Power of a Paper Pack

I love all the colors on this card. It is just so rich and vibrant.

Gloria Flaten achieved this look with the Moonlight paper pack. These little stacks of paper pack quite the punch. They are perfect size to use as accents in scrapbooks or for the fronts of cards (without leaving you with huge scraps that you are not sure what to do with). And there are so many designs to choose from in each stack. Woot!

To create the middle all you have to do is stamp a sentiment on a strip of paper and trim of the sides with the new scalloped tag punch. Just insert ribbon through both sides from the back and you're done. Quick and lovely, with quite a punch of color!

Flutterby again soon!

Kinda Eclectic Swap

The stamp set Kinda Eclectic has been growing on me lately. ALOT! When I first saw the set in the catalog I thought... 'Well, it has a butterfly, but what an odd assortment of images it is'. But search the web (or even easier, Pinterest) for this and you will see some BEAUTIFUL samples made from it. Now I'm sold- as if I really needed to add to my wish list ;)

I got this swap from Mary Beers, and it once again shows me how versatile this set can be.

I love how we used the dotted background a couple of times without re-inking it to give the various shades of intensity. Oh, and just one more quick hint- make sure you stamp off the leaves once before adding to the card. Otherwise (depending on the color of the ink of course) it will be too dark to add the sentiment on top of the image. Let's just say I learned this one the hard way... and that it was a good thing paper has two sides to stamp on! :)

Flutterby again soon.

Watercolor Background

The watercolor trend is big right now. And I mean BIG! But then I'm not complaining- I really love the soft look it creates. And if you look to pinterest for ideas it is AMAZING the things people have been creating with the Work of Art stamp set.

Sue Nelson used the watercolor effect to create the background for this card. The mono-tone paper and ink really gives it a nice subtle effect. Love it! This would make a great background for any card that just needs 'a little extra'. You know the cards I'm talking about- we all make them from time to time ;) With this stamp set on hand you can spruce them right up!

Flutterby again soon!

Sweet Little Feet

These little shoes are so stinking cute! Don't they just make you want to cuddle a baby... although not my own baby of course- I'm still sleep deprived from the last one so I want to give the baby back if it starts to cry ;)

I was the last person in our group to make this swap, and some of the pieces were missing :( But that only challenged my creativity to make something cute none-the-less. A big thanks to Gayle Cummings for the inspiration :)

So here is my take on the card:

We had little treat bags with some chocolate in them during our swap, and the ribbon on mine matched this card perfectly. It was practically begging me to put it on the card... so how could I refuse :)

This would be so simple to whip up when you need a baby card.

Flutterby again soon!

Koala Candy

Here is a card that should just make you smile and go 'awe'. Isn't he just a cute little critter!

This was my mom, Michelle Lembcke's, swap at our last meeting. It is using the single stamp Kinda Koala, in which the koala is holding up a little flower. However, I love that she turned the flower into a balloon- he would be perfect for a birthday now :)

Also, if you look closely, you will noticed that he isn't really colored in, but washed over in a watercoloring fashion. This was achieved by stamping the brown with the Work of Art stamp set. To recreate it yourself ink up the smaller brushstroke stamp and starting at the bottom of the koala stamp three times going upward WITHOUT reinking (this will give you the fading effect towards his head). Then just add a bit of red accents and he is adorable!

Flutterby again soon!

Bright and Beautiful Swap

So, as I said last time, I was amazed by all the swaps I received but I had two that were just my favorites. This is my other favorite, shared by our fearless leader Patsy Waggoner:

It uses the Bright and Beautiful stamp set from the Holiday mini catalog. What makes this one my favorite is the layout- the rounded corners just make this card elegant. And yet it is simple enough that you could mass produce it for Christmas greetings. What a combination :) And did you see the adorable little charm hanging on it. Isn't it sweet!

I've got plenty more swaps to share with you, so make sure you flutterby again soon!

Seasonally Scattered Swap

I just realized I've been so busy showing the fun Paper Pumpkin projects I've been working on that I completely forgot about my new collection of swap cards! I was part of a shoebox swap way back at the very beginning of August with some of my sister demonstrators- and wow I came away with some fantastic cards :)

Although I was really impressed by all of the cards this time, there were two that were my favorites hands down. This is one of them :)

Isn't it so pretty! This one was shared by Brenda Sprenger. I just love the fall theme- ah, isn't fall fantastic. The world turns so many pretty colors :)

This card features the stamp set Seasonally Scattered from the new Holiday mini catalog. She had the leaves and saying all fussycut out for us, so all we had do do was distress the pieces to our hearts content. I even learned a new trick- if you want to highlight only the raised portion of an embossed image use a brayer. It seems so simple and yet I would have never thought of that! I love how it brought out the pattern on the leaves and the background :)

Flutterby again soon to see more of the awesome swaps I recieved!

Paper Pumpkin Scraps Banner

Another lake weekend, and another Paper Pumpkin project ;)

Over Labor Day weekend those tags were just begging me to create a banner. I had it all figured out in my head- I would use the left over tags from the April kit and the leftover letters and starbursts from the February bag kit. But now what to write on it...

Well, the colors looked so cool and snowy to me that I figured a winter saying would fit perfectly. And we had just enough spots for "Baby it's Cold" (this left me singing the Sinatra song all weekend of course, LOL!).

Don't you just love it! It is hard to get a long picture of it all at once, so here it is folded up a bit:

I just love the way the chevron stamp from the April kit looks with the stripes from February.

I 'sponged' the edges of the tag using a cotton ball. Although I was able to achieve the look, I must warn you- DON'T sponge with a cotton ball! It was not an easy process and my fingers turned all blue :)  After that endeavor I was going to leave the edges of the circles alone, but my mom managed to find a bit of sponge to use 'for real.' Then she helped me out by finishing off the circles while I assembled.

Of course we couldn't leave all the little hearts unused, so we scattered them across the banner too. I love how the color accents the blues and greens, and it gives it a good lovey dovey feel to go with the song lyrics :)

Hope you enjoyed the banner today. Flutterby again soon!

Mosaic Madness: Part 3

Last week we joined the Mosaic trend in class as we made three cards using the Mosaic line of products. They featured the Mosaic Madness stamp set, the matching Mosaic punch, and the Modern Mosaic texture folder.

This last card was a fun one. I've got about 5 layers going on here :)

For the mosaic strip across the top I stamped two different pieces. For the olive image I made sure to stamp off on scratch paper first. That way when I stamped over it with the razzleberry the overlapped areas didn't look murky.

The embossed section is perhaps my favorite though. We ran a small piece of cardstock through the texture folder, and then punched out the edge of the pattern to leave an awesome edge. In order to show it off to it's full potential I also made sure to pop dot that side of the paper up :)

Hope you loved the Mosaic inspiration. Flutterby again soon!

Mosaic Madness: Part 2

Last week we joined the Mosaic trend in class as we made three cards using the Mosaic line of products. They featured the Mosaic Madness stamp set, the matching Mosaic punch, and the Modern Mosaic texture folder.

This second card was a nice simple one to assemble. And of course I love the butterflies :)

My tip here is to make sure the strip of cardstock your embossing is nice and centered on the pattern. Otherwise it could look a bit lopsided when you add the stamped images on top of it (they are stamped and punched, and then mounted with pop dots).

I hope you are having a wonderful labor day. I can't believe summer is over :( But that means fall is here! My favorite :) as it brings changing leaf colors and pumpkins and Thanksgiving... Ah Fall. By the way if you haven't seen the fall Stampin' Up! items yet- whoa prepare to be blown away. I think I'm in love!

Be sure to flutter back again later this week for the last mosaic card!