House book

 I have created a little House Book for a swap on AFTCM.  The theme is A Garden Journey, so I created some house shapes and decorated them with garden images.  It has been a fun project.
I started with some very thin corrugated cardboard which arrived last week wrapped around a new "toy"!!  I designed my pages, cut them out and die cut the fence from scraps.  I backed the pages with foreign language book pages.  I stamped the fronts with a text stamp in dark brown and added some stippling as well.  Finished all the edges with a large black permanent marker.

Here is my book all closed up.  I have added a tie on the left hand side that slips around the fence post which keeps it nicely closed.  I have four pieces - the fence, the one storey, the two storey and the large apartment building in the back.  I had wanted to have all of the windows on the buildings be on the front of the pages so it would look like a neighborhood.  Unfortunately, I was not paying as much attention as I should have when I was decorating the pages and you will see that the windows ended up on the back instead of the front. Not wrong, but not what I had imagined!!
The fence is decorated with flower and vine punchies on both sides.

With the fence flipped open you can see the front of the first house.  I added a window and a door with the large marker and filled in the details with a fine tip Sharpie.  I added punchie flowers to create a window box and a grass die cut at the bottom.  In between, I added my wording by tracing a letter template lightly with a pencil and then giving the letters weight using the fine tip marker.  I wanted the letters to be a little sketchy so left them a bit rough.

The back of the first house features an architectural window with a window box, two large flowers, a grass die cut, a butterfly and the continuation of the quote.
The front of the second house features a garden scene which includes a bird on a branch, a small butterfly, a grass die cut and five layered flowers.  These are all punchies!!  The quote continues in the same manner as the previous pages.

The back of the second house features a balcony with flowers in a window box, a grass die cut, a butterfly, some leaves and a large flower along with a few more words from my quote.
On the front of the last page I have created a garden  of love that features a wide variety of heart flowers all growing next to each other.  Added "Sow love!" in the same manner as the quote on the previous pages and some grass at the bottom.

On the back page I drew in lots of windows and gave them all different window treatments.  Each window received a flower box and a tiny heart as well.  Added the saying, some butterflies and some grass at the bottom.
I bound the pages with some cording which I knotted on the outside of the book on the left hand side.

I am very happy with how this little project turned out even with the mishap of the windows.  I liked combining lots of different items and techniques.

My little book will start it's trip to my partner tomorrow and hopefully will arrive there some time next week!!

Therese

Masculine cards & ribbon trick

I am in need of masculine cards again!!  It seems that this year I cannot keep any masculine cards in my card stash so I decided yesterday to make a bunch of them.
I started with paper that was wrapped around an internet purchase that arrived from Hong Kong!!  Wonderful green paper!!
I scrunched it, rubbed it with a green ink pad, stamped some brown leaves and script in turquoise!  Ironed it a little to flatten it and cut it into 4" x 5.25" pieces for my cards!! I dug out a variety of masculine images from my image stash, some coordinating card fronts, my containers of cardstock scraps, my bucket of extra greetings and some vintage seam binding!!
I picked a card, layered on my new decorative paper and started adding elements - an image, a greeting and some ribbon layering as I went along. By the end of the day ( I did have a few interruptions and did eat)  I had created 9 cards!!

In the photo on the right I have tried a technique that I first saw here on Charmaine's blog.  You create the look of a bow by inserting folded ribbon in a loop that has been inserted into a hole.  Very cool idea!!  Because I was making masculine cards I decided to just put lengths of ribbon through the loop instead of folded ones.  I love the look!!  Really easy and worked really well with the soft bodied seam binding.  I punched a 3/16" hole in my greeting, slipped a loop from the long seam binding through it from the back and inserted the two lengths through it and pulled it taut.  You have to be careful not to pull too hard to keep the loop on top.

A very enjoyable day of creating!!  I am happy to have been so productive and that I have a good supply of masculine cards in my card stash!!
It is surely the fastest any piece of paper has been reused in my house!!  I usually need to "sit" with supplies before I use them. On the other hand, quite often, paper gets put away and doesn't see the light of day again for a few months or years!!
So challenge yourself to dig up something you have been saving and create something today!!

Therese

Cardmaking - April - Artsy flowers

This was so much fun to do!  I laser printed the Papier Salat images onto white cardstock and added some swipes of liquid watercolour using a foam brush!!  I love the bold bright look of these little works of art so decided to keep the design simple - a double knotted piece of vintage seam binding and a brushed silver paper layer nicely framed on black card fronts!!
Love these quick and easy cards!!

Therese

Cardmaking - April - woven accent

In the spirit of making the most of the supplies I have on hand and in celebration of Earth Day I decided to use the stash of paper strips I have accumulated as I trim paper for other projects.  I love how these worked out, though, I really prefer the randomness of the red one.  The one on the left used cut offs from these cards and I am really happy how bright the colours were next to the yellow cardstock but after I glued down the piece and added the image I thought it was just a little too square and even but taking it apart would have been problematic because these are made using wax crayons.  The butterfly image I downloaded from CLKER and the heart is from Torico, I laser printed them and use 1 3/4" punch to cut them out. Used a scalloped Nestibilities circle die to cut the layer.  The little patch of woven strips works really well over the embossed card fronts.
Therese

Cardmaking - April - Birdies!!

Am so loving the birdie cards that are everywhere so when I saw this little guy on The Graphics Fairy blog I nabbed him right away!!  I laid out three of them in my layout program (Corel Draw) and added a bit of length to the branch in PSE so that they would all look like they were talking to each other and added the little birdie saying as well.  I laser printed the image, watercoloured it, added a ribbon, layered it onto brown and then glued the whole element to my embossed card front.

Great for spring birthdays!!

Therese

Cardmaking - April - earth friendly flowers

Guess what these flowers are made of???

Plastic bags!!  So cool!  I die cut them from plastic shopping bags using the Tattered Flowers die (TH)!!  The white one is from SU and the pink ones I am not sure as there was no advertising on them.   I found several different colours in my stash - lime green, purple, gold  - all bags I received from my local scrap booking store!  Got the idea from my sister and you can check out her flowers here on her blog.
I layered several plastic flowers, added a cardstock mini flower and punchie and held them all together using a brad. The leaf was die cut from cardstock using the Tattered Leaves die and embossed.  The edge of the top layer was cut with a Border die (TH) and then embossed.  I added a strip of decorative paper below the die cut edge which finishes the card off very nicely!!
Love this simple design!!  Would make a wonderful Mother's Day card!!

Therese

French Vintage swap cards

I created these cards for a "French Vintage with a fancy fold' swap on AFTCM.  Have been wanting to try this fold for a while so just decided I would try it for this swap.  I downloaded all the images from The Graphics Fairy, brought them into my layout program (Corel Draw) and laid them out to create all the pieces I was going to need to make the cards.  I printed one in black and white and the other in colour.  I really like both of them!! I used one of them for my card exchange and sent the other on its way to my swap partner!!
I am hoping to be able to use this fold again. It was not difficult to work out.  I cut my cardstock to 4.25"x 11" and folded it in half.  Then I cut 3" x 4.25" off the one side and used it as the front layer.  Too easy!!
I will try using coordinating decorative paper next time around!!

Therese