simple dreams

3-D Punched Tree Scene Christmas Card

What's up?!? Two posts in two days - I'm just giddy with excitement over having the opportunity to finally get some of these ideas that are in my head out on to paper!!! Finally the dreaded taxes are complete (for the most part) and I NEED to play - I've been getting a little punchy here lately with all that bookkeeping! (OK, OK - I hear the groans now from my VERY bad pun, so I'll move right along - LOL!)

I cannot begin to tell you how much fun it is to play with all these fab toys!

This 3-D tree is one I have seen on numerous occasions, I wanted to test it out with the new Martha Stewart Christmas Tree punch and I'm thrilled with the results. I can see all sorts of uses for this little tree! Replace the letter A in PEACE with a dimensional tree, or insert little trees in to the Kaisercraft Advent Calendar, put it on a tag, or create some rolling hills to decorate with a stand of trees... the ideas are endless - I wish that there was more time in the day!

Simply punch out five little trees, in this instance I punched two from the striped paper and three from the patterned green. It is important to score the trees right down the center before attempting to fold them. I like to use my Mini-Scor It for this part of the project. The score line that the Scor-it creates is so superior to any other type of scoring I had used previous to discovering this wonderful gadget. This allows for a very precise fold and makes it easy to fit them together.

As you can see I applied one tree at a time, putting Perfect Paper Adhesive (PPA - I love this glue because it does not "soak" the paper) on one half of the tree.

Then using my teflon bone folder I press the entire length of the tree to ensure proper adhesion.

Becky has been creating MARVELOUS sewing tutorials (for further inspiration visit In Touch - An Adventure in Sewing and the CLASSroom here and here.) It is so awesome to have her as part of our team that teaches and inspires. One of the tips that I find the most useful is when needing to turn my project I make certain the needle is in the down position and "skewered" through my paper.

Then lift the foot into the up position and spin the paper before continuing to sew. 

Using this method I was able to create my "corner star" for this card. This particular look would also make fab photo corners!

Using the star that is included alongside the tree, I mounded it with PPA and sprinkled it generously with Brownstone Glitter. Just a side note about this glitter. I must tell you that in looking at products to carry in our store I felt that the colors, selection and value of this set was excellent and therefore the reason for making it available to you. The zing this glitter gives a project is simply spectacular.

Be certain to allow it to sit and dry before moving it to your project.

One of the fabulous Webster's Pages pages made an ideal setting for the tree (unfortunately at this very minute we do not have any left up on the store, BUT a little birdie tells me that our stamp of the month packet is going to blow your socks off this month. SO be certain to stick close to your computer come November 1st to get first dibs on it!) along with the new Christmas Cheer Block made the perfect backdrop for this little tree. A little Webster's trim, stitching and glitter and project complete! 

Now go get punchy girls - Halloween is tomorrow night and the clocks "Fall back"... so you will have an extra hour on Sunday to do a little creating!

stamps: Memory Box Christmas Cheer Block

paper: Webster's Pages Home for the Holidays & Winter Wings, Memory Box Dill Notecard

ink: Memento Rich Cocoa

accessories: Martha Stewart Large Christmas Tree punch, Webster's Pages Home for the Holidays & Winter Wings Trim, Martha Stewart Essential Glitter - Brownstone, Perfect Paper Adhesive

P.S. For those who wonder what it is that I am up to during the day you can now find me on Facebook. Just search for Ellen Hutson and send me your friend request :) Have a safe, fun and creative weekend!

Cards for Kate

There is a little girl and her family who need our help. They need all the prayers and positive thoughts we can offer - please visit www.prayforkate.com for more information.

As I prepared to send my own daughters off to school today my thoughts went out to the McRae family. To be blessed with healthy and happy children is one of the greatest gifts I have been given. I cannot ever begin to imagine putting myself in their shoes. I do know how hard it was as my Dad fought his cancer, so I can never imagine what it is like to fight that fight with my child.

There are three very special ladies doing something special for Kate and her family. Jennifer McGuire, Jana Millen and Kristina Proffitt have organized "Cards for Kate" and I want to join in, and hope to brighten this family's day and give them courage, by sending a card for both Kate and her parents.

As I thought about this adorable little girl, I wanted to create something that would bring a smile to her beautiful, sunny face.

I thought this cute little Panda could present her with a bouquet of flowers...

and some special stamped hugs. My hope and prayer is that sweet, little Kate will soon be healthy, happy and running around enjoying life; that she will soon be sent off to school!

Creating something for the parents was so much harder for me. What do you say to someone enduring such incredible stress? When things are not right with my children I just wish that I could take their place and yet we all know that this is impossible. I turned to this stamp because as I read through this verse, it reminded me again to believe, to have faith and courage. I want these parents who are complete strangers to know that there are many out here in cyberville who are sending our positive thoughts and prayers, in faith that their daughter will soon be healthy once more.

So each day I will think positive thoughts as I send a prayer for Kate. I hope you will join in this mission of encouragement. Inside I shared a verse from Scripture Essentials in hopes of giving this family courage in the long days yet to come. Head over to Jennifer's blog for the full details!

stamps: Garden Panda, Cutie Pie, Get Well Centers, Paisley Scrapblock, Cancer is so Limited, Scripture Essentials I 

paper: Basic Grey Lemonade, Basic Grey Lemonade Take Note, Memory Box Key Lime CS, Websters Pages Hello Beautiful Journaling Cards,

ink: Distress Ink Pads - Antique Linen, Tea Dye, Walnut Stain; Memento Rich Cocoa and Tuxedo Black

markers/pencils: Copic Marker - W1

other: Memory Box Azalea Pink Jewels and Mint Pearls; A Muse Heart Twinkle Stickers; Martha Stewart Classic Butterfly, 3-in-1 Classic Butterfly, Monarch Butterfly, Glassene Butterfly, Doily Lace Edger, and Mini Heart Scallops Edger; Icicle Stickles, Fancy Tags, Inkssentials Opaque Pen, Spica Glitter Pens Set B

Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly Wintry Owls

The title of tonight's post just makes me giddy! Why, you might ask? Well... the answer is simple, Cosmo Cricket is in the house and I just couldn't stand it, I had to create something immediately! There were so many other things I should have been doing, but...

Debbie has been killin' me with her fabulous, sewed creations and all the goodness she makes me dream about when she uses the Cosmo Cricket papers. Needless to say you can truly see her influence in my little mounded hills, it only made me wish for a better sewing machine here at work - LOL! Oh to be able to adjust my zig-zag stitches :)

The heat in the warehouse today was the complete opposite of this wintry scene. Just playing with this gorgeous, monochromatic color scheme, did refresh my spirits though.

I also adore these wintry owls and so creating this card was a snap (other than the sewing - LOL!) Using Natural White cardstock to coordinate with the soft white in the Jolly by Golly papers, I stamped the owl using Memento Rich Cocoa. Using only an E42 Copic marker and my colorless blender I was able to give my Snowy Owls a softened, aged look.

One of the products that I carry in the store, but haven't talked a lot about, or had time to use, is the Martha Stewart glitter set. When Maureen brought it by my office one day I just couldn't take my eyes off of the beautiful colors. Then when I saw the shaker top and the ease with which the top can be removed to return the glitter to the container, I just had to have it. This is the first post of what I hope to be many, in which I get to share some of these beautiful colors and gorgeous sparkle with you.

When I am determining which color to use, I simply lay it down on to the paper that I want to use. Next, I place a little of my 2-way glue in to a corner that I know I won't be using to do a final "test." If this meets with my approval I am set to go. This keeps me from having to recreate my project if I happen to pick a color that doesn't work well. In this case the Aquamarine Crystal was incredible with the Cosmo papers!

As you can see I highlighted the trees and the curvy hills with this gorgeous accent. You may also spot some items that I used to create this card that will be going up in our store as soon as I can get pictures taken and edited. We are adding a few more Martha Stewart punches to the mix. The snowflakes are incredible when mounted together with buttons and the small tag punch is perfect for those teeny, tiny sentiments from Memory Box and CHF.

I can't imagine having to wait any longer for these fab 6x6 paper pads to arrive. It has been well worth the wait and the begging! Julie and Eric, I thank you for listening to me and I hope that I can do your product justice!

Just as an aside, the Boyfriend mini decks are scheduled to arrive "hopefully" by next week, along with coordinating ribbon for the all four collections! I'm a VERY happy girl - can you see the ear to ear grin?!?

stamps: Wintry Owls, Warmest Wishes

ink: Memento Rich Cocoa Ink Pad, Distress Tea Dye Ink Pad

markers: Copic E42 and Colorless Blender

papers: Memory Box Robin's Egg Notecard, Neenah Natural White, Cosmo Cricket Jolly by Golly

other: Martha Stewart Essentials Glitter, Webster's Pages Classic Trim Collection, Marrakech Buttons, Martha Stewart Snowflake Punch and Small Scalloped Tag Punch (hopefully should be up later tomorrow)

Upcoming DVD and Sweet Thing Valentine

Marianne has let the "cat out of the bag," so to speak. It is with a slight bit of apprehension and a great deal of excitement that I will be visiting the Copic booth #4147 at CHA this next week. It appears that they will have a preview of an upcoming video on display at their booth and guess who it features? Yes, you guessed it - it's me. I feel so privileged to have been invited by Copic to share my passion for their product and for airbrushing! Please be gentle on your reviews - LOL! This is the first time I have filmed anything and needless to say I am definitely not an expert in making "movies," but I am passionate about this product and about teaching and so I sincerely hope that you will learn something new and helpful from this upcoming DVD. The video crew from PushPlayPro were fabulous to work with and helped me feel comfortable with the whole "process." My understanding is that this video should be released in the last half of 2009 and that this is a preview only. 

What could be sweeter than "sweets" for Valentines? This little treasure of an image is SO easy to work with - it is from this year's Memory Box Valentine collection and is called Cake Stand. Not only does it work for Valentines, but it would also make a cute Bridal Shower or Wedding image.

 

As with many of my projects I decided to do a little experimenting to figure out what new look I could achieve. I began by inking the cake stand first with Dazzle Champagne. Having recently received the reinkers for these pads I have reinked my stamp pad and I am pleased to tell you that the result is much better than it was after using my pad a number of times. I had noticed that the bling had subsided greatly and so I am extremely pleased to see that using the reinker on the pad brought it back to life again. This is not where my experiment ends though. In the past I have used dye ink pads to emboss simply by first inking my stamp with VersaMark and then inking it with the dye ink. So I decided to try it by combining VersaMark Dazzle Champagne together with Memento Chocolate Chip - YUM!!! I topped this off with clear embossing powder and then heat set it.

If you try this technique I would like to make certain that you only lightly tap your "dazzled" stamp on to your Memento pad being you do not want to transfer all that bling to your otherwise pristine pad. If you do happen to get some transfer I typically will just use a clean paper towel to remove it and then add a little reinker to my pad following the clean-up. It's amazing what a "beating" my pads can take and still work as intended, but I always work quickly to clean up afterwards - not letting it sit and settle in for too long. The pad shown above has not been cleaned, so you can see that a little "bling" does transfer, but most is left on the stamp image as shown on the right.

 

I then added color to the flowers and leaves, as well as a little to the cake itself using Copic Markers. I whitened the cake a little with my Prismacolor white color pencil. Next I felt that my notecard needed just a hint of distressing being the papers I was working with had that feel. So I used my blending tool together with Adirondack Watermelon to distress the Cotton Candy notecard.

 

I'm not certain that you can see the bling in the cake stand, but being I know what I am looking for I can see the mica flecks from the Dazzle pad. The cake was begging for a lovely coating and so I applied glue using my 2-way glue pen and added Diamond Dust for a finishing touch.

 

I thought I would once again share my "tweezer tip" for tying ribbon. I am ALL thumbs and until my friend Taresa showed me this I would always struggle - now I can even tie bows Ü

Using some of the new Bittersweet paper, together with the new Memory Box Sugardrop, to add layers and scalloped pieces to accent the base of the cake stand pulling it all together.

 

Finally to complete this little card I inked my heart and kissed it with Paisley to remove some of the ink. I find that this technique works best when using a Pigment or Chalk based ink to stamp your main solid image, dye inks haven't given me as crisp a definition as the pigment inks.

 

I stamped this beautiful heart print on the interior, along with the sentiment, "hope your valentines is sweet! So get your sweet treats ready, Valentines is right around the corner.

You Light up my Life

I am going to date myself today - LOL! I don't know why, but Debbie Boone's song has been playing through my mind today as I made this card. "You light up my life, you give me hope, to carry on..." OK, now I'm chuckling to myself because if you are my age you are going to have that song playing through your head now for hours.

 

Simple elegance - it is a look I love! When I saw this new Memory Box image, Crystal Chandelier I knew I just had to bling it up!

 

I wanted to share one of the reasons for having the Circle and Square Gemstones. They work great as circles and squares, BUT... they also are fantastic for twisting and reshaping in to other desired shapes. As you can see in the photo above the gemstones are attached with a line of adhesive. I simply use my craft knife and cut them apart, using the tip of the knife to lift them off the surface. I then apply them to the surface as you can see below.

The variety of sizes really works wonderfully on this chandelier.  To add to the effect of the crystals I added Clear Glaze to each.

 

I then made a "frame" in the Basic Grey Ambrosia paper by cutting and embossing a small rectangle die. I placed the finished chandelier in behind this paper to allow it to be set back in this "window."

Next I added my sentiment along with a little more bling. Hindsight is always such a good thing. If I had planned the final layout of my card I would have spaced the Ambrosia paper just a little differently. I wanted the sentiment to stand out from the pattern and so I placed it on one of the gray spaces. So my suggestion for you is to plan your layout before you begin cutting your paper, don't fly by the seat of your pants like I do - LOL! Preplanning helps you to get the spacing correct the first time Ü

Scrapbook Builder

I hope that you enjoy the diversity between posts. I was laughing with the girls in the office here today being I find it impossible to define my "style." Chickens, chandeliers, tickets, flowers - I'm all over the place lately - LOL! Be certain to stop by the CLASSroom for another card I created. Thanks for stopping by again today.