Shaker Apples of My Eye

I have a love/hate relationship with shaker cards. There is nothing quite like seeing a recipient's eyes light up when they see a fun shaker.  But they can be so, so, so much work!!

Frame type dies have solved so many of the problems because you can cut 5 or 6 of them, glue them on top of each other, add some acrylic and then one more frame - and you have a shaker. My problem with that is - how do you cut the acrylic? The die cuts the frame - not a piece as big as the frame. It's easy with a nice rectangle or square - but it gets much harder with a shape. I know - use the frame, trace the shape onto acrylic and cut it out, but have I mentioned how much I hate using scissors?!  I am scissors-impaired!!

My preferred method is to cut shapes right into my card front and then raise the entire card front. Check out my row of shaker apples!  Then I'll try to show you what I mean.


I used the die from Taylored Expressions Falling for You. I guess it's technically a coordinating die to an apple stamp - but it was exactly the right size for my card.  I started out with no theme in mind - but I saw this sentiment in the set and thought it would be a fun look.

I cut three of the apples right into a card front. Then on the back side I adhered a piece of acrylic directly to the back of the cardstock and then added two layers of my favorite tape (found here). I didn't try to get exactly around the top of the apple because generally the sequins will be at the bottom so it won't matter that I have some extra space on top.  Finally I poured in some sequins.


I adhered a white panel over the shaker part.  The only reason for this is you can then flip the whole piece right side up and easily adhere it to your card base.


I also cut just the top stem of the apples in green to give them a bit of contrast.

This were fun to make!!  Quick and easy!!  Now I just have to figure which of the men/boys in my house have been in my good graces long enough to deserve an "apple of my eye" card!! (Actually that's entirely unfair of me. As I have gone back into the work world, my men/boys have made meals, done laundry, loaded/unloaded the dishwasher and even taken my clothes to and from the dry cleaners!!  Not bad.  I'm quite proud of them. Maybe I need two more of these cards!)

SUPPLY LIST

Falling For You	Falling for You Dies	Stitched Banner Stacklets	Premium Cardstock - Sugar Cube
Premium Cardstock - Oreo	Premium Cardstock - Peapod	Beetle Black Doodle Twine

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Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge: Mason Jars

It's time for a new challenge at the Curtain Call Inspiration Challenge:

masonjarcraftslove.com

I went very, very literal with this challenge!  But I have this cute little mason jar dies that I had to use.  I wanted to keep a school theme, but didn't have pencils so I added apples.  I even went with the yellow, black and white jars!


The morning that I was making this card, I got up from my craft desk for a coffee break.  I started to smell something from the kitchen and ran back down to see smoke pouring out of the back of my Ottlite.  Who knew cardmaking could be hazardous?  Anyway, I needed to take a picture of this card but my main picture-taking light had burned up.  (I am not experienced with natural light card photography as my cardmaking time tends to be before dawn!)  I find that most lights have a yellow or an orange cast, so you'll never guess what I found to take this picture?  This is lit by the flashlights on two iPhones!! It's not a nice clean white - but it's not too bad!!
There are so many fabulous mason jar stamps and dies out there - I hope to see you playing along. Of course, also remember that you definitely don't need to be literal.  There are so many ways to be inspired with this photo - the colors, the flowers, the theme - or even just the stripes in the background!  Have fun!
SUPPLY LIST
The scalloped frame and stitched frame are from Mama Elephant when they called it Femme Frames. They have since repackaged and I'm not sure which of the die sets is equivalent to the original.

TE In & Out Thanks	TE Little Bits - Mason Jar	TE Little Bits - Love Confetti	TE Little Bits - Flowers & Stems
Taylored Expressions Little Bits - Fruit	TE Lemon Meringue CS	TE Cherry Pop CS	TE Premium Cardstock - Granny Smith
TE Poppy Seed Cardstock

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Taylored Expressions: Teacher Blessings

I have been volunteering as an accountant in our church preschool for the last six months.  The last few weeks are in my brain and may never go away as the kids have been practicing for graduation and I hear the same songs over and over for all eight classrooms!!  But I've also had a chance to watch preschool teachers up close and personal - and my respect level has shot through the ceiling.  I am in awe of what they deal with day after day and they do it calmly and with a big smile.

The cake and ice cream after graduation takes place in our fellowship hall which also houses our card racks - so I realized a few weeks back that I needed to stock the racks with teacher thank you cards!  I actually made this card a few weeks back and it is long gone.

I am in love with the die selection at Taylored Expressions.  (I love the stamps too - who wouldn't love a big polka dot "thanks")  But in terms of dies, there is something for every single occasion. For this card, I had the numbers - so I ordered the little schoolhouse.


Then it seemed a little bland so I browsed my dies and found the sun.  I'm not sure whether it is setting on the preschool or whether it is rising for a new phase in the education of these little ones - but either way - it's a nice pop of color!

Those cute little preschoolers do eventually grow up as evidenced by the last week in my house.

This is my son, Andrew, graduating from Lutheran High School.  He will be heading to Valparaiso University in the fall.  At 6'4" and well over 200 pounds, it's hard to remember my preschooler.  

SUPPLY LIST

In & Out Thanks	Whimsy #'s	Little Bits - Schoolhouse	Little Bits - Sun & Clouds
TE Sequins - Build a Scene	Premium Cardstock - Oreo	Premium Cardstock - Sugar Cube	Premium Cardstock - Cookie Monster
Premium Cardstock - Watermelon	Premium Cardstock - Lemon Meringue	Premium Cardstock - Candy Corn

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Curtain Call with SPARKS: Back to School

It's time for another challenge at Curtain Call!!  Since it is September, this challenge just has to focus on school!

I have loved reading blogs and Facebook the last few weeks.  There are first day of school pictures and so many people are saying they are sad that their children are back in school.  Personally I dropped mine and ran!!!  But I still want to make sure that they know I am thinking of them during the day so I like to have a stash of "great job" cards ready to go.

All of these fun images come from the Paper Smooches set Smarty Pants!!  I think I used most everything in it except for the cute little professor and Christina, also on the design team, used him on her card here.


I hope you all pull out your "school supplies" and create some back to school/way to go/thank you teacher type cards for our Back to School challenge!!  And be sure to head over to  Curtain Call and check out all of the design team inspiration.  There is a prize up for grabs from The Alley Way Stamps for The Lead of our Back to School challenge!

I love my diagonal layout but I definitely didn't come up with it on my own.  I was inspired by the angled look of the frames on the photo challenge at Paper Smooches SPARKS.

Also linking up to Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes.

• Stamps: Paper Smooches Smarty Pants
• Paper: Stampin' Up Real Red, Crushed Curry, Papertrey Ink Winter Wisteria, Hawaiian Shores
• Ink: Versamark
• Accessories: White embossing powder, button from A Flair for Buttons

School Days!!

One of the things that I do love about cardmaking is the ability to match the card to the recipient...or, in this case, the school colors.

This first card is a CASE of myself with this card but I changed it up so that my son had thank you cards in his school colors for each of his teachers.


It was particularly important for him to give our thank yous this year as his teachers have been truly amazing.  My poor guy had some bad experiences in his first few year at the local public high school, enough so that we brought him home to home school.  But he still wanted to have a school experience so he enrolled for a few classes at Lutheran High School.  It has been wonderful for him - in fact, he plans to attend full-time next year so he can graduate from that school.  The school makes sure that the teachers have time to care about the students.  One of the teachers mailed a personal card to my son congratulating him on his growth throughout the year - you just don't see personal cards from teachers very often.
My second card is a quick graduation card in the school colors of red, blue and gold.  (I have just realized how dull the picture is, but it's already off in the mail!) Thank You Teacher

• Stamps: Papertrey Ink Teacher's Apple, Paper Smooches pencil
• Paper: Stampin' Up Perfect Plum, silver
• Ink: Memento black and Copics
• Accessories: Papertrey Ink Linen Impression Plate and Spiral Notebook die (cut down), misc gems and twine

Congrats Grad

• Stamps: Stampin' Up Blue Ribbon
• Paper: Stampin' Up Night of Navy, Real Red
• Ink: Stampin' Up Night of Navy, Real Red
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Fancy Fan Embossing folder, scalloped circle punch, gold cord (retired)

CASology Cue Card: School

I have to admit - I wasn't feeling overly inspired over this week's CASology Cue Card: School, but I haven't missed a week yet and I wanted to keep it going - OK, this is only week 6, but that's a long streak for me for challenges.

I wandered into Michaels yesterday for some basics and found a fun school set in the clearance section.  I absolutely did not need another school set - but the simple fact is that what I have is "cute" and with teen boys, "cute" does NOT work.


Sadly, this is already too decorated for my boys.  
{If I only had the creativity of Suze Bain who interpreted "school" as a "school of fish" - LOVE it!!}

• Stamps: Recollections (Michaels brand) School Days (but I only paid a buck for it so it may be hard to find!)
• Paper: black and white
• Ink: black
• Accessories: Love My Tapes Polka Dots Black, Queen and Co. Trendy Tape (striped), My Favorite Things border, misc. star brad

It's New Release/Party Day at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps!!

It's a big day - new releases at Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps and it's a party ALL day long!  Here's the press release from Sweet 'n Sassy:

8:00 AM -- New Release Blog Hop 

One random commenter on a random DT member's blog will win two sets of their choice from the release - complete list below - must comment by 8 pm EST today!

8:00 AM -- ALL sets will be revealed in full and available for purchase in the store!!!

In the Sweet 'n Sassy Splitcoast forum

10:00 AM -- CAS Challenge 
12:00 PM -- Color Challenge
2:00 PM -- Sketch Challenge
4:00 PM - Product Challenge
6:00 PM -- Inspiration Challenge
8:00 PM -- Theme Challenge

You'll have until Monday, August 6 at 3:00 PM EST to play along in any of our release day challenges. Three winners from the challenge players (all of the challenges lumped into one, so you get more chances for each challenge you enter) will win a $20 credit to the store!

If you started with my blog - you'll really want to go back to the beginning on the Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps Blog to see the amazing variety of stamps with this release.  I have two fun sets to show you.

This guy makes me giggle.  He really makes you want to have ham this year, doesn't he??  This set is called Save the Turkeys.


Then I was assigned another adorable set to preview - Back to School Rhubarb.  For the boy's card, I also used a border from the new set Grunge Borders.


Then I just had to do a back to school card for a girl...

Isn't this just the cutest release??

Next on the hop is Bridget Finlay.  Enjoy the hop - leave comments to win prizes!!  And be sure to check out all of the party challenges listed at the top of this post!

Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps Blog

Monika Davis

Jessica Fick

Cathy McCauley

Mary Faus

Kim Singdahlsen

Bridget Finlay

Taylor Usry

Dina Kowal
Lee Murphy

Kim Schofield

Ceal Pritchett

Giovana Smith

Jennie Harper

Korin Sutherland

A Wise Owl for Teacher

Today's sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers includes an angled panel.  I am not an angled panel person.  But...all that more reason to play along...after all, it's a challenge!!  Angled panels say "fun" to me.  (Having said that, there are some beautiful cards in the gallery for this challenge.  I've been studying each of them trying to change my fear of angled panels!!)

I am very behind on teacher thank you cards for our church card racks - only one style so far - and some school are already done for the year!  So I decided to pull out this big-eyed owl and use him on a bright and cheerful and "fun" thank you card...

• Stamps: Sweet 'n Sassy Owl Be There, sentiment is from Autumn Bounty
• Paper: K&Co Carolyn Gavin Greenhouse and the coordinating pinks are a blast from the past - Stampin' Up's Pixie Pink and Pink Passion
• Ink: Memento black and copics
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Word Window and Modern Label punches, Pink Sorbet twine from The Twinery, Ranger Glossy Accents (on his big eyes!)