Monday, November 24, 2008

All That Glitters IS Gold

Okay. I am totally on a glitter, silver, sparkle kick this year. Cute, because it gives so much depth and texture to a project. Sucks, cuz, well- then I have glitter all over me. And my desk. And the carpet. And the cuffs of my pants and... you get the idea :D
So into this whole glitter and embossing kick, I made mom part duex of her four part gift. I will show them in stages- meaning when I'm done one, I'll share. It's pretty sad cuz I started the idea in September? I think... and figured I had LOTS of time. But true to form, here I am two weeks late. Ahh well, I hope my mom thinks it was worth it. She figures that it'll be a Christmas present now- but no. I have a totally awesome plan for that- and it WONT be late!! So part one was the mini magazine holder with four Thank You cards, and now I have another magazine holder with four Congrats cards. There are two for anniversaries and two that say "Congrats" that can be used for weddings or grads. Mom doesn't know many people that will be getting married or graduating- but they are here just in case. I made her a bunch of Congrat cards for her Christmas gift last year- but she wound up using them for "congrats" on someone's baby. So the next set I'm making is specifically FOR babies- as my mom crochets and makes an afghan for every baby born in the church!! So cute baby cards are a must in her stash.
But I digress!
So here is the package for her birthday set:

I really love the tutorial by Inking Idaho. She's one of my favorite blogs and her address should be on the right hand side of my own blog. She's got the tutorial there, plus really neat ideas for the 12 days of Christmas and other stuff- so go check it out when you're done here! I did alter her original design tho- mine is an inch longer and an inch higher- so instead of note cards, I have 4x5 standard cards. Now- I do like the matching sets of cards- but being as I made this holders simply for the fact of neat organization of my mom's cards- I wasn't too worried about matching the cards- and it gives mom more variety. She doesn't care. BUT I did think the black, red and white combo was pretty classy- so I did use it for one set of cards!!

I also liked labeling my holders- so I used my cuttlebug scalloped squares to layer a label and my computer- and sort of okay mental measuring skills and eye coordination to make the sign. So here's the one type of card close up:
I tried something similar for a Christmas project that I'll share later on. I am in love with the layering technique that is so popular now. That 1/8th of an inch showing just adds the right amount of depth- doncha think? And being as I am SO not good at measuring- I just use two 'ticks' off my Cutterpede on either side and that seems to work. I used my $1.50 stamp set found at Michaels (the Studio G ones) for the flowers and, of course, fine red glitter and fine embossing powder. I inked the edge of my sentiment and OOPS smudged it- so I just continued to smudge it so it looked natural. I tweaked this a bit, because I liked the long gatefold- but I had this punched edge that just didn't really work- so I cut it off and saved the flowers. To make my own coloured vellum, I just inked a white peice of vellum with my Cranberry ink and let it dry.
So that was one set- here's the other:

This was a complete fluke- a play by ear- and I'm SO HAPPY with it. First, I stamped some white ink on white vellum with my flower stamp (Happy Cat? Stamps I think- another Michaels find) and then embossed with white snow glitter and fine embossing powder. I watch Joyce Meyers often, and when she has a guest in her studio, you see the background set which is an etched glass sort of look on white rice paper. At least that's what it looks like and I wanted to emulate that. So I did another gatefold and cut two rectangles on the smaller fold leaving a quarter inch on each side and in between. Then I masked it off and patted gold ink all over that side. THEN I sprinkled gold embossing powder all over and heat embossed it. I then put the 'panels' in and added some stickles- I think they look window-y- which was the idea! I had some Creative Memories paper that my MIL gave me- stuff that I don't know if I'd use otherwise, but I trimmed the leaf edges off and had that nice old paper look- so I did that on the other side. I also masked it off again and stamped flourishes behind my windows. The next layer was just simple squares with the top layer being stamped with a flower and inked edges- embossed in gold. Add sentiment and ribbon and done? Not quite. I wanted to hide some imperfections on the inside of the card, so here I go:

Here is the base- the flower closed the card and you can see the background underneath the window here.









And here is the inside. I got used to doing 4x4 cards for a while so I kept making square inserts. When I was done I had all that blank space on the bottom and it looked naked. Rather than tearing the inside apart- I chose to just add to it. So I added the same ribbon, sewed some of the beads on it from the flower centers in the front- and cut out a stamped and embossed image of the same flower. The strip of paper is to hide the ribbon tabs and the back of the brad :D So it's done!!! And so am I- after trying to do the lay out on this thing and having a TON of stuff to do today. Monday is my cleaning house day- which isn't usually too bad- but today I need to do a LOT of organizing. We got a new (well, new to us!) dresser and got rid of the kids' broken ones- so I have clothes all over while I wait to pick up a rod for the closet and more hangers- and they decided to empty every single box of toys- the mess is now so overwhelming for them that I should try to tackle some of it. Plus laundry and bedding and the kitchen AIGH!!! I've noticed that if you leave a little mess, it grows and grows until it looks like my home. SO- no crafting for me today- I'm almost out of adhesive anyways- but at least I have some projects done to share :D So take care!

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