Anatomy of 100 Cards!

I recently received a request for 100 of a particular card in my etsy shop!  My customer is the founder of You Matter!  which is a monthly subscription box to encourage young people who struggle to find their place in this world.  January’s box is music themed and she felt my card would be a nice addition!  I haven’t done a large card order in quite some time, so I jumped right in and got busy!  Be warned!  This post is picture heavy!  My first photo shows a number of the black base cards upon which I stamped my logo in white pigment ink.  I purchased it from Hello World etsy shop last year and just love it!

 

Here I’ve gathered my beginning pieces to assemble the card; the larger white stack on the left is 4 X 6 index cards which I trimmed down to 4 X 5 1/4″ and will form the white border around my central image.  The second stack of white is card stock cut to a quarter inch smaller than the border panel.  This is the piece which I’ll emboss with my Brutus Monroe folder called Petal Lace using Fossilized Amber distress oxide ink.  I die-cut my ovals using Gina Marie Designs Stitched Oval dies.

 

Thankfully I was able to cut two ovals at a time, which saved me some elbow grease with the Cuttlebug!  I stamped the sentiment from Brutus Monroe’s set called Break The Rules using Versafine Onyx Black ink.

I colored in the little microphone using a gray Copic marker then…

 

…lightly stamped the music notes onto the ovals.

This is the faux Letterpress technique and it’s so pretty!  I rubbed my ink pad all over the flat side of the embossing folder then ran it through my Cuttlebug.  Unfortunately, this had to be done 100 times as I could only do one at a time!  UGH!

But look how cool it is!

I sure was happy to finish that step and adding more of the musical notes onto 100 panels went fairly quickly!  I realized when I was done that the original card in my etsy shop only had the notes inked down one side!  Oh well!

Back to the ovals!  I decided to add a bit of Glossy Accents glue to the microphone for a little additional detail.

At this point, I quit for the night and left them to dry!

I ran out of my Glue Glider Pro tape so tried using Elmer’s Glue stick to attach the inside panel; I didn’t love it but it was the best I could do at this point!

Today I was thrilled to get my tape runner refills in the mail!  Thank goodness!  😀  I have a monthly subscription through Amazon and it’s half the price of buying them at a retail store!  I love this tape runner because it’s lightweight and the perfect size to work with!  Here’s a link to Amazon for them.  I zipped right through this step of adhering my embossed panels and ovals to the fronts of the cards!

At last!!  Finished!!  I packed 100 cards and coordinating envelopes into a sturdy card box, stuffed bubble wrap in the gaps and covered with tissue paper to make it look prettier!

One of my favorite thank you cards went on the top and expresses my gratitude for the order and her support of my work!

And here’s one of the finished cards!  I hope that each person who receives this will feel special and sense the love that went into the creating of it!  Be sure to check out the You Matter! website and if you know of a young person who would benefit from such a meaningful gift, please subscribe!  Thank you for staying with me to the end of this time-worthy project!

 

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Flames of Fall

Yay!!  It finally cooled down to a lovely 64 degrees which means long pants, a light jacket and no more flip flops!  I’ve been having lots of fun making all my fall cards but doing so in hot weather isn’t quite as satisfying!  I made this beautiful card a few days ago using the Tree Poem stamp by Stampendous!  It’s such a striking image and I decided to add “leaves” of flaming colors!

I started with a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock and heat-embossed the tree in black.  I then tapped some Faded Jeans oxide ink onto my craft mat, spritzed with water and pressed my card stock into it, moving it around to fill in mostly the edges.  Next I tapped a small acrylic block into Fossilized Amber oxide ink then spritzed it with water and “stamped” it onto the tree in several places.  This allowed me to control where the “leaves” went.  I repeated this step with Fired Brick and Carved Pumpkin oxides, adding some to the base of the tree as well.

When my panel was finished, I die-cut it with Stitched Oval dies and mounted it to a vanilla base card which I’d run through the Cuttlebug with my Fall Leaves embossing folder.  I kept the overall design fairly simple so that the tree was the main focus!

The final detail was to heat-emboss in black a sentiment from The Ton’s Basic Labels set onto a scrap of white cardstock then attach it to a strip of orange floral paper.  I lifted it with a bit of foam tape for dimension.  The leaves are just beginning to turn here but soon they’ll be aflame!  I hope you enjoyed this card and are inspired to play!

Brutus Monroe Rustic Balcony

Hi there!  It’s Saturday and that means I get to take over the Brutus Monroe blog!!!  (insert evil laugh!!)  😀  Just kidding!  It’s a thrill and an honor to be a part of this amazing team and to share my creations using some pretty awesome stuff!!  Today I’m featuring a smallish stamp called  Rustic Balcony but it packs a classy punch!  I heat-embossed the balcony in black onto a piece of watercolor cardstock then got busy with my Zigs!  It only took a few minutes to watercolor so I moved right on to the next step!  Using a stitched oval set of dies, I cut the watercolored panel first then another larger oval of black.  I decided to feature Tim Holtz’ 3D Textured Impressions Botanical background on my white base card and I think it beautifully sets of the dark, crisp lines of Rustic Balcony!  

Before mounting the ovals to the base card with some fun foam, I added a couple red brads for accent.  I then heat-embossed the Hello sentiment onto a scrap of black and placed it over the main image.  So quick, so elegant!  

For my second card, I embossed Rustic Balcony in gold onto a piece of watercolor cardstock and decided not to color it in.  Instead I just sponged some Broken China distress ink around the edges and set it aside to create the rest of my card!  This beautiful laser-cut piece was in my paper stash from a wedding invitation which I of course, saved!  I added another piece of patterned paper to fill out the other side and attached it to a white card base.  The “friend to friend” sentiment is from an old Stampin’ Up set and I embossed that in a row onto a narrow strip of white, and used it to cover up where the two patterned papers met!  

I mounted the balcony with foam tape; a couple of die-cut gold foil leaf sprigs and a few random sequins added the final details to my card and I love how it turned out!  One small stamp set yielded two very elegant cards!  Another similar stamp is  Rustic Door and that one’s on my wish list!  Brutus Monroe has a wide variety to choose from so be sure to visit the store or website to find YOUR style of stamps!  Thanks for visiting!  

My Favorite Things Roses All Over!

I was poking around just now in my CopyCatCard photo files and stumbled upon these fabulous backgrounds!!!  How did I not share them with you??!!  😀  Anyone who knows me, knows that I absolutely love floral stamps, and floral cards and FLOWERS!  I’ve had this gorgeous background stamp called Roses All Over (made by My Favorite Things) for a couple years and earlier this summer I got it out to play with.  The image on the left was made by heat-embossing in white onto a piece of Bristol Smooth card stock and watercolored with my Zig markers.  Basically, I scribbled randomly over the roses then used a sloppy wet paintbrush to move the color.  Isn’t it BEAUTIFUL?!  The one on the right was embossed in gold and I smooshed distress oxide inks onto my craft mat and then just tapped my card stock in it, moving it around to distribute and layer the color.  Equally gorgeous!

Here’s what I made with the distress oxide background!  I used Lawn Fawn’s Stitched Hillside Border dies to cut out the center and mounted it onto a white base card and embossed my sentiment in the opening.  Notice the lovely roses on the left; they’re from Stampendous’ Rose Garden, gold-embossed as well and painted with more oxide ink then die-cut.  Oh!  I used Gina Marie Designs Stitched Rectangle dies for the outside edge.  How do you like my photo setting?  I stuck my card in a pot of begonias to photograph it!

This little lovely is made with my Zig-watercolored background which I die-cut using Gina Marie Designs Stitched Ovals set.  My base card was embossed with one of my favorite folders, Manhattan Flower by Stampin Up.  I mounted the oval onto another oval cut from fun foam and die-cut Hero Arts Happy out of white fun foam!  I adhered that to a strip of bright pink card stock and used a little tape to attach it.  I then embossed “Anniversary” (from Stampendous Big Word Happy) onto another strip but lifted it with a little foam tape.  I just love how bright and cheery this card is and so happy that I found these images to share with you!  I love hearing from you so keep commenting!  🙂  XO

 

Life Is A Song

Confession time!  My last post entitled Altenew Academy + Brutus Monroe = Awesome! was mistakenly published too soon!  We went camping again this past weekend, but it was my turn to share a post on Brutus Monroe’s blog on Saturday!  I intended to schedule the publishing of it for then but hit the wrong button!!  GAH!  So, I scrambled to create another card and came up with this!  Brutus Monroe just had a fabulous Retirement Sale and I snagged this great embossing folder called Petal Lace and decided to ink it up today!  I’m really loving their Surface Inks and rubbed Zest on the flatter side of the folder then ran it through my Cuttlebug.  The color is just so RICH!!

I found a music stamp in my stash and inked it up with Raven Surface Ink and stamped it down the left side of my panel.  After trimming my panel down with a Stitched Rectangle die, I mounted it to a layer of white, then to a black card base.  This fun sentiment is from a set called Break The Rules and I stamped it with Raven onto a scrap of white card stock, then die-cut it with a Stitched Oval die.  I used Sidewalk ink on the music stamp and loosely stamped that onto the oval then smudged more Sidewalk around the edges.  Another oval in black beneath it makes it pop!

Finally, a layer of fun foam lifts the oval and completes my card!  I hope you like it as much as I do!

Stampendous Coneflowers and Copics

I’m slowly adding colors to my collection of Copic markers after buying my first batch from Scrapbook Pal!  Last week I started this card using Stampendous’ Coneflowers set, stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink onto Bee Paper Bleedproof marker paper.   After coloring, I lightly stamped a script stamp in black for added interest.  I then cut the panel down with Gina Marie Designs Stitched Rectangle dies, and used her Stitched Oval die to impress (not cut) that shape in the center.  

The amazing thing about Copics coloring is that the backside is as beautiful as the front, but looks almost watercolored!  I was SO torn!  Which side to use??  Then inspiration struck!  Make color copies of both!  So I did!  

This is the original colored panel, trimmed down and adhered to a layer of white card stock, then attached to a base card of kraft card stock.  Once again, Stampendous‘ Big Word Thanks sentiment stamps fit the bill; a while back I’d scanned and cut the word “you” from black card stock, so I glued three of them together, attached to my panel then stamped “brighten my day” with Versafine ink.  I love how cheerful this card is!  And I’ll keep practicing my Copics coloring!  

My second card features the color copy of the backside of my original panel!  It’s constructed in the same manner as the one above, except I did die-cut the oval in the center and lifted it with a slightly smaller oval of fun foam.  The sentiment from Stampendous Coneflowers set fit perfectly in that space!  This is what you call a “two-fer”!  Two for the price of one!  🙂