Seven Lost Cards

Here are seven Birthday cards with a free floating tag that I started putting up under the challenges section of my website a long time ago but never finished and put online until today. The background for them is under the challenges section which you can get to by clicking here or you click on the card for the instruction sheet and jump over from there.

I've been reorganizing the site a bit and have put up a new subject based that should make it easier to find stuff with the web site at 143 card images and growing. Stop by and check it out and let me know what you think.

Three New "Gift" Cards

Here are three new cards I made to give away as gifts this year to relatives who don't make cards but do send them out on a regular basis. The little birdies are going to my grandmother, since a little birdie used to always tell her stuff when I was little. The cupcake on the birthday card is colored with Copic marker. I showed them to someone and they didn't like it because they thought it was a printed image that had just been cut out and mounted so I guess that was a compliment? Either way I now feel the need to point that its a hand color cupcake image.

These were actually made with cling mount studio g clear sets that Michaels had on an endcap for something like one or two dollars a set earlier this year and the Recollections paper Michaels sells.

As usual, just click on the image if you want to see the instructions sheet on my website.



Happy Holidays

10 Days Until Christmas - Last Minute Card

Just 10 more days until Christmas! Are your Christmas cards made yet? Are they mailed? If not here's an idea for some quick cards - use stickers for your main image. I found a stack of stickers I had brought a few years back on sale for just this purpose and combined one of the images on the sheets with one of the latest Tim Holtz dies, some stickles and some inked white paper. It took a while to come up with the design but once I had that making them went fairly quickly for a homemade card. The real key to this approach is to find an affordably priced sticker sheet with a lot of images that appeal to you so you can get many cards per sticker sheet.

If you want read more, here's the original blog post I did on it. If you want directions and sizes, click on the image for the instruction sheet or click here.

Holiday Present Card Update

Here's a quick update on the latest card I created. It's a Christmas card based on same present stamp I used a while back for an any event card. By just changing the colors used, it is now a Christmas present. I used Sharpie markers this time so this is something anyone can easily do. The full blog post is here if you want to read more, or you can click on the card to go the web directions.

Two more Christmas cards

Here are 2 more Christmas cards if you are looking for some quick and simple ideas. Just click on the card if you want to see more information about how to make it.

Thanksgiving and Christmas Cards

Here's the latest set of cards I've posting this past week or so:

	Millie's back for a Thanksgiving appearance! She's colored with colored pencils and Gamsol blending this time.
	Here's a landscape version of the card.
	Here's a different color arrangement
	Here's a glittery Christmas card made from multiple types of glitter with Copic markers for the coloring.
	Here's another Christmas card. This one is just stamping, punching and tinsel glitter on the side.

I did full posts for them over on my main blog if you want to read more about what I was thinking, or just click on the image if you want the web directions for how to make it.

Cards that have been in hiding

Hello all! It's been ages since I've posted, hence why I have so many cards to post. it has been a busy year, and I have learned some new techniques. I am still very into making very homey cards that clearly look like they have been handmade, so these cards are not the best of the best, but they are my best and I am very proud of them!


A simple mother's day card.



A card for a friend who is very much in love with elephants. I am sorry to say that I do not remember where I got this idea from, but the idea was not mine. I have now applied the "patchwork" technique to other cards I have made, and if this came from you I am sorry I am not giving credit where it is needed. I do love this new technique though!




My sister LOVES peace signs and everything about them. I used a piece of tracing paper as the liner in the card.



This is an anniversary card I made for my parents. I can't find the exact website I used for this, but this is the most basic design for the woven hearts and you can find a pattern almost anywhere!



I love this card I made for my brother on his birthday. It took me a VERY long time to make though. I just looked at a simple picture I found on a website and brought it to life!





I made this card for a friend who was feeling a little down. Just a simple, bright and cheery card that hopefully brightened her day!

That's all I've got for now (I know it's a lot). Hope you enjoy them!

Holiday Cards, Please!

I've officially fallen off the card-making bandwagon and won't be able to start until after we move for the second time this year in December. That being said, I love seeing the cards you all post!

This is a plea for Christmas cards and other holiday cards!! Anyone have good ideas? You can even scan ones from previous years that you received and thought were great.

Happy holiday season!

~Julie

p.s. If you want to be a contributor, leave your email in a comment.

Christmas Goodies from a MIA Crafter :)

I hope you enjoy these!!!

KarenB

Christmas Sentiment Tree Card

Here's a great Christmas card to make.




It's great because:

• It required a limited amount of supplies, especially if you already have stuff to do embossing.
  
• All the supplies came from local craft stores at 40-50% off.
  
• Each card does not take hours to complete. There are a lot of great cards out there but most are too labor intensive to be practical if you have a lot of relatives and friends you need to send cards too.
  
• Most importantly, it looks nice.
  

Since this is the first Christmas card post of the season, I'm going to try to do a giveaway. Post a comment on my main blog using the link below on the original posting by Nov 14, 12:00AM EST. For every 25 people that comment, I'll giveaway a pack of 4 of these cards to a random winner until I run out so spread the word!

Enter here: http://sharedcards.blogspot.com

Thought I'd share a few Halloween cards I've made. I'm not typically a big Halloween card maker but this year has been a bit different!! I'm ready to start Christmas cards so I'll be updating again soon!!!







I hope you enjoy these and as always, if you want details on the images or anything else you can visit my blog!!!

Monday, October 25, 2010

Free Standing Halloween Card

This is a free standing card that you mail folded up and flat in a normal sized envelope. You can use it as a card or just as a general decoration that you put out somewhere. The recipient simply pushes the base down the card to open it. There is a side view on the website if you click on the image.

Aside from the time spent coloring, this is actually a fairly quick and easy card to make with the right tools. The key to this card working out right is for all the folds to be properly positioned. If you have a scoring board, this is easy to accomplish. The score locations are in the directions (click the image). I used the Martha Stewart scoring board, so they are relative to the way that one is marked.

Trick or Treat Leftovers

Here's a card I pulled together from the leftover pieces of the last card I posted.

There are some tricks to getting it to go together easier, so I'd recommend clicking on the image and checking out the directions if you like this one.

Trick or Treat Pumpkin Card

Here's a nice card that's not too hard to make. The colored paper is all from the same Bazzill basics stack, so the colors are the same muted tone and coordinate well together. Since they are muted they coordinate perfectly with the background mat which uses muted colors as well. The background was from a 12x12 sheet which had some printed distressing on the corners that I kept in the bottom right for visual interest where you are going to look when you open the card.



The pumpkin is colored and shaded on white paper using Copic markers. The shading adds another dimension. I highly recommend people develop some way of coloring their images but if you don't have any way of coloring a pumpkin image you can always just stamp it on orange cardstock.

If you have been following along you on my main blog should recognize this pumpkin image as one of the dollar stamps I've been using a lot. You can also think of this card as the final step up on the series of simple orange cards I posted using this image because this does represent what you can do when you move beyond a simple pack of cheap colored cardstock to a higher quality coordinated pack of cardstock and a modern stack that uses the same types of colors.

As always, click on the card for the larger image and direction sheet if you want more.

Witches Brew

Here's another Halloween card. This one is a fairly large image of two witches brewing up some magic that started out as an unmounted rubber stamp I brought last month. It's colored using Copic markers and then because the image was so large, simply framed with a black border to make the card front. I initially thought I was going to make it be a lot more complicated but there wasn't much else I could do and stay at the 4.5 x 5.5 card size and I really like that card size because its easy to get premade envelopes locally for them and the card tends to stay under 1 oz, or one stamp. As always click the image for full details.

Simple Halloween Cards

If you haven't caught them already on my main web site or off the sharedcards blog, here's a bunch of really simple Halloween card anyone can make. For some of them, you can even get your children or students involved. The best part is a lot of the stamps were just assorted holiday dollar stamps.

This next one looks complicated at first, but if you check out the instructions, it's really just stamping and cutting and meticulous placement.

As always just click on the card if you want sizes or more information.

A couple of fairly simple cards

It's been a while because I've been off at Copic Certification class and then at a rubber stamp convention buying up new stamps and then hanging Bygel rods on the wall to organize punches. The start of the new TV season has been taking away from my card making time too but I've finally got a few new cards done to post.

Before I start in on the new Halloween and Thanksgiving cards, I thought I would catch everyone here who isn't following my main blog up on a couple of simple cards I dug out of the pile from years past.

	This is a fairly simple card that shows what a creative corner punch and outside frame can do to dress up a simple stamp.
	Random interesting placement of squares of paper and some colorful zigzag paper that reminded me of a southwestern style.
	This card was leftover pattern paper dressed on the sides with ribbon and a color coordinated sentiment that you can punch out if you have the right punches.

Just click the image to see to the full instruction sheet if you want know what punch or stamp set I used.

Back to School Excitement and some Fab News!!!

I have finally become a Copic Certified Designer!!! I've been trying and trying to find a class to get this done but there were never any close to me but finally, on August 29, 2010 they had a class here in Albuquerque and I was accepted within a few hours of submitting my application so I was super excited!!!

So, here is one of the cards I made after taking the class and learning so much more about Copics. I used a new technique taught in the class that I never, ever thought of to create the denim effect on his jeans - how cute is that??? If you want more details on how it was done stop by my blog - Memories Unleashed!!!



I hope you enjoy!!

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Two new cards

Here's a get well card I posted earlier this week:



Click on the image to get directions from the website if you like it.


Here's a deceptively simple male card I posted today. It's just rubber stamping and paper so it looks pretty easy to modify to just about any occasion but it's the little design choices that make it different. The center paper isn't just blue, it's patterned paper that I stamped on. The photo tabs only hide half of what's underneath and the center paper is smaller, which means all the colors come together in the photo tab and it ties the different elements together physically and visually. The background paper is also textured which helps it be a little more than just a simple paper card.



Again, click on the card for the website page if you want directions or the full screen image.