Made in the USA Card

Hi everyone and welcome to a few days of Americana cards specifically focused on our upcoming Independence Day here in the United States of America, July 4th. 

On all my cards I used K&Company Americana Line and Authentique Glory! Line.  Both are really great. And of course everything is red, white and blue!

For this card I cut out three sections of Authentique and matted them to red, white or blue mats and attached them to one solid gold glossy mat to create the panes below.

All I added were the stars and ribbon!

Close Up!
Here you can clearly see the Star Pillow stickers.  They match the size of the printed stars which was cool.

I really love the glitter stars.  The silver one is actually open on the inside and I was able to add a blue one and a red one on top.

I hope you enjoyed today's card. Come back tomorrow for some more inspiration for July 4th cards!

Lis

Mona

I love the Mona Lisa.  Everybody does.  She has that mysterious smile, and she fits really well with collage cards of all kinds!

I have several Mona Lisa stamps.  I chose this one because it has an interesting background including some writing. (I am really hooked on writing designs of all kinds).  I even added some patterned paper with writing to carry the design through the card.  Since Mona needs a frame, I decided to use one of the Spellbinder frames.
My main two colors were green and brown.

I really love leaf ribbon.  It's lovely and can be use for so much, accenting punched designs and my card!

Close Up!
Here is a great picture of Mona.

I used a decorative punch for the corners and accented with pearls.

The pearls and the leaf ribbon really add a special feminine delicacy to the card.

I hope you enjoyed today's card.  Create something beautiful today!

Lis

Lavendar Lily Victorian Card

I love Victorian cards (actually Victorian anything).  It really pulls at my soul.  I wish sometimes I had been there to experience more of it.  I will say that I value my freedom now though.  It was a hard life and women had it hard back then.

I've tried to choose more Victorian type colors when I make these cards.  The one below started off with a muted brown, an ornate dark/light brown pattern paper and finally a pink frame.

I used black photo corners that I gilded with gold foil.  I also used Liquid Pearls on the frame in white pearl.

I love the way that the flowers in the center are gathered up with an organza bow, topped with a brass heart charm embossed with a rose.

Close Up!

Don't you just love the added touch of this little brass heart charm? I love to add charms to my work.  I like to hang them and listen to them tinkle when they hit each other.  This tiny little charm came from http://www.fancifuls.com/

Here you can see the work I did on the pink frame. I used Bazzill.

• embossed
• edged with tea dye distress ink
• Liquid Pearls added in white

I hope this gives you inspiration!
Lis

Discover, A Collage Card

As I typed in the title to my blog for this card I wondered to myself..."Will I get a lot of hits from people looking for a charge card?"  Hmmm...  Then I thought..."well, maybe I am meant to spread the word about paper crafts and cardmaking!" Now that makes sense!


This card is of course inspired by Tim Holtz and all his wonderful products out there. I never seem to get enough.  I also think that he makes it possible for us all to become artists.

I started with an ivory base card and a piece of ivory cardstock the same size as my base card.  I embossed the cardstock (not the base), colored it with inks and added the metal embellishment.  Then I glued the piece onto my card.

I measured the inside of the opening of the metal attachment and cut a piece of ivory glossy.  I stamped a sentiment and then glued it onto the back with glossy accents.

Close Up!

Thank you for stopping by!  Come again soon!

Lis

Iris Card

Today's card is a little different.  I made this card years ago but still like its simplicity.  The majority of this card is made from foils. The rest is colored with embossing powders.

The trick to coloring with embossing powders I found was to have the best tool around for placing the powders carefully on the image you wanted to color. That tool is......(Drum roll)....a plastic coffee stirrer. 

All you do is cut one end at an angle and you have a little plastic scoop to pick up and deliver small amounts of colored embossing powders to the right spots.  Cool, huh?

I hope that you try this technique out. It is cooler than you think!

Lis

Happy Independence Day! Glory! (A sneak peek at some red, white and blue cards!)

Here's a sneak peak at the Red, white and blue cards that will be posted around July 4th!  I hope that you can join me!    Happy Birthday United States! 


Glory!

I used an ivory card base with some Authentique paper for a mat (edged in copper like our penny). I accented my card with Sparkletts from Kaisercraft (sparkle is an understatement!) and word bits (Authentique again - don't you just love their old fashioned style?).  I finished up with some ribbon in red and blue and some bling for fireworks!

Close Up!

You can really see the fiskars diamond punch here. Isn't it cool?  I also like all the word bits (Authentique) and of course the red Sparkletts from Kaisercraft.

There's no such thing as too much bling!  I added some bling to mimic fireworks!

I hope you enjoyed my card today.  Come back again soon!

Lis

Basket of Flowers Card

Hi everyone and welcome to JUNE!  I once read that as one gets older, the days and months go faster.  Boy is that true for me!  I seem to be speeding through my life and I don't want to do that. So many commitments to meet, so many things to do!  It's really hard.

So, today I decided to make a card using Bo Bunny's Serenity papers.  I was watching a program on Japan last night and they talked about Chi and the balance one has to have in life.  It makes a lot of sense.

Basket of Flowers:

As I said I used Serenity Papers from Bo Bunny.  At first I was going to make a Yin Yang with the papers but ended up in a totally different direction (of course - that's not unusual for me). 

I started out with an ivory card base (my favorite) and then matted it with this pretty pink stardream paper.  On the pink paper I placed some tissue tape that had a white background. (If you look you will notice that some have white and others have an ivory background.  Its good to notice this because you can layer the tape onto like cardstock and create an almost perfect "stamped like" finish.)

I cut my two pattern papers into uneven strips.  I didn't measure.  I layered these onto my card and trimmed the edges as needed.

NOTE:  I built my card starting with the pink stardream first.  when that was complete, that's when I added it to my base card. This allowed me to trim.

Close Up!

For my embellishments: I die cut a frame from chipboard that I covered with some basic grey. I added a gold scrap paper charm to the inside (it was coincidence that it happened to fit the inside oval).  Then I added a paper flower 3-d sticker that I got at a Michaels.

I added pink pearls to match the pink stardream.

This is a side view of the papers.

Hope you enjoyed my serenity card!  Come back to see more cards and inspiration!

Lis

Tree of Life Card

I seem to be in a philosophical state of mind of late.  I had this sticker of a tree and built the card around it.  I really like the way the border came out. I really like those bubbles.  The background was a green patterned paper.  I tried to keep with green and brown.
I did add a pink ribbon  :-)

You can see the layers here.

Close Up!

Here is my pretty pink ribbon.  When I tie a bow I never know where the ends are going to point.  I always cross my fingers and hope for the best (believe me I have taken classes bought machines and books....LOL)  I think I am bow challenged!

Thanks for stopping by!

Lis

Girl with Yin Yang

I wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary today (some folks say that most of my cards are out of the ordinary...LOL). I happened to be thinking of Peace at the time and decided to do a Yin Yang card.  Yin Yang is the symbol of balance really. It can mean good/bad, love/hate, me and my sister....LOL

Anyway, I decided to use some of the papers to create a card around this idea.

I used a spellbinders die to cut out two die cuts.  I then hand cut a wave to recreate the yin yang symbol (I think the next time. I may draw it on the back side first. This one was kind of wobbly.)

The background paper is actually gold glossy with a layer of gold mesh over it. I wanted some texture and didn't want to emboss. The gold glossy sometimes cracks and shows the white core.

The yin yang was also reflected in the border where I had one side with pearls and the other with crystals (fire and ice?).

You can get a better look at my card here from the side.  I took the leftover pieces and cut off the edges.  Then I layered these edges on top of the original so that I could get some dimension.

Close Up!

You can get a great view of how I cut and layered the edge.

 I decided on a double bow for this card out of ivory satin.

I don't know why I added this little girl.  The girl was cut using a tag die.  I applied rock candy crackle over the top (I really like this stuff!).

I hope you liked my card. Stop by again for more inspiration!

Lis

A Simple Spring Card

Hi everyone!  I wanted to share this very simple card with you.  All it needs is a sentiment and you're done!

This is what I did:

• I started out with a card base of white cardstock (A2).
• I  tool some pink stardream paper (4 x 5 1/4 inches-love this stuff - it shimmers!) and added some tissue tape to the top and bottom. I then layered it onto my card.
• I cut strips  of patterned paper out by hand.  I wanted this to not be symmetrical in any way.
• I added the strips to my card with glue stick.
• I added a flower.
• Done!



Take care, Lis