Handmade Greeting Cards - It's All About the Layers!

Hello crafty peeps!    I'm so excited that I got my first challenge posted over at Sketches4All and relieved that I'm getting into the swing of things. Wow, can it be tough learning to navigate a new site, but the S4All Team is awesome and has been helping me every step of the way! Great place to share your creations!

Below are the cards I made for my challenge which is to add a lot of layers to your project.

You can find the Current S4All Challenge List here and there's a wonderful gallery to see everyone's projects.

My first card was done with my fancy die cutting frames and labels of which I love so much (materials list below).
I made the white part of the flower by taking two labels and gluing them together to make a plus sign and then I added two more of the same to fill the spaces in. I'm sure people have been doing this for quite a while and wonder why it took me so long to think of it.

  I made my second card by using a border punch and a couple of basic cutting dies. I saw a similar card on Pinterest that inspired me and I wanted to make mine exactly like hers, because the card was so pretty, but I made it my own with some changes instead.

After matting the base card in two colors I took those same colors and cut 3 strips of each and then wrapped each one over the top and bottom of the card vertically. The size of this card is 6x6 inches, the green strips are 3/4 of an inch and the cream strips to mat the green are 1 inch wide. The punched border was added on afterward. I just lined it up with the strips.

Hope to see you and your crafty creations!

Materials:

Purple patterned paper - DCWV, Violet Leaf Stack
Green patterned paper - K&Company Susan Winget Papers
Craft Cardstock -  Core'dinations in a cream, white and light brown 

Border Punch - Ek Sucess Pointed Flower

Cutting Dies -
Spellbinders Card Creator Valiant Honor 

Spellbinders Card Creator Reflective Moment  

Spellbinders Nestabilites Lacy Circles (largest one)  

Spellbinders D-Lites Whimsical Tree 

Tim Holtz Alterations Tattered Flowers

Happy Crafting!

Christmas Card: Happy Winter

Hello Everyone!   Today as I was making my Christmas card it dawned on me that I've been blogging for a year now. It's my Blogging Anniversary! It was a year ago when I discovered paper crafting too and I was so new to it I didn't even share any of my Christmas cards on here.  So this year I get to change that. It's been a wonderful journey of trying new things, growth and meeting so many talented and fabulous people. I've truly and thoroughly enjoyed it. Today's post is short and sweet as I've run out of time, but wanted to share my card. Hope everyone is having a great day.

There are 5 layers of cardstock. The base card is from the DCWV Neutrals Cardstock Stack and the blue printed paper and front snowman tag are from the DCWV Winter Solstice Stack. I usually don't use the pre-made tags from my stacks, but these ones are too cute to pass up. Other materials are white feathers, Sizzix Flourishes #10 (556538), Sizzix Snowflakes #3, white adhesive pearls, Martha Stewart Corner Punch, flat backed adhesive gems, white glitter and Glossy accents.

Happy Crafting!

Sweet Sixteen Birthday Card

A Sweet 16 birthday card made for a friend of the family. I had to make two cards, because the first one was given to the birthday girl and as usual, I forgot to take photos of it. So today I made a similar one. This card was a bit difficult for me because I don't use glitter that often and the style is somewhat outside of what I'm drawn to make, but that's how we grow as artists and I think it turned out cute.

 

   

     

   

Materials

   Basic inexpensive glitter in black and pink. Self adhesive pearls.        Happy Crafting!  

Metal-look Paper and Ink Pendant with Silver Charm

 For those of you who have commented and had questions on my old blog and Facebook. This is for you.

Update: How I made my Pendants

1. I used a scalloped oval die to cut the shape into white Core'dinations Cardstock. Then I glued approximately four of the die-cut shapes together to make the pendant sturdy. I added small holes in the top
2. To color my pendants I used Tim Holtz Adirondack ink in Butterscotch, Stream and Wild Plum by just letting small droplets of ink drip from the bottle and run over the paper pendant.
3. I added Tim Holtz Adirondack Mixative in Silver and in Gold to the pendant in the same way I added the colored ink. It didn't turn out well and I had so much ink on my pendants, the color was turning muddy and they were taking too long to dry. I'm impatient so I pulled out the heat gun, during which I discovered the mixatives do not like heat and they began to bubble and boil. After the mixatives did their little dance, they dried solid and textured.
4. Intrigued, I added more ink and mixatives as I used my heat gun. The ink didn't smell very good being heated, but layer after layer I watched the little dance of silver and gold and the colored ink being moved around and trapped. The bubbling, boiling and the last little whips of trying to escape the heat is what gave my pendants the depth they have. I thought the result was fabulous.
5. Then I sealed the back and sides.
     

Original Post: December 22, 2013
I had a crafting accident last night and it was wonderful. Here's a peak at a few pendants that are almost finished.

I love happy accidents! 

Copyright © 2014 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted

All Rights Reserved

Spring Card with Vase of Flowers

Good afternoon everyone!

Today I'm sharing a card with silk flowers in a vase. I recently decided to put the embossing folders back into use and I'm glad I did because the embossed butterflies really look cute with the punched butterfly.

 I left space open for a greeting between the flower and butterfly above, but I think this card looks nice without a sentiment too. I used two shades of turquoise crafting card-stock, then inked the embossed paper with Tim Holtz Distress ink in the color Peakcock Feathers to make some of the details stand out.

 I used three butterflies to make this by gluing a lighter turquoise butterfly to each wing of the darker one.

To create a vase I pulled a small piece of paper into a cone shape and then cut off the bottom. I also applied the same distress ink as mentioned above to give it more depth and then to make it sturdy I applied glossy accents.

 The embossing folder is a large strip made by Darice.

Happy Crafting!

Copyright © 2014 Angela Conklin - Heartedly Handcrafted

All Rights Reserved

Spring Center Fold Card with Quilled Dragonfly and Burlap Mat

It's all about the quilling.

Hello everyone! I want to share my funky little Spring card. A couple of weeks ago I bought a quilling tool and some quilling paper strips. I've seen some beautiful cards and jewelry online made from it and had to try it out.  The first time I tried I only made loose circles and for the second try I made some flower petals that came out all different sizes. This time the sizes were a little better so I decided to try making a dragonfly. I need quite a bit more practice getting the sizes and shapes right and it takes me about 3 minutes just to make one shape. To say the very least, I'm quite slow at it, but I like the look of it so I'm not giving up.

The quilled shapes are a little tricky to glue down since there is movement to them. So if you have any advice on how to best go about this I would greatly appreciate it. I haven't decided whether to add a sentiment to the front of my card or not, but for now it's done. 

Happy Crafting!

Scrapbook Layout - blog Challenge

Hello everyone. Another snowy day here in Pennsylvania, but the sun is shining. Today I'm submitting a layout for a color challenge with The Memory Nest. Working off an inspiration piece and coming up with something of my own is right up my alley. I decided to use a picture for my layout showing how the snow blanketed everything and when I looked out across my front yard I could no longer see the road and the sidewalk. Untouched, the snow just looked beautiful. So here it is. Hope you like it.

I took my photograph looking out my window somewhat at an angle, so the grills aren't straight up and down like I would like them to be, but no big deal. I decided to place my photograph in a window frame and add a fancy blind to capture the same feeling I had looking out.

Inspiration Piece

To make the window I used chipboard covered with brown textured card-stock and then cut a hole in the layout for the frame to fit and glued it in place. The trim on the window overhangs the frame which gave me some play when cutting the hole. I didn't have to be perfect about it.

Happy Crafting!

Handmade Card

Hello everyone! Over the past few months I have found another craft to love and that is card-making. After all, I can play with color, shapes, textures, prints, see what I can make work and I get quick results to feel good about. I find making a card to be very therapeutic and just as wonderful is giving a beautiful card to someone that you made yourself.

I'm thinking that upper corner may need a little more tape. That's the nice thing about taking photos before sending cards off.

Materials used:
K&Company printed flower paper
Craft cardstock in light pink
Textured black cardstock
White card stock with the edge colored in Tim Holtz Distress Ink "Peeled Paint"
Offray craft ribbon in cream
Cream colored craft cardstock for the base

Equipment used:
Sizzix Big Shot
Spellbinders Nestabilities dies (Lacy Circles and Circles)
Computer and Printer for the Sentiment ( I use Word)
Fiskars Rotary Paper Trimmer

Scrapbook Layout

My first scrapbook layout. I love this picture of my daughter and decided to do something special with it. I didn't have paper to bring the purplish-pink paper and blue together so I mixed up some paint and painted the flowers and stripe. Of course there are a couple of things that didn't go quite as planned, but I'm happy with it.