Thursday, June 30, 2011

Friends with Flair....shhh.... a little early....

I'm determined not to miss posting on Unity's Friends with Flair Friday so here I am, early this time.

After decades of racking our gift-giving brains, my family seems to have come to the conclusion that gift cards and cash are the most fun. I try to design my cards around that thought sometimes. So in honor of my middle brother's 50th, a Ulysses S. Grant bill is tucked into his card in a fun way. Here's how.

I started by stamping my Unity wood slide postcard stamp on a parchment looking paper from DCWV's Once Upon a Time Stack. I then embellished it with two stamps from the June '11 KOTM (All Smiles): the cancelled stamp and the "sending wishes" block.


The fun part came from cutting out the inside of the cancelled stamp. By using foam tape only around three of the back edges of my postcard, I could insert a precisely folded bill back there so that Ulysses' face peeks out of the hole and he appears to be the stamp. The dilemma was what would happen once my bro removed the bill? I didn't want an empty space to show so I positioned more of my K&Co patterned paper underneath so that another postal stamp image would appear once Ulysses was gone, like so:


In keeping with the postal theme, I used a little twine on the lower panel of my easel card so it looks like a package. Adding the bevy of small butterflies from the Nov '10 KOTM (Picture Perfect) and the larger butterfly from the March '11 KOTM (Just You) gave a little more interest to the scene and, what do you know, now the card qualifies for the All Things Unity Challenge #34... *smile*

This weekend, I wish you packages tied up with string and a fun-filled holiday!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)


Tuesday, June 28, 2011

WOYWW#108 and WOTT#12


Hi friends....

Welcome to WOYWW #108 (What's on Your Workspace Wednesday) and WOTT #12 (What's on Tap Tuesday) Talk about 3 birds with one stone... today I will be (1) showing you what's been on my desk for the past two days (yes, there is a desk under there), (2) showing you the card I made for the All Things Unity Challenge #34 and (3) giving you the tutorial link for this fabulous telescoping card which my friend Understand Blue tweeted about.

The desk is showing the tools I used to make the card. Unity's June '11 KOTM, Spellbinders circle and scallop dies and The Girls Paperie kit that I recently picked up at www.scrapbooksteals.com. This site has two different greatly reduced deals per day and I lucked out at getting this one before it sold out. I'm amazed at all the product I got in the kit (the cute little words on my card came from this kit as well.) This site, as well as it's sister sites CraftySteals and StitchSteals should be bookmarked, for sure.


The ATU Challenge was to use a butterfly on a project, so my card starts off with a small circle decorated with a butterfly from the March '11 KOTM - Just You. It then opens to reveal a larger circle of yellow gingham that's been stamped with a lovely image from the KOTM you see on my desk called All Smiles and colored in with Copics. I like to leave an area for a handwritten note on my cards so the third circle is blank. 





I promised a link to the tutorial, so HERE it is. It's very straight forward and comes together pretty quickly. 


Question of the day: What's your favorite method of coloring your images? I seem to reach for my Copic markers often (but I'd love to hear if anyone has had any experience with Pro Markers, a lower priced competitor.)


Your turn. Won't you show us what's on tap in your crafty space? 


Have a wonderful week.... *smile*


Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr) 



Monday, June 27, 2011

Get Well Roses...

Hello friends,

My Let's Get Peachy assignment was to create a "how-to" for National Rose Month so that's the theme of today's card post. A friend is recuperating from surgery so I made a get well easel card featuring three rolled fabric roses positioned in a cute pitcher by Unity.

SUPPLIES: Stamps (pitcher from Unity's Happy Everything, sentiment from Ippity's How You Doin'), Ink (Tuxedo Black by Memento and Copic markers), Paper ( Kimberly Hodges stack for K&Co.), Other (oval and scalloped oval punches -Stampin Up)

If you'd like to see the step by step instructions for making these flowers, click HERE to hop over to the LGP blog. It's a pretty simple process. I hope you are inspired to try it for yourself!

Have a great day,

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

WOTT #11

"When man makes plans, the Gods laugh." So goes the ancient proverb. I planned on pre-posting a What's on Tap Tuesday post before leaving for vacation but...ran out of time, sorry. Yesterday, I did get to visit a cool scrapbook store called Scrapology outside Austin, Texas, so I am in the mindset *smile*

If you'd like to share your workspace with us this week, please use the comment field to let us know your web address and, I for one, will come visit.

Have a great week. WOTT will be back with Mr. Linky next week.

*smile*

Cindy

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Kenny Chesney and Paying It Forward



Hi! Quick post because I should be packing for a trip.... gonna go see my family in Texas and it's perfect timing because we'll get to celebrate Father's Day with my dad and see our son who's staying at school to work this summer. I decided to give my dad the birthday card that I made and featured in THIS blog post. You gotta agree, it's pretty untraditional for a man's birthday! I tell him in the note that if he ever wanted a cat, he now has one. Lol.

Oh gee, what's that on my wrist? Yep, we saw Kenny Chesney in concert in Philly last night. I don't know how the man does it. He was the one jumping around the stage entertaining us to no end and I was just non-stop dancing and I was exhausted by the end.... I wonder how he felt! If you've never experienced him, try to.... he's wonderful. He's also a generous soul. He went on with a planned concert in Tuscaloosa after a devastating tornado at the urging of their mayor and then donated all the proceeds of the night to the city.

So now, the question is: would you spend $11 to donate scrapbooking supplies to the people of Joplin, MO? That's what it would cost you to send a Medium Flat Rate Priority USPS box to Nikki Sivils, a well-know and respected designer who's collecting supplies for the crafters of Joplin who lost everything. The link to her blog post that will give you the address where you can send a box is HERE. (Just click on the ad she has within the post.) She was hoping to get the donations to Joplin by the first week of July, so if you mail a box in the next few days of supplies that you can spare, she'll get them on time.

I hope you consider contributing to this worthy cause. We can all be Kenny Chesneys in our own way.

Love,

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)

Friday, June 17, 2011

Huffin' and puffin' to FWF....

Another FWF down to the wire.... Unity Friends with Flair blog hop, that is...



I have to make this short because I literally have minutes to post this. I wanted to make something special for my husband for Father's Day so I used a tutorial from Splitcoast for an accordian card. (You can find it HERE.) We have two boys, so I thought that the four inside pages could be good for a baby picture of each and a current picture of each. It was fun to make but I was a little like that woman in the car rental commercial running down the airport corridors to get to her rental car company before it closed. So, I'm running. The front cover used the heart and sentiment from the May '11 KOTM. (It was serendipity that the definition in the top right corner of my front cover says "father." *smile*) The cool papers come from the Designer Blue Jeans paper stack by DCWV. And the key charm is Stampin Up.

Thanks for looking.. Wishing all a Happy Father's Day weekend!

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

WOYWW #106, WOTT #10 and a birthday bouquet...

Welcome to What's on Your Workspace Wednesday and What's on Tap Tuesday #10, where we share our desks and projects. Today, I'm working on a quick card for another aunt's birthday. To change it up a little, I went back to a friend's tutorial for a box-arm card. You'll see from the side view below that this card has little hidden arms that hold two panels out from the base, yet the card folds flat for mailing. You can find Emma's tutorial on the sidebar of her blog HERE. Try it out because it's a lot simpler than it seems.


On the desk before I started working on the card, you'll see the patterned collage paper that I chose from a Romantic Scrap Pad by Provo Craft, cardstock by Stampin Up, the printed tutorial and the latest Creating Keepsakes magazine (inspiration for a quick layout for my July DT assignment over at Let's Get Peachy.) Plus tons of scrap layers under my trimmer on the right. They come in handy when I need a quick something. Actually, a scrap of grid paper that I stamped my sentiment on came from that pile. Lol.



The sentiment came from a Unity store set called The Right Words and that adorable little tag tied on with Cappuccino bakers twine (The Twinery) was constructed using a Tiny Tags stamp set and matching punch by Stampin' Up. (Highlighted words link you to all the sources.) You probably can't see it but I used pop dots to raise certain flowers after cutting them out of a second image and then I added a little glitter to their centers as well as the word "birthday." I hope you like the result.

Now it's your turn. Won't you show us what's doing on your work area by linking in below? Also, if you'd like to share further, tell us in the comment field what your first crafting tool purchase was and whether you still use it. My answer: I bought a Xyron 850 from QVC and liked it so much, I went on to collect all the other sizes!

Have a great Wednesday, friends.....

*smile*

Cindy (aka Scrapcollectr)