And The Winner Is………

 

Barb B. who said, “Beautiful Fran!

(Barb contact me at francesb100@gmail.com)

Congratulations!

Happy Birthday Card For My Grandson

 

I don’t know if you ever ran out of ideas of making a card for the man, grandson, nephew, etc. in your life.  Well it happened to me. The next masculine card I needed to make is for my grandson Hunter.  Lots of you know him and know how much he loves to craft.  But one thing you don’t know about  Hunter is that he has been driving those battery operated trucks/cars since he was 2-1/2 years old.  He is now 5 and if he could he would drive any car or truck he was allowed to drive.  And I am not being biased at all but that little boy can drive.  He has a child size 4 wheeler and boy can he go on that thing.  I get so scared watching him.  Of course he is well protected but it still scares me to see him go so fast.  And he helps Pop Pop drive the tractor too.

So I thought I need to make him a special card that I know he thought would be neat (well I am hoping he thinks its neat).  So doing a lot of research and seeing cards my other card maker friends have done for their men I finally became inspired through their ideas and my research.  It took me over two weeks to make this card.  Not because it was hard but because I had to wait for things to dry completely.  And I had to order some embellishments I did not have in my stash.  Below are the photos of the final results and the recipe I used to make the card.  If you are wondering if I had fun making this card well I can say that now that I am done I feel relieved.  I just did not know what I was doing half the time.  So everything was trial and error.  And really had to dig deep in my creative portion of my brain.  I will say this the main element of this card is Aluminum Foil and my personal Cutting Machine.    So with all that said here are the photos.

I used SCAL to draw the card and add the gears border.  The border was welded to the edge of the card so that it will cut out with the gears attached.  Then I took the gears border and re-cut it out of black metallic paper and glued the black metallic border to the white border on the edge of the card (used Neenah paper for card base).  I took  a piece of heavy aluminum foil and used an embossing folder by Tim Holtz called Riveted Metal Set.  I glued the embossed foil to the front of the card.  Once it dried I painted it with Black Paint Dabber paint (I love this paint and so easy to use)  and then removed most of it with paper toweling and left some black in some areas to give it a metal look.  I waited 24 hours for the paint to dry completely. At this time I had no embellishments to add to the front of the card so I cut 1/2” circles and covered the gap between the two embossed pieces to cover the seam.

OK so here is a side view of the card.  I had no clue what I was going to do to the inside to pull the theme together.  So off to the Internet to do some research on how to make aluminum foil look like forged metal.  Well a found a You Tube video on it.  What you do is take a piece of foil larger than what you need and crumple it. But do not crumple it to tightly or it will be too hard to pull apart.  Pull it apart and then use a brayer or something like a brayer (rolling pin for example) and smooth out the crumpled foil.  Once I got it where I liked the look I painted it with more Black Paint Dabber. I wiped the excess off with a paper towel and waited another 24 hours for it to dry completely.  I made another border of gears and glued it to the inside to pull the theme together.  And I found a digital image of a gear with embellishments and the center was left white for my sentiment.  Now how do I embellish the front of the card.  Well I ordered a small bag of Steampunk gears.  Waited for them to come which took a week to get to me.

VOILA!

I found a FREE Font called Gears and cut out Happy Birthday using my personal Cutting Machine.  And added the steampunk gears to the corners.  Even though this card took me a couple of weeks to get done it was all worth it.  And I know Hunter is going to love it!

He better, lol.

Thank you for reading all about how I made this card and I hope that I inspired you in some way.  

Fran

Cutters Creek Holiday Blog Hop Is Over

 

and it was a great success!  I want to thank every one who stopped my by Blog to look at my Christmas card and for all the lovely compliments you left me.   Some of you already know but maybe some don’t but I live on the East Coast.  And we are experiencing some heavy winds and rain at this time.  Our electric went out once already and we know it will go out again.  It goes out very easily in my area.  I live north of Baltimore right above the Susquehanna River.  The storm is supposed to hit real bad around 5 Pm this evening (Monday).  So please keep us and every one on the East Coast in your prayers.

I received 33 comments.  You may notice it says 31 comments but two ladies commented during the Blog Hop where the template of the bag is posted.  So I counted them in also using the time as my guide to add in to the main comments.  I counted the comments as I received them from the earliest time to the latest time EST.  And I will run them through the True Random Number Generator.

And the winner is!  Number 3: Barb B. and she said “Beautiful Fran”.  Barb please contact me at this e-mail addy: francesb100@gmail.com  I will get in touch with you as long as my electric is still on.  Barb please put Blog Hop Winner in the Subject Line.  Thank you.  The lights just flickered so I hope I get this posted before the electric goes out.

Congratulations Barb!

Welcome to Cutters Creek Holiday Blog Hop

 

(Click on this link to learn more on how to win some Blog Candy)

 

Welcome to the Cutters Creek Design Team Holiday Blog Hop! We want you to hop along with us and play for some awesome Blog Candy. The objective for our Blog Hop this weekend is to provide some inspiration to help you get your holiday crafting underway! Our Design Team has come up with some fabulous projects and we have a little bit of everything, from cards to gift ideas, and home décor items. So we invite you to hop along with us and get your creative juices flowing!

Here is the complete blog hop line up in case you get lost along the way:

Cutters Creek Blog (Chris) - http://www.cutterscreekdesignteam.blogspot.com/

Kim - http://kreativekim.blogspot.com/

Pebbles - http://sheissocrafty.blogspot.com/

Tee - http://tee-myspot.blogspot.com/

Melissa - http://www.ourmadhouseof4.blogspot.com/

Lori - http://savingmine.blogspot.com/

Laura - http://www.scrapaddict4life.blogspot.com/

Fran - http://scallopsandswirls.blogspot.com/

Deanna - http://deannaspapercrafts.blogspot.com/

*Don’t forget to leave a comment before hopping along to Deanna’s Blog.

 

Thanks for hopping by and we hope you are enjoying the hop and getting many wonderful ideas!

 

My card recipe: eBosser, Winter Lace Winter Collection (snowflakes) by Cricut, KaiserCraft Pearls, Marianne Design Die (Seasons' Greetings & Merry Christmas sentiment),  Memory Box Die Petal Party, Die-Namics Rounded Banner Trio, Cuttlebug Embossing Folder Snowflakes*, Neenah Paper, Ranger Stickles Glitter Glue, Therm-O-Web Glitter Dust.

*Not available at Cutters Creek but check with Kim if interested. But there are many others that are great embossing folders to have in your crafting supplies.

If there are any items listed above that Cutters Creek does not carry please contact Kim Bush and she may be able to get the item you are interested in.

Did you leave a comment?  I hope so because that is the only way you will have a chance in winning the Blog Candy.   Thanks so much for stopping by my Blog!

Fran

Now your next stop is Deanna’s Blog!

 

 

I Like You To Meet Keli and Olive

Today I bring you an Image Flashback from McMahon Five Designs.  I fell in love with this image the first time I saw it and I know you will too.  So without further delay I like you to meet Keli and Olive.  Just look at that adorable puppy face!

For the first time I picked out the paper first and then colored the image. Boy it sure made it easy to match the image to the paper. The paper is from a 6x6 pad called Indie Bloom by Basic Grey. The card base is my favorite card stock by Neenah (Classic Crest Baronial Ivory 80#).  The digital image was colored using Prisma Colored Pencils. All embellishments (ribbon and crystal brads) are from my personal stash.  And I used the Spellbinders Nestabilities Beaded Ovals Dies for the Front and Inside of the card.  Plus I added a little bling to the die cut shapes with Stickles Glitter Glue (Lavender).  And the size of the card is a standard A2 size.  Quite a change for me because I usually make 5-1/2” or 6” square cards.  And I love how it  went together so easily using a smaller card base.  I really kept it simple this time.  And I think its one of my favorites too.  Its that puppy face that got to me :)

Stop over to the M5D Blog and check out the other projects by the Design Team.  Lots of inspiration to influence your creativity.  Thank you for stopping by and hope my small contribution from my creative side of my brain boosted your creative side of your brain. 

 

FYI Blog Candy

 

 

I will be giving away 10 high quality card stock papers.  And on the back of each piece is a template that you can cut out and make up to use for personal gifts or use them to decorate a small table, etc.

This is the template you will be getting:

Here is one made up.

Each paper is a different theme except for two of the papers.  The two plain papers are actually chalk board paper by DCWV and you can decorate them with chalk.  Really cool paper!  Some of the other papers are by Mariposa, Tim Holtz,  DCWV, Baby Steps by atd, and K&Company. The paper was cut down to an 8-1/2” by 11” size for printing purposes.  The extra paper that was cut off you will get also to make embellishments our of them for each bag.  You will receive the instructions seen above in the packet too.

If you are interested in winning this packet of beautiful papers to make the cute bag (and I hope you are) all you have to do is leave a comment on my blog on the weekend of the Cutters Creek Holiday Blog Hop.  And at the end of the Blog Hop I will count in the order the comments were received and using the Random Number Generator by Random.org to pick the winner.  I will announce the winner on my Blog so come back and check to see if you won!   One more favor I like to ask of you if you are not a follower of my blog please sign up. 

 

. 

It’s That Time OF The Year…..

 

When we start thinking about all the holidays that are coming up.  My project today can be for any Fall Theme holiday like Halloween or Thanksgiving.  It depends on the type of elements you use.  My project leans more to a Fall Theme where you can use it for that very special Trick or Treat person in you life.  Or it can be used for favor bags if you are hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner.  It has a formal flair to it because I just love making flowers and so I added a flower using the Spellbinders Rose Creation Die (S5-050).  I cut the flower out using my Ebosser cutting the  flower petals and leaves in one pass.   Really easy peasy!

 

Instead of making a rose out of it I just layered the petal layers and attached them with a pumpkin eyelet and brad. Then I sprayed the layers with with water and scrunched them tightly. I used my heat gun to dry the layers and then separated each layer gently so they would not tear.  I held the layers together with a small pumpkin eyelet in the center and then added a tiny brad to hold it all together.  I attached the flower to the bag/box by punching an 1/8th” hole to the bag/box and slipped the brad through and secured it in the inside of the bag.   Once the flower was all dried I dabbed the edges with Stickles (Orange Peel). I used a small paint brush to paint on the stickles to the edges of the petals.  I used Distress Stickles (crushed olive) on the edges of the leaves. I  creased the leaves and used Distress Ink Pad  (Pine Needles) on the center crease. Thanks Tee for this great idea you shared on one of your videos.

 

(click on photos for larger view)

 

 

NOTE:  The template was printed using my printer on card stock (8-1/2 by 11”) and I printed the diagram of the template on the wrong side of the paper.  This way you will not see the black lines on the good side of the paper.  If  by chance you use double sided designed paper you can color the lines to blend with the paper.  This can be done using any imaging program like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Gimp, etc.  And I would be glad to help you if you have any questions.  You can direct your questions to me privately at francesb100@gmail.com.

You can also request  the template by going to my blog on the Templates Page.

I hope I have inspired you in some way.  And thank you for stopping by.

Fran

World Card Making Day

 

Today is World Card Making Day and I wanted to make a card for all the oncology nurses at the treatment center where I go for my treatments.  A card surely isn’t enough to tell these angels how much they mean to me.  And how many times they gave me hope.   And especially for all the good care I get from them.  To me they are my angels on earth.  So I chose today to share with you the card I made for them.

(You can click on the photos to get a larger view.)

The digital image is by Mo Manning.  The card base I used Spellbinders Mega Nestabilities (Curved Rectangle).  I used the largest rectangle to make the card and the layered rectangles for the image and the inside of the card.  I used my eBosser to make the card and the layers.  The eBosser will cut and emboss all at the same time.  So easy and such detailed embosssing.  I love that machine! The paper I used to cut out the white rectangles and for the image is by Neenah (great for Copic markers and Prisma colored pencils).  I colored the image using Prisma Colored Pencils.  And the floor effect under the nurse’s feet was shaded with a gray shade and then added a little Stickles for emphasis.  Its really a cool effect.  The flowers are by Prima.  And the ribbon is seam binding dyed using distress inks to match the card base.  And then added some pretty pearls by Recollection.  You cannot tell very well from the photo but the pearls are a very light blue. 

I hope my card has given you some inspiration to make a card today to honor World Card Making Day. 

Hugs, Fran

Happy Pumpkin Day

 

Today I did a card for McMahon Five Design using one of the cutest Halloween digital images. I had so much fun coloring the images and just went wild with the glitter too.  And added some WOW! Embossing powder to the sentiment.  Below the photo are all the details about how I created my card.   The image below discusses the image I used plus you get a total of 16 files in this grouping of digital images.  Now that is a great deal!!!

Pumpkin Friends JPG and PNG

Check out those crazy eyes!

The two pumpkins were colored using Prisma colored pencils using Neenah Paper. The Gourd in the center was paper pieced using a texture paper than colored lightly with Prisma color pencils. All the glitter is Stickles Glitter Glue.  The card base was made from Neenah Paper.  And the web frame was cut using my Cricut Expression.  I also sprayed the web frame with Silver Glitter Dust by Therm-O- Web. The spider was also cut using my Cricut Expression and then added some glitter for his nose and feet.  And for his eyes I used Liquid Pearls. The sentiment is part of the 16 files you will get with this digital package.  Below is a close up of the sentiment.  I printed the sentiment on cardstock using my printer and while the ink was still wet I covered it with WOW! Silver Embossing powder.  And then used a heat gun to melt it.  The background for the sentiment is just a torn piece of cardstock and the edges were embossed to match the sentiment.

I hope you liked what you saw and hopefully gave you some ideas on how you like to create your Halloween cards.  And if you want to see more of what the other Design Team Members did check out the M5D Blog If you have any questions about my project you can contact me at francesb100@gmail.com.  Thank you and have a wonderful day!

Fran