Get Yo Geek On

Morning all! 

 So here are the Nellis household, we are family of proud nerds. We enjoy comics and video games and sci fy and super heroes. So when I found the stamp company Kindred Stamps, I freaked out! They do pop culture type stamps. Because of copyrite laws though, we are calling these guys by their 'Kindred' name (although it's pretty obvious what these guys are). This particular stamp ensemble is called "You're Super". They did a wonderful boxed set with a Spider guy digi BUT alas, I didn't get to the box in time :( BUT they are so awesome and brought them back :) So I didn't get all the goodies for the boxed set- or the digi- but I got the stamp set itself and got all sorts of happy. THANKS LADIES! lol

What I did here is inspired by Jennifer Mcguire's one layer card. Now I myself obviously didn't do one layer, BUT I decided to forgo any embellishments or ribbons, something that is different for me because I usually like to add touches of a little something something.

I also didn't add any dimmensionals, which again, is something I don't usually do. I wanted to keep the cards monochromatic in nature but with a bold black mat (as a comic strip would have bold black outlines for each box). 

I wanted to create 5 different cards that are blank on the inside and basic sentiments on the outside. I packaged them in a group and used the Stampin' Up! clear acetate boxes to bundle them together. These boxes are great :) I hope they keep them around cuz they are just so versatile. 

I colored the images in my copics, sponged some background using Tim Hotlz's Distress Oxide Inks and layered them together with colored and black mats. Finishing off the bundle I created these fun Captain Shied tags. They were easy enough, I just cut circles out of white, red and blue and a white star in the center. Add it to the box of cards and it makes a great gift for someone.

I hope you all enjoyed and make sure to check out Kindred Stamps www.kindredstamps.com for their variety of pop culture stamp sets and try them yourselves!

~Brandie~

Always A Classic

Welcome back! Thanks so much for sticking around even though it's been a little bit (cough cough six months cough*) Good news is that I've got SO many projects and photos so I'll be cataloging them via blog for a bit and I really hope they inspire you :)
For today I had a request from a friend for a birthday card for her mother. Being as her mom loves classic movies and tv shows, and I had a yen for doing another grey scale character, I came up with this little beauty:

 I went with vintage creams to give it a sepia type of feel. I had some old school Stampin' Up! patterned paper DSP in neutrals. I felt that the stripes and damask prints really looked like vintage wall paper. It was a perfect backdrop for an old bubble tv. I had NO idea how to make one- so I cut a 3.5 square, cut a circle in the center and stamped it with my woodgrain background. Inked the edges and added some pieces and 'feet'. I hope it's tv enough. I liked it! I then created it into a shaker card using The Greeting Farm's Mini Happy Remix girl. Using various tones of grey from my copic collection.

I mounted the shaker-tv onto a scalloped square and had my card base cut into the z-fold style, cutting the excess flap off. I also downloaded a free I Love Lucy Font from DaFont's webiste. The outside is just a simple "Happy Birthday" sentiment, but the inside says 'to someone who's always a classic.'. It was perfect for my friend's mom.

So there you have it! I hope you enjoyed it and I highly recommend trying grey scale yourselves. The key (for myself anyways) was to use the cool grey sets for the skin, the neutral greys for the hair and then the warm greys for all the clothing and accents. I enjoyed how it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

~Brandie~

So Long Stampin' Up!

Good morning all!
As you may have noticed (for those who have been loyal to my lack of blogging abilities- and for that I thank you), I haven't posted solely Stampin' Up! items and materials, nor do I have the catalogue information any longer in the side bar of my blog.
This is because as of a few weeks ago I made the decision to no longer continue being a Stampin' Up! demonstrator.
The reason is 2 fold and both simple:
The company has been wonderful to me for these past 7 years, and the products are still among some of my favorite paper crafting products out there, but I felt that it was simply time to let go.
I have, as you may or may not know, have a 2nd home based business. It's called The Paper Gift Boutique and you can find me both on Etsy and Facebook. The Paper Gift Boutique is my personal cardmaking company that I began before I was ever a SU! demo.
I have been making and selling cards for about a decade now (off and on). The past couple of years I have broken through the 'spot' where it would get really hard and previously, I'd given up. The result was a breakthrough and slow yet steady growing success. I have my cards in one local business already, and have become a staple in the Christmas tradeshow circut.
I was carrying on with this all the while trying to still give Stampin' Up! the same focus as before- which was difficult to do as there are only so many hours in a day. I had grown SU! for myself from a couple of people I knew to a base of loyal and supportive customers who quickly became friends. They were amazing and helped me become a success as a demonstrator. I had a few downlines that started and then stopped for their own reasons and I kept doing Stamper's Groups for the better part of those 7 years. But even though where I live is a pretty large small town (pop 60, 000) - it's still a small town. There are other demonstrators with loyal customers and I found it harder and harder to get fresh faces that would commit to my clubs.
It had just become obvious to me that I couldn't focus on both with the same intensity so I had to bow out of one to focus solely on the other- and it was just as obvious as to which one it was going to have to be.
So with all that being said, once my demonstratorship lapses, I will no longer be selling SU! But I will still be posting my work (hopefully more often) and highlighting some of the other amazing companies that I have used and enjoy to inspire you all.

Thanks for all your love and support!
~Brandie~

Don't Open, Dead Inside

Hey all!
Summer is dragging along at a slow, hot pace and all of a sudden you see that July is half over.
I don't know about you guys, but I am not a fan of the heat. Maybe it's cuz I don't live anywhere near a beach. Maybe it's cuz I'm a bit fluffier so I retain a lot of heat. Maybe it's because our winters are so brutal up here that it's a real culture shock to go super cold to super hot in only a few months.
It doesn't help that I prefer spring and fall and we get about a week of each of those seasons -and never all at once lol.
What have I been doing in all this heat? Keeping busy INSIDE my friends. Inside where the shade and AC and ice water and Coke live :D Making stuff at my desk and watching old episodes of Supernatural cuz that's just how I roll.
When I'm at a loss for inspiration and unsure really what to research on Pinterest I can always count on my loyal customers and friends to push me outside of my creative box.
One of this friends has a love and passion for all things Hallowe'en and spooky. I created a card for her last year that was a nice almost panoramic card that had a graveyard theme and colored in greyscale.
I really wish I kept a photo. I'll have to re-do that some time.
So this year she wanted another spooky type of card and I really wanted to try a zombie themed idea. I have the Beary Birthday Stamp set by My Favorite Things and I figured it would be really cool to try to zombie-fy them.
I had no idea how to do this.

 Obviously we can't color them soft beary colors, so I used green and yellow with a bit of a grey shading. I also used a Copic sketch pen and drew wounds, little stitches and 'bite' marks. I didn't want to take away the cuteness of the teddies and I am very unskilled at creating something grotesque, so I kept it simple and used deep reds on the wounds.
My Gorgeous Grunge stamp set from Stampin' Up! was perfect for creating a bloody, splattery background. Keeping with the apocalyptic color scheme I sponged crumb cake along the edges and colored the details (like the balloons and cake) with greys and browns.
The fun part was figuring out what to do with all my colored pieces. I knew I wanted to cut the bears into panels instead of die cutting the images out. I knew the entire pieces wouldn't fit properly on a card so I layered them on cardstock and thought it would be really neat to make the card a gatefold card. Once I came to that conclusion, the light came on that I HAD to pay homage to The Walking Dead. So I downloaded a free Walking Dead font and made the infamous "Don't Open, Dead Inside" sign. I used twine and 'hung' the sign with what I hoped look like a plank of wood. You know. A plank you would hastily hammer across to keep the zombies inside so you can escape? BWAHAHAHA.
Anyways, carrying on to the inside of the card, I wanted to keep the present peeking bear whole, so I knew he'd be peeking from the inside of the card. I colored the gift with greys and muted earth tones with my copics and created tears with the sketch pen. I found the birthday saying on Pinterest and thought it was the perfect fit for this not-so-cute-cute-birthday card.
The customer loved it :) It's something I never would have thought about doing if I wasn't pushed out of my comfort zone.
With Halloween coming in a few short months (I know I know) hopefully this inspired some of you for new types of Spooktacular cards of your own this year.
Thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~

Dragon Power

Hello again!
I hope summer is treating you all well. The older I get I realize that the days are long but the years are oh-so-short. We're already half way (almost) done July. And I have already got my plans going for the 2018 Christmas Tradeshow season. So I've been cooling down at my desk with stamps of snowflakes, skating, elves and more. Though it's hard to be inspired when it's so hot and all you can think about is cool drinks and BBQing. So I may sneak some bright fun colorful cards into my Christmas prep.
I got these cuties last Christmas as a gift from my hubby. I would say he knows me so well- but lets face it, I give him a list and he gets a few things from said list ;) These guys are Hot Stuff from a company called Clearly Besotted. I ADORE their images. They are clearly adorable and perfect for birthday or baby.

 I paired the dragons with the Brick Wall embossing folder from Stampin' Up! and then inked it in Smokey Slate to make it look like brick from a castle. The castle in the back is from Happily Ever After from the Greeting Farm. The banners are also from Stampin' Up!
To create dimension on the card, I used a label framelit and cut a window in the brick and then adhered it with dimensionals over the background image.

I used Ranger's ink dabbers to create the scene in the background. That's been a new technique of mine and I guarantee you'll be seeing more of this in the future. It's really simple :)

I love the story book feel of the card in doing the sponged background, then adhering the pieces on with stampin' dimensionals.

Then, as always, I brought the outside of the card in to tie the entire theme together, using an old Stampin' Up! birthday sentiment set to finish the card off.

Stay tuned for more story book cards in the future! Thanks for stopping by.

~Brandie~

School's Out!

Hey guys. Sorry for the radio silence. Working at not one but two tradeshows via my local Farmer's Market made me realize a few things. I realized I need to work in the dead times to have some misc. stock on hand. Birthday cards and babies and the like. That way I am not trying to hussle last minute. Especially when I get custom order requests and when there are special occasions around the same said market and I get inspired last minute. Then I'll be more prepared than not at all.

Not only was I prepping for a couple of spring markets and taking on more shifts at the library, all while taking on custom orders and getting ready for the end of school, but my biggest baby took a huge step this spring. My little girl graduated high school!!!
No I did not cry, and yes it is very surreal. I think it'll hit me more when she's not longer actually in class. But she's staying home with us for a while and is my eldest. I think it'll be harder and harder the more kids that pass through this milestone and they start actually leaving the next.
But for now- she's all graduated and things resume as normal :)

Still. A very, VERY hectic couple of months.
But despite all that I still was able to get some very cute end of the year teacher's gifts done up.
And voila!

I call these Teacher's Survival Kits. The acetate boxes come from Stampin' Up. You could use them for sets of cards as they are A2, but I wanted to think more out of the box (inside the box?) and see what else I could do with them.
They are perfect for small gifts. Mine are filled with a 3x3 sticky note pad, herbal tea and chocolates. Some of them have other things like binder clips that I decorated and paper clips. So a little of this and that.

The tags were quick and easy and a lot of fun to put together. I did them as shakers as, lets face it, I am a bit obsessed with shaker cards right now.
The images are courtesy of the Greeting Farm minis. Absolutely LOVE those sets and collected all the remix ones featured here. They make cute little teachers don't they? And then the phrases are courtesy of Great Teacher and Teacher's Apple stamp sets by Papertrey Ink.
Using the same materials and idea, I expanded them to do a twist on some teacher's appreciation cards. Thinking outside of the box I used My Favorite Things Blueprint die and left the largest panel empty so it appeared to be a classroom door.
The other card is more simple but I love it all the same. The pop of Real Red on the Teacher Die and coordinating stamp in the center of the sentiment are just perfect. Then the shaker insides are a mix of red and green sequins and some gold stars from a Recollection shaker pack from Michaels.
Now with summer on the go and the next show not until Christmas, I will have more time to create new things and play around with new ideas. So stay tuned!!
~Brandie~

Boycotting Winter

Ya. You read that right.
I am officially boycotting winter.
There is a Fowl Language Comic that depicts winter in 2 panels. The first one states that winter before Christmas is a magical time full of wonder. The 2nd panel states that after Christmas it's pretty much just a miserable cold and grey time.
And we are in our .... seventh? bout of it.
We had a hope in February of an early spring when thaw started and tempurtures crawled upwards.
Then we got a cold snap and a bunch of snow.
The same hope, a little more timid yet more yearning happened in March.
Then more snow and another cold snap.
It's now early April and we are in another cold snap with threats of even more snow.
I agree with Lucy from the Peanuts comics if you've seen them. This is BS. lol
So that aside, at least at my desk I can create the wonderful  bright colors of spring, with it's richness and blooms.
At least there is that.
I like to create in themes. So I will grab color schemes and a design element and do a few cards in various designs. Today that's what I have done, using the versatile Secret Garden stamp set from Stampin' Up! (Sadly, retired) and Forget Me Not by Papertrey Ink. I also had some Glimmer paper pack left over from last year's Sale A Bration that I used as accent pieces. The color pallet I chose to go with was Berry Burst from the new Stampin' Up! in Colors (absolutely gorgeous!) Old Olive, Blushing Bride and Sweet Sugarplum. They just work so well together! The first 3 cards also showcase Curly Cute sentiments from Stampin' Up! (unfortunately also retired) and the last one was for Mother's Day and features the Family Ties Stamp set from Papertrey Ink.
I've been inspired by bursts of flowers, like in a floral spray. My mom has one over a large portrait in her home and it's gorgeous. Then of course, now you can make your own or buy them at Michaels. Mom got hers before it was cool lol.

And the whole floral spray works so wonderfully. I see others inspired by the idea and using it all over Pinterest, so it was only a matter of time before I hoped on that bandwagon. And I must say that I love the results. You can either mask off where you are going to put your sentiment, or just cover it with a layered sentiment piece.

Another favorite thing of mine to do is create my own background paper. Put a piece of Whisper White in front of me and a versatile stamp set (usually flowers lol) and I can bust out a piece of custom patterened paper that works with my creation. I forget what the technique is called, but instead of inking your stamp in the traditional way, you smear it across the inkpad and stamp it that way. The result is a less clean, more artist, water color effect.

 I also really love the Gorgeous Grunge set from Stampin' Up! The splatters behind some 3D floral elements add even more dimension to the card to create the spray effect more vividly.

 Lastly this card is the outside of the Mother's Day card I created for a friend of mine. I really loved the color scheme of the previous cards so I recycled it a few weeks later to create the card. I used the Papertrey Ink sets: Family Ties and Forget Me Not for the background and sentiment, then created the lovely little blooms with my trusty Tim Holtz Tattered Florals Die.

Despite the snow and frost and cold and wind outside, I was able to bring lucious colors of spring across my desk once again.
Sad part is when Spring and Summer finally DO get here, I'll be digging out the snowflakes and wintery blue colors for the upcoming Christmas shows. Got to get started early doncha know!

Thanks for stopping by!
~Brandie~