Valentines!

Happy Valentine's Day readers!  Below are some samples of my latest play dates in the craft cave. 

Paper straws hit the crafting scene in a big way last year.  You can find them in every color of the rainbow and just about every pattern too.  I got mine in boxes of 50-100 from Amazon.  Here I used some blue striped straws to create the valentines in the first pic.  Playing with how you lay down the straws results in different patterns emerging in the finished piece.  The trick is to realize that the manufacturer applies the stripes to the straw in one of two ways.  Some get applied wrapping left to right down the straw, and others have the stripe applied right to left.  You'll realize this if you try to make the rick-rack pattern in the card on the right.  This one needs to alternate between left to right and right to left.  The boxes I bought on AZ had a mixture, so I got more versatility.  Its a crap shoot when you buy them, so work with what you have.

This is a simple process that can work for any shape you can fill with the straws.  Think ornaments at Christmas or stars for 4th of July, shamrocks for St Pat's day sound fun too!

My card uses a 4-inch square with the heart die cut from the center.  The backing for this piece is a 3.5-inch square of scrap.  Lay down some tape runner strips onto the front of the backing.  Trim your straws and lay them down onto the tape runner.  It won't stick well, but it will stick enough so you can play with the pattern.  Once you like the pattern, use a bead of hot glue to anchor the two end straws to the backing.  Center the die cut over your pattern of straws and use the hot glue again to stick that down over your straws.  Then it's a simple matter of sticking the whole piece to the front of the card and embellish with whatever sentiment works for you.

Using paper straws in your cards adds quite a bit of dimension. Most straws are 1/4-inch in diameter.  You'll have to accommodate for that in your envelope and expect to pay the extra postage because they are too wide for standard rates.  Still, they are fun and easy and look pretty cool. 

This next card, I'm sorry, but if you put a funny hat on a cute animal,  I'm just plain IN.  'Smitten' the cat was created just because I couldn't just not do it.  Here all I have to say is don't be afraid to go off the edges of your cards.  The heart on the left is bigger than the card. But as you can see, that never stops me!  The stripe over the card is raised up with some pop dots to add some dimension.  The little heart is punched using a Fiskar's Squeeze punch. 

I don't have a ton of completed Valentines and it's already the 11th!  I can see where these might have to stay in the 'shoe box of happiness' until next year.  I'm so behind! 

Love to you all this Valentine's Day!

AMK

Halloween 2012 - Part 1

It's a rainy day here and I'm lovin' it.  It's a rare Sunday I get all to myself.  And, left to my own devices, into the craft cave I go!

Fresh from the latest stamp show in Milwaukee, this wonderful lady packed up her Etsy store and brought it to the show.  No matter what I do, for some reason I can't get this picture to rotate correctly but here's a shot of some of her Halloween collection and a link to her store.  The cat's ass is too funny, and may wind up on the back of a whole lot of cards in the next little while.  Her prices are reasonable and if you order from her Etsy store, she sends you a little freebie.  At least she did for me.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/pictureshow?ref=seller_info

Next up is what I'd call a CAS (clean and simple) Halloween card.  I know, hard to believe from me, right?  I used a die cut from Die-Versions that fills a 5x7 card nicely.  Hang it on a full moon cut from velum and add your favorite witches hat stamped in orange and clear embossed for some shine.  The bling possibly takes it out of the CAS category, but come on...what could you possibly have against some bling?

The entry is all set up for Halloween, got that done before the rain this weekend.  Fingers crossed the lighting does not short out before Trick-or-Treat.  There's Pye right on queue.  She'll sit there all through tick or treat waiting for kids to come to the door.  And, of course my reflection...no photo shop skills to remove it.  The spider's name is Steve.  Kids have asked, and I was not prepared so named him on the spot.  Now when they come they pat him on the head and say "Hi Steve!"

Happy Sunday, everyone. - AMK

Embrace the Voices In your Head

People always ask me how I come up with all these ideas.  All I can say is I've made friends with the voices in my head.  Yeah, it sounds a bit like I've been cuttin' the Prozac in half against Dr's orders, but I don't know how else to say it.  That thing that twangs inside our brains when we come upon something that makes us happy is what I listen for.  When I hear it, I pay attention. 

I wander the world of paper crafting waiting to hear something speak to me.  I don't know what I'll do with a certain thing when I come across it, it just speaks to me so I add it to my collection knowing that some day, it will become part of a larger thing, that has a voice all it's own.  There are ideas in my head all the time.  When they get too loud, I HAVE to get them out. 

I'm continuing to plow though those piles of organized Halloween chaos I showed you in an earlier post. Here are four more samples that have made it from pile to produced. There is one more in play at the moment and I think 6 or 7 more piles left up there. 

These are two that illustrate a similar theme.  I really wanted to get the haunted house in there among the spooky trees, but the proportions were all wrong.  Separating them worked out pretty cool too. 

That's a Spellbinders nesting die circle that I ran through the Cuttlebug spider web embossing folder and then inked with some lime green pastel chalk ink.  The trees are a Quickutz die (now known as LifeStyle Crafts).  The haunted house is part of a stamp set from Close to My Heart that I colored with Prisma Color markers.  I was able to do one of my favorite things, re-purpose a stamp meant for, in this case Christmas, as a Halloween stamp. "not a creature was stirring" works well for Halloween, don't you think?  I accented the eyes in the trees and the windows on the house with some Ranger Glossy Accents.  If you have not tried that stuff yet, get some.  It's a great way to add shine without curling the paper, and it dries relatively fast. 

These two are my obligatory attempts at Halloween romance.  One is quite dark, and one is perky.  Guess which one I like better?...Gah!  Although the darker one does not really say much, if there's ribbon on it, then it's romantic as far as I'm concerned.  The perky one has bats and a big purple heart cut from Sizzix Original and Bigz dies.  The sentiment on the perky one was done on my computer last year.  Yes, this is one that stayed as a pile in a box for a full year because I didn't get to it last year. 

If you have any questions about any of the products used or techniques, shout them out.  I have all the details, but sometimes spelling it all out can get a little boring for you to read.  If you want any of these as a full blown class, or even a mini class - I can do that too.  Shout out, is all you need do. 

I know the comments section on the blog has a mind of its own.  But Anonymous works well.  If you use Name/URL, that works well to.  You can use your FB page for your URL if you aren't nutty enough to have your own blog.  

Enjoy! - AMK

The Halloween 4-Square - This one's for Barb Housner

Barb left a comment on the Cool Cat Card Class post and as promised, I made this one for her!  Thanks for your support!

Ahhh, the four-square.  A timeless card design I use again and again.  I don't think there's been a major holiday in the last 10 years that has not seen me use this design in one way or another.  And, if you ever wondered what people see in those Inchie stamps from Inkadinkado, well here you go.  I own no less than 13 sets and I believe there is one on the way. 

If you decide to dive into the Inchie scene, do yourself a solid and buy the 1", 1.25" and 1.5" square punches from EKSuccess.  You'll get nice even tiles with no measuring and a perfect .25" or .5" matt with just a squeeze.  How cool is that? 

I hung these little guys on a big, full, yellow moon made from Spellbinder's nesting circles set.  They are matted with orange and black glitter paper.  A 'Happy Halloween' puctuated with sparkly brads by We R Memory Keepers and a sprinkling of sequins finishes this one off.

Enjoy! - AMK

Coolest of Cats Card Class - Mini

In response to Andrea who lamented not having any of the products from the previous card class, I created this card with an eye for easy substitution.  It's a mini class, which is my way of saying the construction of the thing is pretty straight-forward. 

Hey - how about this?  If you send me a pic of your version of this card, I'll post it here for everyone to see.   amking1964@gmail.com will get it to me.  It will be fun to see your interpretation of it. 

First - here is a picture of the supplies I used: 

Background paper - Reminisce, Midnight Stripe (I bet the designer has a cat named Midnight)
Cat Stamps - These are two images from a company called Prickly Pear.  I picked up these little guys at the One of a Kind Rubber Stamp and Scrapbook show in Madison last year.  The Saturday before Thanksgiving, folks.  Mark your calendars.
Circles Stamp - that's Tim Holtz, he's got an embossing folder that matches it if you really dig it.  
Embossing Powder - ZING by American Crafts - Orange, this stuff is glittered. (Andrea's favorite medium)
Staz-On - Jet Black
Sentiment - sorry - the manufacturer is not labeled on this one, it's really easy to use your printer though, (wink, wink!)
Orange Brads - these two here are swirl brads in two colors of orange.  They came in a glass tube that was prone to rolling off the table and breaking on the floor, hence I don't have the original packaging to tell you who made them. 

The finished card is #10, that's 4x9.25.  It will fit nicely into a #10 business envelope.  Take your supplies and work your magic and make them look like what you see below.  Note that I stamped two sets of circles, embossed them and then cut them out.  Stamp everything on the scraps from your cream colored card stock. 

When you're all done putting it together, it should look something like this.   That's it.  Like I said, a mini card class. 

Let me know what you think and send me your versions!   Enjoy - AMK

Zutter Kutter - Part 2, a review

A couple of days ago I blogged about a new (to me) tool called the Zutter Kutter.  This thing retails for $169.00 but I found a used one on Amazon and decided to take a chance.  It arrived super-fast and in its original packaging.  The first owner indicated she only used it once.  Yeah!  But of course that makes me wonder why only once....hmmmm. 

Things to consider if you are thinking about purchasing this tool:

1. It's heavy.  But it needs to be to do the heavy lifting of cutting board stock.  It's not as heavy as the Big Shot Pro, if that's a reference for you.
2. It's about 15" long so you will need some space when you want to use it.  Not too surprising.  Board stock is larger than 12x12 most of the time so you'll need some space to swing that stuff around anyway. 
3. Because board stock is larger than 12x12 you'll have to cut it down the old fashioned way before it will fit in this tool.  Not terrible and is what I expected. 
4. I did some test cuts with some scraps of chip board and was not happy.  It went just shy of cutting through the whole thing.  I kept having to turn the piece over to get it to cut all the way through.  Odd.  And, definitely a drawback.  But then I remembered the original owner and her 'only one use of the thing'.  I pulled out the blade and found it was notched.  Bingo!  It was a simple thing to reverse the blade and begin cutting again.  Can you say "hot knife through butter"?
5. To look at the thing - that large black knob looks like it's integral to the function of cutting.  It's not.  It's just a handle for you to hang on to with your free hand to keep it out of the way. 
6. Safety is well thought out.  You can't even see the blade much less get yourself in the way of it.  I did, however, come close to bloody-ing myself when reversing the blade, but I admit, I'm a spaz.
7. Blades are reversible (obvious by now) and cheap.  Between $5 and $6.
8. It does not come with instructions.  You might think, that because mine was used, the original owner just forgot to include them.  But, no.  After a little Internet research, most of the people who reviewed this thing at their purchase site said it was a pain to have to download the instructions.  It was not a pain, just inconvenient. 
9. It's not meant for cutting just one sheet of paper.  You can stack about 20 sheets, clamp them in and cut, but the heavy duty blade does not work well on just one sheet.  They tell you this in the instructions....that you have to download.  :o/   So - if you were planning to replace your every day cutter with this, that's a no.
10. The measuring stay is only six inches long.  That's way too short in my book, but it is able to be used on either side of the machine.  It will be easy enough to create a jig for larger cuts when the time comes.  Maybe the company will read my review and create one for us!?

Overall, on the scale of 1-10, I'd give this thing a solid 8.  It will make my book making a LOT easier.

Regards, - AMK

Halloween Card Class - a rainy afternoon project

It's Saturday here in Cedarburg and man, is it raining.  Dennis Diebold must have washed is wife Lynn's car again...He tells me that's the surest way to make it rain.   To while away the afternoon I put this little card together.  It's one of those piles you saw on the floor in a previous Halloween post.  Hopefully the pictures will make things clear. 

First - we have to give credit where credit is due:  Here are the tools you'll need: 

Sizzix Strip Die - Bats;
EK Success punch - Drops;
Sizzix Tim Holtz Alterations embossing folder - Halloween Words;
Stampendous H258 - Fang-tastic
Staz-On - Royal Purple
Versa Mark - Grape (not pictured)
Colorbox Re-Inker - Lava Black (not pictured)
Small rubber brayer
Pallet board
Background paper is from Cosmo Crickit, Haunted collection - Macabre
Transparency Film
White, beige, orange, purple, black card stock scraps
Die Cutting Machine - I use the Big Shot.  It's my workhorse. 

The finished card is A7 - that's 5x7.   The embossing folder is A2 - that's 4.25 x 5.5.  So trim your papers accordingly. 

Ok - Let's get started.  If you click on the finished card to embiggen it, you will see the transparency overlay over the words.  This adds to the interest of the card and makes people say - 'How'd you do that?'

Well - here's how:

Cut your transparency film to fit the folder.  There are two definate sides to this stuff.  The rough side is meant to take the ink.  So always use that side down. 

Dribble a little Lava Black ink onto a pallet board and roll it around with the brayer until you get a nice even smudge. 

Open the embossing folder and roll the ink onto the back panel with the brayer.  Don't think to much about this or you will go crazy.  You are working with a transparency and that means everything is in reverse.  Lay the film inside the folder with the rough side down and roll it through your die cutting machine.

Next, cut a piece of white card stock the same size as the transparency, lay it into the emobssing folder and run it through.  Don't worry about cleaning the folder.  The ink, remember, will be on the back side of the white card stock, so you won't see it. 

Load the brayer with ink again, and roll it onto the front of the white embossed card. 

Layer the transparency over the card stock and attach using a few strategically placed mini-glue dots. 

Ink the stamp with royal purple and stamp onto beige card stock scrap, trim close to image, edge with grape ink, and matt with first orange and then purple.  Don't use white for this image.  You want those fangs to pop, so they should be the only white element to the card. 

Ok - if your hands are not clean, go wash them.  We want these fangs to be a nice bright white.  I had to toss my first set because my fingers were full of ink.   Punch out two sets of the fangs using the Drops punch.  Make sure your paper does not have an obvious texture as that's usually only on one side.  You'll be turning one of the sets over to get the shapes you need for this. 

Die cut one of the smaller bats from the strip die using a black scrap.   Now you have all your pieces, so let's assemble the card. 

I liked the background paper so wanted to show more of it rather than less.  Attach the embossed panel to the card as shown and trim off the pieces that don't fit on the front.   Layer on the stamped image.  Pop up the fangs and the bat with some foam squares.  Ink the outer edge of the card with grape ink.  Stay away from the transparency with the grape.  The front of the transparency will not take the ink and you'll just get it all over your fingers.  If you want to add a purple edge to the transparency, you'll have to do it with the Staz-On. 

That's It!  Hope this was all clear.  If you get confused, post a commnt.  I'll respond in kind. 

Enjoy! - AMK

A creative process - Halloween 101

Pictured below is the start of my Halloween card creative process.  I started by cleaning the room.  Let's face it, it needed a good cleaning.  Everytime I do that, more stuff winds up in the rummage sale pile.  Fine by me.  Out with the old, in with the new!  And, yes, there is new stuff arriving every day.  Someday soon I will blog about all the sites I like to buy from and my thoughts about each. 

I should note that everything you see layed out on the floor below is all from my historical arsenal of Halloween stuff.  None of it is new this year.  Oh, wait.  I take that back, the Unlucky 13 set is one of those Unity sets I spoke about in my last post.  But that's it.  I really wanted to use up all this stuff before I started restocking.  Fingers crossed, I think this year will do the trick. 

The theme of each card is usually the first thing I settle on.  For example, if someone says, 'I've got my eye on you'; put that in a Halloween context and what comes to mind?  Exactly!  Creapy eyeballs glowing in field of blackness, right?  Now all I have to do is find the right images, paper and embellishments to make it real.  That's how I got to the 13 piles of soon to be cards you see below.    

I'll make multiples of each style until the paper is used up.  One goes in the shoebox to pull out when magazines put out a call.  One goes in the 'My Work' acid free storage box for posterity.  All the others are either sold or sent. 

Is this how you do it?  I'm curious to find out how other creative minds work.

Enjoy! - AMK