XL mixed media paper to my panel size, & ink blended the clouds on the upper portion with Tumbled Glass Distress ink & the "Cloud" stencil from My Favorite Things (discontinued). (My camera couldn't pick up the stenciling because it's so faint, but it does show in real life.) After I finished stenciling the clouds, I printed the greeting at the top of the panel. To add a finishing touch, I used a blue Tombow marker to color in the outline "fabulous" letters & a pale purple for the butterfly.

I die cut a few grass layers with the "Grassy Hillside Borders" dies from Lawn Fawn for my foreground. I cut another layer with Picket Fence Studios' "A2 Tall Grass" die (discontinued). I added the layers to the bottom of my panel, situating the dog's feet within the layers to make it look like she was standing in the grass, rather than just on top of it.

I wanted to make number balloons like the fancy ones party shops sell. I found the "Balloon Dreams" font on dafont.com, & used that to type a 3 & a 0 in Photoshop. I sized the numbers, & added a triangle to the base of each, which I "drew" with Photoshop's Shape tool. I flipped my "balloons" horizontally so they would print backwards, & printed them onto plain copy paper. (By printing them reversed, I could adhere them to the back of my cardstock & they would be correct when I cut them out.) I roughly cut around them & temporarily adhered them to the back of a scrap of gold mirror cardstock. I fussy cut around each number, & then removed the paper templates.

I die cut several balloons from rainbow colors of cardstock with the "Birthday Balloons" dies from My Favorite Things (discontinued). I applied embossing ink to the front of each, & coated them with Ranger Clear Super Fine Detail embossing powder. I repeated this 2 more times. In hindsight, I'm kind of sorry I went that route. I wanted shiny balloons, but by the time I'd glued them to the card, the heat embossed layers were a bit crazed & dull, rather than clear & shiny. I could have used Glossy Accents in the first place, but because the balloons were so small, I wasn't sure how I could manage & not have them look like one huge balloon, or get messed up somehow if I added it before gluing them to the card. But, they're really not that bad, & since they're in the background, I just left them alone. I did adhere the end of a piece of crochet twine for a balloon string to the back of each balloon before gluing them to the card.

After I glued the regular balloons, I glued the number balloons down on top of them. I was able to use Glossy Accents on those without messing anything up, to make them a bit more dimensional & shiny. Then I set the card aside overnight to let the Glossy Accents dry thoroughly.

I die cut a balloon holder from Recollections holographic cardstock with a die from My Favorite Things' "Party Decor" set (discontinued). To gather the balloon strings behind it, I first punched a 1/16" hole where the holder would cover it. I threaded the ends of the strings through the hole & taped them to the back of the panel. Because the gathered strings created a little bulk on the front, I added the balloon holder with a small foam dot to make it even with them & glued the top of the holder directly to the strings to keep it from flipping up. Finally, I matted the panel with blue cardstock that I adhered to a white A2-size card base.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Seize the Birthday #309: "Anything Goes"

Critter Crazy Challenge #100: "Birthday Bash"

Little Red Wagon Challenge #816: "Honky Cat" (aka any household pet)

Ellibelle's Corner I Spy with My Little Eye Challenge: "Something to Celebrate"

Paper Funday Challenge #78: "Anything Goes" (playing the optional "Fun with Stencils" twist)

Happy Birthday #60

A friend commissioned me to make a birthday card for her husband. He is a woodworker, so she wanted a woodworking theme of some sort. I couldn't find any woodworking imagery per se (e.g. tools) that really worked for a birthday card, so I incorporated other elements.

For design inspiration, I perused my Pinterest board I have saved birthday cards on. I found this one, & liked the overall layout & how the greeting ran vertically rather than horizontally. So I decided to go that route.

I began with the balloons. I die cut the large balloon with a "Nesting Balloons" die from Paper Rose from cherry wood veneer paper that I've had in my stash for years. I die cut "60" from the balloon with the "Little Numbers" from My Favorite Things (discontinued), as the recipient was turning 60. I also die cut the numbers from gold mirror cardstock. I backed the balloon with kraft cardstock, & inlaid the numbers. I made sure also to add the inside bits of the numbers that had been die cut from the wood paper. For the 2 cardstock balloons with a woodgrain pattern, I first die cut the balloons, and then stamped the woodgrain with a slightly darker color ink, using the "Tree Ring Background" stamp from Concord & 9th. I cut another balloon from a plaid paper from Recollections, & a fifth from an inky technique piece that's been sitting on my desk for ages. I tied a string around the neck of each balloon, and set them aside while I worked on the rest of the elements.

For the presents, I decided to make them look like blocks of different species of wood. For the maple block, I just used a scrap of cream cardstock. I "dyed" another cream cardstock scrap with Seedless Preserves Distress ink, going direct-to-paper, for a purpleheart block. For the walnut, I used Walnut Stain to color a scrap of brown cardstock, again with the direct-to-paper technique. After drying those with my heat gun, I stamped the woodgrain pattern on each with darker shades of ink, using the "Designer Woodgrain" stamp from Hero Arts. Finally I stamped the gifts onto my scraps, using Sweet 'n' Sassy Stamps' (now Creative Worship) "All Wrapped Up" (discontinued) for the 2 larger ones & Lawn Fawn's "Birthday Before 'n Afters" for the walnut block. I also stamped each gift box onto a scrap of a contrasting cardstock. I fussy cut the gifts, and then fussy cut the ribbons/bows from the plain cardstock pieces to glue on top. I also stamped the "maple" gift image onto a scrap of kraft cardstock & cut out just the tag. After I'd cut everything, I "painted" the edges with a black felt-tip pen to camouflage the paper core, & glued the ribbons & tag to their respective boxes.

I die cut the "happy" word from navy cardstock with the "Happy" die from Winnie & Walter (discontinued). I also cut it 5 more times from scraps of navy. After I embossed the first die cut with the "Woodgrain 3D" embossing folder from Honey Bee Stamps, I glued them all together for a stacked, chipboard-type word. I gold heat embossed the "birthday," from Altenew's "Birthday Builder" stamp set, on a scrap of Bazzill Icy Mint cardstock, and cut it into a label. I glued it over the descender in the "y," and added a few layers of cardstock to the end of the label that hung past the letter, just to keep it level when I glued it to the card.

I found a piece of tone-on-tone blue paper in an old patterned paper pad from Momenta. I thought it looked like a page from a notebook like a crafter would work out designs in, so it seemed serendipitously perfect. I cut it down for my background, & adhered it to a white 5x6" card base. I used liquid glue to adhere all my elements, running the balloon strings to end behind the presents. And that finished this card! It was a lot of work & took a lot of careful thought to follow the woodworking theme, but I really love how it came out in the end.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Seize the Birthday Challenge #309: Anything Goes

Inkspirational Challenge #346: "Birthday"

Ellibelle's Corner: "I Spy with My Little Eye - Something to Celebrate"

The Paper Funday Challenge #78: "Anything Goes" (not playing the twist)

Season's Greetings Mouse

This week's challenge at Christmas Card Throwdown is a sketch challenge. I followed the sketch pretty literally, just slightly changing the lengths of the strips going across to incorporate my greeting into the design better.

CCT July 2025 Sketch

I decided to pull out the "Merry Little Mice" stamp set from Honey Bee for my focal image. I actually got this set during their New Year's Eve sale last year, but it has sat in my as-yet-unused stash since. This seemed to be the perfect occasion to use it though.

I decided to begin with the background, since I was using white pigment ink & that would need time to dry. I got out my Penny Black "Dotlets" stencil (discontinued) & stenciled onto a panel of kraft cardstock with Lawn Fawn's Yeti ink. After I hit it with my heat gun to speed the drying a little, as well as letting it sit & air dry for a few hours, I replaced the stencil. I shifted the stencil slightly to one side & up, & inked over it again with Candied Apple Distress ink. My intended look was offset stenciling, but it didn't quite match my vision in the end. While the bit on each circle where the red ink is not over the white does look a hint darker if you look at it just right, it's not truly as noticeable as it should be. I'm not sure what happened, but I think maybe the kraft cardstock I used is just too pale to allow the darker ink color. I might need to experiment with this technique more. At any rate, I decided it's OK, & moved on.

I stamped the image in Versafine Onyx Black ink onto a second piece of kraft cardstock. I don't often color on kraft cardstock with my colored pencils, but decided it would complement my stenciled panel better than white. I used my Prismacolor pencils, & then cut out the image with the coordinating die. Because the pencils covered some of the black stamped lines with a colored haze, I tried going over them with a black felt-tip pen. Unfortunately, the ink wouldn't really mark on the waxy finish, so I ended up using my black colored pencil. That worked much better, so a little pro tip there. Finally, I used a black glaze pen to go over the mouse's eyes & nose to give them a bit of shine.

For the greeting, I pulled out my "Sentiment Strips: Christmas" set from Pretty Pink Posh. I stamped it onto a scrap of white cardstock with the Versafine black ink. I cut it into a 3/8"-wide strip to match the 3/8" wide ribbon I wanted to use for the accent strip on my card.

To assemble the card, I first trimmed my stenciled panel to 4x5-1/4". I adhered green cardstock to my white A2 card base to mat my main panel. I cut a piece of patterned paper from the "Christmas Plaids" 6x6" pad from Recollections, & adhered that to my stenciled panel to go behind my mouse. I wrapped the striped ribbon around the panel & adhered the ends to the back. I added my greeting strip, & trimmed the ends slightly to fit the width of the panel. Finally, I adhered the stenciled panel to my card base, & glued the mouse on. I am really pleased with how this card came out, & will send it to Send a Smile 4 Kids. Hopefully it will bring some joy to a hospitalized child this coming holiday season!

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Send a Smile 4 Kids: "Christmas in July 4 Kids"

Creative Knockouts Challenge #550: "Christmas in July"

The Paper Funday Challenge #78: "Anything Goes" (playing the "fun with stencils" optional twist)

Peace, Love, & Joy

This week at Christmas Card Throwdown is their "Pillar Tower Card" theme challenge. I had to look up how to make one, and found a good tutorial on Splitcoaststampers (which, unfortunately, I can't find now!). I decided to be a little extra on this one & use die cut trees for my panels rather than rectangles. Even with having to figure out how to make that work, this card didn't really take all that long.

I made a mock-up first with just scrap paper to see if my idea would work. Thankfully it worked without any difficulties. I began the actual card by choosing 7 patterned papers from an old pad from The Paper Studio. (My paper was single-sided, so I needed to glue my papers back-to-back to have patterns on both sides.) Two of the papers I actually found in my (ahem - vast) scraps collection, but for the rest I sadly had to cut into "virgin" sheets. I'm sure I'll use the large leftovers for something, though!

Once I cut my papers to size, I die cut each one, plus a piece of cream cardstock, with one of the "Nested Fir Trees" from Scrapbook.com. I used one of the cut trees from my mock-up as a pattern, & cut a small section off 3 of the trees. I glued those back-to-back with 3 uncut trees, & then used scissors to cut the uncut trees down. I just figured this would be easier than trying to cut everything first & then possibly have the straight edges not line up perfectly due to miscuts.

I made my pillar from a scrap of Bazzill Butter Mints cardstock. I cut it a little shorter than the full height of my card, since the trees obviously weren't rectangular & I didn't want my pillar to stick out at the top & bottom. I scored the 4-1/2 x 3-1/2" panel every 1" along the long side, folded & burnished along the score lines, then added glue to the 1/2" tab at the one end to glue the panel into a hollow rectangular prism shape. I was able to glue my trees to that, lining up the straight edge of each with one edge of the pillar.

After I cut the left section off my cream tree, I stamped a greeting from the "A Holy Holiday" by Paper Smooches (discontinued). (Having the side piece cut off made it much easier to line everything up in my MISTI stamp positioning tool.) I glued that to the last (uncut) patterned paper tree, cut off the excess as for the others, & glued that to my pillar. While I would have liked to have a star at the top, I couldn't make that work. (Believe me, I tried!) So this first Christmas card for our personal stash is done!

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Paper Funday Challenge #78: "Anything Goes" (not playing the optional twist)

Creative Knockouts Challenge #550: "Christmas in July"