For April and Hodari

This is the season!! Wedding season that is... My hubby's cousin is getting married this week-end... :-)

I wanted a card that was simple, monochromatic, with texture and somewhat chic.

I don't know if I achieved it, but it doesn't matter because I like the card! LOL! :-D

In case you don't know, my very favorite thing to do on/with paper is embossing it... :-) <3Here I combined my 2 loves... dry embossing (background) + heat embossing (sentiment). :-D
My ribbons are getting a little jealous of all the twine I have been using lately... ;-) so I married them together too... white sheer ribbon + colored twine = love. And the 2 pearls also reinforce the idea of a pair...

Now let me reassure you, I don't think about all of this while I make the card, LOL (I am not THAT crazy yet... ;-))... I just like to see meaning in things, so after I'm done I see little details and give them a reason to be there... :-)

Love Always

Today is Thursday which means more projects from the My Thoughts Exactly's Design Team.
It's Thienly and Lenae's turn today. I decided to add a simple card to their projects...

I sat at my desk with the intention of doing something simple, but it was one of those days when my brain doesn't want to connect... There was no way I was using my Cricut, and I was going in all kind of different directions till I finally took a deep breath and pulled out my heart dies... :-D
I made the card with my daughter in mind, because I think kids need to be repeated sometimes that we love them no matter what... ;-)
I cut out some hearts from an old novel and the big red one is made of felt. See, this is why I love my dies, I can cut though different types of materials, it's faster than setting up the Cricut, and it is rather foolproof. The Cricut completely tore the novel pages no matter what settings I tried in the past... :-(



For my sentiment I used the Birds & Bees set, and mixed several stamps, making my own little saying by inking only parts of them. How versatile is that?... This is a pun set but so much more than that. It's fun to try to come up with more and more sayings... :-D

Don't forget to visit Alyssa, Thienly and Lenae's blogs today... :-)

Happy Bastille Day to my french family and friends! :-)

Paper Dolls Guest Designer

It's Monday! I hate Mondays, but luckily it means another cool challenge over at the Paper Dolls's blog... ;-)
This week I have the honor of being one of their guest designers, my assignment was to use 3D flowers svgs designed by Jani  from Paper Compulsions.
I decided to use them in a more traditional somewhat flat format, which makes it easier to mail, LOL ;-)
Both flowers and leaves/folliage are from Paper Compulsions. The little fence is from Lettering Delights (Easter file in the Simple Shapes collection). And the bees are hand traced. The twine is from the Twinery.
(I didn't used a sentiment since I didn't make it for someone in particular... :-D)

I hope you'll find time to go play with the Paper Dolls this week!... :-D

For Stephanie and Steve

I made this card for my cousin Stephanie who is getting married next week-end! I doubt my card will make it on time unfortunately.... :-S My cards to Naomi have been talking a week! Insane!... :-(

Anyway, I had a clear vision of what I wanted in my head but my stupid Cricut gave me major trouble, refusing to cut little details correctly, I almost gave up, but you all know I am rather stubborn, and I was not ready to let the machine win!...
I'll spare you the different stages and the un-doing to do something else, here is the finished version and I am happy to say that I like it! ;-)

I used a method called paper toling, which means that you glue several identical shapes on top of each other to give them body and dimension, Here only 2 layers. The files are from Lettering Delights, from the wedding collection in the Simple Shapes. (Told you I love those simple shapes, already use them all the time! Today is the last day to get them on sale...) I just love the simple lines of that dress... <3

The twine is from The Twinery, love this muted color. I used ivory, turquoise and dark chocolate brown (which looks more like black in my pic) for my card since those are the wedding colors my cousin picked. Gorgeous pairing in my opinion... :-D

I didn't want to use a classic "congratulations" sentiment so I looked into my birthday sentiments stamps instead, and I was thrilled when I found this one, exactly what I had in mind! :-D I used copper embossing powder, I love the sort of "antique look" it gives... :-)

I'm so glad I was finally able to have the card look like what I had envisonned...  :-)

Whimsy Bee

As far as I am concerned, papercrafting is about having fun and being creative without boundaries....

So today I made a wacky card and I kind of like it! :-)

I used the little asian girl from the Asia collection of Lettering Delights simple Shapes Super Bundle, and turned it into a funny looking bee! ;-) (BTW, the bundle is only on sale till Sunday, so if you haven't caved already, check it out or you will kick yourself afterwards... I LOVE it, so so many options!...) The wings are from the bee in the bugs collection from the same bundle...

But anyway, when I saw this little china doll I thought bee, don't know why but it had to bee this way... ;-)

Now my hubby says that my bee looks constipated, I guess it's just the doctor in him talking.... ;-)

I finally digged into my hoarded primas, and I made little flower centers with clear dome stickers stuck on some matching paper. I would have liked to use big buttons, but since the card goes to France again I wanted to keep it rather flat... ;-)
I tried to give my bee little arms and really didn't like the results so I followed Alyssa's lead instead (see her Ninja card ) and bundled my bee with twine.... And I'm sure you have recognized the "bee-utiful" as part of The Birds & Bees stamps set from My Thoughts exactly... :-D

And voila, a wacky little card that is sure to have my daughter go "what on earth is this??..." when she opens the envelope! Mission accomplished! :-D

"My Thoughts Exactly Thursday": Bee happy...

As I said in my previous posts about My Thoughts Exactly, there will be projects for you to see all month long! Thursday is our Design Team day, where we will take turn posting what we make with those cool stamps! :-)

Today Alyssa and Bee also have awesome projects to show you, so don't forget to pay them a little visit too! :-)

Now onto my project... Today I made an accordion card for my daughter. I think I need to stop making all those cards for her or she's going to want to leave every summer after that! ;-)
Let me tell you, this card gave me some trouble. I had a rather clear idea of what I wanted in my head but for whatever reason I couldn't turn that into reality. I had to walk away from the card, and come back to it the following day for things to fall into place!... ;-)

For this card, I decided to use the Birds & Bees set. Trees make me feel more serene, so I had to go with that image to match my "bee happy" saying...

This is my card completely opened. The gorgeous (flowers & stripes) papers are from the "Country Drive" collection from Echo Park. The medallions are made using my beloved Nestabilities... I will write my message on the big white one...

After stamping the main "BEE happy" sentiment on the front, I had the idea of making a back for my medallion and stamping something else on there so I went for "BEE-utiful"... ;-) I am one of those weird people who like things to look good from the back too... ;-) I then made a little mix and match arrangement of happy "BEE" sayings using the same set. Part of the fun of those stamps sets is that you can play along with the words and use them any way you want... ;-)

Then for a little fun I added one of the little bees on some wire... And since it's for my sweet little Mimi I also had to add Stickles to the bees' wings, and had some little rhinestones here and there... We both love everything rainbow, I think she will love those little details...

As always clicking on the pics will give you bigger versions. I hope you enjoyed today's project, don't forget to pay a little visit to Alyssa and Bee for more projects with My Thoughts Exactly stamps! :-D

My Thoughts Exactly 1st release!!! :-D

                             

This is it!... The moment we have been waiting for... Today My Thoughts Exactly is finally launching their stamps collection and releasing their 2 very 1st sets!  :-)

This is The Birds & the Bees.

This is Under the Sea.


The stamps are acrylic photopolymer (same manufacturer as Papertrey Ink, so you know they're good! ;-)) which enables you to play around with them, like bending them like I did for this card...

The concept behind those stamps sets is a mix and match format enabling you to make all kind of funny sayings or puns. The stamps have been designed so that you can put them all together on one block and stamp in one step, or you can play around and deconstruct the sayings, use a different color for the focus word etc.... Focus words are a different size and/or font for a fun and whimsical effect. A cheat sheet with all the possible sayings is available on the site to help you jumpstart your imagination.

You can see and order the stamps here, and get more details on Alyssa's blog. 

Now a few words about my project for today... I made a card for my daughter who is vacationing in France and apparently having a "whale of a good time" so the saying was just perfect for me! ;-)  I used the Under the Sea set.

When I thought about using the little whale from lettering delights (the "Something Fishy" set again) I instantly wanted to make the words come out of the whale spout..., which is why I used blue ink to make it more like water, even though a black or grey ink might have brought more contrast.

My whale is of course on foam tape and the saying-spout isn't actually glued to the card, enabling more movement and a little bending away from the card for more dimension.
The wave is from a Cricut cartridge and the top was sanded, and the background paper is digital paper from the Splash collection by Echo Park, it was printed on tracing paper (a much cheaper alternative to vellum, for a very similar effect!... ;-)) The sun is from Lettering Delights.

I'm having lots of fun playing around with those stamps and you will see more projects with them very soon. Next Thursday I will have another project here for sure. If you missed it, my Bird card already uses My Thoughts Exactly stamps (this time the "Birds and Bees" set).

Every 1st of the month MTE will release one or two stamps sets and have a DT group post, meaning we will all post a project and take you on a mini blog hop if you like! The following Thursdays of the month the DT members will take turn posting, Alyssa will have all the details and link to all the projects every Thursday, as well as having projects of her own.

Now here is the line up of the MTE Design Team. To see all the projects for this July release, start with Alyssa's blog and you will then be linked to the following DT members in the order below...

Alyssa:                 My Thoughts Exactly
Bee:                     Dare to bee creative (<- you're here.)
Bee (Belinda):      Bee's Hive o' Drama
Jennifer:               Our change of Art
Jessica:                Crafty Rocket Science
Lenae:                 Sugar Gem
Thienly:               Mod Paperie

I hope you will enjoy seeing all the DT projects today and will be inspired to make your own projects with those wonderfully versatile stamps. :-D  If you have been following our line up from the start your next stop is Bee's blog. :-)



Wishing you all a great 4th of July week-end. :-D