After making yesterday’s card, I was left with a brightly colored laser cut paper. There’s no reason not to use that too, so the intricately cut paper became the focal point of today’s card.

This was pretty simple to assemble, with a sentiment stamped on a scrap piece of vellum. Two things to note however. One, a detail glue pen works wonders as a way to adhere small and finely cut items like this. And two, when stamping on vellum, make sure you use an ink that will dry on smooth surfaces. Ranger’s Archival ink and Staz-On from Tsukineko work wonderfully. A pigment ink, or Tim Holtz’s Distress inks will only leave you with a sad, smeared blob.

One more thing. I added the dots and lines on the sentiment banner after the card was finished because the banner felt bare to me. Do you all think that works? I’m of two minds about it.

Don’t forget to sign up for my mailing list so I can send you a card via snail mail! This one will be extra large, since it’s a 5×7 piece of laser cut paper, and I could not see any reason to trim it, especially since I won’t be sending my extras to Operation Write Home anymore. (In cased you missed it, since deployments have lowered, there’s been less demand for cards, so OWH has closed up shop for now.)

If you want to make this yourself, you can get most of the supplies from Amazon: (affiliate link)

In amongst the treasures I brought home with me from Arizona was a pack of Heidi Swapp laser cut papers. There were some lovely designs that I thought would be gorgeous by themselves, but that would also be fun to use as masks.

One of the papers is a pile of beautiful roses. I used it as a mask to create the background for this card.

To make the background, I pounced make up sponges loaded with a couple distress inks over the mask to color in the flowers. The card is finished off with a happy birthday rub on, decorative scissors, and a flower sticker from an ancient K & Company set.

Card making really doesn’t have to be complicated. If you want to make cards, remember, they don’t need fifteen layers of paper and 6 different techniques. Keep it simple. Especially if you’re going to be sending your cards through the mail. More complicated and dimensional cards can be damaged when mailing, unless you take precautions.

If you’d like to get this, or one of the other cards I make this month sent to you, make sure you’re on my mailing list. Just sign up in the box above!

If you’d like to make this card, you can find some of the supplies on Amazon: (affiliate links)

For days when you question your ability to create a nice looking card, there’s no reason not to try scraplifting, or CASEing, as it’s known in card making circles. (That’s copy and steal everything for those who want to know.)

When you’re CASEing a project, you look for an inspiration piece, and then make your own project based on it. It could be a complete copy, from papers to placing, or it could be a starting point that leads you in an entirely different direction.

Today’s card was inspired by this one from Pamela Ho on the Mama elephant website.

Don’t you just love that superhero, flying over the city-scape? I didn’t have the die cut city-scape, but I did have a city skyline stamp, so that led to this:

Rather than using markers, this little superhero is colored with pencils, and fussy cut, rather than die cut. She’s still super cute, though, don’t you think?

While we’re on the subject of CASEing, who’s your favorite card designer? I’m looking for some card-making inspiration!

If you want to make your own version of this, you can find some of the supplies at Amazon: (affiliate link)

You know what’s a great way to relax and be creative? Coloring. There’s something very like meditation going on when you’re coloring. Although, some people find coloring to be stressful. All that staying inside the lines rules. My fifth grade teacher once told me I was coloring wrong because I wasn’t coloring all in the same direction. While that comment stuck in my head, it never really bothered me, since I knew she was wrong. How did I know she was wrong? From watching my parents taking their art classes.

Art has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.

So what does coloring have to do with today’s card? That’s the technique I used to create the main image, of course.

These adorable Tim Holtz robots were colored with copic markers, and the dials on the two left hand ones were embossed with dimensional adhesive to give them a nice glossy, rounded look.

A stamped sentiment, and a couple screw-like brads, and the card is done. What do you think?

If you want to make something like this, you can try Amazon for some of the supplies. (affiliate links)

It’s November, and you know what that means: cards, cards, and more cards, all month long. And, if you’re on my mailing list, I’ll be sending you an email, asking for your snail mail address, so I can send one of these cards to you as a thank you for being a reader! You know you want a card, so sign up for my email list! Top right hand side of the page!

Let’s start off with a simple card, and get some scraps used up.

This started with the leftover pieces of the kit I put together while at the ScrapHappy family reunion in June. The sentiment is trimmed from the branding strip of one of the pieces of paper. And since I apparently can’t let a card leave my hands without stamping on it, there are some shadow planes stamped underneath the sentiment.

How do you use up scraps? Do you even try to do that?

In case you want to recreate this yourself, you can find a few of the supplies on Amazon (affiliate links):