Category: PaperCrafter

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Cards & Cupcakes…

LadyEm63Leave a comment

Dear Ones,

Happy Wednesday. This past weekend we celebrated First Holy Communion at our Parish on base. And I reached out to the CCRE to see how I could help. We agreed that I would make cards for the children and cupcakes for the reception afterwards.

I am so blessed to have so many crafty tools… and per my agreement with my hubby I am using them. Here are the cards:

Card Recipe:
TOOLS: StampinUp Stampin Cut & Emboss Machine.
Cross Die (part of a set from Nestabilities).
INKS: Soft Sky and Pool Party blue Inks from StampinUp
Spectrum Noir Sparkle Pens.
For the splatters I used the ink from two blues spectrum pens, mixed with a little water, and splatted with the fan brush. I splatted the ink over sponged on soft sky & pool party blues.
STAMPS: The image and sentiments are from Doves of Peace, from SweetnSassy Stamps.
PAPER: Both from my PaperTreyInk and StampinUp Stashes.
Colors are Ivory, and various grays and light blues.

I love the way they turned out and I hope the families did too.

Now, for the cupcakes… I am a baker, and I have to say – the cupcakes were fantastic. A great recipe from the late 1970’s… just can’t be beat. But the icing… AACK. For some reason it was runnier than it should have been. I tried so many baking tricks… and the icing tasted good. But I wasn’t happy.

I have to tell you guys… God had my back. Somehow between that and the fact that my hand-mixer broke mid-beating the icing together… God helped me out and things went well. Thankful the CCRE is calm and knows I am working on my perfectionist issues that can make me awkward… and she laid it all out. It looked great.

It feels good to be getting involved again. I’m hopeful.

Anywhoooo it’s just a quick post for today. I have so many things to talk about… but I’m overthinking how to say them. HA! I’m not kidding. I want my blog to be loving and kind… and I am trying to balance it with real issues I want to talk about. Praying about it. But – please stay tuned.

As always, wishing you lovely readers…

Love, Hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm

#LadyEmCrafts · Card Making · LadyEm · Me · PaperCrafter · StampinUp · SweetnSassy

Quarantine Crafting: Craft Room & Mojo…

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Dear Crafty Ones,

I hesitate to say I am starting to make cards again, but if I keep buying things and don’t make anything, I will be in the dog house. LOL So – I have purposed to spend some time every day in my craft room. I may or may not have told you (yes, I know I have like 10,000 times)… Everything and I mean EVERYTHING takes longer in Italy.

So, my chores took longer… and when I got to my craft room, God sure smiled at me. I am trying to make Thank You cards for the USO, and I have several Graduation cards to make. And I need to get packages out, Mother’s Day stuff. I’ve lost my organizing and crafting mojo…but I think it’s coming back.

My craft room has been mostly organized chaos. I have so much stuff in this tiny little space, I literally can not concentrate. It’s HARD! lol Last evening, I spent some time organizing things, and today, I came down here, and I was determined to craft. I started looking for something and I found this folder of printed out images, but I’d forgotten that I had colored a few.

Then, I remembered I have a bin with half-started cards or leftovers from old card group classes. I have tons of scraps, fronts of “thank you” cards, and random papers I have stashed. And y’all, just like that – I started creating. I’m super excited.

I am making a bunch of little 3×3 notes for the USO. Most are thank you notes. Info about the cards:
Both cards background inks are made using ElecroPop Neon Inks from @GinaKDesigns. The Anchor Image is from a GinaKDesign Stamp Kit (blue notecard), embossed in Gold (StampinUp). The Image in the Pink notecard is a Dandelion from the Make A Wish Set from SweetnSassy Stamps (2012). The sentiment is from Reverse Confetti. I am unsure of the name as their website is not working. I made a couple of each.
Beautiful You 1 & 2 is the Stamp Set from StampinUp and I colored the images in Prismacolor Pencil a couple years ago.. These are part of what I found colored. So excited. I just wanted to show you the stamp. Literally today, all I did was cut out the image on my Big Shot, using Nestabilities Scalloped Square dies. Cut out the sentiment and added it to an already cut out glittery flag. How easy was that? I actually have several colored images from this and will work on them this week.
This card is the ultimate in recycling. The Thank You card image I loved and saved. The next layer is a part of a note card I got from a friend when Marque was in the Hospital. I saved it. And the cardstock was in my bin of already cut paper. I glued the layers together and added some embellishments and that was it.

I have been doing a weekly video update on Facebook. I’ll be back with cards and wit. Quarantine Tips & Trials tomorrow – It’s gonna be a fun post.

Today in Italy, we had our first food delivery AND a walk on the beach to boot. We are happy campers. I won’t keep you longer. I do hope you enjoyed my cards. I’ve missed being in the right frame of mind to craft.

Tomorrow marks eight weeks of Quarantine for our kids, 64 days for me (due to the hubs surgery), and my mind is discombobulated. Anywhooo…

Have a great rest of your Monday.

Love & Hugs,
Lady Em

#LadyEmCrafts · Card Making · Davis Family · Health · Painting · PaperCrafter · Praying · StampinUp · SweeNSassy · Valentines

A Few Valentine’s Cards

LadyEm63Leave a comment

Dear Ones,

I hope you are well. SO much has been going on here, I am behind in blogging. If I had a dollar for every time I said that, I’d be a millionaire. Anywhooo…

Because this is my person blog and my craft blog (because I only have the mental capacity for one) I’ll share with you… my husband had a bad colonoscopy. He’s going to be fine. But it’s gonna be a medium-to long road. It’s precancerous, with a slight chance the part they couldn’t get out will be not great news. And they will do the resection of his colon on Fat Tuesday. So Fasting and Prayer take on a more powerful witness, as we stand faithful in healing. Now let me tell you about our God. We are in Italy, and we thought we were going to have to go to Germany or the States for Surgery, which would have been a heck of an expense. But, it just so happens that there is a specialist here, who will only be here till the end of February, and who is assisting in my husband’s surgery. She has written chapters of textbooks and papers on robotic/gastro-colorectal surgeries. I mean – what are the chances. Also, so far, everything has come back good news, but they are cautioning us not to proclaim it all gone until they go in and see. So we wait.

In the mean time, I hadn’t been washing my face before bed, and my eye was infected last week. And now, I have a bad cough, and I’m staying away from him so I won’t get him sick. If you can spare a prayer, I’d sure appreciate it. Peace and comfort for us all, and healing for my hubs.

Life is hard sometimes, and it’s hard for me to blog the pain, because I’ve spent so long covering it all up for my sanity’s sake. I hate to burden others. Sigh. ❤ I have been praying Novenas – St. Peregrine and St. Rita so far. More to come. So thankful for my Catholic Faith and all my praying friends of every faith.

SO now, let me get to the cards. I wanted to share with you a couple Valentine’s Cards I made.

Card #1 – Card Recipe
Stamps: Genuine Love by Sweet ‘n Sassy Stamps
Paper: PaperTreyInk and StampinUp
Ink: Jet Black Amalgam Ink from Gina K Designs, Distress Oxide in Spun Sugar, and Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry
Embellishments: Black scrap ribbon.

Directions: I had the Bokeh Paper (I made it and will tell you about it below). And I simply took red card stock, stamped roses on it in black, used the bokeh paper, and then stamped the hearts onto a white layer, used two different distressed inks with the filled-in heart. Stamped my sentiment, and an arrow, went around the edge of the paper with black ink for dimension, and added a piece of scrap ribbon.
In order to make Bokeh paper, you can use a ready-made stencil OR make your own, as I did. I used various inks on a pink piece of paper, and this is how it came out. Christi Beck taught me this way back in 2015. And if you don’t know her, you should check out her blog StampinTX. AMAZING! If you click the StampinTx, you will be taken to the Bokeh Technique, but you really do want to follow her.
Card #2 – Card Recipe
Stamps:Lots of Love and Textured Tiles 5 From Sweet ‘N Sassy stamps
Paper: PaperTreyInk and Stampin Up. Also Water Color Paper (from a watercolor pad)
Ink: Image stamped with Jet Black Amalgam Ink. I colored the image with Copic Markers.
Used acrylic Inks to make the background of the “DP”. Painting hearts is easy and I had so much fun making it.
I used Pink Pirouette from StampinUp and embossing powder on the hearts from the Textured Tiles set to add texture to the paper.
Embellishments: Fuchsia Scrap Ribbon, and a Red Heart Crystal.
Directions: I used a lavender paper from PaperTreyInk as the base. I frames the images with a deep red paper,
and laid it onto the heart paper. Added a fuschia ribbon and a crystal heart.

I hope you loved the cards. I wish you were all in Italy and would come color and play at my house. I can’t hardly get anyone interested here… and I even wear deodorant, I swear it. HAHA

I pray you are all well. I’ll be back soon, I promise.
Please email me or leave a message so that I can pray for you!

Love, Hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm

#LadyEmCrafts · Card Making · CoffeeLovingPapercrafters · PaperCrafter

Cards – Living on Coffee

LadyEm632 Comments

Happy Thursday Dear Ones!

Many of you know I am a paper crafter. And recently I found a group that posts coffee/tea everything. And it’s encouraging me to make more cards. I was looking through my things for coffee and tea related stamps and I came across an old set called Living on Coffee, that I’d never even used, from a company called VERVE Stamps. They closed up shop, but I always loved their products.

Recipe for Cards:
Paper Used: Cardstock is Navy, Tangerine, and Ivory – either from PaperTrey Ink or StampinUp. Design Paper is from the Orange Envy pack by The Paper Studio.
Ink: Black Amalgam Ink by GinaK Designs. Copics to color images. Tangerine Tango sponged on the layers and inside the cards.
Embellishments: I used a corner punch to make the inside layer pretty. And I used orange flowers and little sparkly embellishments on the flowers.

I hope you liked the cards. I’m having fun creating these days. It feels good.

Love, Hugs & Blessings,
LadyEm