Interactive Puzzle Birthday Card

My third son celebrated his 9th birthday 3 days ago. I created a birthday card for him. I had to think what will be most appropriate for him. He loves puzzles. This inspired me to create this interactive puzzle card for him.

I cut the puzzle pieces using Cricut Close To My Heart Artiste cartridge. I cut this at 4". Luckily, the puzzle pieces did not break apart when I removed the die cut from the mat. I applied a sticky Post-it note to the back of the die cut to keep it together since I am going to stamp on this.

I stamped his name and the sentiment to the puzzle pieces. For his name, I used Studio Calico Mia Alpha stamp set. I like the brush stroke image of the fonts. I stamped the letters using Simon Says Stamp Blue Violet dye ink. I used a stamp positioner because I re-stamped the letter using a white pigment ink to create an ombre look. I only inked the bottom half of the letter to create this look. I allowed this to dry.

For the sentiment, this is a 2-lined greeting stamp from Avery Elle Brushed Clear stamps. I used masking to create a 1-lined greeting. I prepared the area for embossing using my powder tool. I stamped the sentiment using blue pigment ink, poured clear embossing powder, then heat embossed it. 

I stamped party hats randomly using Memento Desert Sand ink. The stamp is from Technique Tuesday Say It-Happy clear stamp set. I colored the hats with Copics. I accentuated the trims using a glittered pen. I embellished the hats using a white gel pen. 

I kept the negative cut of the puzzle and used it as a guide to create a note card. I ran the front panel of the note card to emboss dots to it since the front panel will be plain without the puzzle piece. I adhered the negative die to the embossed part of the note card. 

Now, it's time to create a pocket to put the puzzle pieces in, and to attach a message so my son would know that this is a puzzle to be pieced together. 

I placed the puzzle pieces in a left-over clear packaging. I cut a 3x3 paper, sized enough to fit it in the clear packaging. I stamped the instructions using Lawn Fawn Milo's ABC, and placed this inside the clear packaging together with the puzzle pieces. I sealed this using the We R Memory Keepers Photo Sleeve Fuse tool.  Just make sure to allow the fuse tool to heat up before using it to seal. I ran this twice, about 1/4" apart before I trimmed the excess off. I adhered this package to the front of the card using wash tape.

This is how the card looks like with the puzzle pieced together.

My son likes the card. Thanks for viewing my blog.

Maria Giselle B.

I am submitting this creation to the following blog:

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/

Shaped Shaker Birthday Card

My eldest son's 14th birthday is today. I made a card for him for this occasion. I used the Cricut Cartridge Life Is A Party to cut the front panel. I cut two solid circles, in gray cardstock and in white cardstock from the free images installed in the Cricut Imagine. I cut this slightly larger than the size of the front panel. I cut the letters at 1" using Cricut Cartridge Everyday Fonts.

I made a shaker card using the panel. I stamped the sentiment to the panel. I adhered the letters to form my son's name. I applied Wink Of Stella and Glossy Accents to add dimension. I adhered black sequins to fill in the space around the sentiment.

Thanks for viewing my blog.

Maria Giselle B.

I am submitting this creation to the following blog:

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/

Flower Card using Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pens

I was having difficulty using WPlus9 Pretty Peonies stamp set. When I use it, I can't see the Peony. For me, it looks like a cabbage and my co-worker friend laughed at me when I told her about this. Have you had those occasions that you just can't see the image as other people see it? Anyway, maybe I was using the wrong technique. Now, I tried just using the outline stamp. This time, I love the results. Hopefully, from here, I can work my way until I am able to stamp the peony layered as the stamp set was designed for.

WPlus9 is having a challenge.

http://www.stampawaywithme.blogspot.com/2015/07/challenge-get-sketchy-with-joni-2.html

I visit their blog and love their design team's coloring techniques. This is my first time to join a challenge in their blog using my one and only WPlus9 stamp set.

I stamped the peony repeatedly to create a border. I created a mask for the peony using a Post-It note. I stamped this on watercolor paper using Versamark ink. I used gold embossing powder. I colored the flowers using Akashiya Sai Watercolor Brush Pens which is a 'pasalubong' of my sister who is visiting us from the Philippines. She recently went to Japan and I asked her to look for these pens for me. The colors of these pens are so vibrant that you just need a little. I colored the parts of the flower where I think is the darkest. I used a watercolor brush (and I think that was the trick to using these markers) to work the vibrant color to the rest of the flower. For the flower's center, I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Wild Honey. I rubbed the pad on an acrylic block and picked up the color to paint on the center. Using the same pad, I stamped the center using the coordinating stamp in the set.

I did the same technique for the background, using the markers to apply color near the flowers, then using a watercolor brush to spread this out to the rest of the card. I fuzzy cut one edge of the panels to create the border. I stamped the sentiment using Gold embossing powder.  I used an embossed vellum by Doodlebug to create the split between the flower borders. 

The flower panels were adhered to the notecard using foam adhesive.

Thanks for viewing my blog.

Maria Giselle B.

Girl Throwing Confetti Stars Card

After learning this month's Mama Elephant's challenge, I came up with an idea of a kid throwing rainbow colored stars up in the air. Luckily, I have several Mama Elephant products that will allow me to create this idea.

I first stamp the girl from In My Heart Stamp set on a white cardstock. I restamped this image on a Post-It note which I will use as mask. I fussy cut this and covered the girl.

I die cut another Post-It using the slope die from the Borderline Trio. I will use this as a mask to ink up and create a hill where the girl is standing. I attached the sky portion of the Post-It first. I used two green dye inks to create some shading.  Before removing this mask, I lined up the hill portion of the Post-It, covering the previously ink blended hill. This time, I used three dye inks to create the shading. Once I am happy with the shading, I took the masks off and colored the girl using Copics.

To create the border stitching, I ran this panel through a Big Shot machine using the Peek-a-Frame Die. I stamped the sentiment using the Everyday Greetings stamp set using Versafine Onyx Black ink. I applied clear embossing powder to this then heat set it. For the 'you're' part of the sentiment, I used the 'you're a good egg' sentiment from Just Hatched. I masked the rest of the sentiment using tape, and inked only the 'you're' part. I removed the tape, stamped this onto the top of the initial sentiment using the same ink and also heat embossing it with clear powder.

To create the stars, I adhered double sided tape to white cardstock. After removing the release paper, I poured Elizabeth Crafts glitter to this. I burnish the glitter using my finger and running a Swifter cloth over it. I colored this using Copics. I use the Confetti die to cut the stars. I poured this onto the panel to help me with the layout of the stars. After all, it is supposed to be a confetti thrown up in the air by a little girl. I just made sure the colors are evenly distributed.

This panel is then adhered to a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 note card.

Thanks for viewing my blog.

Maria Giselle B.

I submitted this to the following challenges:

https://www.flickr.com/groups/mamaelephant/

http://www.simonsaysstampblog.com/mondaychallenge/

Creating Dimensional Embellishments from a Stamped Image

I made my first how-to video, and that was no joke. Editing the whole real-time video is tough since I have to decide which parts need to be edited out and which parts need to be sped up. The real-time video took at least an hour, and the allotted video time is 5-7 minutes. I was aiming for 7 minutes but after cutting a lot of the parts of the video, I was able to come up with a 5 minute video. There is still a lot of things to improve for the next video, like better lighting, louder voice over, taking a landscape layout instead of a portrait one...I might come up with more. This is a part of an Altenew Challenge. It is indeed a challenge.

http://altenewblog.com/2015/06/22/altenew-video-challenge/

I created this card for my sister's friends who just got married. I had create the card first to see its outcome. Then, I created the second card for the video. I used the Altenew Hennah Elements stamp set for these cards.

 

 

Here are close up shots of the card:

Here is the video on how to make the card...

Thanks for viewing my blog.

Maria Giselle B.