#2 of 5

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Driven to Ink

Here is my next Cupcake card that follows a similar format to yesterdays card, but it has a portrait orientation instead of landscape.

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I wish I had the time to use Liquid Applique on all 99 cards I’m making because I absolutely LOVE the result. I sprinkled ultra fine prisma glitter over the liquid applique on this cupcake before heating it up. I’m not one of those people who has the patience to let Liquid Applique dry before heating it and I actually prefer the bubbly, fluffy effect you achieve from heating it while it’s still wet. If you were to allow it to dry first it would be slightly smoother when heated.

I’ll be back on Thursday to post my next two cards as I won’t have internet access tomorrow and will spend the day “baking up” some cupcake cards. See you then!

Gift Card holder

Posted on December 16, 2009 by Driven to Ink

It’s been a long time since I last entered a Hero Arts Challenge, so I thought I’d give it a go with this card I made on Monday night…

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I still haven’t mastered the art of photographing my cards but someday I’ll figure it out. I am LOVING the felt shapes by Little Yellow Bicycle. I stuck this felt ornament to a white circle and stamped an Autumn Leaves image in the center with two shades of VersaColor ink, then glittered it up with my Sakura Stardust pen. The front of the card is scored at 1″ from the right side and folded back to hold a gift card in place. I secured the top and bottom with a bit of Scor-tape. The sentiment is from Hero Arts and the green shape is one of the AccuCut Antique Accent Frames.

I have 52 cards left to make and two days off to do it… send some creative vibes my way tomorrow, please!

Gingham Mittens

Posted on December 2, 2009 by Driven to Ink

Here’s a sweet little card I made featuring the Petite Red Gingham paper from A Muse with an AccuCut mitten die-cut. This card was super quick and easy to make, which is important in these last few weeks leading up to Christmas.

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I used White Liquid Applique on the tops of the mittens and heat it up before letting it dry to get a nice fluffy effect. The A Muse sentiment is one of my favourites – the mix of fonts is so cute.

If you’re in Newfoundland, check out The Paperie Blog for a Giveaway this week! I’ll reveal the stamp featured on the Card Portfolio over there on Saturday, so feel free to check back 🙂

A little bird told me…

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Driven to Ink

Baby Annoucements

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A Muse Stamps used: Elephant & Baby and Little bird told me. This was a really easy project thanks to the AccuCut Card Portfolio die-cut – I cut a few corners by using the printer to print both the inside and outside of the annoucements, as seen below. I used the A Muse Kitchen Purple and Gingham pink papers for the portfolio, as well as A Muse twinkle stickers and ribbon.

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Welcome to the world baby Sarah Emily Baird Locke! This gift was a real crowd pleaser at Ally’s shower, I did up two matching portfolios, each with 12 annoucements in them (24 total) and I decorated one annoucement in each portfolio so she would know what they were going to look like. I had to take them back so I could print the details inside when Sarah was born, but that could be avoided by leaving a line for the mom to fill in the information herself. The elephants on the cards are all hand stamped and cut out of Bo Bunny double dot cardstock. I included a pack of pink photo corners with the gift so All would be able to attach her own chosen photos before sending out the annoucements. I’ll have to remember to post a picture of the inside as well when mine arrives 🙂

Tricks & Treats

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Driven to Ink

Holy Mackrel, it’s SNOWING in St. John’s, Newfoundland today! It’s actually a combination of snow and torrential rain – eeeew. I’m tucked away in the cosy office at The Paperie waiting for my ride. I made this card for a Halloween Tricks & Treats class I’m teaching on Sunday…

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A Muse Stamps Used: Crooked House, Tiny Witch, Parade, Happy Trails. When I was doing the ordering a few weeks ago I totally messed up and forgot to order the new A Muse “Boo” sentiment. It would’ve been absolutely perfect for this card because of the nice bold font – most of the sentiments I had didn’t show up on the green Gingham paper. I ended up using an acrylic alphabet set to spell “Boo” which turned out okay, but still wasn’t quite what I had envisioned. The Happy Trails stamp worked out great with the little Parade of costumed kiddies – love that stamp so much!

Here’s another card I made for the aforementioned class….

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A Muse Stamps used: Boris, Be Scary. I always refer to interactive cards as “trick cards” – this was my first-ever attempt at a spinner card and I was surprised by how easy it was. The tutorial I watched recommended you use two pennies, but I didn’t have any and was eager to try it out so I cut out two chipboard circles that were roughly the same size and it worked perfectly (and it was 2 cents cheaper! ;))

No Colouring – the sequel!

Posted on September 24, 2009 by Driven to Ink

Here’s another card I made for the A Muse “No Coloring Zone” challenge.

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Ok, even *I* impressed myself with this idea (although I’m pretty easily impressed). I printed off a wintery Starbucks cup from the internet and stamped the “To Go” cup over it, then cut it out and popped it up with dimensional foam tape in the center card. The sentiment is originally all one line on the actual stamp but it didn’t fit as well so I staggered the sentiment by stamping one word at a time.

Here’s another card I made with the same idea, but I cut out the logo from the cup above and adhered it to the plain white cup – unfortunately I did not have the right size circle punch for the logo, but I made do… as you can probably tell, I never use a stamp positioner so my cups aren’t all aligned perfectly.

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I’m kinda sad that the Mod Dots Notecards are discontinued, but the plethora of beautiful new papers coming out definitely makes up for it.

Look for more Blog postings from me in the near future – I have gratefully inherited a laptop of my very own! Watch out Internet – here I come!

No Colouring Zone

Posted on September 21, 2009 by Driven to Ink

A Muse Challenge: No Coloring Zone

I’ve been without a personal computer for the last few months which is why my online activity has been limited, at best. It has been maddening, but now that I’m back in action I thought I would make a card for the latest A Muse challenge over in the A Muse Lounge…

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A Muse Stamps: Elephant & baby, Tiny bird, Little bird told me.

For this card I paper pieced both the Tiny bird and Elephant & baby using A Muse papers. My friend just had her second baby girl on the 17th and I used the Elephant stamp to create her Birth Announcements as well (I’ll post pictures later).

I’ve been trying to come up with a clever Header for my blog – something to match the name, but I have been thus far uninspired. Luckily my friend Marg loaned me all of her A Muse stamp today and I spied the Octopus in there so inspiration might just be an inkpad away…

Birthday Birds

Posted on March 1, 2009 by Driven to Ink

I used a reverse masking technique for this card by punching a 1.25″ circle out of a post-it note (near the sticky side), then stuck the reverse-mask down over each dot one at a time so I could stamp each bird inside of the dot without going outside the lines.

Birthday Birds

Supplies: Hero Arts Decorative Birds, You Hoo Owls, Birthday Messages, Bird Greetings, and Clear Smooth Gemstones (coloured with yellow Sharpie); A Muse Mod Dots Notecard; Tombow Dual Brush Pens; EK Success Circle Punch, Signo White Uni-ball pen; Onyx Black VersaFine Ink

Happy Cupcake Day

Posted on February 20, 2009 by Driven to Ink

I made this card for another Paperie class a few weeks ago – I thought it was a stroke of genius to add some micro beads to the liquid applique before heating it. Then I googled the “liquid applique” + “micro beads” and saw many other bloggers who had the same flash of inspiration. Ah well, I am still waiting for that ONE perfect, original idea to strike. Someday…

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Happy Cupcake Day

Supplies: A Muse Cupcake Builder Set; Marvy Punches and Liquid Applique; Tombow Dual Brush Pens; Stix2 Microbeads; Onyx Black VersaFine Ink; various cardstocks.

Brooklyn's bunny…

Posted on February 5, 2009 by Driven to Ink

More exciting news – I got an honourable mention on the Hero Arts Blog for last week’s Hearts challenge! I made this card for my neice Brooklyn’s 2nd birthday because she loves bunnies.

Happy Birthday Bunny

Supplies: Hero Arts Happy Day Animals, Three Stitched Hearts, Birthday Messages, Celebrate Simple Joy (tiny heart); Signo White Uni-ball Gel pen; Pinecone VersaColor Ink; Frost White Colorbox Pigment Ink; Watercolor Pencils; Kraft cardstock; miscellaneous buttons & ribbon.

to blog or not to blog…

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Driven to Ink

I’m slowly easing into this, maybe I’m overly ambitious to attempt the daunting task of updating two blogs… I also maintain the blog for The Paperie, where I work full-time. Most of the cards seen here have likely appeared on the Paperie blog as well.

Here’s one card I made recently… who says you have to stop making Christmas cards once Christmas is over?

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Supplies: Hero Arts DesignBlock Flourish, Script Writing & sentiment; Basic Grey Winterland (Wreath); X-Mas Red and Lime Green Stickles; Pinecone VersaColor Ink; Spanish Moss & Crimson VersaFine Ink.

I love the technique of using Stickles to colour in the berries and leaves instead of markers or pencil leads. I learned that little trick from an A Muse card sample that was sent to The Paperie.

Classic Window

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Driven to Ink

I love the Classic Window stamp from A Muse – the options are only limited by your imagination. In the card below I thought it would be funny if this clever Bandit was coming out of the window on Halloween with his loot – what better night to walk around in your burglar garb?

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Supplies: A Muse Classic Window, Bandit, Tiny Pumpkin, and Happy Halloween stamps; Tombow Markers (Purple, Grey, Orange, Black); H20 WaterColour Brush; pencil (to draw “siding”); Onyx Black VersaFine Ink, various cardstock.

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Supplies: A Muse Classic Window; Hero Arts Halloween Stencil Print, Ink’n’Stamp Web & Cat stamps; EK Success Circle Punch; Tombow Markers (Orange, Yellow); H20 WaterColour Brush; Onyx Black VersaFine Ink; VersaMark; ColorBox Tangerine Chalk ink (to ink the moon); Reminisce Holoshimmer patterned paper; various cardstocks.

I'm a winner!!!

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Driven to Ink

Forgive my excitement, but this is the first time I’ve won something I was seriously excited about since the time I won a trip to B.C. back in the twelfth grade…

Check out the Hero Arts Blog today – the Countdown Calendar that I made for a class I taught this past Sunday at The Paperie won FIRST PLACE in the Hero Arts Paper Challenge last week! VERY thrilling, especially considering all of the ridiculously talented folks who submit to the contests.

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Supplies: Karen Foster 8×8 Countdown Calendar; Making Memories Fa La La Patterned Papers; Hero Arts Jolly Christmas ClearDesign Stamps; EK Success Paper Shapers 5/8″ Circle Punch; double sided tape, Basic Grey Precision File Set (to sand edges).

This Calendar can be made in 2 hours or less! All you need to do is cut twenty-five 1.5″ squares out of some patterned paper and adhere the squares to the box. Using double sided paper, like the Making Memories Fa La La collection, will make it even easier to coordinate colours.

Before taping, you should place all of your squares on the surface of the Calendar to plan where each colour will go. Then work on one box at a time, tracing the half circle on the reverse side of each square with pencil so you know exactly where to place your punch. The finger openings are slightly off-center on some of the boxes so tracing is a good way to ensure you have proper paper placement each time.

Once your half circles are punched, adhere the squares to each box and sand the edges with the Basic Grey File kit, using the largest file for the sides and the smaller file for the finger openings. Adhere the number stickers that came with the Calendar to the right corners of each box.

Stamp a few critters from the Hero Arts Jolly Christmas ClearDesign stamp set on Ivory paper, colour, cut out and adhere to some of the boxes, trimming off the excess so the animals appear to be peeking. That’s all there is to it! This project can be used year after year, and if you ever got sick of the colour scheme you could turn the individual boxes around and decorate the other side!