Up, Up and Away!

Hidy Ho, crafty peeps!

Ok...I'm exhausted. Who knew creating and crafting could be such hard work?  I'm here again with another installment of my "Sample Stampede". Today I'm offering up 2 cards I made using (what else) Karen Burniston dies!!!! No surprise there, right?

The first card I'm sharing I made using the Lucy Label Pop Up die set. I made this one especially for Maria. See, Maria (the owner of ItsCheaperThanTherapy.com) also owns and operates a hot air balloon touring company called 

A Balloon Adventure

I know Maria loves hot air balloons, so I decided to make a card honoring one of her passions. It's pretty unassuming on the outside...

But, open it up and VOILA!!!!

Before you ask...the strings on the balloon are real...they are made from embroidery floss. The "net" covering the balloon is something I created years ago in Photoshop. I print it out on transparency then cut out a balloon from whatever patterned paper I desire at the moment. The balloon is suspended above the basket using a piece of clear plastic that I saved from some packaging (I hardly EVER throw anything out). The tree and clouds are dies from Karen's All Season Tree die set.

So, thank you, Maria, for believing in me and my art.

The next card I did for her upcoming show is just a fun St. Patty's card. I decided I would send her 2 "seasonal" cards for her spring shows. For this one I used the Katie Label Pivot Card die. I gotta tell you, I love these Pivot cards. Leave it to Karen to come up with an easy-peasy way to make a 3-D interactive card. Here is me li'l bit o' Ireland card...from the outside

 And here it be, from the inside by begora! (I have no idea what that means, but it sounded Irishy). Look! There's even a pot o' gold at the end of that rainbow!!!

Well, that's all the samples for now. Now, I have to clean up my studio after Hurricane Torrey hit. Then, all next week I'm preparing for our garage sale by sorting through junk in the garage (what a novel idea). Next weekend is garage sale time...then the NEXT weekend after that is when JODI WILL BE HERE!!!

Jodi's coming out to play!!! She and I are attending a coloring retreat while she's here. Just think...an entire WEEKEND doing nothing but coloring. I know that the vast majority of the women that will be there are Copic gals...but who knows, maybe I can convert a couple to the Prismacolor Pencil side.

Who knows?

Ingredients:
Lucy Label Pop Up Dies by Karen Burniston (Elizabeth Crafts)
All Seasons Tree Dies by Karen Burniston (Elizabeth Crafts)
Katie Label Pivot Card Dies by Karen Burniston (Elizabeth Crafts)
Edge punch (Martha Stewart)
Leprechaun image by Dulemba
Pot of gold image (public domain)
Spots and Dots embossing folder by ProvoCraft
Basket stamp (Sunday International)
Prismacolor Pencils
Patterned paper (DCWV Green Stack for balloon card)
cardstock
transparency
ribbon
embroidery floss

The Easter Bunny Cometh

Hidy Ho, crafty peeps!

So, when is Easter this year anyway? I have to look at a calendar, because I don't do the whole Lenten season thing, and Easter candy has been available in the store since Feb. 15...so I am clueless.

But that does remind me of a funny story, which I will now share with you...whether you want to read it or not.

I attended a Catholic university for my undergrad studies (and graduate school too, come to think of it). And, although they couldn't FORCE us to participate in the Catholic traditions, we were "highly encouraged" to attend Mass regularly. I mean, when 90% of the nursing-school staff were nuns or ex-nuns it was just one of those unspoken and not required but "expected" things. Know what I mean?

The nursing school was run by the iron fist of Sister Mary Jeremy Buckman. And let me tell you, she was the quintessential nun--right down to her orthopedic hose and sensible black shoes.

So, there it was, about this time of year...my junior year of nursing school. In fact, it was Ash Wednesday, to be exact. I (being the non-Catholic person I am), didn't want to spend my precious free time attending Mass, let alone Mass in Latin that I couldn't understand, to receive ashes that I didn't particularly want. But, I knew, if I showed up to class without that telltale smudge on my forehead, I would be the target of scornful nun-looks burning straight to my very soul, and be subjected to seeing pursed nun-lips frowning at me in disapproval (you Catholic school people know EXACTLY what I'm talking about). I'm certain (if it had been allowed) there would probably have been a wooden ruler and several Hail Marys involved in my rebuking, somehow.

I could not let that happen.

So, as I was hurrying to class, I stopped off at the nearest cigarette ashtray receptacle thing, and proceeded to smear my forehead with the ashes of a butt I retrieved out of the sand.

WHAT?

Like nobody's EVER done that.

WHAT?

Ok...enough reminiscing before I condemn myself to life in purgatory.

Too late.

Here is another sample I created for It's Cheaper Than Therapy using the new Accordion Oval die and matching border dies by Karen Burniston. Sure, it's all pretty and frou-frou on the outside. But you know me better.

On the inside it has CHOCOLATE (or a reasonable facsimile of chocolate) along with a good dash of Torrey-esque humor.

I reinforced all the hinges with tape, so that Maria can show it over and over at her next show without them ripping (in all hopes). I think next time, I'll just coat one side of the hinges with clear lacquer. That will fortify them!

I made the chocolate bunnies in Photoshop and printed them out on chocolate brown cardstock. I added shadowing with my Prismacolor pencils and then coated them with clear lacquer to make them shiny...like chocolate.

It's a simple card, but one that I think showcases Karen's dies well. The next card I'm making for Maria involves a hot air balloon...stay tuned.

Ingredients:
Pop It Up Accordion Oval Die by Karen Burniston (Elizabeth Craft)
Oval Frame Edge dies by Karen Burniston (Elizabeth Craft)
Patterned paper
ribbon
clear lacquer
Prismacolor Pencils
cardstock
stamping ink

And so the samples begin

Hidy Ho, crafty peeps!

As some of you know, I am one of the artists that makes samples for It's Cheaper Than Therapy. I recently convinced Maria (the owner) she needed to hire Jodi too. So she did. Together, Jodi and I are gonna be the sample designers for Maria's store. Maria carries the full line of Karen Burniston's new dies (which I adore). For those of you who are not in the know, Karen parted ways with Sizzix and is now working with Elizabeth Craft. Even though Maria is "the Sizzix Lady", she is still carrying Karen's dies, because 1) They're awesome, and 2) She loves Karen (who doesn't?).

Maria travels pretty much all the time going all over the country to scrapbook shows/conventions. Her booth is amazing. It's 40 ft. long and houses floor to ceiling dies and die-cutting accessories. Here is a pic of her booth from the recent Scrapbook Expo in Grapevine, TX. Maria, Julie and I set up the booth. I inventoried everything and the 3 of us arranged it all on the display racks. It took an entire day.

(The booth has 2 more sections at either end that I couldn't fit in with my camera.)

Maria sent me home with some of Karen's dies to create some samples. This first one I created, I used 6 of Karen's dies (I combined them all). I used the Pop It Up Accordion Circle and Accordion Fancy Label dies (along with their coordinating Circle frame, and Fancy frame dies) to create the following piece which I used as my "lure" to get people to stop by my demo table...and it TOTALLY worked. It was terrific eye candy. 

(yes, I was at the expo demoing all weekend).

I alternated using the circle then label dies to create my..."Create" banner. Since the tabs didn't line up for the middle sections...I cut them off completely and fashioned my own tabs using clear plastic (from some leftover packaging). I snapped this photo with my phone, so yeah...that explains the "quality".

Here is another sample I made using Karen's new Pop It Up Garden Bench die and the Agatha Edge die. The bench die is SO ornate! Here is the card both open and closed. I used the edge die to create the top "flap" of the card. It also acts as a support for the string of floating hearts and allows the hearts to dangle freely.

 

 

My final sample for today is one of Stephanie Barnard's new Flip-Its dies. I love her Flip-Its cards... a LOT. They make creating an interactive/3-D card SUPER easy...like it literally takes less than 30 seconds to make the base for one of her cards (I had people time me). Here is a card I made for the show. One really cool feature of these dies, is that it comes as a kit with dies that cut out all the parts to perfectly fit the spaces of the card...like the orange polkadot section, the blue background...etc. Each kit comes with like 9 or more dies! 

(Forgive the quality of the photos, I took them with my phone)

card mostly closed

and here it is open

More samples are coming. Maria needs them for her next show in a couple of weeks. So, as I get them done, I'll share them here. Thank you for stopping by! 

Happy Crafting, y'all!

Ingredients:

Karen Burniston dies (Elizabeth Craft): 

     Pop It Up Accordion Circle

     Pop It Up Accordion Fancy Label

     Pop It Up Circle Frame Edge

     Pop It Up Fancy Frame Edge

     Pop It Up Garden Bench

     Pop It Up Agatha Edge

Sizzix dies:

     Stephanie Barnard Flip Its Triple Square set

     Stephanie Barnard Framelits Birthday Cake set

     Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers Mini Cat & Raven

End of Summer Digital stamp - Mo Manning

Patterned Paper/elements (Little Yellow Bicycle, DCWV, misc)

Ribbon

Brads

Embroidery floss

stamping ink

Prismacolor pencils

cardstock