Easy flower-drawing card

Hi everyone! I made this card in 35 minutes because I stopped every few steps to take pictures bit you must trust me this won't take more than 20 to 30 minutes and can be painted any color. I think flowers are very easy to draw but you can make clusters of flowers with greenery that are fancy and easy too. I'll make another one with this option too.

Check the video below

https://flipagram.com/f/kGGLFgoIwa

One layer 10 min male bday card

Hello everyone! Happy 2016. I'm back with new ideas and new stuff. Meanwhile here's today post:

Bday card for men. Ughhh extremly tough for me, but this time it took only 10 min. This card is 3 by 4.5 inches but this could be a panel on a bigger card or even a whole card. The possibilities are endless.

Easy banner

Long time no see. Mini tutorial showing how to create a banner with a Bracket border that is mostly centered and very symmetrical.

Father's day cards

A few father's day card ideas. I made them last night, and were very easy to make. Most of them with paper scraps.

- The stars are made from cork, didn't have veneer, but I wanted to add some embellishment and stars are very easy to make (specially irregular ones)

- Here I stamped the "faher's day" wrong, so to pretend it was intencional y stamped the other part in diagonal too. Thie perls were made with liquid perfect perls.

- some random watercolor with distress, red pearls over watercolor paper and craft paper

-This PAPA letters were the positive cutout from the next card that I wraped with washi tape and finished with glossy accents

- Negative cutout popped with foam tape over a watercolor paper gradient made with distress inks. The dots are studs and the black cardstock was actually white and handpainted it with copic marker, so the inside is white and the front is black

Latest cards

To all my readers, I'm very sorry that I haven't post anything in the last few months, BUT there's a good reason.... Moved back to Panama, buy a house, we are working on many home improvements and above all and the most important reason is that I'm 6 month pregnant now 😁 of our first baby!!!!

I'd like to thanks all of you for your support and constant messages I'm expecting to finish my working studio soon but on the mean time here are some projects that I've been working on.

Please leave a comment or send me a message, I'm working secretly with some friends to prepare a giveaway soon, so stay tuned!

 - Kind of Tim Holtz inspired card.
Used lots of distress ink, embossing folder, bird die and hand cut banner with sentiment. Very simple.

- Embossing folder, gift stamp, versamark for watermark on pink paper, glossy accent for bow, copic markers and vellum with sentiment.

Color Over Black

I'm not a big fan of this card, but I do love the contrast. I wanted to make many things at one, that's why it's not so good :(

1. Chevron
2. Native American
3. Neon

Choose one and it might look good. Just like my next card that looks sooooo much better. What do you think?

One Layer Card

I wanted to make a card in less than 10 min. This is what it came out. Stamping in the center with lots of white space makes the stamps pops out. The bright colors helps too :p

Using Scraps #2

There's something about using scraps. I can't toss anything away, I feel that I would regret it if I do, so I keep them. I have lots of scrap, but my new philosophy is to work with the scraps I left behind as soon as possible. 

I made this cards the same day and turn out great. I also used the other half of the background cardstock for this mini cards. They are very self-explanatory. Just cut in half the circles and lay them out differently on each card. What have you done with your scraps recently?

Pattern Paper Collage

Pattern paper... it's a love - hate relationship. Love the colors, the patterns but hate I don't know how to mix and match, don't know what to do with it. I spent almost two hours making this card. I know, a lot of time, but I challenge myself to use five pattern papers, two circle dies and no stamp (only sentiment). That was hard! But I love it, it turned out great and so bright. Here's the how to:

TIPS:
- When using pattern paper try to use a single paper pad. Mix and match will be a breeze.
- Keep it simple. When colors and shapes takes over, single color paper or cardstock brings everything together.
- Save the scraps for another card, you won't have to think about mix and match.
- Break the pattern (circle pattern on the background) with another shape or changing the direction (like the banner, that is rectangular and diagonal) This way the element will stand out.

Using Scraps

Late post tonight. Today my hubby was home all day :)

So as promised, here's what I did with the remenants of this card. So remember to save those scraps specially those bigger than 2 cm. Sooo tell me what have you done with your scraps! see you on monday!

 

Lovely Postcard

Love is in the air. With my hubby everything is great. Next weekend is our monthly anniversary :) So I made this postcard for him. Pattern Play uses lots of beautiful patterns and I wondered if I could make my own. Guess what, I can and so do you.  I'll be sharing some techniques I use for make my own pattern paper. Let's begin.

This first one is super simple, all you need is paper, stamps and embossing powder. I made this one with clear embossing powder, but I'm thinking metallic embossing powder or even clear embossing powder over colored paper to create an incredible tone on tone paper, super "in" right now. 

How to left the perfect space for the word Love in color? You can stamp this first (that would be the easiest way) or calculate placing the stamp over the card and stamp it next to it and go from there up, down, and side by side... I finished it with baker's twine. So, how I did? Think I'm getting better :p Share yours on the comments.

Stamps & Pattern Paper

Happy birthday to you! Look at the colors. I used two patterned papers from the same pad. This tip was gave on Pattern Play class and is sooooo obvious and we probably never do it. Well, I think it's kinda busy with all the yarn, stamps and washi tape, but I'll get better.

One of the tips on Pattern Play was use patterns in different sizes so it blends together and use one bold or busy pattern with another one more simple or "blah" (Amber's Words) I failed here: I used two bold patterns, and using the stripes in different directions wasn't the best idea :(

Here's the how to

 

I'll keep you posted on how to use pattern papers as I learn myself. But practice will make me better, I'm sure of it. For now, are you willing to give me some advice? Comment below! And thanks for laughing with me and not of me :p

3-Window Card and Template

Trendy alert! 3-windows on a card either round or square

This can be found on many cards today. There are also many dies that cut out the 3 shapes at the same time, but if you don't have this die, like me, you can download this pattern that will fit a 5.5" x 4.25" card (landscape or portrait). You can use this template for circles too.

1. I used coordinated patterned paper. 2. Cut out the template and cut out some stripes of paper. 3. Draw the template on the back. 4. Cut out as shown. 5. Transfer the template to the card. 6. Stamp your images into the card.

I stamped the sentiment at the bottom and use baker's twine in blue to contrast (look for additional colors on patterned paper or on the coordinates on the same pad). You can color your images or not.

Download the pattern below (at the end) and share your creations! Just leave a comment with a link to your card. Did you use it rounded or squared? Do you think of any other way to use this pattern? Comment, comment, comment!!! We all want to know what you did :)

Download below!

 

Click to open, right click to download to computer

Mini Card or Tag with Scraps

Hello everyone! I've been very busy but I'll be posting all I've been up to! ;)

This is one of the cards I made last week. I meant to make "regular size" card, but the stamp was small and I decided to turn it into a tag, using scraps as color. Never toss any paper bigger than 1cm x 1cm, a smaller size might not be useful (and I said might).

Stamp Carving Tutorial - Details

I'm here again with another tutorial on stamp carving. I just want to let you know that it's been less than a year since I started carving stamps, but I think the results are best when done this way. So here we go:

This are my tips when carving small pieces, thin lines or curves:

- MOVE SLOW and use light pressure, the less you remove, the easy will glide and you can fix it (if needed) later.

- I advise to start and end one stroke at a time, when a "line" makes a 90˚ angle STOP, lift your carving tool and rotate your stamp, now continue carving.

- Curves are easy if you rotate the stamp while carving, if you move your hand while making pressure you might not control directions very well.

- If a thin line is "as thin as your tip" carve on top of the line, but if the line is wider, then your carving tool should be placed aligned with one of the borders of the line, then carve the other side.

- If your tip is too big, use a syringe needle!

- I only use an xacto knife to "divide" what I want to carve from what I don't. I lightly press the xacto into the carving block and make sure it get about 1 or 2 mm deep.

Hope this help, please let me know if you have any questions or if you have another method for stamp carving! Share your knowledge : )
The template of the stamp of this video can be found below for free! And a picture tutorial on how to carve your stamps can be found here.

For My Mom

Well, this Friday is the International Women's Day but I don't want to wait that long to thank you for stopping by my blog and specially my mom for giving me everything including "super-mom cheers" for every project I do or post or give or show her =p So I dedicated this card (now two) to her. I love u lots mom.

I get the inspiration from Amber at Damask Love, and you can see the link here. Sometimes you see a card and instantly picture something else, well that's what happened to me when I saw Amber's card. I don't have many flower stamp (weird right?) so I decided to make my own.

For everyone that wants to carve a stamp I recommend you to go here, but I'll share a mini tutorial of this petals probably in video next week. Besides carving, I wanted to show you how I made the flowers on the card. I don't have fancy ink or paper, but I'm sure you can achieve such a great results with blending ink or using a resist technique which you can find here thanks to Jennifer McGuire.

Repetition is key! In the video I try my best to place the stamp where I wanted, but in real life I move the paper, here I didn't so the pictures/video came out right. Most flowers are NOT perfect at all, but the final result came out ok. I didn't edit the flowers, so you can see they look super cute. I bet you can do it better with time and patience.

Remember to subscribe to post, the newsletter will be available in two weeks and will be published every two weeks =p.

PS. New changes are coming to my blog, so bear with me. In the time being, you can see some of them and let me know what you think. Also if you want to share your custom carved stamp please leave a comment with the link or email me so I can add it along with your website (if you have one) for everyone to share!

Quick Mini Card

A few days ago I had this urge for Auntie Anne's Pretzels, since we don't have one here in Guatemala I decided to make a copycat recipe that you can find here. Well I think they were delicious and decided to give a few to my neighbor.

I use any excuse to make a card or craft, and this wasn't an exception. I made a cute little card that took less than 10 minutes. This is perfect for mass produce for Christmas or Thank you cards and even for To-From cards.

Supplies:

- Cardstock

- Washi Tape (or decorative tape or patterned paper or stamp)

- Sentiment (can be handwritten)

- Stamp (or figure or embellishment)

- 3d dots

- Tool for round corners (I used crop-a-dile corner chomper 1/4" and 1/2") OPTIONAL

How to:

• Cut your cardstock to desired size, mine was a scrap about 4" by 2" and fold in half

• Stamp figure on other cardstock and paint. I used Copic Markers thanks to my Mom (thanks a lot mom!!! love u!)

• Place washi tape at the bottom of your card

• Stamp sentiment

• Add your figure with 3d dots.

• Round corners

White on White 1-2-3 Card

This simple yet elegant card was made in less than 15 minutes. I think I would change some things that I'll list above so you can have another idea.

White on White Card - With Sympathy

1. Cut paper desired size.
2. Emboss front of card
3. Cut out sentiment piece
4. Stamp out sentiment
5. Use 3d adhesive to attach sentiment to card.

Other ideas:
- Round corners
- Use color washi tape behind the sentiment cut out
- Leave out a shaped space without embossing for sentiment (this I will try soon)

Downloadable Bunting Banner

Flag Banner Demo - Download below

It's been out there for a while now. The flag banners are IN. I was making a flag banner for the new look of my blog, but decided to go with washi tape instead. Do you like it? Any comments? Please leave a comment telling me if you like it or not, and suggestions. 

Because I spent some time making the banner I decided to share it with you. If you want to change the colors, email me with the colors you want or size, OR if you have Adobe Illustrator I can send you the original file.

While sharing, leave a comment with a link of your work so everyone can see how cool banners are and that it can be used in so many ways!

If there are any problems let me know. Just click on the image below and save to computer.

Click and save to computer.