Impress Class

Hello and Happy Monday!
How was your weekend?  Mine was great - I got to spend Saturday with some of my crafty friends, Amy and Tonya taking a Julie Ebersole class at Impress!  Yes - THE Julie Ebersole!  And as an added bonus, I had Sandy Allnock of Operation Write Home sitting next to me in class!   I don't think it can get much better than that!  We had a great time making cards, talking and laughing.

 From left to right:  Tonya, Julie, Sandy, me  Front - Amy

I wanted to share a couple of the cards we made in class.  Julie is so talented and I just love taking her classes.  She is as cute and fun in real life as she is in her videos!  And the laugh sounds just the same :)

Love the silver washi tape on this card!  Trying to think if any of my word dies are bold enough to recreate this card at home.

How genius is this to create a snowbank for your snowman?  The black cardstock behind the vellum is cut shorter than the vellum to create that illusion! 

This little polar bear is just so cute peeking out of the circle punch!
This is only 3 of the 12 cards we made - hopefully I will get around to posting some of the others this week.
Thanks Julie for such a great day!

-Laura

 

OCC Day 5

Day 5 of Online Card Classes was all about Tags!  There were a lot of fun examples, and I chose to make a shaker tag.  Yana showed us how to use the same idea and make a simple, medium and more advanced tag just by adding a few extra steps.

I started by punching the snowflake from a tag, and lining it with a piece of acetate.  I added some patterned paper to the second tag and filled it with sequins.  Using foam tape, I put the two tags together to create the shaker.  It looked a little plain, so I stamped a few snowflakes in a soft blue color.  I think they add some interest but don't distract from the main shaker snowflake.   The sentiment is PTI stamped in Versamark Black Onyx ink. A little red and gold twine added to the top and that was that!  So fun to make a shaker tag.  I think it would be great on a bottle of wine as a gift to our neighbors this Christmas!

Thanks for stopping by
-Laura

OCC Day 4

I am really enjoying the Online Card Classes Holiday Workshop 2014!  Are you taking it too?  You can sign up any time and you get lifetime access to the videos and PDF's of each card.

Day 4 of class was about one layer cards.  Definitely postal friendly which is good when you are mailing out a bunch of cards for the Holidays!  I liked Julie Ebersole's card where she used a mask and created a fun 'snowy' dimension around the image.  I tried to duplicate that with the word JOY instead of a solid image like she had.  When I pulled off the mask, there just wasn't enough definition around the letters that you could tell what it said.  But I still liked the 'snowy' effect, so I salvaged the card by die cutting the word from some shiny red paper and popping it up with some foam tape.  Not exactly the 'masking' look that she had, but I like it nonetheless.  I will have to try her technique with a different die cut to see if I can get that cool result!

Thanks for stopping by!
-Laura

Lawnscaping pumpkin challenge

Just a quick card to share today.  I made this for the current Lawnscaping Challenge where the theme is pumpkins and fall.

I used the new Sweater Weather set  (love that tree and those cute little leaves!) and the Thankful for you set to create this little scene.  Lawn Fawn stamps just make you smile don't they?

Thanks for stopping in and sharing part of your day with me!
-Laura

Caring Hearts Card Drive

I'm sure you have heard about this card drive that is going on.  Jennifer McGuire and Vera Yates have teamed up again this year to collect homemade cards to send to the elderly in nursing homes. 

A few weeks ago, I helped my daughter's Girl Scout troop make cards for the Caring Hearts Card Drive.  I think this is such a great idea; it fits perfectly with the Girl Scouts and helps the girls with some service projects. 

I made three different cards as a guide and for inspiration.  Then I provided the supplies for each of the 8 girls in her troop to make one of each card.  They had a great time using the stamps, inks and punches.  It's funny how some copied my cards exactly, and others used their own imagination to make their card unique and different!  It was super fun and I think all the girls enjoyed it too!  The fact that the cards are going to a good cause is just the icing on the cake! 

 

 

 

 

I will get these cards sent off to the card drive along with some others that I have made just for this great cause.  If you want to join in the fun too, there is still time - all cards must be received by November 28th.  Click here for all the details.  (There are prizes too!)

Thanks for stopping by!
-Laura

OCC Day 3 - Watercolor

Today's lessons over at Online Card Classes was all about watercoloring!  I really like this fun technique, but don't find myself using it very often.  So it was great to pull out the watercolor paper and distress inks for my card today. 

 

 

All of the examples in class were amazing, but Kristina's card was by far the easiest to replicate.  I first stamped the sentiment from a HA Christmas sentiment set and white embossed it.  Then I added the little images around the edge and embossed them as well.  Most of them are from the SU set jolly bingo bits.  After that, I added Peacock Feathers distress ink over the sentiment with a water brush, and layered in some Faded Jeans and finally around the outer edge, I added some Memento Nautical Blue ink.  The final touch was to add some stickles.  The red stickles seemed a bit too dark for my blue card, so I choose fruit punch stickles instead.  I was happy with the way it turned out, and think I will try it with some different colors of ink.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

-Laura

OCC Day 2 - Interactive cards

It was another fun day over at Online Card Classes yesterday!  The lessons were all about interactive cards.  There were shaker cards, sliding cards, cards with front doors that opened!   I debated about which card to make for my 'homework' and then remembered that my crafty friend Lisa Lara had given us these super cute snowman pieces from A Jillian Vance to make a shaker card with at one of our last crafty get-togethers at Amy's house.  Everyone else used theirs already, but mine was still sitting on my desk.  This was the perfect opportunity to build that cute little snowman and fill his belly with some fun sparkly stars!

I cut some snow banks, added glitter to the top of them and created some glitter snowflakes falling from the sky.  The sentiment is from PTI Rustic Wreath set.

This was so much fun to make!  Thanks Lisa for the cute Sam E. Snowman die cut pieces!!

Can't wait for the rest of class to see what else they have in store for us.  I know it will be great!!
-Laura