Today's post dedicated to Liz in Prescott - late happy birthday! And 2 "hanging" birthday cards

First I want to dedicate today's post to a fellow AZ stamper, Liz in Prescott, whose birthday was July 8th!  Even though I haven't met her in person, I think we have quite a bit in common, and I wanted to wish her a belated long-distance Happy Birthday....I am new to that blog and glad she posted to it and I actually read it.  Isn't it a cool thing when you "find" someone online in a blog or something, and you just feel a connection?

It was a coincidence too, that the night before I made up these two birthday cards, combining new and retired Stampin Up products, and some non-Stampin Up items, since I am still in the midst of a major initial organization of my craft room - and one of the cards was a belated birthday card for a nephew (July 17th). So I can share it here with Liz too & hope they bring a smile to her.  I used some of that chocolate scented embossing powder on both cards, quite a lot in fact!  I think it all affected my scent detectors, because after working on these cards for a couple hours, I couldn't smell a thing...So before I put them in their mailing envelopes, I did a little bubble wrap on them, since with the other chocolate card I mailed earlier this month, the person said he could smell it!  Speaking of the envelopes, did you notice that these cards are somewhat different from other cards?  They don't fold in half, and I cut them that way so that they would fit into these elegant envelopes that were lined with red, gold, or silver foil - at Dollar Tree!  I love that store....I didn't want to save them just for Christmas, so designed a card to put in them, and then made the cards so that you could hang them up too - to get that chocolate smell whenever you needed a chocolate fix LOL.

Here is a picture of the gold lined envelope with the sock monkey card - because the foil inside the envelopes is shiny, it didn't scan on my computer very well:

But the red foil envelope scanned much better:

Another thing I learned about the chocolate scented embossing powder is that the smell is stronger if you don't color it with anything else, and/or you use an image that has more area to emboss - like the birthday cake on these cards.  Here is a closeup of the monkey card so you can see I used my CropADile to put 2 eyelets at the top for the fuzzy ribbon to go through:

Sock monkeys are so cute!  I distressed the edges of the gold and white cardstock - the present and cake are chocolate embossed on the monkey card. On the truck card, I chocolate embossed everything except the words, since I don't have the hang of embossing words yet so they are legible. Here is a closeup of the truck card - don't look too close at the messy "ground" - I kinda messed it up! That's another thing I just learned about embossing; every little thing shows up, whether you want it to or not....

I wrote a note on the back of the cards, instead of inside, since there was no inside.  I also found a way to make the scented embossing powder with sugar-free powdered drink mix - this was easily "googled" (scented stamping, or scratch and sniff) and it said only to use the sugar-free, because heating sugar will cause it to brown and you most likely don't want that on your item. I probably would have found out the hard way! Here is the recipe for it:

Mix 1 part sugar-free drink mix to 1 and 1/2 parts clear embossing powder;

Stamp a bold image in VersaMark or a craft ink pad on your card stock;

Then heat emboss the image using the scented embossing powder, just as with any other heat-embossing project.

Gee, now I find out that a "bold" image stamp is recommended - see, I told you I usually find out stuff the hard way....grrr. If you want a super good tutorial with illustrations and measurements for the Scratch and Sniff technique, Beate Johns has one here:  http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/scratch_and_sniff_technique

Hope the people like their chocolate cards, maybe you might try it yourself, and that Liz enjoys this post!!

Good news from friends; "Reversible" purple birthday card

Got some great news from 2 friends - one news was from another Stampin Up demonstrator that I have been getting to know and she was an Artisan Award winner last year - she is presenting at their national convention in Salt Lake City this week and found out she was awarded to be a member of Founder's Circle. Well, I know that is a great honor, but I can't tell you exactly what you do to receive it, but it is highly valued...I am so happy for Diana.  And I will have to check out what the criteria is to get that award!!  Here is a picture of one of her cards she presented - you can see why she gets awards:

The other great news was that our dog agility training site's program director did awesome at the European competition this past week with 2 of her dogs - It was a 6-day competition and over 300 dogs from all over Europe and everyone wanted one of those 25 spots to move to finals. Both dogs jumped at 26" (kinda high to jump - just try it!) and she qualified not one, but BOTH of her dogs for finals - one of her dogs placed 3rd overall when it was all said and done. We are so proud of her! Woof woof Woot Elicia, BreeSea, and Nika...

       I am still sorting out and unpacking stuff, but using the new Stampin Up items I got.  I really like the new color Concord Crush, as I have loved purple since I was a teenager (not saying when that was!) - In fact, in my h.s. yearbook for my grad pic it says I was the girl with the purple suede shoes!  I wanted to use it to make a birthday card for my son's gf for her 17th birthday next week, but I don't know what sort of stuff she likes, etc. And my son wasn't much help....so I decided to make one of those cute skirt cards, which is shown above, along with a felt flower large paper clip bookmark (hmmm, can't use it with ebooks though...). Too bad the felt flowers and the paper on the bookmark just retired.  I did some embossing on the pink petticoat peeking out underneath - this skirt card is a little different since it doesn't open up...Here is a larger picture of the front of the skirt card:

That's the new lace trim that Stampin Up has now, and satin ribbon at the waistband and a flower brad.  I will post more pictures of this card when I get a new adapter for my pic card so I can get the rest of the pictures off of it....But I always scan my projects too....Here is the scanned back of the card:

I embossed the purple butterfly with clear and edged it and the greeting in pink - so it's a reversible skirt birthday card!  I hope the young lady will like it....Do you think a 17 year old teen girl would like this card?

Chocolate smelly card; doggy bags and cards

Well, I said I would let you know if the chocolate embossed birthday card I made and sent in the mail to my son survived, odorwise....And I was glad to hear that it did!!  I had to use up the chocolate embossing powder that I had leftover in my embossing powder box since I forgot to pour it back in the container...so it got mixed with some clear embossing powder I used on this dog card....It was for a dog club group meetup at the training site we take dog agility classes at - Top Notch Canines in Phoenix, AZ, and everyone who attended received one of these doggy bags, and one of the dog cards shown above....So I used half and half - regular unscented and chocolate scented embossing powders.  And it still smelled like chocolate - not as strong though.  The dog on the front of the doggy bag was a Sizzix diecut I've had and been dying to use....I took pictures of the other items in the doggy bag along with more pictures of the cards, etc.  But I can't get the pics off my picture card since the computer adapter for it is now broken....So I will have to get either a new one, or a cord to upload the pics from my cell photo card to my computer - there are almost 90 pictures on it that I want to get off!  So I will share some more of the project and meetup when I am able to get the pictures.  But here is another picture that I scanned of another one of the doggy bags and similar card:

I wonder if anyone noticed that the dog cards smelled good?  Give a hug to your furbaby today! 

Masculine Birthday Pocketcard-chocolate flavored! Yummy

Remember the scratch and sniff cards you liked when you were a kid?  Those were the most fun, weren't they?  I was up late making a masculine birthday card for my son, playing with the clear acrylic stamps and blocks I've been collecting....lots of dog stamps from different places, since I'm a dog lover now.  I assembled this doggy pic to put on the front of the envelope card (more on this in a bit), trying different embossing powders on glossy cardstock, when I remembered I had some scented embossing powders from Cornish Heritage Farms, so I dug them out.  I had some chocolate brown scented embossing powder and it really did smell yummy like chocolate in the little jar!! But would it hold up that scent after embossing and on the card?!  Mythbuster (in theory!) to the rescue! 

Yes, it smelled like chocolate while embossing!

Yes, it still smelled like chocolate after embossing!

Yes, it even still smelled like chocolate after sitting for a while!

Will it still smell like chocolate after mailing?  Tune in for future posts to find out...!  Actually I won't even know until my son gets his card in the mail, which is bubble wrapped, and tells me yes or no, he could smell the chocolate....wonder if you have to scratch it to activate the smell?

What do you think - will it still smell or not?  Yes?  No? 

I THINK it should still smell, and may be be very noticeable since I bubble wrapped it, at least for a while until after it's been exposed to air....Has anyone else had any experience with scented embossing powders?

More about the actual card....I used retired Stampin' Up papers for the envelope and card - Used this pattern template, only enlarged it a bit, but it still fit into a letter envelope - it's called a Pocketcard:

There are two parts to this project - the pocket, and the card that goes inside, which I made longer so I could fold it in half, put a tab on top to pull it in and out of the pocket, and wrote a note on white paper that I put in-between the 2 layers.  I creased the card along the top back so it would stand up for a little picture and distressed it to make it look shabby chic/vintage:

Here's a picture of the back of the card and pocket folded and glued:

Here are the fronts of the pocket and card together:

Here are 2 views of the card inside the pocket (I have no idea whose picture is on the card lol!)

I also embossed the coppery cardstock that is behind the chocolate dog picture with Stampin' Up's new square lattice folder.  So this project was an eclectic mix of retired and new Stampin' Up and other items I had collected from somewhere else...While I am unpacking and organizing my craft items, I will be putting aside some stuff to sell at our neighborhood craft fair in October. I had done that with my clothes when we moved here, along with other household things, and we ended up taking 33 of those big black plastic bags to Goodwill - yeah, 33 bags!

I will be very interested to hear from my son on the chocolate dog - wouldn't that be great on an Easter card for a chocolate bunny?  Keep it on your desk for when you have to have some chocolate lol!!  No calories either!

Japanese Washi Masking/Duct Tape

Had to share these pretty Japanese Washi Masking/Duct Tape sets with you - love the colors!  I have some of these and they are fun to use - I covered some of my clothespins with them and made mini-purse picture hangers - see here:

These were my very first clothespin picture hangers that I made and clipped them on one of those little green shiny trees with lights to decorate it, but the pictures of it didn't turn out, so I won't post it and make you squint to see them!  Now my clothespins have blossomed into bigger hangers, which you can see in my previous posts....Anyway, if you hurry, you can go to Little Happy Things' blog and enter to win some Japanese Washi Tape. 

   http://littlehappythingsilove.blogspot.com/

Here's some more about the Japanese Washi tape:  The masking tape is unique in that it can be pulled on and off numerous times and leaves no residue or paper tears. A perfect and fun way to adorn any gift, lunch bag, journal or scrapbook. Also can be used as labels or decorative element on anything, you can write on this tape, stick it onto plastic bags, paper or boxes....
                                                  I bet you will want to try some!!

Shabby Chic Baby Clothespin Hanging Picture Holder - deets

    

Here are the full details for the Shabby Chic Baby Clothespin Picture Hanger I posted yesterday...

Stampin’ Up products used: Baby Bundle stamp set, 5/8” very vanilla satin ribbon, 1/8” daffodil and very vanilla taffeta ribbon, daffodil, cherry cobbler, glossy white cardstock, glue dots, dimensionals, Island Oasis designer paper, bone folder to curl petal edges, small brad, 1 ¾” scallop punch, Boho Blossoms punch, 5-petal flower extra-large flower punch, 1-1/4” circle punch, and Beautiful Wings embosslit die (also used 9” round tulle circle and clothespin painted white).

Prepare 5 layers as follows:

 

1) Cut a 3-1/4” circle from Island Oasis polka dotted paper for BASE and distress edge in cherry; pleat and staple tulle to this circle as shown in picture. Also cut 4” length of satin ribbon, 5” daffodil ribbon and fold in half, and 6” length of very vanilla ribbon and fold in half. Attach ribbons to BASE.

 

Here is what the back will look like after you staple the tulle and ribbon:

2) Cut a 2-3/4” circle from green Island Oasis – this size is the same size as the ribbon spool! Distress edges with cherry, then cut slits in from edges of circle and carefully curl with bone folder, then fluff.

 

3) Punch a daffodil 5-petal extra-large flower, distress edges with cherry, and crumple and uncrumple it two times so the cardstock softens up. Then dab it in cherry to give it a shabby chic look and curl edges with bone folder.

4) Punch a 1-3/4” scallop circle from Island Oasis polka dot paper, distress edges with cherry, and cut slits in from edges. Curl edges with bone folder.

5) Punch a 1-1/4” circle from cherry cobbler cardstock and distress edge with cherry cobbler.

Use a brad to put all 5 layers together. Stamp baby bootees on glossy white cardstock and punch out using large Boho Blossoms flower, distress edges with cherry cobbler. Attach to other layers on top of brad with dimensionals.

 

Using the Boho Blossoms, punch medium flower from green Island Oasis and small flower from Island Oasis polka dot paper – distress edges with cherry cobbler. Use the eraser end of a pencil to stamp the center of the small flower with cherry cobbler. Attach small flower to medium flower, then attach to end of very vanilla satin ribbon.

Prepare the clothespin: You don’t have to paint it if you don’t want to since it won’t show, but I had already painted a bunch of clothespins white, so Iused them. Thread a 15” length of the satin ribbon through the metal hole in the clothespin (this can be challenging!), then tie it in a knot leaving about 1-1/2” ends. I found that tying the knot was a lot easier if I put the clothespin on the edge of a box so they were standing up….Put on 3 or 4 glue dots on clothespin and carefully place the layers on the clothespin to attach. You use hot glue if you wanted instead. This was my first time really using the glue dots, and boy, are they fiercely strong – I got one stuck to my little pinky, and when I pulled it off, it took my nail polish right off, see here?

Finish the baby clothespin holder up: Cut a leaf from the Island Oasis green leafy paper and cut the edges following the leaf outlines, then distress it with cherry cobbler (have you noticed that almost everything is distressed with cherry?!) and adhere to the back of the other layers on the clothespin. Attach one of the butterflies from the Beautiful Wings embosslit diecut with a dimensional to the leaf (feel free to distress it too if you want!). Turn the baby clothespin over and glue the ribbon down alongside the clothespin so it will hang properly straight. That’s it!

Now you can make more of them and hang them up off each other for a vertical banner, on a present, a party favor, different color schemes, etc.….What a great way to use a plain and simple clothespin, don’t you think?

 

BTW, you will need a helper too – here is my assistant! The second picture Inu "posed" for...!! (she was told to Stay so I could take her picture...)  See the box that I put my items into that I was using that says “Cheese Danish?” No, I didn’t eat them all – only one - really LOL!  It made a great recycling box!!