I Love Summer!

Summer is the best time of year... time at the beach... sightseeing... lounging by the pool. I created a card to celebrate my love of sun and fun. The watermelon was created using the Cricut George cart. The "seeds" are Robin's Nest dew drops. The fence was created using a Martha Stewart punch. Hope you are having a great summer too!

The cherry on top...

I need to use up some old pattern paper. I have tons of it. I love it all but I have entirely too much! I wanted to make an early sweetest card. Immediately I knew I wanted something sappy and sweet on the front. The Cricut Home Decor cartridge has a wonderful image of a cupcake... and thus began this card. The paper is from Chatterbox. I love the soft colors. They remind me of sherbert. The ribbon is from Stampin Up and the embellishments are Robin's Nest Dew Drops. The sentiment is from a new set of Hero Arts stamps. And the cherry on top looks real. I used acrylic dimensional lacquer to achieve the look. The whole card looks good enough to eat!

Cleaning out creative cobwebs...

I don't do Halloween... literally... but I had to try my hand at creating a spooky card. After seeing the fun images on the new A Child's Year cartridge, I decided to try my hand at creating something spooktacular! It may not be all that but I think it turned out nicely. The background is embossed with the Cuttlebug Cobweb image and the sentiment was stamped on white cardstock. I cut a second image of the girl in order to attach the pumpkin. The ribbon was from a long forgotten stash. Maybe this won't be my last Halloween card... Mummies, spiders and pumpkins, oh my!

It's a Mod World...

Thanks Diane (The Scrapyard, Maysville, KY) for another fabulous card class! I am enjoying my new stamps immensely. I decided to take some fun new Doodlebug paper I bought at Diane's and make a card. I don't usually do mod... it brings back horrible memories of orange polyester elastic pants my mother made me wear as a child... For the sake of being "hip" I will try anything once! Surprisingly the card is growing on me. I used a sentiment from my new stamp set (Stampendous) and the image is from Cricut's Home Decor. I used the shadow feature on white cardstock and then popped the center out of the brown flower and reattached to give dimension. It is accented with a brown dew drop. This experiment proved I can do mod... just not orange polyester pants... LOL.

The nuts and bolts of card making

What reminds me of my husband and in particular his pickup truck? One of the new cuttlebug folders.... The diamond plate reminds me of tool boxes in the bed of an old pick up truck... stocked with essential farm repair items.... Something else that reminds me of the farm is an ATV.... I combined both of these elements in my latest card. I tried to achieve a somewhat masculine but fun card. The brads are made to look like screws. The die of the ATV came from the Cricut Going Places cartridge. The diamond pattern is done on heavy duty aluminum foil which was attached to cardstock prior to embossing. This made it much sturdier and easy to attach... Have a fun and safe summer!

Thank you to our Service Men and Women!

I created this card using heavy duty aluminum foil in the Cuttlebug. I embossed it with the new stars folder and then "aged" it with metallic paste in gunmetal. The ribbon is from the Stand and Salute Cricut cartridge with slight modifications to make it look more "real." Thank you to all those who serve our country past and present!

Jesus Loves Me

I loved this song as a child. I find myself humming it to myself when something is troubling me. Recently a dear friend and church member began a battle with cancer. Thankfully she is doing much better. She told a group of us that the one song that kept going through her mind as she took chemo was Jesus loves me... It is such a simple song with such a powerful message. I have had this stamp for a while and decided to create a special card for her. Enjoy!

Why use the handle SaintsRule!?

SaintsRule! is a handle I use on several messageboards. As I alluded to in one of my initial posts I love St. Bernards. Morgan (the puppy picture at the top left hand side of my blog) is one of them. I decided to give you a sneak peek every so often into what the other Saints are doing! Crafting is cool but so is showing off your kids. They are just like kids to me! Hope you enjoy. First off I will start with the male of our brood, affectionately called Ike... or short for Dwight David Ikelfluffer. And yes, I name my pets after historical figures, sites, etc... must be the Social Studies teacher coming out in me! :)

Markers - Part II

Decided to try my hand again at markers, specifically shading. This is very similar to an earlier card I posted. Hopefully this one is an improvement. LOL This time I went with more masculine colors. I really liked how the cattail image came out.

I got who babe! Apologizes to Sonny and Cher...

I decided to try my hand at creating a card with the new Cuttlebug owl folder. I had my doubts... after all owls are not really all that cute! But anyway, I decided to give peace and owls a chance... It turned out great. The cardstock is dark brown and the picture does not do it justice. Lesson learned... don't be afraid to emboss dark color cardstock and don't be afraid of owls! LOL

Crayon Custom Paper

Yes, I am stuck on crayons again... I created the mottled layer of this card by melting different shades of crayon and applying to glossy cardstock. The easiest way to do this is cover the iron with aluminum foil and let it get hot. Then "draw" your design on the bottom of the covered iron and apply to the paper. I threw some Martha Stewart copper glitter in the design before it dried. The leaf is from Cricut's Stretch your Imagination cartridge. I can't wait to try this next spring with pastels...

Wedding Card

Let me just say I love the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder! I just can't stop using it. I needed to whip up a quick card for a recent wedding. What did I pull out of my folder stash? Swiss Dots of course! The couple image and verbage are from the Cricut Wild Card cartridge. I trimmed pop dots to put under the couple's outline. I really like how it gave the card dimension! Next project... using the Stand and Salute cartridge... I just love everything red, white and blue!

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 223rd birthday America! In honor of this milestone, I created a card using the Cuttlebug Swiss Dot Folder and the Stitched Trim Folder. The Stamp is from Stampendous and is called Biker Bee. I accented with Diamond Stickles! Enjoy the card and these timely words from patriot Patrick Henry-

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”

Resist Technique

I love the color black! OK, so black really isn't a color... I still love it's simple elegance. Something else I love is crayons. As a child I loved getting a new box of crayons when school started. To this day I still love to color and if they sold the aroma of a box of crayons in a bottle.... Let's just say I would buy a gallon of it! LOL

I tried a new resist technique (new to me anyway) when creating this card. Here is the recipe-

Glossy card stock

Black Staz On Ink (stamped image)

Stamp (I used a Gina K stamp from the new Eclectic Summer Collection)

Crayola White crayon

Memento Inks (Desert Sand and Rich Cocoa)

Martha Stewart Mini Heart Edger

Black and Tan Cardstock

Stampin Up Black Ribbon

Cricut Wild Card Cartridge (thanks image 1 1/2 inch Real Dial Size)

Robins Nest Dew Drops (black)

Stamp image with Staz On ink onto the glossy cardstock. Allow image to dry fully (10 minutes minimum). Color image with white crayon. Don't worry about filling the image in completely. This technique is perfect for coloring outside the lines! Sponge Memento inks one color at a time onto the image (including over the flowers you have just colored in). Wipe image with paper towel (where the crayon was used). This will removed the ink and leave the fun "white" image. I then trimmed a piece of black cardstock with the MS punch and placed on a 5 X 7 inch piece of tan cardstock. The card is completed with a nice ribbon, dew drops and thanks image from the Cricut Wild Card cartridge. Let your imagination run wild!