Tile Coasters

Recipe Layout and a couple cards

This first picture is a 8x8 recipe layout I did for a ground beef recipe swap. I used distress inks to ink the bottom edge of the paper, the houndstooth cuttlebug embossing folder for the accent strip and inked the embossing with spiced marigold distress ink. I used a sepia ink pad with the flourish stamps for the back ground.

This get well soon card was made using the D'vine swirls embossing folder, the get well soon is from the Beyond Birthdays cartridge and the flower was stamped in versamark ink on glossy cardstock then brayered over with a rainbow ink pad.

This thinking of you card was stamped with distress inks, I love those inks. I used the cuttlebug tag team butterfly set for the butterfly, I cut one butterfly of a blue textured cardstock then embossed it and lightly sanded it to make the texture pop. The top butterfly was cut of a patterned paper, embossed then inked.

Valentines in October??????

I've been trying to work ahead on all my swaps so I don't end up behind over the Christmas season. I have two projects to show you today. The first is just a peek at the Valentines paint can I'm making for a swap, the first picture is of the lid and the second is the handle.


This lid was first painted with a glitter glaze paint mixed with distress reinker in worn lipstick. While the paint was still wet I sprinkled the top with small punched out hearts. I later decided I wanted more of an acrylic type finish on the top of the can. I used UTEE to achieve these results. I spent a couple nights attempting to heat and sprinkle UTEE and blowing it all over the place until today when I saw a post on the cricut message board about using shrink plastic in the oven. This evening I covered the top of the paint can in a thick layer of UTEE popped it in the oven. I set mine at 400 and left it alone for a few minutes, when I checked on it the UTEE appeared to be boiling OOOPPS I turned the oven off and let it sit in there till cool. and it came out really nice. Next time I'll probably have the oven on a bit lower temp and keep a closer eye on it but it has a great smooth finish.

This second picture is of the handle on my paint can. I used some Moda-Dea Dream yarn that is on sale at Michaels this week. I simply crocheted it on the handle using a basic chain stich, if you've ever done the crochet flipflops it's the same basic idea. I really like the way that plain metal wire is softened now.

My second project for today was my Valentines card cany. I cut a 4 inch square of double sided cardstock (from Sam's Club) I punch all 4 edges with a new Martha Stewart Embossing edge punch and then lightly sanded the embossing to make it pop. I stamped with "with love" saying and the hearts with a glue pad and used a Martha Stewart glitter on them. I'm also including a length of the same yarn that was used on the paint cans in place of ribbon.

Christmas Card

This is a Christmas Card I did for a swap. I used alcohol inks on glossy paper. I used raisin, pesto and gold mixative. I cut the scalloped oval with a nestibilities die and stamped the word joy with black staz-on ink. For the back ground on the card I used a gold pigment ink on a flourish stamp. I'm not sure that I love these cards but I think they turned out ok.

October SAC layout

This is a layout I did for the Cricut October Swap A Crop. Basically I'm scrapping someone elses pictures. This is the first time I've done a layout without the pictures LOL. Usually when I scrap I start with my pictures, mat them and apply them to the layout then work on my other elements. This time I hadn't gotten the pictures from Walgreens yet so I started with my elements first and worked backwards, at least compared to the way I usually do it. I used a variety of techniques on this layout. The flowers on the right have metal alphabet brads in the centers of them. I used alcohol inks on the brads to give them a little color. I tore the edges of a couple of the papers and used distress inks on the laughter quote. The journaling tag is a clear stamp that I stamped with black ink the cut out. I had a really cute twist tie I used as the ribon on the tag. It says "Memories Last Forever" then used a lime green fasenator staple to attach it to the tag. I used a cuttlebug tag team butterfly that I lightly sanded after embossing and then used a green chalk ink to accent the embossing.

Dip Recipe Swap Layout

This is my layout for a Dip recipe swap I'm hosting. The accent paper for the back ground is from Me & My Big Ideas paper stack currently at Michaels. I stamped the back ground with a couple flourish stamps in Tim Holtz Distress Ink, Peeled Paint. The word favorite is also an acrylic stamp I used Distress Ink Tea Dyed. I used Mickey Font in Design Studio for the title.

Winter Card Front

This is a card front I made for a card front swap. The theme was Winter or Christmas. I chose to got with winter. I started by stamping my images on acetate, (transparancies) with White Staz-On ink. I then cut "windows out of my card front base. I used the snowflake cuttlebug embossing folder on the base and lightly misted the fronts with Glimmer Mist (it's hard to see in the picture but the glimmer mist gives the blue card stock a very nice shimmer) then used my atg to apply the acetate images to the back of the card. I the attached a piece of ribbon to the bottom of the card as finishing touch.

Christmas Card Candy

This is a picture of the Christmas card candy I made for a swap I'm in. I started with 1 1/4 inch white cardstock squares, stamped 3 different images on them with green and red ink, inked the edges in the opposite color ink. The green stamped images are edged with red and red are edged with green. I then used a 1 inche strip of red card stock that I cut with a wavy paper trimmer then used the d'vine swirls cuttlebug folder to emboss. I used pop dots to adheer the squares to the wavy strip.

Here is a finished card using the card candy. I applied the card candy to the front of a card and used Star Dust stickles in a random pattern to apply some background interest.

Great Book/Magazine

This is a new magazine I bought the other day at my local bookstore. It is "The Cardmakers's Yearbook 2009" the cover price is 14.95 which is quite steep for a magazine but this magazine is jam packed with great stuff. First off it's a 2009 weekly calendar, each week has a place to record important information about that week and on the opposite page are two cards and instructions on how to create them. This book uses cricut, cuttlebug, stamping, embossing, it looks like just about every technique out there. There are detailed instructions and a detailed supply list for every project. Also each week has a "Top Tip" these are great tidbits from technique tips to storage ideas and everything. The back of the magazine has several pages dedicated to step by step instructions for techniques such as heat embossing, shrink plastic and more. There are also templates, address book pages and a stocklist that contains websites where you can order the supplies for each project. I think this magazine will end up being a great insperation tool to have around.

Thank You Card Candy Cards

I've had a really busy couple of weeks and haven't managed to get much crafting done. I did get my card candies from August in the mail the other day and got them made into cards. I used the cuttlebug borders on several of them. I really like the borders they add a really nice finishing touch to just about any project.

UTEE & Perfect Pearls card

This is a card I made recently trying out some new techniques. I used Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE) and Perfect Pearls with the stamped flower image, and used a Cuttlebug Embossing Boarder and skittles on the edge. I also sprayed some Glimmer Mist over the embossed image.

To make the flower image on the center of the card, I took a piece of colored cardstock, you can also ink you cardstock to make it the desired color, in this example the background cardstock is a medium blue, I coated the cardstock with versamark ink and sprinkled UTEE on it. Then carefully heat the UTEE, it takes a little longer than regular embossing powder to melt and doesn't stick very well so it blows around and is very messy. Once the UTEE starts to melt I sprinkled more UTEE on the melted parts to create a thicker layer. Then let the UTEE cool a bit, coat with versamark ink again and brush with perfect pearls of your choice, I used a blue, green and bronze on this piece. Once again heat the image and sprinkle more UTEE over the image. Once the colors have blended use a rubber stamp and stamp into the warm UTEE and leave the stamp in place until the UTEE cools. You will have a nice deep impression of your stamp. I used a pen to outline the image after it had cooled, next time I want to try inking my stamp first, possibly with Stazon Ink.

Bicycle Card

This is a card I made for a coworker for her uncle's 95th birthday.

I used OkieLadybugs Design Studio bicycle design, I used Doodlebug Velvet flock on the seat and handlebars. I also used stickles on the bike frame and to write in the 95 inside the frame. The background was done using Peeled Paint distress ink reinker and marbles.

The verse on the card is hard to see in the picture but the front of the card says "Go for a ride, go for a spin, but whatever you do..." Inside "Let the good times roll in! Happy Birthday"

13 days of Halloween lay out

This is a 6x6 layout I did for a 13 days of halloween book, my page was "and a big scary tree. I used the tree from Paper Doll Dress Up stretched a little in Design Studio, then I used the pumpkin and fence from PDDU also and also a pumpkin from Doodlecharms and used green stickles to color the stems. I hand wrote the saying with a silver metalic marker.

This is one of my first attempts at coloring a stamped image with the prisma pencils. Next time I will use a little less color and more shading. But I'm really happy with how vibrant the colors are.

These are the cards I made from my July "Summer Fun" card candies from a swap.

I've been playing with using my prismacolor pencils lately and using baby oil for blending lately. I also colored a couple images with watercolor pencils and an aquabrush. It takes a little practice to know how much color to put down but I'm really enjoying this technique.

A Halloween Card

A Halloween card made using paper pups.

This first project is a card organizer I made. I used directions from daniesdesign.typepad.com and modified them slightly. I used a grungeboard letter on the front and inked it with dewdrops chalk ink and of course attached primas.

This is a card front I made for a swap. I started with a piece of orange cardstock, inked the edges and stamped my images. I then used a transparency and ran it through my cuttle bug with the mini mosaic folder, then used alcohol inks and attached with brads. The alcohol inks I used were Rust, Currant and Copper Mixative.

Product Spotlight-Storage Solutions

I am always on the lookout for better ways to store all my stuff. I recently discovered this Craft Mates Storage. It was with the jewelry and beads in my local Michael's. This is a nice suede binder. When opened it reveals 8 Craft mates storage containers with 7 compartments in each. Each container has a locking mechanism so your containers shouldn't open accidentally. I've decide to use this storage binder for all my brads and even ended up having 10 compartments still empty. I guess I need to go buy more brads. LOL.

How I spent my Saturday

This picture is a birthday card I made for a card swap. I used a stamp wheel for the boarder at the bottom of the card,alcohol inks on glossy cardstock and the treading water boarder punch.


This is a card candy for a halloween card candy swap. I used the alcohol inks with the versamark technique here.


These are birthday cards I made with card candy from a cricut.com card candy swap. Now I won't have to make any birthday cards for a little while. LOL.

Alcohol ink tutorial

The supplies you will need are
Glossy Cardstock - I used a glossy cardstock from Staples
Versamark Pad & Cute image to stamp
A couple colors of alcohol inks- in this example I used Bottle, Lettuce & Red Pepper
An alcohol ink tool and felt for it
Blending solution
A protected work surface, I like to use a sheet of freezer paper taped to my table


First stamp your image with versamark ink on your glossy cardstock I use a random pattern. The versamark resists the alcohol inks.


Next apply a few drops of each color to your applicator in stripes.


Drag the applicator across your glossy cardstock in a diagonal direction, you can really go in any direction just be sure to use the same direction all the way across your paper don't dab or smear just drag in one direction pick up the applicator and do the same thing again untill you get the coverage you desire.


If the colors are too intense you can use some blending solution on your applicator and reapply over your already inked piece.

This technique dries very quickly so your piece is ready to work with in just a few minutes. If you do get alcohol inks on your table use a bit of blending solution to remove it. Usually this will get at least most of the ink off.

My Weekend Projects

I managed to get all the layouts for swaps I'm in done this weekend.


This first picture is a family favorites recipe swap. I did 15 of the same layout. I still have to add the from the kitchen of but otherwise they are done and should go in the mail this week.



These two are layouts I did for a Swap A Crop I've been particpating in. The second set ended up using a completely different color pallet than I had originally though I would use but I am very happy with the way they both turned out. I hope the people I'm sending them to are happy with them also.

This is a card I made the other day but decided could use a little flock on it. I really like the way the little mouse turned out.



This card also has flocking on the yellow part of the flower, the background is a white glossy paper stamped with versamark ink then "pained" with alcohol inks, the painting was done by lightly dragging the alcohol ink tool across the paper in a diagonal direction. I'm really happy with the way it turned out.



This last card was done with the same versamark technique except the alcohol inks were dabbed on with the applicator. The were originally much darker so I used some blending solution and a baby wipe to wipe some of the ink off. Then I used decorative scissors for the edges.

New Product

I got my doodlebug sugar coating glitter and crushed velvet flock in the mail today. I can't wait to play with them and will hopefully have pictures to post soon. Keep an eye out for them.

A couple kids cards I made over the weekend.




My fisrt attempt at the glamasol type technique, I used cheap Roseart pencils and a colored pencil blending pen.

A couple cards I made today using Martha Stewart glitter.