Here I am at CHA!

Lots of things to see and report! Read my other posts!

Cricut

I wanted to make one last post tonite before I go to bed (boy am I TIRED!).  Cricut is always an active booth full of enthusiasm for their latest and greatest.  Provocraft is coming out with EXPRESSION 2.  This expression uses both the regular cartridges and also the Imagine cartridges (it does NOT print - it only uses the images on the cartridge).
New about the 2:
-no keypad
-touch screen driven-can use images from imagine cartridges but does not print - only cuts
There is much more about the Expression 2 so be watching!

Tim Holtz!

Yes, my friends, Ranger is at CHA and so is TIM!  As you know Mr Holtz designs for Ranger (new Distress Stains), Tonic (paper piercer and other not new items), Sizzix (many new dies) and Stampers Anonymous (many new cling stamps).  You can go to his blog to see them all! 
I have captured a few of the sample projects for you to enjoy.

CHA Day 1

Hello everyone!  Well, I am at CHA this weekend.  I live nearby so I am driving the one hour to Los Angeles rather than staying in a hotel. 
I have seen many exciting thing at CHA.  I am going to post some pictures and I'm going to start with Die Cuts with a View.  This company makes papers, beautiful papers in 12 x 12, 8 x 8 and 4 x 5 (a great size for all of us cardmakers out there who want a great variety of papers but find ourselves cutting up 12 x 12 sometimes and wasting more of the paper than we would wish.)

DCWV is coming out with more spectacular cardstock, glitter cardstock and metallic cardstock, all aimed to please.

BUT the most amazing thing I saw was that their designers made PAPER DRESSES out of their current and new releases.  WOW! Take a look below and see if you can guess which dress is made out of which collection!

That's what I call paper ART!

Vintage Leopard Flower Card

I thought I would start off today by posting a card that I made.  The materials and directions are below. If you have any questions, please comment and I will do my best to answer.



Materials:

Paper:

American Craft Cardstock –AC Cardstock – Butter (5 ½” x 8 ½”)

Bazzill Basics Monochromatic 5-color packs - Browns (5 ¼” x 4” Java)

Gold Glossy Cardstock (4” x 5”) Foil Coated Gold 8.5"x11"

Shimmering Metallics (Text Weight) Gold (5” x 3 ¾”)

Chita Print Fabric or paper

Embellishments:

SEI Morning Brads SEI-B-morning

Prima Country Elegance – Fuschia

Bazzill Paper Flowers 3" Gerbera Brisbane

Tim Holtz Tissue Tape Symphony 

Tools:

Paper Trimmer – Fiskars

Making Memories The Slice

Slice Design Card Vintage Findings

Sizzix Big Shot (or other die cutting machine)

Tim Holtz Tattered Flowers Die

Tim Holtz Texture Fades Bingo & Patchwork (I used Patchwork)

Inks and Powders:

Ranger Archival Plum

Directions:

1. Fold your white cardstock in half to form your card base.  The card opens on the right. Set aside.
2. Emboss the gold shimmer paper using Patchwork texture fade by Tim Holtz.
3. Using direct to paper technique, lightly brush Archival ink Plum over the embossed images. 
1. You do not want to cover everything completely.  Brush lightly so that some areas get ink while others remain plain.
4. Dry with a heat gun.
5. Edge the embossed gold with tissue tape.
6. Attach your gold paper to the Bazzill java cardstock.
7. Attach this piece to your card base.
8. To make your flowers:
1. First die cut one set of tattered flowers in chita print paper or cloth.  You will only be using three of the flowers that are cut out.
2. Punch a small hole in the middle of each of the three tattered florals.
3. Stack your large flower: smallest chita floral, larger pink petal, largest chita flora, purple Bazzill flower. (You will want to stack them so that the petals are staggered so you can see them all.)
4. Use a brad to secure the flowers together.
5. The smaller flower has only three layers: two small pink flowers and one chita print flower. Use a brad to secure these together also.
9. I used the Slice and Vintage Findings card to cut out a swirl from gold glossy cardstock.  If you have Tim Holtz die Elegant Flourishes, you can use this as a substitute.
10. You are ready to add the flowers to your card. 
1. I started by attaching the largest flower to the card with glue dots.
2. Then I arranged the gold flourish so that it went among the petals of the flower (see photo).
3. Lastly, I added the smaller flower.
4. Note how I have the top part of the swirl on top of a couple of the small flower petals.
11. Both the flowers and the flourish overlap all the edges on the card.

I really wanted to do a card a little more on the wild side.  I found this chita print cloth and thought what a fun thing to make some flowers out of!  You may have some printed fabric that you may want to use as flowers too! Thanks for stopping by!

Winter CHA is Here!

Today is a very exciting day for me.  I am going to Winter CHA.  Starting tomorrow, companies from around the world will be in Los Angeles at the Convention Center sharing their new releases for 2011.  I will be sharing all the excitement here on my blog. 
I am especially excited about the new YUDU for Greating Cards. (YUDU is a silk screen printing process.  The original machine can be found at JoAnns and is for tshirts and larger items.  The new YUDU is smaller and will work with cards up to 5 x 7. )HSN had the worldwide release about a week ago.  I am hoping to see a supplemental machine that will allow us to design and burn our own screens.  Wouldnt that be great!
The second item I;ll be looking for is the new smaller Your Story.  This smaller Your Story bookbinding system will make bind books about the size of standard photos.

Well, hope to see you all tomorrow!

Welcome Welcome!

Hello everyone!  This is my first attempt at a blog and my very first blog post!  I amvery excited to be starting out on this adventure (I am a bit behind the times, aren't I?)  No matter.

I would like to introduce myself.  I am a paper arts and card artist.  I have loved paper as a medium for years and I would love to share with you.

So, please join me, follow me on my blog.  Let's have some creative fun with paper!

Lis