Cause and Effect

Good day everyone!

This week I am the guest designer at The Shabby Tea Room.

The Week #37 challenge is "Pick a Cause"...create a card or project in honor of your favorite cause/charity.

Boy did I have a hard time choosing just one as 

I have several that are near and dear to my heart.

Organ Donation (Mom received a kidney after being on dialysis for 3 years), 

The American Heart Association (This year Dad had two open heart surgeries within 3 months of each other),

Diabetes Awareness (runs on both sides of my family and I was diagnosed in May),

and the list goes on.

In the end, I chose to make a card to promote pet adoption.

At work I see many animals that are turned into the city kennels for one reason or another.  Maybe they are lost with no identification tags, the owners found that their pet was more than they could handle or they were abused and removed from their owners.
Whatever the reason, these souls deserve a second chance at finding a loving home.

With so many to choose from, why not consider checking out your

local shelter/kennel for your next pet.

Also, don't forget to have your dog or cat spayed or neutered!

Now, without further ado, here is my creation.

"Second hand animals make first class pets"

As I am new to making cards, I like to try different techniques with each one I create.

This particular one is a frame card.  I really love the dimension that it has but

unfortunately it does not show up well when photographed.

The background is recessed, the dogs were then added with pop dots, as was the banner

at the top and then the roses were adhered to the frame.

In person it actually looks like a mini shadow box.

  It may be hard to see but, the cat has his legs/paws wrapped around the dogs shoulders.

I just loved the picture and thought it was perfect for this card.

Kind of like the cat is saying "We're all in this together".

I adore the soft watercolor look of the papers I used.

They are from Raspberry Road.

The roses are all handmade by me to match the colors of the papers.

I dyed them using Marvy LePlume markers and hairspray.

I really love making the roses and watching them come to "life" with each

layer of petals that are added.

Well, that's all for now!

Until next time, 

Autumn Greetings

Just a short posting as I am running behind today with all that

I have to do before going into work this afternoon.

This week at The Shabby Tea Room this photo was provided as inspiration for our creations.

The colors are just lovely and can imagine the smell of the freshly baked cakes.

I decided to use the colors as I already have my Thanksgiving cards made and mailed.

This card will be sent to a distant relative along with some snapshots

taken at a recent family gathering.

Again, I am having difficulty with my photography.

I made myself a light box but I think I chose the wrong bulbs for my lamps.

I must have taken 20 pictures and they all came out with a yellow hue.

Going to have to do a little more research into the light sources to use.

That's all for now.

Until next time, 

Lavender and Lace

This weeks challenge at the Shabby Tea Room is Lavender and Lace.

We were to make a card using the following photograph as inspiration.

Pretty, pretty, pretty!

I must say I am a little disappointed in my card. 

Well, not so much in the card itself but rather in the way it photographed.

You can bearly see the embossing the white cardstock and it seem really flat.

It is a gloomy, overcast day here and I took my card outside

so I could get enough lighting but I still don't think it was bright enough.

I made the card to give to my daughter.

She is flying the nest today.  As I type, they are unloading the moving

truck at her new place. She is staying in the same town and only moving about

3 miles from our home but it may as well be 3000 as far as I am concerned. :(

I wanted to give her one last "momism" to remember.

I will place it in one of her boxes that she still needs

to transport so she can find it as she is unpacking.

I used some vintage lace that my mother had given me ages ago.

The retro flowers were punch from various papers and given a coating

of some glitter fingernail polish that I found and just love.

It give the paper some body and just the right amount of glimmer.

Gotta run!  Time to go to work!

Until next time!

Craftily Yours,

Becky Jo

85th Birthday Card

Yesterday was my great aunts 85th birthday party. I quickly made this card up and therefore not a lot of embellishments.  It was a little out of the ordinary for me but I had decided I needed to broaden my horizons and use some vivid colors instead of the soft pastels that I normally prefer.  I must say I do quite like the effect.

For dimension, the numbers were adhered with pop dots and I added the metal brad shapes to all four corners. Originally the background behind the numbers was left white as I wanted the numbers to "pop".  It turned out to be very lack-luster to say the least. As I had already adhered the cardstock down and couldn't remove it, I typed up a bunch of birthday related sayings in Inkscape, printed it onto acetate, and tranfered the image to the cardstock. I was happy with the results as the numbers are still predominate. I love using the acetate transfer technique. It saved this card from going into the trash bin and starting over. 

That's it for now.

 Until next time, 

Vintage Halloween

Hello!  Today I would like to start off by thanking everyone that left a comment on my "Pearls and Pastel" card.  To say I was ecstatic, when I found out I had won  the Week #29 challenge at The Shabby Tea Room, would be an understatement. I had come home from an exhausting 12 hour day at work and just wanted to enjoy the new entries that were submitted since I had last checked.  Well, by the time I played with the pups and griped to my DH about what a bad day I had endured, it had passed midnight and Debbie had already posted the winners.  I started giggling like a school girl and my 22 year old daughter thought I had lost it! Oh, I should mention that it was my first win ever! As a matter of fact, it was only the second challenge that I had submitted a card to (the first was Week #28 at TSTR).

Your comments made my good fortune even more special and, for that,

I thank you sincerely!

Now onto the Week #30 challenge at TSTR.  This one was very difficult for me.  I couldn't seem to wrap my brain around an idea for my card.  I spent all week fiddling and fooling with various papers and embellishments. In the end, I made practically everything on the card from scratch.

Here is the inspiration photo we were provided for the challenge. 

 

Our cards were to use the colors from the photo and have a vintage style.

I loved the 3D cut outs of the candelabras so I knew I wanted to use one in my card.

Once I got my candelabra cut out on my Cricut and embossed with gold powder,

I got stuck for any further ideas.  It took a few days of mulling it over to come up with my final design and here it is.

I printed out the inspiration photo and carried it with me all the time and looked at it often.

I decided the room looked like a room in a witches house.

Then I thought she wasn't such a bad witch because she likes beautiful accessories.

I didn't want a witch on my card so I made the "spell book" to represent her presence.

  I roughed up the edges of all the pages, distressed and curled them then put it together.  You can't see it in this photo but the top two pages are arced and secured in place.  I added the little black bookmark made out of black ribbon.

If you can't tell from the photo, the black thing on the book is a feather. 

It's supposed to be a quilling pen but lacked something in the translation

when the card was photographed.

Do the roses look out of place on this card?

I debated if I should put them on but decided to go for it as the photo made me think the witch has a softer, feminine side to her.

I made the roses out of FIMO and inked the edges black. 

When the ink dried, it turned out to be a more brown color but still looked okay.

The following two pictures were taken in direct sunlight

as the one above (taken in my homemade light box) looked very flat. 

These pictures are a more accurate representation of my finished project as you can see the dimensional elements and the gold embossing of the candelabra.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I made the paper behind the candelabra.

I wanted the background to look like the candles were giving off a glow

and I didn't have anything like that on hand so I sat down and made it myself.

The cheese cloth was originally white and I stained it with Ranger Vintage Photo Distress ink.

 In the above photo you can somewhat see the glimmer of the gold embossing

on the candelabra.

This photo is an over exposed close up of the corner roses.

I wanted to show that I used a natural element on my card.

This is the dropping from one of the trees at work.

I stepped on the thing and twisted my ankle. 

After a few choice words to it, I decided it looked all spooky and creepy

and would me a nice addition to my card.

Whatever it's called, it's as hard as a rock and has all these

spikey, pointy things sticking off it.

So, to sum it up, it wasn't an easy challenge for me but

I am so glad I decided to participate.

 Until next time, 

Pearls and Pastels

I think I actually gasped when I saw the inspiration photo for this weeks challenge at

The Shabby Tea Room.

Isn't it just to die for?

This is my style to a capital letter T.

Oh! And the colors! I'm in love!

Even though it has been a hectic week at work with a lot of overtime hours,

how could I not join in!

It's now 4 a.m. and I just finished my card and photographing it.

Here is what I came up with.

The beautiful background paper I got from Raspberry Road Designs.

She has some of the most BEAUTIFUL digital papers I have seen.

The off white paper is actually glitter embossed although it doesn't show up well in the photo.

I scored it at a local discount outlet store nearby,  24 sheets for $2.99!

I believe it is from Memory Makers and it is just lovely.

All the beads came from a kit I picked up at Joann, Etc. a while back

and was just waiting for the right project to use them on.

I think my absolute favorite embellishment on this card is the acrylic butterfly.

Again, at a local discount store, this butterfly was attached to a tape dispenser.

I loved the dispenser as it is all vintage shabby but the butterfly was just the cherry on top.

My dispenser looks a little naked now but I can live with that.

I couldn't decide where to put the wording on the card so I used a technique I saw where you print on a transparency and transfer the wording to your project.

It worked perfectly on my satin ribbon.

I just love how my card came out and I hope you enjoy it too.

Thanks for looking!

Until next time,



The Shabby Tea Room Challenge - Week #28 Entry

Today I have decided to enter my first card challenge.

I absolutely love all the yummy cards the gals submit

to the challenges at The Shabby Tea Room.

I could sit for hours and just keep looking at all of them.

Such wonderfully talented ladies.

Each day I visit I get so much inspiration and decided to join in.

Although my skills are not up to par with the others, we all have to

start somewhere, right?

This is the inspiration photo.

Cathy, the host of the challenge, asked that a card be created using this photo as inspiration.

The cards are to have a school theme and use the colors in the photo.

Here is my submission.

As I stated before, my photography skills leave a lot to be desired. 

The picture of the school children is actually a much deeper blue and resembles

the slate chalkboard in the inspiration photo as does the blue

DP in the background of the card.

I inked and distressed the edges of the card and elements to mimic the

khaki coloring in the map and rulers.

The green was pulled from the map also.

I added brads to represent the lunch pail and eyeglasses.

The wording on the card states:

"No one has fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness and

generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true

education should be to unlock that treasure." ~ Emma Golmam

I thought this quote fit the graphic of the vintage school children perfectly.

It was also my inspiration for the use of the key.

Speaking of the key, I made it using a technique called "cracked glass".

I cut the key shape out on my Expression and went from there.

Instead of using clear embossing powder I used gold then antiqued the

cracks with Tim Holtz distress ink.

It doesn't show up very well in my photo but it looks really cool.

That's all for now!

Until next time,



Recent Cards

Today I would like to share some of the cards I have made recently.

As I am new to card making, I do not have the supplies and tools

that I would like to create with.

As with any hobby, the cost of those supplies and tools can add up

pretty quick.

 

I am very fortunate to own a Cricut Expression (love it!) which I will have

worn out by the end of the year if I don't stop using it so much.

It is the main tool that I use with my cards as I do not have a lot of

punches,stamps, inks, markers, etc.

I have purchased some distressing inks and a very limited

amount of embellishments (pearls, brads, etc) but for the most

part, I use what I already have on hand.

With that in mind, here are a few of my creations.

I made this card for my friends birthday.

It was made entirely out of white card stock from Walmart
except for the floral center picture.

I inked and embossed some of the layers to give dimension.

The ribbon I had in my craft stash and I used a few purchased pearls to jazz it up a bit.

 

Happy Birthday, Weenie!

The Cricut, ribbon from my stash and a few pearls and some 

designer paper that I picked up at a local discount surplus store

 was all it took to make this card for my great aunt.

I know my pictures aren't the best.

The energy saving bulbs in my house always makes my camera use the flash.

Will have to come up with some type of light box or something.

That's it for today!

Until next time,

This is where it all starts!

Today I have decided to take the plunge into the world of blogging.

I am starting with the idea of sharing my passion for crafting.
Card making, mini scrapbook albums and machine embroidery
are just a few of my favorites right now. 

We'll see where it leads.

So, without further ado, lets get started!

For the first post, why not start with another first?

I created my very first mini scrapbook album for this years family reunion.
To my surprise, it was raffled as one of the main prizes. 

Like everything else I do, I jumped in with great ambition.

I wanted my album to look all shabby chic, vintage and distressed,
like the ones I see on other blogs and drool over.

I watched enough You Tube video's on techniques to give me eye strain for a week.

Why do the authors make it look so easy?
They whip out a page in 10 minutes or less while
I sit for hours completing the same type of page.

I worked every spare moment of an entire week on this album.

The trip to the reunion was a 4 hour drive and we were to leave at 8 a.m.

I finished the album at 3 a.m. and had the alarm set to get up at 6 a.m.

 

I didn't put a lot of embellishments on it as I did not know to whom

it would be going and quite frankly, I just ran out of time.

In the end, even though it wasn't what I had envisioned,
 I was somewhat pleased with how it turned out.

The recipient was very happy she won the album as her hobby is photography.
She said she planned on filling it with photos of this years reunion
and bringing it back for everyone to see at next years gathering.

That's it for now.

Until next time,