Inspire Me Monday: Some Tips to Create in a Jiffy!

Hello everyone and happy Monday! It's time for another Inspire Me Monday and today, I have some fun, easy and relatively quick cards that I made to slip into the mail to send to my daughter at college. But, these little numbers are really all occasion cards that you could have on standby to send in a jiffy!

I started by going through some of my favorite digital stamps from Power Poppy and narrowing them down to images that would be "pick me ups" and happy illustrations. I decided on Wish You Luck, Asters Abuzz and Cuppa Buttercups! 

So how are these creations quick? I'll share some of the tips & tricks I used to keep it simple! 

First, I started by opening all of them up in my Photoshop Elements and putting them on a printable page just for ease and then, second, while they were all on the same page, I used different dies to cut out each image. 

Once I had my images die cut, I decided to make my card in reverse for ease. I call it backward but maybe this is how you create all the time? Let me know if you do because, honestly, it cut down on the time I normally take picking up and putting down so many different decorative card stocks until I settle on "just the right one!" For some reason, when the image isn't colored, it's easier to choose? Hhhhmmm.... maybe!

Oops! I almost forgot! With the Wish You Luck image, you'll notice the original has the stems included in the image and I wanted to create just a circle of clover -- so I opened up the image and then used the magic eraser to erase the tied stems! 

Here's a peek at the original illustration! 

Okay, back to my tips and tricks! I went about creating my card bases before I even put marker to paper....

I created these three layouts in less than a half hour (and honestly, probably less time than that). I simply picked papers that looked appealing to me instead of trying to perfectly match them to the vibe or the color of the Copic markers that I used. 

Now, the reason why I wanted to do it this way was because my daughter plays college softball and since we can't always make the away games, we sit in front of our TV and watch her for doubleheaders on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. That's perfect coloring time in between innings! ;-) 

WISH YOU LUCK - Card #1

With midterms and finals always looming, I decided to use this image to pop in the mail when she needs a little encouragement. As a nursing major, it seems like every test is "do or die" and so a little love from mom can't hurt, can it?

While this card might seem a little "loud"-- I think it's happy and the patterns are fresh and fun! Color up the image with Copic markers, add a sentiment strip and some bling and.... done! 

Here's a closeup for you! 

ASTERS ABUZZ - Card #2

This creation is just a little reminder to stay positive and when life gets you down, re-write the script and make your own happy. It's an important lesson, right? 

And, here's a little closeup! You can see that I did add a little sparkle to the bee's wings! 

CUPPA BUTTERCUPS - Card #3

I love this last card because you can pop a card like this in the mail any time for any reason! 

And so, after some coloring while watching softball, here's all three together! It was funny, after coloring an image, I'd run to my craft room and assemble and take a photo then run back to the couch to do it again! I have to say it was a fun way to create -- no stress or fussing at all like I normally do! :-)

I hope you had fun sharing a little time with me today and maybe you'll give these little tricks a try -- picking a handful of digital images and putting them on a page, die-cutting them in one fell swoop and then creating each card's layout before you color! It sure helped me! 

Thanks for stopping by! Have a fabulous and creative week! 

Inspire Me Monday: Valentine's Day Inspiration!

 

Hello all! And welcome to another edition of Inspire Me Monday.... albeit a little late today! ;-) Given that tomorrow is a day surrounded by love with Valentine's Day, I thought I'd share some old and new projects designed to help you share in the holiday in a jiffy! All of these projects are quick to create but not at all less heartfelt! So, let's get to it! Shall we? 

This first project is one I created a few years ago and is still one of my all-time faves. If you click the link, it will take you right to the tutorial! 

Sweets for your Sweetie! Create this darling box out of just a few strips of paper! Make it as large as you like or downsize it for some smaller goodies! The digital image is one of the best bangs for your Valentine buck with Va-Va-Valentines. This set features six different darling images and some small senties in one digital stamp set! What? Seriously? Yep. Seriously.  

Just Take 10! These two creations from Tosha Leyendekker only take ten minutes but don't look like they did! Since we are less than 24 hours away from this sweet holiday, why not try one of these? While this was stamped using a sentiment no longer available from Power Poppy, you could easily swap something in your Power Poppy stash like LaVie En Rose.

Speaking of La Vie En Rose, the last little digital delight I am going to show you a new creation that takes almost ZERO stamping! The only thing I stamped was the sentiment. I have to say this card was CASED from a kit that I subscribe to -- when I saw it, I immediately knew I could repeat the vibe using Power Poppy stamps. Whoop whoop! 

I started by downloading LaVie En Rose and removing the background with some of the tools in Photoshop Elements. I also found some royalty-free watercolor backgrounds that I knew would be fun to lay this rose over top. 

I added a stamped sentiment from an old Power Poppy set, add some silver cording, some sequins and Ta-Dah!! Fini! This is truly a 10-minute card! 

Well folks, since we are down to the last hours before Valentine's Day -- if you haven't gotten a card for your honey, try one of these 10-minute creations! 

Until next time,

Inspire Me Monday: Fun Little Folds

Hey everybody! Welcome to another Inspire Me Monday! Today I have a fun little project for you that is a little non-standard but fits in a standard size envelope. Recently, I was surfing and someone created a card somewhat like this and it stuck in my head. Go figure, when I tried to get back to where that idea was, I couldn't find it, so these dimensions and how I created my card are probably a wee bit of my own making! ;-) When I find things like this, I love sharing with a Power Poppy spin on them! 

Here's a peek at the card we'll be making.... 

 You will start with a strip of paper that measures 5-1/2" by 12". This will be your card base, so be sure to use a kind of paper with enough bulk. You'll want to score this piece along the shortest width at the 6" line. 

From here, fold your piece, setting the fold along the 0" edge of your scoring device and score 4-1/4" to the right side of the fold. 

Now, flip your card 180 degrees so that the piece you just scored is now on your left-hand side. Now, again, to the right side of the fold, score at the 3-1/2" line. Once you've folded these pieces toward the middle of your card front, you'll have something that looks like this below. The inner fold is a valley fold and the outer fold is a mountain fold. 

I didn't want these flaps to protrude so much into my card, so I trimmed both flaps so that they were an inch in width. Now they lay nicely and don't take up too much of my card front. You'll see why this is important in a minute! 

From here, I cut two pieces of coordinating card stock to measure 1" by 5-1/2". 

I then adhered these two pieces to each of my two flaps. 

Before I finished the front, I wanted to make two pieces to serve as the inside of my card. I opened the digital stamp set Forget-Me-Not Heart in my Photoshop Elements and then changed the color of it to match my green paper. These pieces measure 3-3/4" by 5" and then 3" by 5". I wanted to have a nice amount of border around these pieces. The sentiment is from the polymer set called Chrysanthemum XL, which is retired. 

Now, with any folds like this, you know it's hard to close your card, so, that's why we create those fun belly bands on cards -- to keep everything in its place! :-)

And... that's what I did. I took a piece of paper that was 12" by 1-1/2" and folded it around my card, trimming off the excess and securing it in the back with double-sided tape. Some people choose to score this piece but I have never had any luck doing this with the proper measurements. My band is either too big or too small forcing bad words to come out of my mouth. So, instead, I lightly fold the strip around my card and follow up with a bone folder to make that edge crisp! 

From there, I printed off another Forget-Me-Not Heart, making it a wee bit smaller than the ones I used on the inside. Since I was using the blank heart portion of this set, I wanted a different sentiment and chose the one from the Camellias digital set "Life is Better with Friends." I colored it up with Copic markers and chose shades that would match my cardstock. My blue is a little bolder than the colors on my paper but I love how "cheery" it is! 

And, here's a little close-up for you! I did add a wee bit of glitter to the insides of my flowers. I can't resist. I just can't resist glitter! 

And that, my friends, is it! A fun little fold that keeps the person you give your card to guessing a wee bit! Not to mention, it's super fun and extra easy to make! If you end up making a version of this, please include a link in the comments! I'd love to see how yours turned out! 

Have a fun and creative week! 

Inspire Me Monday: A Little Halloween Flair

 

Hello all! Since we are three weeks away from 'The Night of Fright', I thought I'd share a little something I came up with on how to transform Marcella's super fun Halloween illustrations into home decor! 

I was at Michaels the other day and they have two rows full of wood pieces that you can use to create your own signs. That's where my idea was ignited! When I saw the options along with some of the fun wooden Halloween messages, I knew I had the start of something fun! 

Want to see what we are creating today? Here's a peek. 

Isn't that super fun? And, while I thought this might take me quite a bit of time to put together, I was done in a little less than 3 hours. I started by printing the digital stamp "Boo Cat & Pumpkins" at 81/2 by 11 inches. Basically, I opened it and printed it so that it would cover an entire sheet of card stock. My wooden base was 91/2 by 14 inches, so I thought this would work perfectly. Then, I continued with some loosey-goosey coloring. No need for super intricate coloring here! I used super large strokes and just colored with strokes instead of constant color. 

So this.....

Grew into this....

And, ultimately, this...

Now it was time to turn my attention to my sign! This is what I started with: a few bottles of acrylic paint, some foam brushes, the natural wooden sign, a natural Halloween sentiment and some decoupage glue. 

You can see I started painting the base of my sign black. I started wanting to cover only those cracks but quickly decided it would be better to give the entire sign a coat of black. You can see, I wasn't too careful to provide an even coat. I already knew I was going to cover this up a bit! 

From there, I took and dry brushed some purple paint over top to create a kind of weathered look. I also painted my Happy Halloween words --- although please ignore this color. After I painted this black I decided I needed a pop of color here and painted over top with a lime green shade of acrylic paint! 

And now, it's time to add my boo cat to this backdrop! I just fussy cut around my image cutting a jagged edge around the kitty so that I didn't have to cut all the little pieces of fur! After it was cut out, I attached it to the wooden base by putting some decoupage glue on the back side with one of the foam brushes. Make sure the edges of your paper don't curl. The key is to apply a super light coat, press down and then weigh the image down by covering it with a book or a few magazines to hold it all in place. 

From there, I added some layered ribbon at the top, securing with a little hot glue. I adhered the Happy Halloween wooden piece with some foam tape so that it would have some dimension. After everything was dry, it was time to add it to the hearth for a little home Halloween flair! What do you think?

And that, my friends, is it! A fun little way to use a digital stamp to create some home decor that's both frightful and fun!

Hope you had fun spending a little time with me today! And, I hope you have a fabulous and creative week ahead!

Until next time, 

Inspire Me Monday: Digital Mash Up!

 

Hello all and Happy Monday! I have to admit, I didn't have a ton of time to craft this week so I thought of a way to share a little creative tidbit this week, in a bite-sized post! So, here we go!

Have you ever looked at two stamps or images and wished you could combine them to make a completely new image? Well, the beauty of digital stamps is.... you CAN! 

I'd been looking at the Glittering Glass Santa ornament and that lovely branch....

And, I wondered, what can I perch on that branch instead of an ornament? Well, I'd always been a fan of the little birds in the digital set Cardinal Couple! 

So, why not mash up the two images?

I started by opening up the cardinal image and then, I knew I needed to start "erasing" the cups and berries in the image...

If you have a photo editing software, most of them have an "eraser" tool, allowing you to take out pieces and parts in one fell swoop! I use Photoshop Elements and the tool is actually... an eraser! On this image, I was careful to erase everything but the bird and her little feet and made the tool rather small to get into all those nooks and crannies. 

Next, I opened up the Glittering Glass Santa image and then erased dear Ole Santa! Sorry, Santa! 

After he was erased, I clicked on the layer and duplicated it so that I could arrange the two branch images just how I wanted it in a way that a bird might perch on it. (To do this, you right click on the layer to the right and "duplicate" will be an option. 

But you can see above.... wow... that's a lot of foliage. I decided to get rid of the lower portion of the branches on both and then just arrange the top portions by tilting, dragging and dropping. 

I should mention, I used the magic eraser tool and with one click completely erased the background so that I could "see" the top branch over the bottom.  

And, I also shortened the lower branch erasing up to a portion that looked natural. See? I know this seems complicated but... trust me... it's not. If you erase too much? Pushing Control Z is your friend! :-) 

Then, all that is left to do is perch my little cute birdie! Below is a look at my finished digital image, just ready and waiting to be printed. While I don't have a picture of it, I also printed off the male cardinal. I wasn't sure I'd use him but wanted him on "standby!"

And here's a look at how it all came together! Some die cuts, a wee bit of layering, some sparkle, ribbon and a little bling! I now officially have my first Christmas card ready to send! I should mention that the sentiment is from a Power Poppy clear set called Simple Joys! 

Here's a little closeup! 

Now, after I finished my card, I thought, "Wow, that little birdie looks a little lonely!" So, remember that male cardinal I said I printed? I ended up coloring him up and tucking him into my layer so that they would be looking lovingly at each other. 

Truth be told, however, I honestly can't decide if they are looking lovingly or if the lady birdie is just looking at the gent saying, "Hey, quit being such a creeper cardinal!" I might have to look at this card just a wee bit more before the jury comes back on that one! Long story short, this was a tutorial on digital mash-ups, not creeper cardinals so... my work here is done! ;-)

Hope you took something fun away from all of this and... I hope you have a beautiful and creative week! See y'all next month!