Scrapping, Card Making and Living with Fibro: Birds

Friday, January 13, 2012

My First Guest Design Spot

Hi there! I am so excited that Tina from Crafty and Green has been kind enough to have me as a Guest Designer! This is my very first Guest Design spot! I would love it if you would swing by her site to catch my post over there and leave a comment either here or there, or both, please! We would love to hear from you. I have sent her some bio info about myself that some of you may not be aware of so it might be fun for you to check that out and also she's having lots of super fun things going on right now on her blog.

I have listed my project in great detail here, and I warn you, it's quite a long explanation of actually creating the card. If you skip through and just check out the pics, I won't mind. ;)

For today’s project, I have used Tina’s sketch and theme (music) for January as my inspiration. I chose to do a card and yes, it will be up for sale in my store soon! I have a few pictures here for you all to see the details. The details on how I made the card are below…

1 Front of Card - Inside is Blank (for now)

2 Closeup of Bird Stamped on Chipboard and Crinkle Ribbon

3 Closeup of Sentiment, Punched Edge, and Popped Flower with Note

4Closeup of stamped background paper and popped flower

First off I cut a white piece of Recollections card stock down to 10”x7”, scoring it with my Martha Stewart Score Board to make the fold at 5”, making the finished card 5”x7”.

Next I cut down a piece of polka dot patterned paper from my stash, rounded the corners with a corner rounder and inked the edges with a Colorbox Cat’s Eye – Dark Brown ink pad. I adhered it to the white card stock with my ATG.

After that, I cut down a piece of plain coordinating yellow paper and stamped the background with Stampin’ Up – Summer Sun ink, then again with Stampin’ Up More Mustard ink, using a stamp that I won as blog candy by Stampendous – Cling Music Score (again, sticking with our music theme here). I punched one edge of that same paper with a Fiskars punch (which broke after I did that one edge and that is why both edges were not identical L) and finished by inking all the edges again with the Colorbox Ink. I actually liked the way it looked with only one edge punched. It made it unique. J Then, I adhered it to the patterned paper with my ATG.

Next up, I fussy cut six flowers from that same paper line in my stash (it’s a generic brand) and cut out the center circles with an X-acto. I then used my 1” punch and cut out six more flowers with it to layer under the flower borders with the circles cut out so the yellow background would not show through and to add a little more texture. I inked all my edges of the circles and the flowers and put them together by first running them through my Xyron and then layering -- 1.) 1” flower circle 2.) fussy cut flower border 3.) stamped the remaining flower circle centers with black pigment ink, a note stamp from Fiskars, and used Stickles, a Zig pen, and a white gelly roller to make them really defined 4.) put a pop dot on the back of the note-stamped centers and went around the pop dot edges with my black Zig marker so if you look at the side it won’t be so noticeable – great trick btw ;), then added them up and to the side a little of the flowers that were already pasted down to create a bit of a shadow. Notice the flower centers on the bottom layer are a different color than the pop dotted ones.

The next step I did was to add a gorgeous piece of 3 Girls Jam ribbon in Goblin Green, which I had also won as blog candy! I decided to leave it wrinkled and to make it stay that way I first put down a line of ATG adhesive, then kind of smooshed the ribbon on top of that.

To stick with the music theme I found this perfect little bird stamp (notice he’s singing) J from Inkadinkado, to go with my music notes. I found a great chipboard embellishment from my stash and decided to ink him on to it by using StazOn ink. Since the pattern still came through I wanted to color my bird in so I used Pearl Ranger Ink to color him in. I then took my orange Zig marker to add some color to the beak and music note, and finished off by adding some more white detail with my white gelly roller. I then glued down the embellishment with Tombow liquid adhesive and outlined around the embellishment with my black Zig pen to make it “pop”.

Finally, I added some Palette glue from a glue pad to the yellow part of the card and sprinkled all over with Holiday Glitter in blue that I also won as blog candy and then I added the cute sentiment which was from the same stamp set.

There you have it! I’m sorry for the super long instructions, but as simple as this card looks, there were a lot of steps involved to create it!

Thanks so much for joining us today and I really hope you’ll pop over to my personal blog to become a friend and follower. Thanks again to Tinaeco-friendly. She's the kind of gal I'm proud to call my friend!

XO ~ Amy Jo

Monday, April 11, 2011

FCCB Spring Fling Cricut Crawl

Welcome to Scrapping, Card Making and Living with Fibro (Fibromyalgia) and the fifth Fantabulous Cricut Crawl...Fantabulous Cricut's version of a blog hop!

It's Spring Time, even though some places may not look like it :) and everyone at Fantabulous Cricut has decided to have a Spring Fling! Each Design Team member will be featuring an original Spring project that includes Pink, Green and Yellow on it along with at least one Cricut cut.

I am super excited to be here today! I am so lucky as to be a part of (let alone, the first stop!!!) this Cricut Crawl! I get to work with a wonderful design team over at FCCB and today's the day we are showing you what we are all about! I am glad you all could join us. You will find some great creations and lots of fun goodies along the way. Curious if I'm having blog candy? Guess you'll have to just read through this post and find out! ;)

Make sure to check out each DT member's blog for some awesome inspiration! There will be PRIZES along the way at some of our DT members' blogs, AND there will be a Grand Prize up for grabs at FCCB for one participant that submits a "Spring Fling" project at FCCB!

How fun is that?

You won't want to miss a single stop along the way. Since I am the very first stop, you probably came here directly from the Fantabulous Cricut Challenge Blog or you are in luck for checking my post directly today! There is a list at the bottom of my post of all the participants so you won't get lost along the way.

I used all the colors required in the challenge and then some. My Cricut cut is the word "Spring" from the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge which came with my Gypsy. When I first saw a Gypsy, I thought, really what would anyone need one of these for? I didn't think I'd ever have a use for one. Boy was I wrong! If you own a Cricut you NEED this machine! It is sooooo incredible and tons of fun. It allows you to do things you can't do on your cutting machine. I highly recommend checking it out if you don't already own one. Plus, the cost has come way down!

Onto my project... I decided I really wanted to do something other than a card this time and I couldn't do a layout because I really couldn't think of any good pictures to put on it so I created a cute 12x12 page to frame and hang up on the wall. I think I will do one for each season and switch them out!

*I am sorry for all the pics, but many were needed to get the full effect. Please feel free to skip through the details so you can get through the hop. I just wrote them out for people who are interested.

Details: I just loved this background paper from my K & Company Snuggle Bug paper pack. The photos aren't the greatest (I apologize) and don't do it justice. You should be able to enlarge them, by clicking, to get a better idea of the actual colors. Next, I found the cutest cutout 12x12 sheet from Fancy Pants, called Kraft Kuts #2 - made from Kraft paper. That's where the awesome tree and birds and flowers came from. Talk about making a simple project! ;) Also, the sunshine is from there and I added glossy accents to the center, but on camera it looks like an egg yolk! LOL Ooops! Not quite what I was going for. I used some magenta cardstock and paper from my stash (that I won!) for the "Spring" word and as I mentioned before, the Gypsy Wanderings cartridge for the cut. I stamped a little loop de loop by the bee with Colorbox inks and a loop de loop from We are Memory Keepers - Maple Grove. The cloud is stamped (beginnings) and the sticker in the middle of the tree says "Make the most of every day". Something I truly believe in. :0) The caterpillar and butterflies are actually cardboard stickers from Cosmo Cricket - Pixie Liscious. The cloud is from a Crate Paper cutout sheet - Katlin Collections, Impression Die Cuts. I also used Stickles on the bee's wings and the tree. The bottom border came from another cutout sheet in my stash. Finally, I pop dotted a lot of the cute little die cuts and inked the edges of the whole sheet. Whew! That was a lot of information. So sorry bout that, but I get nutty if I forget one little thing! :p

Spring Wall Art

Spring Wall Art Tree Closeup

Spring Wall Art Bottom Left Closeup

Spring Wall Art Bottom Right Closeup

Spring Closeup

Spring Wall Art Sunshine Closeup

Now for the BEST part.... drumroll please..... and the winner will get.... a Paisley Cricut Cartridge!!! I have won a few cartridges and it brought me so much joy that I have decided to pay it forward and send out a cartridge to one lucky person!

All you have to do to win this is, be or become a follower and leave a comment with a way to get a hold of you. That's it! Super easy. :0) And yes, this is bribery to get you to come back to my site and to be my friend. ;0)