Forest Babies

Hello! Welcome back to my blog. Today I want to show you the z-fold card I created. I am a little obsessed with these types of cards at the moment. I love the idea of creating a scene and this allows me to do just that AND add an element of dimension with the front folded panel.
If you aren't sure on the dimensions, this is the simplest design I had found. You take a standard 4.25x11 piece of cardstock and score it at 5.5 and 2.75. Then you have a strip of cardstock, and that can be as tall as you want. I usually go anywhere from 1 inch to 1.5 inches tall. You want it tall enough to create a solid piece but not large enough to hide the background. That strip also gets scored at 5.5 and 2.75 but gets folded at the opposite direction than the card base.
For this card I used a few different sets from The Greeting Farm. I used Wood Friends, Cuddly Thanks and Hoppy Hello. Perfect for this forest background. The trees were from On Thin Ice by Clearly Besotted. It's a Christmas set, but the pine trees are perfect for a simple forest background (Plus, they are the only tree stamps I have that don't have Christmas stars on top). I created the background with the background stencils from My Favorite Things and finished the whole thing off with some gorgeous Plaid Paper from My Favorite Things and some enamel dots from Stampin' Up! The sentiment is an old Stampin' Up! single stamp I have and I heat embossed it in black.
I find this to be a very versatile layout. I can't wait to create more scene cards in this style.

I hope you enjoyed!

~Brandie~

Shake Them Tags

Hey all! Just a quick post today. I am working on a lot of new ideas and I can't wait to show you. For now I am digging out my fun shaker tags that I started making last year. I love shakers anyways, I became a little addicted, but doing them in a 'mini' form for gift tags was just the next level. I definitely had to get myself the My Favorite Things Tag Blueprints dies, but there are quite a few other dies from other companies that would work to do this, and you bet I definitely want to get my hands on them! I find pairing them with cute images of characters make them very versatile for any occasion.
I used the Mini Characters and the Unicorns from The Greeting Farm, and the Adorable Elephants from My Favorite Things.
When I make anything 'shaker' related, I prefer the Foam Adhesive Strips from Stampin' Up! I like these because they are very versatile and pliable, so you can twist them and mold them to whatever shape you need. They are a decent height so it works for shaker embellishments and I don't have to cut a bunch of layers OR use foam. For the window itself, I use Clear Film sheets. I found a pad of 25 9x12 sheets called Dura-Lar and they are very artist friendly. I found this at Michaels and use a 40% off coupon to make it cost effective. They are nice and thick so they are great for windows, or if you wanted to use them for a 3D project.

 These characters are from the Get Well Soon set from the Greeting Farm. I also had a few 6x6 plaid paper packs from My Favorite Things to accent them. Add some sheer ribbon from Stampin' Up! and they came together quite quickly. These would be great for thanking a nurse or health care provider on top of a small gift.

 For the Unicorns (Magical Friends and a L'il Magic sets from the Greeting Farm) I opted for a fun, monochromatic theme. The sentiments are from My Favorite Things.

 Lastly I once more used the Adorable Elephants from My Favorite Things and went with the yellow, grey and white color scheme. Unlike my other tags, I went and also decorated the inside by creating a background for these little elephants. I love that story book feel and found that it accented these tags perfectly. These are wonderful for baby gift bags. And unlike those 'other' tags, people will love and appreciate these, and have a blast shaking them up.

Well that's it for me for now! I'll be back soon with new stuff. Take care.

~Brandie~

Happy Villaintines

Hey all! Sorry it's a bit late, unfortunately I got hit with this horrible flu bug going around. Still not 100% but much better than I was over the weekend. I haven't been this sick in long time. So it's put everything on hiatus, including my creativity.
Before I fell ill, I was working on these fun, tongue-in-cheek 'villain'tines. I got the idea from an online meme going around that I saved to my Facebook page. Being as the AMAZING Kindred Stamps has a lot of Fairy Tale themed pop culture stamp... which I own most of... I was able to recreate them in greeting card form. The sayings are not my own, and I found them on Facebook. I believe it is "Disney Villains Afterhours". I downloaded a free font "Wicked Queen" by Fontspace to type them out and then printed them on Whisper White Cardstock.
These Villains are from a variety of sets, all by Kindred Stamps. I'm Wishing, Arabian Nights, Ocean Royalty, Once Upon a Nap and Stay Strong. All the villains I used are also on a set called "Villainous" where you have JUST the bad guys- these and quite a few others.
The cards were really easy to put together. I used my trusty Tim Holtz Distress Inks to ink the back grounds. They needed a little something extra so I found a swirly stamp set (it was a garage sale find so I am unsure who the company is, but I do have a similar set from Inkadinkado), and then stamped those swirls in black embossing powder. Unfortunately, I don't have any black Nuvo Drops (YET!) so I have some pearls that I just colored in with my Black Copic that I accented the cards with. Lastly I matted the image on some black glitter paper.
I wanted to create dimension with the fold of the card being as the image was a bit more basic. I do this by cutting part of the front off and letting the image and/or sentiment 'hang' over the edge. The insides are blanks so you can put whatever sentiment you'd like on the inside. I figure these could be used as Anti-Valentines cards or even some fun, snarky ones for your S.O. or friends.
I hope you enjoyed!

~Brandie~

Love Those Pinups

Hey again! Just a quick post today- I have got to finish 16 Valentines for my son before tomorrow- and I work the evening shift so I wanted to touch base.
As you've seen a few weeks ago, I got some beautiful Pin Up themed stamps from The Greeting Farm. They are called Cheeky Girly Girls and they are absolutely adorable. I found that they were also perfect for Valentine's day themed cards. The good thing about Valentines cards is that they could be used for any day of the year (thinking of you or anniversary ect.) if you avoid putting "Valentine's Day" on it. 
I took out an old stash of DSP from Stampin' Up!- I can't remember the name but I love the hot pink and black combo, so that was the inspiration behind the coloring of these cards.

 I have been a bit obsessed with my new Nuvo Drops, as you can tell. I definitely need more colors! But at least I have a glittery pink which worked perfectly. I also stamped and die cut out various hearts and added a bit of Glossy accent to give them more dimension. Add a bit of ribbon (I especially love the half inch sheer ribbon you can find at Michaels. Add a bit of glitter and there you have it! I hope you enjoyed!

~Brandie~

What To Do When You Don't Have the Right Stamp

Long title I know, but effective.
I run a small card making business called The Paper Gift Boutique (follow me on Facebook!) There are times where I will get a request for a custom card and I need to be a wee bit creative. Like when I did the figure skating card for a customer, I wanted a skate with flowers pouring out of it. I don't have a skate stamp and couldn't find a digital stamp to download right away, so I found a free coloring page and just shrank it to fit a standard card size. It's not the first time I have done that for a card, and that's exactly what I did for today's fun request. I made the horrible mistake of NOT buying Kindred Stamp's Part of the Pride boxed set (now retired). I wanted to, and my husband (being oh so logical) said he didn't think I would use it much. He's true, I wouldn't use it for ME, but I would have definitely used it for my business.
I've learned for next time, but for this time I needed a certain "Pride"ful character with Hakuna Matata spirit. I downloaded a free coloring page (unsure from which page- I'll need to pay better attention next time), then I copied and pasted it onto a Microsoft word page and shrank it to what I felt would be an appropriate card size.
You do need to color carefully. I used my copics and my printer is a toner cartridge printer, not an ink cartridge and I don't know if that makes a difference. My toner doesn't spear the black ink when it's colored, but it does do a bit of smudging when I print out on my Whisper White cardstock.
That was the hard part.
Next I used some My Favorite Things dies to create a large window and the background builder stencils for grass and clouds. I also used some Altenew leaves stamps and dies from the Floral Art Stamp set and a leaf die from Spellbinders to surround the window and create a fun, jungle theme.
The phrase was one off of a digital card and was requested by my customer. I typed it out and printed it, then added some dots and swirls with a copic. Added some punched daisies and voila! She is done. The customer is happy and I do enjoy thinking out of the box for my creations.

Thanks so much for stopping by!
~Brandie~

Reveal Wheel Fun

Hey all! Happy Friday!
Today I will be showing you how I used Lawn Fawn's Reveal Wheel and made it all my own.
Before I purchased the dies I had watched quite a few different tutorials on how to use the Reveal Wheel. I refrained from buying it for a while because as cool as it is, I wasn't sure if I would really use it.
That was a lie.
After the tutorials and seeing how others were doing other things, I got excited and couldn't wait to get my grubby paws on a set. ESPECIALLY with how Lawn Fawn has created a bunch of ad-ons to compliment it. Beside that, you can opt out of the ad-ons and get really creative with the shapes you use for the peek-a-boo or the items you put behind the on the wheel that turns. I have seen phrases used or even doing different colors so it turns into a rainbow.
For my card, I wanted to do something different.
 I had also purchased the Circle add on and I wanted to use it as a peek-a-boo with this adorable Popping By To Say Hi stamp set by Clearly Besotted. Unfortunately, the circle was a bit too small  for these little faces. I used another circle die and centered it over and it was too low for where the center of the wheel would be. I then re cut it, but then raised the larger circle up a bit so each of these cuties can peek up. Another thing was the Reveal Wheel has an embossed notch in the wheel where the top of the die should align with. I ignored it and then centered it as best as I could and added a pencil mark and stamped right under it. I then had to shift it by a quarter, mark and stamp. So if you look close enough, you'll see that it's not perfect (some of the animals have the tips of their ears showing on the part that you spin) but it's not super noticeable and the child who is receiving this will love it anyways.
After I figured that out, (which if should make again with how-to photos for anyone interested), I wanted to add some interest to the front. The wheel is awesome, but it's higher up on the card and that's a LOT of white underneath. I wanted to cut the child's name out because I figured a: he'd love it and b: it would be a great way to personalize it. To add even further interest, I used my Tim Holtz Disress inks and made a rainbow blend on a spare piece of Whisper White underneath.
I then inked the background with Mowed Grass and Broken China for grass and sky and added some more Nuvo Drops for interest. Because I found the circle to be a bit plain, I then die cut a scalloped circle and used the same size regular circle to create almost a 'sun' for the peek a boo window. This was definitely fun to make and I will be definitely playing around with this die set again.
I hope you enjoyed!
~Brandie~

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Talk Nerdy To Me

Hello! Welcome back :)
Today I have some fun Nerdy Valentine's day (or all purpose day- but definitely for your honey) cards. All of these cards feature Pop Culture sets by Kindred Stamps. I used Space Heroes (retired), Video Game Brothers and Galactic Adventures. We all know what they are supposed to emulate, so for the fans out there, they'll love them.
To coordinate with that, I got this awesome Pop Up Slider die from My Favorite Things stamps. I didn't know how I would feel about interactive cards. Selling cards at Craft shows , most of them are sealed with their respective envelopes in a cello bag to keep them from bending and getting finger printy. I do display a few, but more often than not, I don't have a whole lot of room. I will have to figure out how to display these a bit better as I believe that my customers and fans will agree that they are fun and not like anything you can get in a store, which is the allure of hand made cards. (I also believe we should start referring ourselves as Paper Artisans from here on in, who's with me?)
So without further adieu,my first attempt at slider pop up cards!

ist Up first we have a Star Hero and his green lady from the Space Heroes set. The phrase is very cheeky and I love it! Then, to add to the fun, once you slide it open, Twig is sitting there with his own little sentiment. The backgrounds I created myself using Tim Holtz Distress Inks and then used a white jelly pen to dot stars. I added some glitter spots with some silver Stickles to add glitter stars. The background on the card base used a swirly star background found in one of my Christmas sets from Stampin' Up! and embossed in silver. You could leave the card as is, but I used it as a front on some Basic Black cardstock cut vertically and opening in a tent fold fashion. The inside was blank, but I inked the bottom in the same way and added some more of this fun washi tape that came with the stamp set. Just to remind everyone, it was a limited edition boxed set through Kindred Stamps and, unfortunately, is no longer available.


 Up next I used the Video Game Brothers set and Greetings Galore Sentiment stamp set from My Favorite Things. I also used the background stencils from MFT to create the clouds and rolling hills that you would find as a background in the game. I also got to try out my new Nuvo Drops and I must say, I am now a huge fan and the next big purchase is going to be more sets of those babies. I am in love!

 Last nerdy Valentines I made were featuring everyone's favorite Galactic Adventuring couple, complete with their catch phrase, perfect for a lovey-dovey card. I again used Tim Holtz Distress Inks and created 2 different spacey backgrounds. Using a smaller squeeze on my Nuvo Drops, I added a bit of interest with those and some more Silver Stickles.


I think that's it for now. I got a kick out of playing with my new interactive dies. A tip though, make sure your double stick adhesive does not go RIGHT against the slider part- it will not slide smoothly. Beyond that, it was easier than I thought to put together and I really enjoyed how they came together.

I hope you enjoyed!
~Brandie~