LMac's Catered Crops

A Bunny Love Sequel

I love, love this card designed by Sarah Moore, so I made four of them. Sarah gives some excellent instructions for her Diorama card that I won't repeat (see yesterday's post), but here are a few additional tips.

Tip One - Scalloped Border: The technique Sarah used to create the scalloped pink inner border was one we learned at Houston Stampin' Up! regionals, though I don't know whether Sarah learned it there. She's so clever, who knows, she may have originated the idea. She made 16 circles using the 1/2" circle punch and attached them into the inside of the egg she made with Whisper White card stock and the Coluzzle System. Here's what mine looks like from the back when I finished adding my circles. It's nice to have a little embellishment if your circles don't line up exactly all around, so she added the marker-colored eggs from the same Bunny Love stamp set.

Tip Two - 3D Flower: I didn't want that big ole' egg with all it's glittery splender to overcome the rest of the card so I added additional shape and shine to my flower. After I punched out the flower shapes I cupped them with our stylus on the softer mat of the mat pack.

Then I added some Crystal Effects on the flower so it would hold its shape, and, because you know I like to do things in three's, I also added Crystal Effects to the eggs on the outside left corner of the egg and the tip of the bunny's nose. To finish my flower I stamped the leaves from the Pocket Fun stamp on Certainly Celery with White Craft ink and also added Crystal Effects to them. The Cyrstal Effects really makes the color stand out, lets the flower keep its shape and gives that popular epoxy-sticker look.

Tip Three - Small Appendeges: This card has such a great layered look. But, what do you do when you want to cut out an image so you can layer it and pop it up with dimensional adhesives, but that image has really skinny legs you can't possibly cut out? Check out the little chick image. I cut that poor chick's leg off.

But the chick isn't staying handicapped. I restamped the chick, or the missing parts at least, where I planned to adhere the chick.

Now, when I put my chick on the card with poppin dimensionals, ta da . . . she has legs again.

Thank you, Sarah, for the hare-rific inspiration!

A Coluzzle Primer

A lot of folks have a love/hate relationship with their Coluzzle cutting system. You either hate it or you love it. Okay, I'm one of the latter. I love that you can easily see what and where you're cutting. If you're in the former group, well, I was too until I got the hang of the thing. Now I love that I can get all these circles and ovals out of one very transportable tool. So, here's my little Coluzzle primer to help you get over your Coluzzle buyer's remorse. Stick with me through some dry instructions because at the end of this post is the most stinkin' cute card you've ever seen. (I can say that because I didn't design it.) So . . . hang on. Figures 1 2 and 3 are from ProvoCraft who manufacture the Stampin' Up! Coluzzle system.

First of all, prepping your Coluzzle equipment a little may help:

• When you open the templates you can just barely see that they have a plastic covering on both sides that you must remove.
• You can mark your template's channels with different colors of permanent markers or sharpies to make it easer to keep track of which channel you're using. This helps avoid inserting the blade into the wrong channel as you work your way around the template.
• Make sure your swivel knife blade is screwed in tightly. If not, you could nick your template.
• Don't discard the foam looking mat, it's not packing material but rather the cutting mat. Other cutting mats won't work with this system.

Okay, let's cut:

• Lay the foam mat on a flat surface with nothing underneath it. Place your piece of cardstock or patterned paper on top of the cutting pad. Place the template on top of the paper.
• Be sure to hold your paper firmly in place. If you need to, anchor the template to the cardstock with temporary adhesive, such as 3M Removable tape, to prevent it from shifting.
• Insert the swivel blade through the desired channel until you hear it "pop" through the cardstock and into the cutting foam.
• Make sure the cutting edge of the blade is being guided through the channel in the proper direction/angle. The right direction will cut; the wrong direction will merely drag and tear the paper because that's not the cutting edge of the blade. If you're not sure, examine the blade for a moment--you'll see that it is "angled", like a tiny Xacto knife blade! That angle is the cutting edge, just like on a real size Xacto knife.

• Hold the swivel knife STRAIGHT up and down while guiding it through the channel. You do not hold it slanted like a regular knife. Sometimes standing up and looking down as you cut will help you keep the knife straight. Keeping the knife straight is the key to perfect Coluzzle cutting.
• Don’t pick the swivel knife up until you hit the plastic piece, then put it on the other side to continue to make the rest of the cut until you hit the other plastic piece.
• Lift off the template.
• Using your paper snips, cut the little tabs to disconnect your cut shape from the cardstock.   
• Try some lightweight sandpaper or our sanding blocks to take off the little uneven edges that the "tags" leave behind.

General tips:

• Lightly guide the knife around the template, don't force it or drive it. Go slowly and hold the knife up and down. You can even twirl the knife in between your fingers to move around some corners but that's not necessary with our circles and ovals.
• Try cutting through some lightweight card stock first before trying the heavier card stock. It's easier once you get the feel for it.

Hmmm, a tool that requires so many tips seems kind of intimidating, doesn't it. I definitely recommend trying the tool before purchasing, but with a little practice you'll find it will save you some money and storage over other cutting systems.

So, why are we talking Coluzzle . . . well, because of this!

The egg shape, the opening to the egg and the opening in the card base for the diorama effect was made with the Coluzzle Oval Cutter. Sarah Moore designed this card using the "Bunny Love" set from the Spring Mini, and described her card in these posts here and here.  I honestly didn't make many changes, but tomorrow I'll give you a few more tips for this card you can apply to others. Stay tuned.

A Tip Journaling and Card Sentiments

Just a quick little tip for you to start out your week . . . In my March LMac Inks-pirations newsletter that Debbie McNeill helped me put together, we talked about the idea of finishing the inside of your card by using a variety of methods such as word stamps, customized personalized stamps or by using a computer and printer with Stampin' Up!'s Write Me a Memory® Journaling Font CDs. (If you're not getting my newsletter and would like to, just enter your e-mail address in the box to the lower left of this blog where it says "Join LMac Ink-spirations Email List.") Well, of course, one of my many favorite things about using Stampin' Up! products is the ease of color coordination. So, my quick tip for you is the attached list of color matching values for Stampin' Up!'s exclusive colors when using Microsoft Word. I can't take credit for these, they were compiled by Kaylyn Butler Conover and Jessica Darnall.

• To download the values in a PDF file format , click here: Download MicrosoftWord_SU_Color_Match_Values_for_fonts.pdf (34.1K)
• For download the values in a Word document file so you can edit it as needed, click here: Download SU_Color_Match_Values_for_fonts.doc (24.0K)

You can use these values to color-match your scrapbook journaling or card sentiments with your Stampin' Up! cardstock, ink, embellishments, etc. So, here's how it works.

1. Open Microsoft Word and type the text in your Stampin' Up! (or any) font.
2. Choose FORMAT from the top menu bar.
3. Select FONT
4. Then FONT COLOR
5. Then select MORE COLORS
6. Choose CUSTOM. You will find a place to enter either the Red/Green/Blue values or the HUE/SATURATION/LIGHT values.

Okay, so that's kind of on the boring side if you're not into using your computer with your paper crafting. So . . . I'll end with a couple of Easter jokes.

Q: What do you call a duck who plays basketball?
A: A slam duck.

Q: What do you call ten rabbits marching backwards?
A: A receding hareline.

Sorry - couldn't resist. Hoppy Monday.

Lin

Insights for a Happy Anniversary

Melissa Smith, my guest artist for these past three days, sent me this terrific story today told by a man about to celebrate his 50th wedding anniversary. He says:

Pastor Dave asked me to take a few minutes to share some insight into how I managed to live with the same woman all these years. "Well, this would surely insure a great marriage."

So, I told him that I treated her with respect, spent money on her, but mostly I took her traveling on special occasions.

Pastor Dave inquired, " . . . trips to where?"

"For our first anniversary I took her to Beijing, China."

Pastor then said, "What a terrific example you are to all husbands. Please tell me what you're going to do for your wife on your 50th anniversary?"

"I'm going to go get her."

Wha-ha-ha-ha . . . about peed in my pants. My Dad would have loved this story. Must be some sort of joke kismet going because I was just fixin' to show you Melissa's Happy Anniversary card.

Okay, keep it down, here's the last of three cards Melissa made for us to showcase the Doodle This stamp set in our Spring Mini invitation-only swap. This card is breath taking, and I'm afraid the picture may not do justice. Like so many of Melissa's designs, it's not overstated and, how fun for us, it's easily reproduced.

Melissa used two really fun techniques we just learned at the Houston Stampin' Up! Regionals. (If you ever contemplated being a demonstrator, let me tell you, the opportunity to go to their conferences are worth the cost of the starter kit alone.)

That delicate lace design with the Doodle This swirls is using a technique called "Faux Parchment Craft" or "Easy Pergamano." Michelle Laycock is the first demonstrator I know of who introduced it using Stampin' Up! products and you can find her full tutorial here.

Here are the Cliff-Notes version of how to get this lace look:

• Melissa stamped the swirl design on the card-stock grade of vellum with either White Staz-on or White Craft ink. If you use the craft ink, be sure to heat set it to dry. Use the card-stock grade because the paper-grade vellum could possibly tear with the next step.
• She turned the vellum over and using her stylus and mat from her Crafter's Tool Kit or Mat Pack she dry embossed the outline of her image.

Can you see that scallop border at the bottom? Scallops are so, so hot now which means you could load up on a lot of different punches and shaped paper trimmers or you can just use your corner rounder punch. We learned this technique at regionals but Beates Johnson, the tutorial genius at Slitcoaststampers, also did a great tutorial on her new blog, here. 

Thank you, thank you, Melissa, for letting me share your cards. Don't you all just hate me because I get to be with Melissa, like, all the time. I'm very fortunate. Well, if you want to hang with her at least a little, check out her web site, here. Feel free to email her, too, at [email protected] and tell her how much you've enjoyed your visit with her.

Darling Doodle Diva

She's a darling doodle diva . . . Melissa Smith. Yeah, she may deny it, but I know she's a free spirit. I've got the goods on you, Melissa. Check out the doodles on Exhibit A, her white dots on the black matting around the focal point of her card. And I submit to you, Exhibit B, the free-style embellishment with the white signo pen around the swirls.

Melissa is such a masterful magician, she can create fun and whimsical cards but also elegant, delicate designs all out of the very same stamp set. Besides being a skillful artist, she's also an incredible business woman and "home engineer." Guess you could say she's got the left and right brains cranking (mine are just trying to wake each other up). I must just have killer karma, though, to be so fortunate to have Melissa as my Stampin' Up! upline and mentor.

Okay, here's the verdict, Melissa's entire card using the Doodle This set from the Spring Mini. Yep, its a success story.

My accommodating guest artist stands accused of being a Chica Chica Boom Chic, a Darling Doodle Diva, what's next? Melissa, are you scared? Stay tuned, I've saved her best creation for last.

Chica Chica Boom Chic

This card by my next guest artist, Melissa Smith, is so fun, free and chic, that I'm calling it the Chica Boom card. To really get in the spirit, you gotta don your Carmen Miranda fruity hat and get ready to do the head bob (this could get embarrassing).

If I did this right, you can click on the arrow below to be serenaded by Xavier Cugat's Chica Chica Boom Chic song. (You may have to click twice.)

Okay, really, the card has nothing to do with Carmen Miranda or Rio, it's just such a fun song for such a free, fun and very chic card. Melissa has all the hottest trends going with this card: she's got doodles, dots, blue/brown colors (very "in" colors this Spring), and bling. Are you head bobbin'? Here it is.

I love how Melissa just softly edged the light paper, just enough to make it pop off the page but not so much that it looks distressed or vintage. She pulled the three color combinations from the focal point into the card base, that's More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, and Caribbean Blue (ooh, that's kind of Rio-like, keep bobbin'). I love to find patterns of three in cards so my favorite thing about this card besides its just overall fun style is the three ways she found to draw us to the dots: the glitter on the flower's dots, the blue dots on the swirls and the dotted pattern paper. The dots aren't overwhelming, but it's just smart and beautiful design, not unlike my guest!

Melissa used the Doodle This stamp set and Au Chocolat designer paper (yummy!). Both are from the new Stampin' Up! Spring Mini catalog, here.

You'll soon see that my Chica-Boom-Chic Melissa is just a masterful and magical craft artist who can do both whimsical and elegant . . . stay tuned.

1 stamp set + 3 cards = 1 very talented artist

I have a very special treat for you . . . a guest artist, Katherine Lapierre. Somehow the stars aligned for me, my good luck was awake, and some sort of fantastic kismet smacked me because this good fortune placed me in her company and arranged a swap. I won't ramble on, I'll let you see for yourself.

I am so incredibly in awe of how she can get three very beautiful and yet different looking cards out of just one stamp set. I tend to typecast a stamp set so that all my cards come out looking so similar. And, I gotta tell you, whenever I tried to do a card in black and white, it came out looking Gothic - ask my husband. Katherine's black and white card looks both elegant and even joyful. Can you see how she made the vase for her flower? She used a punch to create a black oval and cut off the top to make a bottom. Genius!

Don't you just love cards with a different fold? The picture above doesn't do justice to Katherine's pocket card, so here it is again with the insert where you can see it. I can just see this card tucked secretly into my husband's briefcase with some darling little note inside. (Now, keep it clean, girls.)

I counted nine layers in her lavender and green card, isn't it gorgeous? I love, love all the details she put in it: the ticket-corners, the three perfectly aligned brads (HOW does she do that?), the way she stamped off the flowers to give the card even more dimension . . . Even with all those layers, its still such a clean card, I think my favorite among the three.

I won't give away any more of Katherine's secrets except to tell you she was kind enough to do these cards to help us showcase the Polka Dots and Paisley stamp set and Petals & Paisleys designer paper. They're both so cheerful and really herald in the Spring season. There's even a Spring Fever Stampin' Up! promotion on those now, which you can find by clicking here.

Katherine doesn't maintain a site I can send you to, but if you enjoyed her creations as much as I do, you can definitely send her an email. She's at [email protected].

Thank you Katherine, for helping herald in Spring. Happy Vernal Equinox day! Even though it's a little cloudy this week in Central Texas, it is definitely Spring. I have proof. Here's a picture of a redbud tree just outside my father-in-law's house. And, of course, you can't welcome Spring without a good poem, so here's one from Julian Grenfell.

The naked earth is warm with Spring,
and with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's kiss glorying,
and quivers in the sunny breeze.

Or . . . maybe Robin Williams said it better: "Spring is nature's way of saying, Let's Party!"

Real Women Rock

I've missed you all.  After a trip to my home town, Bloomington, Indiana, and a week of visiting precious family and old friends there, I'm back. We're still unpacking and settling in with a hectic week ahead but withdrawal pangs will have me back in my craft corner very soon.

Someone smarter than me said "Girlfriends aren't a luxury, they're a necessity." That was ever so true this past week. So, when I came across this website this morning, I knew I had to share it with all my "real women" friends. Tasra Dawson wrote the book, Real Women Scrap. I haven't read it, but it sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Well, she just launched "an on-line video podcast for women to help them reconnect with their lives, their selves, and their creativity."  Tasra describes the show: "With scrap lessons and life lessons, we bring together the best of both worlds and help you begin making choices to live intentionally and create the life and layouts you want."

Okay, that's a bunch of hoydy-toydy words. I mean "live intentionally"? "reconnect with their lives?"  Anyway, I checked it out and her site is actually pretty fun. I watched the premier video, Getting Organized, and, well, I'll stay tuned. Thought you might like to, too. You can find both her podcast and blog at www.realwomenscrap.com.

Going with the flow of this hoydy-toydy "real women" verbiage, I found this quote. This describes better than I can (or at least more poetically) the real women in my life and the friendship you all have extended to me.

If you're alone, I'll be your shadow.  If you want to cry, I'll be your shoulder.  If you want a hug, I'll be your pillow.  If you need to be happy, I'll be your smile.  But anytime you need a friend, I'll just be me.  ~Author Unknown

Thank you all for the very kind words, telephone calls, cards, and flowers. Real Women - You Rock!

Spring's Renewal

The sky was crystal-clear blue, birds were singing sweet melodies and the peach and red bud trees nearly shocked our senses with their color. Spring's warmth embraced us as it awoke from its winter nap and shared its splendor. On this beautiful day when Spring life renewed around us, my mother was made whole again and she's home. N. Imogene Black, died peacefully in the wee morning hours Saturday, March 10.

I'm Telling on You

"It was nice growing up with someone like you - someone to lean on, someone to count on... someone to tell on!"  ~Author Unknown

I have a guest artist - my adorable twin sister, Sharon Murray, visiting from Indiana. And I'm telling on her - she is a beading jewelry-making Queen! She makes beautiful necklaces, bracelets, shoelace and purse charms. So, when I saw an adorable charm on the scissors of my Stampin' Up! upline and then again on Dawn Griffith's blog, here, well, at least I let my sister put her suitcase down before I begged her to help me make a few scissor charms. Off we went to Michaels to hunt down clasps and ended up playing with a couple of varieties. (I say "we" but of course, Sharon did all the work.) Here's her charm gallery.

Being more of a stamper than a jewelry buff, my only contribution was a flower charm. I stamped the flower image from the Love It stamp set on ShrinkyDink to match the flower image in the bead. Sharon masterfully added it to the scissor charm. Pretty cute, huh?

Cuter, still, though, is my adorable sister . . . check out the scissor-charm bling-bling.

With our mother so sick, you can imagine this has been a pretty difficult visit, but Sharon just spills out joy where ever she goes. Can you tell? (I tease that I'm the evil twin). Sharon is older than me by only a few minutes, but this quote from Pam Brown still applies; "An older sister is a friend and defender - a listener, conspirator, a counselor and a sharer of delights. And sorrows too." To Deupey from Ging, there is no better friend than a sister, no better co-conspirator than a twin sister, and absolutely no better sister than you.