Empty Next Crafter: March 2013

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Serendipity Blog Challenge #8- Center Step Card

Better late than never, but today I have a card I made for Serendipity Stamps Blog Challenge #8. What started out as a little weekend get-a-way to Las Vegas turned into a 12 day nightmare for my husband and I. He ended up in the hospital and I was unable to schedule my card for the Oct. 20th challenge. I am happy to report that we are back home now and my husband will be good as new in a week or two, so all in all, it was a very "Lucky" trip to Las Vegas.

This week's challenge was to make a Center Step card, which seems difficult, but now that I know how to make one on my Silhouette Cameo, was so simple to accomplish. Here is my card:

I saw a card online by Carla of Carlasstampingspot and loved how she used the Polynesian Sails Oval die from Cheery Lynn as the focal point of her card. I own that same die and decided to use it with a beautiful stamp from Serendipity Stamps...Wedding Cake. I also used sentiments from Serendipity Stamps (Bridal) and (Shower) and think this would be a very pretty card to attach to a Bridal Shower gift. I used patterned papers by Creative Imaginations (Beautiful You) along with a Spellbinder label. I added some lilac flower soft to the flowers to add a little more dimension and a bow with some twine and a cute little wedding ring embellishment.

Even though I was late, you still have enough time to enter the SSCB #8 challenge...the deadline isn't until March 30th, so why not give this Center Step card challenge a try? You can win $20 off your next Serendipity Stamps order. Remember, all you need to use is one Serendipity stamp or die to qualify!

In case you haven't seen the other Center Step Cards from the Serendipity Design Team, make sure you check them all out...they are beautiful!

Monday, March 11, 2013

I'll Meet You Here

I've been working on a wedding scrapbook page for my daughter-in-law Ashley and finally finished one today. This page is about the day they shopped for their wedding venue. They really only had to look at a couple places before Ashley KNEW this was the right place. Andy...just nodded his head and said he liked it which was the right answer!

I used a layered template from Sweet Shoppe Designs for the design using Photoshop Elements which gave me the size of each element, then I laid it all out on my cameo and printed the pictures and all of the elements on my machine. I was even able to add the digital patterned paper to the shapes before I printed and cut them. I had some help from my friend Joyce of Cards by the Sea with the title, but ended up having this title pop into my head at the last minute. I plan to use Joyce's title ideas for later in the book. Ashley hasn't seen the page, but I showed her the pictures that were going to be used and she wrote up a journal entry of her thoughts from that day. So, Page 3 done...17 more to go!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Serendipity Stamps Blog Challenge #7 - Envelope Art

It's been a while since I have posted anything...although I have been busy getting ready for my son's wedding coming up in a few weeks. Today I am taking a break from wedding prep to share a project I made for Serendipity Stamps Challenge Blog #7 which is titled "Envelope Art". Although I don't write any letters these days, I do send cards and gifts to my crafty friends in padded envelopes. I have always though that those plain old manilla colored envelopes are so boring and decided to see if I could make a more cheerful one myself. There is a very good tutorial on how to make your own padded envelopes that can be found here.

As you can see, I chose an Easter theme...Serendipity Stamps has lots of great Easter stamps and dies making it very easy to create a cute Easter scene. To make the envelope, I just used two sheets of cardstock (one patterned, one solid), each 7.5 x 10.75". I cut an Easter basket on my Silhouette, ran it through an embossing folder to give it the basket-weave effect and threaded some thin ribbon through it. The cute Easter eggs are from Serendipity (Egg Outline Die) and (Scroll Scroll Die). I stamped a design on the solid egg using Serendipity Tiny Flower and colored it with some copics. The cute labels are also from Serendipity (Panel) and I think they look perfect as mailing labels. Just because I wanted to give my envelope a better chance of surviving the US Postal Service, I stitched everything down to give it a bit more strength.

I used rubber cement to adhere some bubble wrap to the inside (bubble side facing the paper).

Then you use a bit more glue to adhere the two pieces of cardstock together.

You smooth the the edges together with your bone folder, wait for it to dry and you are done!

Our Serendipity challenge was to make sure our envelope art was "mailable", so here's my proof!

I mailed my envelope with a few goodies to Serendipity Design Team Member and my good friend, Jeanne Jachna. Jeanne lives many states away from me, so I stitched around the edges of the envelope just to make sure my gift didn't fall apart en route.

Here is my envelope waiting for Jeanne in her mailbox:

Are you wondering how it held up? The answer is pretty well, just a little damage to the envelope, but mostly on the back side.

The front stayed in good shape and those eggs, although they look delicate...are in reality very strong!
Edit: I forgot to thank Jeanne's son Roger for photo-shopping the address labels off my pictures...he is so smart!

So, would I do this again...only for a super special occasion and never again during Winter. It was so warm in CA, I never even gave a thought to the fact that my package might get wet in snowy weather. I also would use two pieces of score tape in place of the rubber cement. I think they would have held the bubble wrap in place a little better.

It's time for you to make your own envelope art now...and you have a chance to win a great prize, $20 off your next Serendipity Stamp order. All you have to do is make some kind of envelope art using at least one Serendipity stamp or die in your design and post it on the Serendipity Stamps Challenge Blog. Here's the link.

The sale this week at Serendipity is buy 3, get your 4th item free and is valid from 3/6 through 3/13 and is a perfect opportunity to grab some Easter stamps!

Everyone on the Serendipity Design Team has some Envelope Art to share...make sure you check them all out!