There is another fun crop happening over at our Card Swap forum this week! You’ll find challenges and games posted starting today through May 19th. The deadline to post your projects in the appropriate thread is Tuesday, May 22nd. More details can be found in the forum and if you have questions, there are lots of friendly faces to help you out.

To kick off each crop, we also have a blog hop. The theme for this hop is “Time to Shine,” celebrating moments in life when an individual has their moment to “shine.” Each person participating in the hop could create any type of project they wanted as long as it fit with the theme. The card shown below is the design I created, perfect for celebrating any special achievement.

Supplies used: Card base from American Crafts; Glitter Silk Cardstock from Core’dinations; X-Press It Blending Card, Copic® markers and Multiliner from Imagination International Inc. 

Just like last time, we’re also having fun with a scramble-the-word game. Each blogger on the hop will include a letter in their post. Your job is to collect the letters and unscramble them. Once you visit the last blog in the hop, you will be directed to the forum where you will find all the details on entering the drawing.

Anyone unscrambling the word or phrase, entering the game by following the directions in the forum, and leaving feedback on every blog on the hop will be entered into a random drawing held on May 23, 2012, for a chance to win a prize. Only one hopper will have their name drawn and win a prize!

My letter is … L.

Want some clues as to what the mystery word/phrase could be?

• It’s a phrase.
• It has four words.
• It’s a way you will be able to shine.

We’re kicking off the hop here, but now it’s time to click on over to Jeanette’s blog! You’ll find her beautiful project and you’ll be able to collect your next letter.

In case you get lost, here is the entire list of blog hoppers.

Brooke Smith-CardMaker blog

Jeanette

Ashley

Anya Schrier

Golda

Ivanka

Ana

Michelle Woerner

Judy L

Lisa

Trudy Sjolander

Jane

Angelina

Kimberly Crawford

Laura

Tammy

Carolyn King

Marlene

Susan

Colleen Schaan

Meredith

Lora

Pearls and lace is the theme of this week’s Card Challenge Corner. Create a card using a vintage dressing table as your inspiration—delicate perfume bottles, a lace-trimmed handkerchief and strands of pearls. The card above, created by Corene, captures this feeling perfectly and we hope it provides you just the right touch of inspiration!

Supplies used: Engraved Garden paper pad from K&Company; Memory lane cardstock sticker from The Paper Company™/TPC Studio™; pearl flourish from Prima Marketing Inc.; lace tape from Love My Tapes; border punch from Fiskars; foam squares from Therm O Web; Pop Up adhesive dots from Glue Dots.

Hi! It’s Anya and today I am here to share one of my favorite techniques: background stamping! If you saw my Out of the Box post a little over a week ago or have spent any time at my blog, you know how I love to stamp my own backgrounds. Today I thought I would share some of my tips for creating a background pattern featuring different sentiments.

A sentiment background differs a little from, say, a floral or patterned background in that you usually want to stamp the words in some kind of order and not just randomly on your paper. My first tip to help achieve this look is to recommend a grid-lined acrylic block and grid-lined paper for lining up your images. Clear photo-polymer stamps are ideal for this technique.

I am starting with a 4-inch-square piece of kraft cardstock. I like to use a tiny bit of temporary adhesive on the back of my cardstock to line it up with my grid-lined paper. Now I can easily determine where the center of my cardstock is and know I have some straight lines to follow when stamping.

I like to start by stamping one of the larger images in the center. This helps by giving me a focal point that I can build the rest of my design off of.

For this card I dug out all my sets that feature “hello” sentiments. I have a bunch of different fonts and sizes to work with. This will result in a fun mishmash of words when I’m done!

Using my large “hello” as a guide, I continued stamping my sentiments around it, working my way toward the edges of the cardstock.

Here is another tip that you might find helpful during this process. I utilize the lines on my grid paper to help line up the stamp on my acrylic block. I use this technique almost any time I stamp a sentiment.

First, line up your sentiment stamp with a line on your grid paper. Then slowly lower your acrylic block, matching the lines up on your block with the lines on your paper. Now stamp away!

Here is what my background looks like so far—just keep filling in with your sentiments until you like the look you have. Don’t hesitate to stamp words repeatedly or stamp only a portion on the page as this helps to give it a more natural look.

And here is my finished card! I wanted my stamped background to remain the focal point, so I just added a bit of washi tape (anyone else have a rapidly growing collection??) and a button.

This is one of my most favorite stamping techniques. I love to create a custom background and I love to give stamps a different look. I hope you’ll give it a try, and I would love to hear what you think. I hope you find these tips helpful for creating your own backgrounds!

~Anya

Supplies used: Kraft cardstock from WPlus9 Design Studio; blue cardstock and button from Papertrey Ink; clear stamps from Waltzingmouse Stamps; ink pads from Stampin’ Up! and Ranger Industries Inc.; washi tape from Décor Tape and Target; twine from The Twinery.

CardMaker designers love using Flower Soft® and you can check out some of their fabulous product LIVE on HSN today at noon Eastern time. They’re making their debut on HSN this week and you can even watch them live on your computer by clicking here!

Photo from Flower Soft®

Hi everyone! Trudy here. While I was trying to figure out what favorite product or tool I wanted to share with you today, I looked for something unique or specialized so I could write a super interesting post. Then I realized it should really be something I use all of the time. There is a simple little piece of plastic that I use so often, that I never ever put it away. I use it on the majority of my cards and it’s my little secret weapon.

I have received so many comments about my “PERFECT bows” and even several emails asking about my secret for making them. It’s really so easy … or I should say Bow-Easy!

The Bow-Easy is a super cool tool that helps you tie the perfect bow every time. There are seven different sizes on the one I have. They also make a Bow-Easy 2 that makes even larger bows.

You can create single- or multiple-loop bows and you can use a large variety of ribbon styles, twine, lace, etc.

Here are a few bows I made as examples.

You can probably guess a couple of my other favorite products too by looking at the picture.

Yeppers … ribbon and the color green! You can get the Bow-Easy (or any of the ribbons shown above) from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

Thanks so much for dropping by today!

Hugs, True

Hello! Today I am going to show you two of my favorite ways to use vellum. Vellum is an often overlooked medium in card making but it is a favorite of mine for two reasons—for creating dimension and for adding sentiments.

Here is a quick tutorial to illustrate my favorite ways to use vellum!

Step 1: Stamp butterfly image on white cardstock. I stamped it on a circle piece because the front of my card will be circular.

Step 2: Stamp the butterfly on scrap paper and cut it out. I used the scrap butterfly to mask the butterfly image so I can stamp a background.

Step 3: Ink the plant stamp and stamp over masked butterfly. Stamp twice to get two tones from one ink pad.

Step 4: I used another color of ink to stamp the same image and then removed the mask.

Step 5: Next, I colored the butterfly using Copic® markers. I used darker colors than I normally would because the vellum will mute the colors a lot.

Step 6: Stamp the butterfly image onto vellum using StazOn ink. Cut out vellum butterfly and adhere to card along the center of the body so you can pull the wings out for some definition. Adding the butterfly overlay allows you to create a great life-like butterfly.

Step 7: Another great use of vellum is to adhere sentiments to the card. For the sentiment on my card, I used an SRM clear sticker and added it to a circular cut piece of vellum. I added it to the card and then tied a piece of twine into a bow and adhered it to the top of the sentiment. Here is my finished card:

Supplies used: White cardstock and Springtime Silhouettes from Gina K. Designs; This & That Charming Green/Cream Solid patterned paper from Echo Park Paper Co.; Tuxedo Black Memento and StazOn ink pads from Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko; Tea Dye Distress ink pad from Ranger Industries Inc.; ColorBox Cat’s Eye Pigment ink pad from Clearsnap Inc.; Copic® markers from Imagination International Inc.; Life is Good sticker sentiment from SRM Stickers; Honeydew baker’s twine from The Twinery; circle and scalloped circle die templates from Spellbinders™ Paper Arts. 

There are lots of other fun ways to use vellum on your card:

• Create shaped flowers by punching vellum and then shaping them with an embossing tool.
• Add decorative elements, like scallops, by die-cutting vellum strips. Try layering them for a fun look!
• Create a stained-glass look by stamping an image on one side of vellum, embossing it and then adding color on the reverse side using markers.

Hope you see vellum in a whole new light!

~Carolyn

Supplies used: Copic® markers and Multiliner from Imagination International Inc.

Teachers have an opportunity to have a profound impact on a child and I was blessed to have had several who played an important role in my life. From Miss Granger, my fifth-grade teacher, who offered words of encouragement as I transitioned into middle school to Mr. Markley, my high school journalism teacher, who believed in my ability to be editor of the school newspaper when others didn’t, I know how the words from a teacher continue to echo throughout an individual’s life for years after graduation.

As a daughter of a teacher, I spent many hours running around the school building and I’ve seen how hard so many of them work to make sure each child has an opportunity to learn, to grow and to dream. We’re celebrating those special individuals in our lives in this month’s blog hop. Whether it’s a child’s teacher or a mentor in your adult life, we’re taking today to say thank you for making a difference.

As always, I’m excited to see what our amazing team of designers created!

Anya

Carolyn

Colleen

Kimberly

Michelle

Trudy

It’s celebration week over at our Card Challenge Corner! We’re honoring those in our life who have reached milestones whether it’s graduating from high school, learning to ride a bike or getting a new job. To join in the festivities, create a card acknowledging that special achievement and share it with all of us. We love to see your creations!

Speaking of celebrations, it’s always reason to celebrate when a new issue of CardMaker is available. The digital version of the July issue is on-sale today! The print version goes on-sale May 29th. There are so many pretty cards in this issue. I’m especially partial to the birthday bash section overflowing with bright and colorful designs. Here’s a little sneak peek for you designed by Glenda J. Wyatt.

Good Morning! Colleen here with my very first “U Inspire Me” post. I’m so excited about this feature … sharing a card project and showing the inspiration behind it.

I’m always looking for inspiration. I look at patterns and colors in a fabric store, layouts and designs in galleries, themes and ideas in packaging … anything and everything is fair game.

I was recently introduced to a site called Design Seeds by a good friend and OMG—it is the perfect place for inspiration! Every day I get an update with four new “inspiration” pieces … small images and a coordinating color palette. Originally, I was using the site for sketch practice, but I found that it’s also a great place for color inspiration.

Here is the image/color palette that I picked for today’s post.

Just look at those luscious blue greens! Sooooo rich! And I love the way the brown and tan set off the color and make it look so natural.

And here’s the card I made based on the color combo. I wanted to keep the earthy look and still get a soft feminine feel since it’s going to be headed my mom’s way for Mother’s Day. The folds of her dress even remind me a bit of the swirls on the shell in the original image!

I’m thrilled with how this turned out … it’s so much fun to take an inspirational piece and run with it!

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope I’ve “inspired u” to get crafty!

Hugs, Colleen

Supplies used: Turquoise Mist, Kachina, Bahama and Sawdust cardstock from Bazzill Basics Paper Inc.; X-Press It Blending Card, Copic® markers (skin: E000/E50/E31/E04/B41, hair: T000/E51/E42/E43/E23/Sepia Multiliner, eyes: B41/B24/B29, dress: BG000/BG53/BG45/BG49, wings: BG0000/BG32/0, flowers: R32/R85/R39/Y13, ground: G20/G12/YG23/W1/BG23/0) and marker air-brush system from Imagination International Inc.; Fairy digital image from Saturated Canary; Labels Eighteen (#S4-310) and Grand Labels Twenty-Three (#LF-347) die templates from Spellbinders™ Paper Arts.

There’s a special blog hop happening right now in honor of a new book titled Exquisite Embellishments for Paper Crafts on sale today! If you’re a card maker who enjoys adding extra little details to your designs, you’ll love this book. From perfectly tied bows, sparkly buttons and delicate stitches, you’ll discover lots of new and unique embellishment ideas.

Visit Keri Lee Sereika’s blog to get started on the hop and to find out details on her giveaway!

To purchase your own copy of the book, click here.