Beautiful Gilded Leaf Card and Video with Lydia Brooke

GORGEOUS Leaves with Lydia!

Did you see the Beautiful Gilded Leaf card that Lydia Brooke created during our release week last week?  She created a beautiful card with gold gilding and acetate. If you missed it, you can view it here. Today we're featuring another beautiful card by Lydia using our Falling into Autumn  and this same gorgeous technique.

Because so many people were wondering how to create this effect,  Lydia created this wonderful video tutorial:

Hope you enjoyed today's post! To see more projects by Lydia, make sure to visit her blog, Love Lydia Brooke!

Faux Metal Tutorial with Jen

Fun with Faux Metal!

Today I'm sharing a quick little tutorial on how to make "faux metal" for your cards - Since the current Inky Paws Challenge is to add in Metal, Wood or Cork, I thought it would be a fun time to show this.

Here's what you need:

• Metal Repair Tape from a Hardware Store
• Cardstock (I used white but any color would be fine)
• Big Shot or other Embossing machine
• Embossing folders
• Scissors

Step One: Use tape to cover a piece of cardstock.  In this case the tape wasn't thick enough to cover it with one strip so I just applied it in stripes, butting the edges up as close together as I could. You want to cover your whole piece of paper with the tape. This tape tears easily so you can just tear it off a bit longer than your paper and then fold it over the back side.

Step Two: Place inside an embossing folder. Pick an embossing folder that has a design that might look good as "metal". Jeff thought this one looked like the running boards on a truck. You could choose any pattern you like but I think the geometric ones look best. 

Step Three: Emboss. Run your folder with the metal tape through your Big Shot or other embossing machine the same way you would paper. You get this AWESOME result:

Step Four: Admire your texture and add it to your project. That's It! Easy, right? I love how this looks. Depending on the pattern you may or may not see the little seam where the pieces of tape lined up but I figure you can always put a ribbon or something across that spot when you add it to your project.

Here's a few more textures I did with different embossing folders - whenever I try a new technique I always make a few to have on hand for when I want to use them for a card!

And here's the card I made using the faux metal  - it coordinates so well with our awesome Winston's BBQ set! If you haven't purchased this set yet, you should definitely go over to our online shop and check it out - it's such a must-have for summer!!

I colored Winston (our bear) with Copics and also created a little background of beer and burgers across the bottom using brown ink on kraft cardstock.  I just LOVE this little Winston set!! 

I also added in a little wooden arrow embellishment (Just couldn't resist) - so this would be a perfect entry in our Inky Paws Challenge!!  I love the combo of the shiny metal and the kraft cardstock. So fun! Isn't this just the perfect Masculine card? 

Now it's your turn! 

You have until Friday to get your paws inky!

There's still a couple of days left to make your own card featuring wood, cork or metal and enter it into our Inky Paws Challenge!  Just make a project with NND stamps (or download a freebie here) and add in some wood, cork, metal -- or all three if you'd like! Our challenge is open until Midnight this Friday - June 6th & we will be giving away $10 store credit to our top two favs!! Details on the challenge are on our Inky Paws Challenge page!  

Tri-Shutter Valentine by Crafty Math-Chick!

Do you love cards the unfold and move?

I do! Today I'm sharing this very cool tri-shutter card by Crafty Math-Chick! She used our two newest sets,  Love à la Carte and Sweetheart Tails,  to create this amazing Valentine! What a fun surprise the recipient will get when they open this card to find the long, tri-folded piece of art! Have you every tried making one of these? I made one once long ago - they're a bit tricky but look so cool!  Here's what the card looks like opened flat:

Thanks so much, Crafty Math-Chick for the fun inspiration! If you want to know more about this card, please head over to her blog Canines and Card Designs today for more details! And be sure to leave her a nice comment! 

Don't Forget to enter our inky Paws Challenge

Make sure you check out our newest challenge  - the deadline to enter is Friday, February 7th, 2014 at Midnight CST!  You can view full details and link up your card and enter the Inky Paws Challenge on this post. If you don't own a NND stamp set yet you can still use the digital freebies on our freebies page here. 

Penny Slider Card tutorial

I've haven't shared a tutorial in awhile so thought it would be fun to do one this week! Have you ever made a slider card? If you've always wanted to know how then make sure to read this tutorial! I created this card using the wagon and leaves stamps from the Wagon of Wishes Stamp set! 

Here's what you need:

• Stamps
• Various Paper
• Ink & coloring supplies
• Foam mounting circles
• Cutting knife and ruler
• Scissors
• Two pennies

Step One: Stamp & color image.  You can choose any type of stamp to create this card but we'd love it if you used one of our images from the Wagon of Wishes stamp set which is now for sale at newtonsnookdesigns.com. For my card I stamped the wagon and the leaves in black colored them with Copic Markers. 

Step Two: Create your curve.  You could make your wagon go straight but if you'd like it to curve or roll along a hill like I did, then you need to create a template. I just cut a piece of card stock that was as wide as my card (5 1/2" wide) and then used a scissor to create a curve I liked. Note: you won't actually use this piece on your card so you can make it from a piece of scrap paper or card stock. 

Then I cut the piece of card stock that I will be using on my card. This one is 5 1/2" wide. Then, use a ruler and measure in about 1 inch from each side and mark it.

Now- use your template to trace your curve between those two lines.  This will be your path for your wagon. Move your curve up about 1/2" and draw it again. 

Step Three:Use your cutting knife to cut out the shape between the two lines. It should be around a 1/2" tall (make sure that your penny is taller than the slot you created)  

Step Four: Stick a foam dot to between the two pennies to create a sandwich:

Step Five: Insert your penny sandwich into the slot you created. 

Then adhere your image on top of the penny. If you move your cardstock, your image should slide back and forth! 

That's all there is to it -- Finish your card any way you'd like! Make sure you attach your slider part to the card with some dimensional dots so it has room to slide around.  Here's my finished card:

I stamped a message on white cardstock, lining it up with the slot so you can see it behind the wagon.  

Here's a little video so you can see how it moves!

Let me know if you try a penny slider card - I'd love to see what you made!

How to mask two stamps together

Happy Monday! Today I'm sharing a card using Prehistoric Pals and overlapping them - using a masking technique.  If you've been following along on the blog you've probably seen the Design Team has done masking on many of their card samples. I wanted to share with you the way I do masking in case you haven't tried it yet yourself. 

First you need some sticky notes. I found these cool ones that are full adhesive- that means the sticky is all the way across the back of the note, not just along the top! 

Step one - stamp image onto sticky note and cut it out. This is the hardest part. Carefully cut around the image, close to the stamped edge. 

Step two - stamp the same image onto your card stock. This will be the piece you use for your card. 

Step three - Place the Dino sticky note over the Dino stamped on the cardstock. Now your Dino is masked and you can stamp another one right over the top. See how his tail goes right over the face? that's ok because now you can just peel off the sticky note. 

Here's what it looks like after you pull off the sticky note Dino. Cool, huh?

That's all there is too it... it's a little tedious to cut out the first shape but I save my mask right with my stamps - stick it on the back of your acetate sheet. You can definitely use it more than once-- and you should after you spent all that time cutting it out!

Here's a close-up of the final card - I finished it up by coloring the Dinos with Copics and adding the "RAWR" stamped on a wooden thought bubble! I also used an embossing folder in my Big Shot to create the pebbles background. 

I love how this turned out! It looks like those Dinos are having a conversation, don't you think?

If you like this Dino set, you can now find it for sale in our shop at www.newtonsnookdesigns.com It's called Prehistoric Pals!

Dryer Sheet Tutorial with Newton

So this weekend I was doing some laundry and as I changed loads and pulled out the dryer sheet I thought to myself "I haven't made a dryer sheet card in awhile.... hmmm that would be really cute on the Kitty stamp,wouldn't it? I should do a tutorial!"  I know I'm not the only crazy one who thinks about stamping while doing houshold chores, right? So here it is! Our first tutorial. 

Step One: Stamp image.  This will work with any image. Of course, we'd love it if you used one of our images from the Newton's Antics stamp set.  (you can buy it  here) I picked the sleepy kitty image. 

Step Two: color image. It doesn't matter what you use to color it. You could use markers if you'd like. I decided to use my Inktense colored pencils. At this point in my card-making process I had a special guest at my craft table - naughty Newton!  It was hard to color with him sitting on my project.... but he's so cute and since he's the kitty our stamp was based on I couldn't really tell him to go away!!

 Here's what my image looks like all colored in. I used a blender pen to blend the Inktense pencil colors:

Step Three: Smear glue stick over image. This is easy- and it reminds you of art class in grade school, right? Just cover that whole image with glue.... but don't eat any! 

Step Four: smoosh dryer sheet over glued area. Yes, "smoosh" is a technical term!  You could do this to the edges of your paper but I'm going to cut him out so I just covered the kitty. Note: this needs to be a USED dryer sheet. A new one is too stiff.

Step Five: cut out your image. At this point you could use a trimmer and cut a square but I wanted to just have the kitty image be fuzzy so I cut right up to the edges of the stamped image:

Step Six: Step back and admire your kitty! Yep - the fuzzy stamped one and the fuzzy real one! Newton has been there this whole time. He was getting bored with the card making and decided to take a nap.

That's all there is to it! You're done! Now you can take the cute fuzzy image and add it to a card. Here is what I made with mine ... and yes, Newton napped until I was done with the whole card!!

For the card I used the words "happy birthday to" from the stamp set Winged Wishes and added the "mew" from Newtons Antics! What a fun birthday card!

Here's a close-up: Can you see how soft and sweet it is? 

So... let me know what you think!  Do you like the tutorials? Would you like to see more? It was fun to make and so funny that Newton had to come and help!