New die storage!

I'm doing a happy dance right now, because my storage for all of those fabulous thin metal dies has been improved greatly - lighter, more compact, and super economical.

Many of you have probably seen Dawn McVey's recent post where she showed how she made super cute little pockets to hold her dies. She used cardstock with acetate sewn on the front to make pockets. It's fantastic! I wanted to do something like it, but I'm lazy and didn't want to drag out the sewing machine. I got to thinking about it, and realized that clear envelopes offer a terrific cost- and time-effective solution.

Check it out! Each die or set of dies has its own little pouch. Each one contains a quarter sheet of cardstock (5 1/2 by 4 1/4 inches) - no cardstock waste! The pouches are made from plain clear envelopes  (no sewing!), which I cut to 5 3/8 inches tall. I made them just a little bit shorter than the cardstock insert because it's easier to get hold of the cardstock to pull it out if you need to. On each insert, I wrote the name of the die(s) in the upper left corner, and the name of the company in the upper right. Quick, easy, and cheap!

Here's another cool thing. On the back of each insert, I traced around each die that's contained in that pouch. This should make it easier to help stray dies find their way back home.

I can hear you asking now - what about my Nestabilities? They fit just fine! You can see my solution for dies that are too tall for the pouch. They simply stick out the top. On the back, when I traced the dies, I used a dotted line near the edge to show that a die continued past the page.

 

Since these pouches are made from a standard envelope, you can store them easily in any container that you'd use for finished cards. The only things not included in the basket you see below are my impression plates, the calendar page die, and the two Favor It box dies. I'm sure they'll go in something similar, but it will need to be a little bit larger. 

This basket contains 46 pouches of dies. And the whole stack is less than 4 inches thick!

I have a couple of hints if you decide to do this. The clear envelopes with the adhesive on the flap rather than on the envelope body were preferable to me. That way, the adhesive gets eliminated when you cut. I cut the envelopes on my Tonic guillotine cutter. I found them a lot easier to cut if I did two at a time. And I had to really hold the blade in close to the body of the cutter to keep the slippery little buggers from avoiding being cut.

 

 

Thanks to Dawn for the inspiration. This would never have occurred to me if not for your post!

Stamp surgery

One of my favorite things to do is to take Stampin' Up! wheels and turn them into separate stamps, especially when there is a wheel with lots of great sentiments on it. I have the Friendly Words jumbo wheel cut up into separate stamps, and I adore it. I use it all the time.

Here's another one. The new Jolly Jingles jumbo wheel just arrived at my house today, and it was destined to be cut up from the very start. You can see above what I had when I started the process. And here's what I got after I was finished, and all for the amazing price of $8.50! Eighteen holiday stamps! This wheel did require a lot more careful cutting than some I've done in the past. There were at least twenty different spots that were tight enough that I had to use a craft knife instead of scissors to get in between the words. But I love this set and can't wait to use it.

Floral thank you card

Here's a fun floral thank you card.




Details: stamps - All About You, All About You Additions, Flutterby Friend; paper - Scarlet Jewel, Kraft, Stampers Select Cream; ink - Tuxedo Black (Memento); accessories - Hawaiian Shores felt, Rick Rack die, markers (Copic)

One-Layer Wednesday 7 - Repetition

This week's challenge for Susan Raihala's One-Layer Wednesday is repetition. I decided to use some of the alphabet sets that I seem to collect. For a non-scrapbooker, I sure do have a lot of alphabet stamps. I tried to count them today, and found that I have at least 30 sets. There are probably a few more that I missed somehow, too.

I saw a pillow at Pottery Barn Teen that provided the inspiration for these cards.



Details (all Papertrey Ink): stamps - Fresh Alphabet; paper - stampers select white; ink - plum pudding, enchanted evening, new leaf, summer sunrise, orange zest, pure poppy



Details: stamps - Trajan Monogram Alphabet; paper - white; ink - plum pudding, enchanted evening, new leaf, summer sunrise, orange zest, pure poppy

I prefer the font of the Fresh Alphabet in the first card, but I like the size of the block of text better with the Trajan Monogram Alphabet in the second card. Thanks to Susan for yet another fun challenge!

Oh, and the secret to getting everything straight and even? I used Post-It notes to mask off the lower right corner - one sheet 1/2 inch from the bottom edge from the card, and one sheet 1/2 inch from the right hand edge. Then stamp starting in the lower right hand corner and working up on the diagonal.

One-Layer Wednesday 6 - Overlapping

I've mentioned Susan Raihala's blog here before. It's definitely one of my favorites. She has new content virtually every day, and her style is fabulously clean and simple, just what I aspire to creating. Susan has a One-Layer Wednesday challenge each week, and though I always mean to participate, this is the first week that I've managed to do so. This week's challenge is to create a card with the sentiment overlapping the main image, which is something that I love to do.

I had it in my head to make a card with a butterfly. So off I went to my stamping index book to look at the butterfly pages. And I couldn't f or the life of me decide on just one butterfly. So I decided to make a set of different butterfly cards. These four butterflies were my favorites for this technique.

Details:

Card 1 (In dreams and in love...): stamps - Butterfly of Happiness (Stampin' Up!), Heart Print Sentiments; ink - Hawaiian Shores, Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - White
 
Card 2 (You're Amazing): stamps - Butterfly Dreams, Thankful Blossoms (Verve); ink - Spring Rain, Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - White

Card 3 (Thank You): stamps - Wonderful Wings (Stampin' Up!), Giga Guide Lines; ink - Aqua Mist, Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - White
 
Card 4 (Know in your heart...): stamps - Pop Fashion (Pink Paislee), Heart Print Sentiments; ink - Simply Chartreuse, Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - White

Papertrey May Blog Hop Challenge

I thought for sure that I wouldn't be able to participate in this month's blog hop. Our internet was down at home for the past couple of days due to a dead router, and my last-minute self had nothing prepared. But we're back online, and I'm ready to play!

This month's challenge was to use felt in our projects. Papertrey Ink has been coming out with felt in their beautiful Perfect Match colors lately, and they have also given us some great new dies that cut the felt perfectly. So I asked my almost-ten-year-old daughter to find some hair accessories that could use some pizazz, and here's what we came up with.

We cut a variety of flowers and butterflies using Papertrey Ink felt and dies, and then went searching through my supplies for the appropriate accents. I offered up a huge variety of Papertrey Ink buttons, but in the end, my daughter fell in love with some Basic Grey glazed brads that I had. So we used those instead. The butterfly barrette has a bit of Orange Zest swiss dot satin ribbon. I used my limited hand-stitching skills to put it all together (I've even photographed the back of the headband to show that perfection is not necessary!) We had a great time making these fun hair accessories, and now my daughter is eagerly awaiting more colors of felt.

Be sure to stop by Nichole's blog to see all of the other projects for the blog hop!

April Blog Hop - tissue paper

This month's challenge was to use tissue paper in a project. I chose to use the faux silk technique. I crumpled up my tissue paper and then smoothed it out to stamp on. After stamping, I glued it down to my white cardstock and proceeded to make my card.



Details: stamps - A Little Argyle, Masculine Motifs; ink - Hawaiian Shores, New Leaf, Dark Chocolate; paper - stampers select white, Hawaiian Shores, Dark Chocolate; accessories - tissue paper, Top Note die (Sizzix for Stampin' Up!), corner rounder punch (SU!), rustic jute button twine (colored with E40 Copic marker), Hawaiian Shores buttons, dimensionals

Hearts speak

This card is a bit outside my normal comfort zone, but I love the way it turned out. This is based on yet another sketch in Go To Sketches, this one on page 83. I was digging though a bunch of patterned paper and came across this great argyle paper, which was exactly what the sketch seemed to want. All of the paper is from the All Fall collection by Fancy Pants. I cut the flowers with the Beautiful Blooms II #1 dies, then stacked them up and put it all together with a rustic wood button tied with rustic jute button twine. The sentiment is from the Friendly Words jumbo wheel from Stampin' Up! Mine is cut up into separate sentiments and mounted on EZ Mount.



Details: stamps - Friendly Words jumbo Wheel (Stampin' Up!); paper - All Fall collection (Fancy Pants); ink - dark chocolate; accessories - dark chocolate satin ribbon, Beautiful Blooms II #1 dies, rustic wood buttons, rustic jute button twine

You make my heart sing

Oh, I had so much fun making this card! This is another sketch from Go To Sketches (page 28). I got to use some of my favorite patterned paper of all time, as well as the new anniversary set, Round & Round. And bling! Lots and lots of bling - 15 little rhinestones in all.



Details: stamps - Round & Round, Bird Watching; paper - white, Green Tea Leaves, spring moss; ink - pure poppy; accessories - 1 3/4" circle punch, circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders)

A very bright dotty card

Did you get your copy of Go To Sketches yet? No??? Run right out and get it now! There are some really fun things in there to shake you out of your crafting rut. This card was made using one of the sketches in there. I have a zillion sheets of fun patterned paper, so my only real dilemma here was deciding which paper to use. The circles were cut using a 1-inch circle punch. I love the silly little bird!



Details: stamps - Shapes By Design; paper - white, Lime Rickey (Basic Grey); ink - Memento Tuxedo Black; accessories - 1" circle punch

March Blog Hop - Button flowers

Thanks for visiting to see my blog hop creation for this month. Our challenge this month is to create something using buttons. No fancy tricks on this card. I was pleased to discover that this flower from the Beautiful Blooms set fits almost perfectly three across on a card front. I'm going to need to play around a bit more with this concept.



Details: stamps - Beautiful Blooms, Vintage Picnic Sentiments; paper - stampers select white; ink - Raspberry Fizz, Plum Pudding, Hawaiian Shores, Memento Tuxedo Black; accessories - buttons in Raspberry Fizz, Plum Pudding, Hawaiian Shores, glue dots

Springtime is for butterflies

How about some spring cards? I opened up my butterfly and rick rack dies today and made a couple of quick cards. I cut a bunch of butterflies from Basic Grey's Urban Prairie paper (love it to pieces!), glued down just their centers to my card base, then blinged them up with some rhinestones colored with my B04 Copic marker. The new rick rack die is amazing! Check out that cool border - it only takes about a second to make. And the color is Hawaiian Shores. Such a fabulous blue. The green paper at the bottom of the card is one of the sheets from the Urban Prairie pack.

A few of the butterflies have their patterns very carefully placed. If you want to cut from a specific spot in your patterned paper, just put a tiny bit of scotch tape across the edge of the die to hold it in place while you run it through your die cutter.

These cards were inspired by Lisa's great card here, which was in turn inspired by Heather Nichols.





Details: paper - Rustic White, Hawaiian Shores, Urban Prairie (Basic Grey); accessories - butterfly and rick rack dies, rhinestones (Kaisercraft), Copic marker

A musical clean and simple card set

I have a stamping idol. Her name is Susan Raihala. Susan is the queen of clean and simple stamping. You can visit her blog, Simplicity by Lateblossom, if you'd like to see for yourself. Get a beverage first - you're going to be there awhile. But do come on back here to see my latest project inspired by Susan.

I've had these great music stamps for awhile, planning to make something for my daughter's music teacher. Teachers go through many thank you cards, so I made a special musical set for Mrs. Elliott. These are 4x4 cards. I made 20 of them, two different designs, five colors, two of each color in each design. Quick and easy and so very cute.

I don't use my stamp-a-ma-jig very much now that all of my stamps are unmounted, but it was necessary for these cards. Not much leeway for crooked sentiments on such unadorned cards! It was worth the effort, though.




I packaged the cards and envelopes in a cellophane bag with a simple topper. I liked the treble clefs in a row on my scrap that I used to choose the ink colors, so I replicated it for the topper. Easy peasy. I should have gone ahead and used the stamp-a-ma-jig here, too. It bugs me a little bit that the treble clefs aren't perfectly in line, but I'm going to let that slide.



Details: stamps - treble clef and eighth note by Stampabilities, thank you sentiments from Stampin' Up!'s Thank You Kindly set, handmade sentiment from Spiral Bouquet set; paper - white, spring moss, spring rain; ink - spring rain, spring moss, raspberry fizz, aqua mist, orange zest, Memento tuxedo black; accessories - stamp-a-ma-jig, cellophane bag, 4x4 envelopes

Button organization

Time for more organizing. Isn't that always the way it is with craft supplies? We all seem to love sorting and organizing. My buttons are multiplying rapidly. The come in so many luscious colors. I store each color in a jelly jar (Polaner All Fruit). My problem was that I hadn't labeled the jars as I purchased the buttons, and it was becoming difficult to tell them apart, especially the large number of pink and red ones.



My nine year old daughter helped me get all of my jars labeled the other day. We punched a circle of the appropriate color of cardstock, and then used my Karen Foster snap stamps to stamp the color names. Perfect!

Color challenge - Dawn's colors

This card was made for a color challenge.




Details: stamps - Everyday Button Bits, Signature Greetings; ink - Dark Chocolate; paper - stamper's select white; accessories - buttons in raspberry fizz, hibiscus burst, summer sunrise

Color challenge - Lisa's colors

This card was made for a color challenge.


I ended up using a design straight from Dawn McVey's blog, changing some of the stamps and the colors. Check out her gorgeous original card.




Details: stamps - Background Basics: Petal Power, Fancy Flourish, Star Prints; ink - Spring Moss, Memento Tuxedo Black; paper - kraft, spring moss, vintage cream; accessories - spring moss satin ribbon, border punch (Stampin' Up!), Kaiser rhinestones

Color challenge - Niki's colors

This card was made for a color challenge.





Details: stamps - With Sympathy, Friends 'Til the End; ink - New Leaf, Raspberry Fizz; paper - kraft, raspberry fizz, vintage cream

Color challenge - Maile's colors

This card was made for a color challenge.




Details: stamps - Giga Guide Lines, Guide Lines II, Beautiful Blooms (tiny flower), Around & About Sentiments (tiny dot), Say It With Style; ink - Dark Chocolate, Enchanted Evening, Raspberry Fizz; paper - kraft, enchanted evening

Hot birthday wishes

This card was created using a free digital image. I chose the colors to match the wild pink and orange bull's eye patterned paper, which is from Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection.

Here are the Copic markers I used to color the image.



Details: digital images - birthday wishes by Melissa Bickford; paper - Lime Rickey (Basic Grey), Orange Zest, white; markers - Copic

Bright cheerful birthday house

This card was created using a free digital image. I chose the colors to match the bright dotted print, which is from Basic Grey's Lime Rickey collection.

Here are the Copic markers I used to color the image.



Details: stamps - Shapes by Design; digital images - birthday balloon by Becky Oehlers; paper - Lime Rickey (Basic Grey), Summer Sun, Riding Hood Red (Stampin' Up!), white; markers - Copic