Perky Penny Paper Arts

Okay, so full confession: I'm addicted to anything with swirls ... anything! So when I was at Creativation 2018 and I saw the new Spellbinders Spring line from Becca Feekan called Romancing the Swirl, well let's just say it wasn't pretty -- I was drooling everywhere :)
When the beautiful Sweetheart Swirl Etched Dies arrived in my mail, it took me just about half an hour to come up with this idea. I live in Texas and burlap and lace are huge for weddings. With the dies, I happened to also get the Burlap and Canvas Platinum Products that are made to be cut out with the thicker steel rule dies. I decided to give them a whirl with my regular dies. The fabric pieces didn't fair so well but the burlap cut like a dream. And the coolest part is that it is burlap so it also gives off the smell of burlap to add to the experience.

This card is all about the little details. I started by taking my burlap piece and smearing (with my fingers) some white acrylic paint over it for a sh…

Today I will be sharing four cards I made while creating with the Simon Says Stamp June 2018 Card Kit Fly Away and other products from my stash. 
I love the beautiful Flowers Stamp set from the kit.  The main image is almost 4” x 7” in size -- huge!  It comes with three matching flowers so that you can color and build up dimensional flowers on your projects.  And some great sentiment builders in many different sizes -- I love the outlined words that you can color to match your project.

This stamp set inspired each of the four cards I made with this kit.  I really love the dimension created when you cut out this image and I decided to play with the papers in the same way.  The patterned papers in this kit are wonderful whole but a few of them begged to be butchered.

I used this stamp set as the main feature of my first card.  Using the Simon Says Stamp masking paper from last month's kit, I created a mask of the main stamp.   With such a large stamp, this did take a bi…

I am back again with another group of projects from my Altenew Educator Certification Program.  The name of this class says it all: In the Mood for Color.  It focuses on using different colors to convey the mood of the card.  I chose pink ... BIG surprise!  Pink inspires feelings of caring, sweetness, and sensitivity which are all wonderful reasons to send a card.  I chose the Cherry Blossom set from Altenew for my pinks and the Tropical Forest set to stamp my leaves.  These bright and cheerful combos are two of my favorites.
To prepare to make these cards, I created a couple of A2 backgrounds using the Altenew Classy Stripes Stencil in different ways.  The first one I created using Nuvo Glimmer Paste, a piece of card stock, Pink Diamond ink, a craft mat, my stencil, and a spatula.  This stencil is very easy to line up straight which I did and I attached it to my paper using Purple Tape.  I then flipped it over and placed it on my craft mat.  The Nuvo Glimmer Paste is the best I have …

Today we will be playing with the beautiful stamps from the My Monthly Hero Card Kit for June 2018.  Unfortunately this kit has sold out but the ideas below can be translated to many different stamp sets and inks.  My motto is "always think outside of the box."  Check out the video below and read this blog post to see how I was able to take this kit in several unique directions.
First let me introduce you to the pallet of Hero Arts ink colors I chose to stamp with today as seen in a trio of rainbow cards that start us off.   For the first card, I stamped each of the little Adirondack chairs in Neon Pink, Tangerine, Lemon Yellow, Neon Green, Deep Ocean (from the kit), and Orchid.  I then die cut them and placed foam squares on each one.  I took my top folding card base and placed it in my MISTI using my acetate grid to determine the placement of my sentiment.  I then stamped the sentiment in Soft Granite ink from the kit.  I know this is a light color for a sentiment but I r…

Do these situations sound familiar?  Father's Day is a few days away and you have yet to make a card.  Or some guy you know is having a birthday and you want to make a card but question putting day's worth of effort into it because he was one of "those" guys who won't appreciate all your hard work.  Well, if you said yes to either or both of these, I have just the post for you.  These are four fast and furious cards for the guys in your life.  Each of them could be made in a half hour or less, but still give you fun results and get your creative juices worked out.  Start by watching the video and then check out below for all of the dimensions etc.  And, above all, have fun :)

1. The Tool Chest (pictured above) Card Stock
   Red
     1 - 4” x 10” piece scored and folded in half to create a 4” x 5” card.
     1 - 1/2” x 4 1/2”
     1 - 3 3/4” x 1 1/4”
     2 - 3 3/4” x 1 1/2”
   Silver / Yellow
     1 - 2 1/2” x 2 3/4” and scraps silver for drawer handles
   Black
   …

Today I am sharing my niece's graduation card on YouTube.  The star of this card is the incredible and elegant Grand Cabinet 3D set from Spellbinders.  This set includes 6 dies that you can use to make several different dimensional or flat cards. This beautiful card will even fold flat to fit in a 6" x 6"  envelope (but I will be sending my niece's in a box).
Be sure to check out the accompanying video to see a quick run through of how I created all the different elements for this card, including the tassel and graduation hat.


To create my card, I die cut two each of the largest panel with the center cut out from Peacock paper from Simon Says Stamp and a Lime Green paper from my stash which I believe is Gina K designs Grass Green paper.  I then cut one of the same panel with the center intact for the back of my card.  I used the scraps to cut out two each of the numbers in both colors which I layered together; the two side panels; the Hooray background die from N…