by Karen Endress | Oct 16, 2016 | Mixed Media
Thought some of you might be interested in this memory box I made for my mom with several photos from our family’s cottage on the Chesapeake Bay.
I had NO idea how this was going to come together, so I just started by picking a small white 7 Gypsies shadowbox (stash). I printed three copies of each photo because I knew I would mess up and it’s a good thing, especially the boat pic. That took many tries because I had to cut four people out of the photo to make it just my mom & me 🙂 Getting the acetate positioned for the boat windshield was no picnic either!
The boat needed a background, so I took a piece of textured cardstock, masked off some clouds (MFT Cloud Trio & Simon Says Stamp Talk Bubbles) and lightly sponged some Distress ink over the background. Since the photo didn’t show the entire boat, I needed something to cover up the bottom. Head to my ScrapRack’s “Summer” section for some inspiration! I pulled quite a few items that didn’t make the cut, but did find a use for the sand and waves border stickers, “Gone to the Beach” embellishment, the flip flops and a small container of teeny tiny seashells I bought my daughter on a field trip long ago. I rescued it from a give-away pile when she was cleaning out her room. Good thing, huh?
Before surgery…
…and after surgery!
The embellishment in the right opening lost more petals every time I touched it, so I replaced the flower with a tiny starfish and shell. The middle section has an actual shell from our beach, one of maybe 20 I’ve saved all these years. Instead of stamping the date and place, I ran the vellum through my printer and carefully placed the adhesive under the flip flops and shell.
For the left-hand section I took a second copy of the photo and cut just the inner tube & feet portion to place over the full picture, using foam tape for dimension. The larger shells are also from our beach and the tiny one is from that rescued container 🙂
The last thing I did was print out the sentiment onto vellum and die-cut one of the same clouds from it. I placed it over but slightly offset from the masked cloud on the top right. I did a lot of agonizing over all the details of this project, but in the end both my mom & I loved it!
Hope you enjoy!! 
by Karen Endress | Oct 10, 2016 | Coffee & Tea
OK, so here’s what I did with those yellow scraps I had from the second housewarming card!! This one got pretty detailed and I’m not entirely happy with how bottom heavy it turned out, but overall I think I can send it to one of my tea-loving friends and they will enjoy it 🙂
I used a mostly monochromatic color palette with a cardbase of gold Recollections cardstock layered with the DCWV Mi Casa scrap, a doily from my stash (that’s an actual doily from an actual restaurant, I told you I “collected” things!), Distress inks in Scattered Straw & Frayed Burlap, VersaFine Toffee ink and tea cups cut from two different yellow and gold patterned cardstocks.
I used the Tim Holtz/Sizzix Mini Tea Time die for these, but not recently so I can’t tell you what the papers are. I’m always anxious to try new tools and products, but don’t always have a project to use them on so that’s how a lot of those bits & pieces end up in dishes on my desk!!
The stamps I used were: TPC Studio “Coffee Cafe” (Tea Time), Peddler’s Pack (tea bag), Stampington & Co. (tea packet) and Graphic 45 (spoon, which I stamped with VersaMark ink and embossed with Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder). The inside sentiment “Makes Everything Better” is from the MFT Hug in a Mug stamp set.
For the tea bag, I sponged some ink on the part that’s supposed to look like it has tea in it and used the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher to staple the tag to some string I had lying around. Even the Tiny Attacher staples were a little too big to look realistic for this tea bag. Maybe drawing the staple onto the tag would have worked a little better?
I adhered the doily, tea packets and tea cups flat to the card with Tombow tape runner. It’s hard to tell from the photo, but I scrunched the tea bag a little and used some Stampin’ Up Stampin’ Dimensionals to try to make it look like the tea bag had been taken out of the tea and squeezed. The last thing I did was round the top left corner to try to bring at least a little something to the top part of the card! Whew! Describing cards is thirsty work! Time for a cup of tea 🙂
Happy crafting!
by Karen Endress | Oct 7, 2016 | Congratulations
Hello again!! As promised, here is the second housewarming card I made recently 🙂 While I had all the house stuff out, I used some of the elements from the previous card (brown embossed paper, Echo Park cardstock sticker, glitter foam heart, Stampin’ Up dies, Neenah Solar White) plus some modifications to make the second card 🙂 This one went to one of my dearest friends. After living 40 minutes away for 25 years or so, she recently moved about 5 minutes from my house!! Which means we will see each other ALL the time, right? Umm…
For her card I die cut two of the houses into the brown cardstock and layered the yellow patterned paper under them, then layered two more yellow houses on top. The edges are inked with Ranger Distress inks in Scattered Straw and Vintage Photo. I added the heart to the front door & popped the house up on foam tape and the outside was done!!
On the inside, I stamped a sentiment with the Nicole alpha set “Typewriter Uppercase.” (I know AC Moore still sells these, but I could not find a link for them 🙁 I was afraid to stamp the letters for the WELCOME directly onto the cardbase (don’t ask), so I stamped onto white scrap and punched them out with a ½ “square punch (Recollections, again no link, their website was not cooperating). The rest of the sentiment was easy because I used an alpha set I got once at a scrappy yard sale (Karen Foster Small Casual) and they connect together to form the words!! Score! These are go-to for me for that reason. I die cut a piece of the scrap brown with a Spellbinders classic scalloped rectangle die to back the sentiment.
Since that same yellow DCWV Mi Casa paper (circa 2009) was out on my desk, I made an envelope out of it and my project was done!! In the next post you’ll see what I did with the rest of those yellow scraps 🙂 Once I have a piece of patterned paper out, it’s hard not to keep going with it! Anyone else do the same thing?
Hope you are all crafting up a storm & using up your stash!!
by Karen Endress | Sep 23, 2016 | Hello--Thinking of You
Hi, everyone! Here’s another card origin story for you!
Often my card ideas come from seeing a sentiment, some patterned paper, an embellishment (like the previous “Believe” card), or even just a particularly pleasing color combination. And very often, a new card will emerge from the scraps of a previous card with new elements added to round it out.
This idea came from the backdrop papers I used to photograph the last card. They looked really pretty together as they were from the same DCWV stack I used for that card. Hmmm…my mom likes pretty cards, she’d really like that floral paper & I could use another one of those words from the Color Splash pack!! A card idea is born 🙂
I double matted (DCWV) the blue floral to cover the entire cardbase (Neenah Solar White 80 lb.) and used the red dotted paper as an accent. I chose a darker red for contrast (Recollections Vintage Collector) and cut both with different sizes of the Spellbinders Labels One dies, positioning them so that the word would be about 2/3 of the way down the card. This time I used Faded Jeans Distress ink to color the chipboard word instead of Zig markers and it blended much better 🙂
I grabbed some textured light blue & vellum scraps (from the bits & pieces dishes that are overflowing onto my desk) to layer under the ‘Love’ word for contrast. Then I went to the color section of my ScrapRack for some red embellishments. Most everything in the ScrapRack is unlabeled and as old as the hills but still quite usable! I found the flower & the postage cancellation mark there–YAY! Using my stash!!
Finishing touches included some DMC floss that I wrapped around the ‘L’ and tied into a bow as well as a few coordinating enamel dots (MME Lost & Found Christmas) from my stash. Inside I stamped the Technique Tuesday Ali Edwards sentiment you can see test-stamped in the first picture. Looking back, I’m not totally pleased with the placement of that postage circle, but it is a handmade card and I’m pretty sure my 97 year old mom is not going to be critiquing her card! Have a great weekend!!
by Karen Endress | Sep 18, 2016 | Encouragement
Hello again! Thought you might like to see the card I made for my husband a few days ago. I knew the “believe” would be a perfect set up for the inside sentiment, which would mean absolutely nothing to anyone but him 🙂 He loved it!
The cardbase is my usual Neenah Solar White 80 lb. covered with royal blue glitter paper (DCWV mat stack), layered with patterned paper from DCWV’s Summer Dream Stack, another oldie but goodie. I wanted the dark coral strip to mimic the blue paper’s mottled pattern, so I ran a piece from the DCWV Brights Border punch strip stack through Tim Holtz/Sizzix Bubble embossing folder, then sanded the raised areas with an emery board.
For even more interest, I inked the sanded portions as well as all the panels’ edges with Distress inks in Chipped Sapphire and Abandoned Coral, then punched one edge with the Fiskars interchangeable border punch cartridge Up in the Clouds. I used the same punch on a scrap of the glitter paper and layered them onto the card.
The chipboard die cut is from this Recollections Color Splash collection embellishment pack I found in the 80% off clearance bin at Michaels. I’ve already used three of them (card posts to come 🙂 and have plans for the other two! That’s the kind of bargain I just love!!
My bargain embellishment pack–or what’s left of it 🙂
One of the embellishments after watercoloring!
I used my Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers in deep blue & Persian blue to try to get an ombre effect. They didn’t blend as well as I had hoped, either because the surface was of a lower quality or I just need more practice with these markers.
I didn’t care for the dot on the ‘i’ so I cut out a tiny heart from one of the elements of Lawn Fawn’s Stitched Journaling Card die set to finish off the card. Next post—where I used one of the other words from that embellishment pack 🙂
Hope you have a crafty week!
