Paper Maniac Product Focus: Patterned Paper

This week's product focus at Paper Maniac is patterned paper. Patti has stocked the virtual shelves with lots of yummy-licious papers. Just a little history tidbit- it was Patti's love for papers that started the birth of the Paper Maniac store!

HERE is a direct link to all of the patterned paper available at the store! Make sure to register yourself while you're there to take advantage of newsletter-only sales available to Paper Maniac registered customers!

For my sample today, I created a Christmas card from the Make it Your Own Bright Christmas kit. The card uses Jen Del Muro's SFYTT dated August 29. It was the perfect sketch to showcase the versatility of the patterned papers. With the Bright Christmas kit, each of the patterned papers are double sided (patterned paper used is from imaginisce Polar Expressions collection) so you can easily coordinate your cards. The only patterned paper not from the kit is the circle behind the snowman image - the patterned paper is from the Jillibean Soup Thin Zucchini - Minestrone Soup collection, but I thought it worked perfectly with the color pallette I was using.

SFYTT 8.29.09

The main image is from Stamp N' Around stamped twice and popped up for some dimension. This is actually the first snowman set I've ever owned. I colored his scarf and hat with prismacolor pencils blended with baby oil and topped it off with some glitter glue for some sparkle. The sentiment "Let it Snow" is computer generated and punched out using the window punch from Stampin' Up. I used black bazzill cardstock to highlight the patterned papers and added a border using the Fiskars apron lace punch. I finished it off with a 5/8 inch red grossgrain ribbon you can find here.

A couple of reminders:

- All ribbon is on a 20% discount this week until September 14 (no coupon code needed)

- All Northwoods stamps, use coupon code from newsletter to get 20% discount (sale ends September 14). You must be a registered customer to be eligible to use the coupon.

- Wishlist blog candy ends September 15 (click here for more deets)

Thanks for visiting and make sure you check out the other DT creations today at the Paper Maniac store blog.

Stamps: Stamp N’Around (Snowman)
Paper/Cardstock: Neenah (80# Natural White),Bazzill (Black Orange Peel), imaginisce (Polar Expressions), Jillibean Soup (Thin Zucchini - Minestrone Collection)
Accessories/Tools: Glitter Glue, Spellbinders (Labels 4, Classic Circles), Fiskars (Apron Lace), 5/8” Solid Red Grossgrain Ribbon
Coloring: Prismacolor Pencils blended with baby oil

Elegant WordArt Cards

Since becoming so addicted to digital images and sentiments, I have been on the hunt for some cool images online. Before being introduced to Digiments, digital sentiments were just making their way on the popularity scale along with digital stamps. Michelle, the owner of Digiments, has created some fabulous sentiments.

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow DT member, Laurie Ingram (aka Paperville), introduced me to Elegant WordArt by Bethany Harty. I just love how she has such great vision putting together wordart. You can find freebies listed on the left side of her blog - there is many of them and she adds a new one every week - how cool is that? Bethany ROCKS! Aren't they so breath taking and just so inspirational. If you are looking for more of Bethany's work, you can purchase digital wordart sets including digi scrapping kits in her store called ScrapOrchard - very affordable! Hope to do some digi scrapping one of these days.

The first two identical cards, I used 2 Sketches 4 You: Laura's sketch 30 from July 13. Of course, I missed entering these again. Oh well, most of the time, I'm not in it for the prizes, just the inspiration.

The third card is based from a new sketch challenge blog started by fellow DT member, Leigh Ann Baird (Stamping with Annie B) called Sketch Girl. This is the first sketch challenge that Leigh Ann posted: SG1. Thanks Leigh Ann for the inspiration!

The two cards that have butterfly sentiments (I made 2 of the cards that have the busy flowers on them) were thank you cards sent to my MIL, Mom and Aunt for sending me some goodies for my birthday (I was able to buy some things I've been wanting for awhile - some of the newest Nesties! Yay!!!). And the third card with the Answer to my Prayers sentiment is going to someone really special. She is a follower so hope she misses this post - teehee! I made a special project to match the card that I will post later.

You may have noticed that I have been posting cards with paper you have seen before. I've been trying to be good and use up some scraps before tearing into a new piece of paper. You gotta love those paper pads from M's and Jo's - everything coordinates so perfectly so there is no guessing!

Thank You CD Case and Card

This is a card I made as a thank you for the family who offered to host the high school's varsity baseball banquet last June. It was potluck so they provided part of the main course (we brought the other main dishes) and everyone else brought the rest. Since I took many pictures of the event, I created a CD to give to them. Their son just graduated and I was able to take a lot pics of him with my husband handing him an award and team pictures. I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, so I created a CD case/5.5-inch size card.

To make the CD case/card:

1) Using a 8.5 x 11 sheet of cardstock - turn cardstock so it's landscape (11 inch edge is facing up), score at 5.5 inches (this will be your fold)

2) For the pockets, turn the cardstock around and score 3 inches.

OPTIONAL: I cut down the pockets diagonally for added interest, but you can leave it as is.


I finally got to use an image from Nina (Crafting from Croatia). She was gracious enough to offer some free downloadable images on her blog. You can find the links on her sidebar. I did not even realize that she is an illustrator for Gina K Designs - how cool is that??? No wonder I was so drawn to her images when she first posted them in the Digital Downloads forum on SCS.

I paired the image with the "Thank You" sentiment from Digiments - Simple Sentiments series. I just love using Michelle's digiments! Unfortunately, sales have been slow so you 'll have to wait until September for a new release. I think it's been slow everywhere with summer vacation. Part of the digital sentiment (although hard to see) was highlighted with Aleene's Paper Glaze. I did not really take a great picture of the front because we were on our way out and I was in a hurry - oh well.

The sketch was based from the Dare U2 Digi Stamp Challenge #17. I missed entering it because it took me long enough to take a picture of it. Oh well!

Digital Stamps: Crafting in Croatia (Blossom for Mom), Digiments (Simple Sentiments)

Patterned Paper: Me and My Big Ideas

Cardstock: Jo-Ann's Value Paper Pack (Brown), Georgia Pacific (White), Unknown (Kraft, Vanilla)

Accessories: Wide Grossgrain Ribbon, String, Martha Stewart Lace Punch, Aleene's Paper Glaze

Coloring: Prismacolor Pencils blended with Baby Oil (Process Red, Pink, Blush Pink, Lime Peel, Apple Green)

The last of End of Year Teacher Gifts...

Whew! I finally finished the other two end-of-year gifts that I wanted to give to my son's preschool teachers. I really like how the project and cards came out. The apples were a little tedious since there was a lot cutting as well as stitching all of the pieces, but it was well worth it. I had fun making them!

I can't believe our little buddy has grown up so fast! He is only 5 yrs old and already more than half my height. Yes, I am a shorty at a mere 5 feet tall, but hubby is 5'11 inches tall so he takes after dad - thank God! My daughter, on the other hand, is going to be a little shrimpy like me, but it's better to have the girl shorter than the boy, right???

So the ceremony is tomorrow night at 6pm so I needed to get these gifts completely done. I am gonna have to fight back the tears *sniff, sniff* when he gets up on their little stage. The kids have something cooked up for the parents so it will fun to see them altogether doing their show. Unfortunately, my hubby is the varsity baseball coach and his team has a double header game so I will be juggling between recording the graduation, taking pics and keeping an eye on my daughter - yikes! Hopefully everything will work out for me and I can get all of those things done.

Well, here they are...I am sure you are getting tired of seeing apple frames and cards, but I had to share the last two gift sets.

TECC68

The last card was inspired by Taylored Expressions sketch challenge #68. I have never participated in her sketch challenge and I really liked the sketch so I took a stab at it and this is the card that came of it.

If you would like to use the poem I used for the frames, you can find it here (scroll down to the bottom of the post). You can also see the first set I made for the Digiments release party.

I still have more grad cards to make so check back later...thanks for looking!!!

Sneak Peaks - Digiments Style!

Happy Monday morning to all!

Michelle gave all of the DT members her blessing to let ya'll take a sneak peak at some of her wonderful digital sentiments. Digiments grand opening will be on May 13 so make sure to stop by and see the wonderful "digiments" that Michelle came up with.

Today, my samples come from the Simply Thanks Digiments line. Preschool graduation is coming up in two weeks so I thought it would be appropriate to make some thank you cards for the teachers. I had fun playing with the sentiment, "...thank you, Teacher."

For the first card, I did a little playing around with the sentiment and printed it on vellum. I had this idea in my head to kind of create a background with the sentiment and this is what I came up with. I was still kind of in the butterfly mode that I cut out a butterfly image from the vellum and added clear mini decorative accents in the middle for its body. I used some Springy colors to coordinate with the whole butterfly theme.

SFYTT 5.9.09

I hadn't participated in Jen del Muro's sketch challenge in awhile so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to play. I had seen so many great teacher cards on SCS and thought it would be cute to make an apple card. I hand drew the apple, stem and leaf on printer paper and scanned it. I wanted it to be resizeable so by scanning it and saving it as jpeg, you can do just that. I'll post the scanned image later once I get that all cleaned up and maybe a little tutorial. I guess I created my first digital image - yay me! I cut out the size apple I wanted from cardstock and with a little help from some felt pieces, I was able to create a 3D apple embellie. I even added my own stitching on the apple to give it more depth (thanks Mel for the encouragement). I also added some zig zag machine stitching on the card as well.

Well, that is it for now...will have some more sneak peaks for you later. In the meantime, make sure to stop by the other DT blogs to see what they have come up with.

Jennifer Scull
Morgaine Ford-Workman
Jessica Moyer
Rebecca Jensen
Kerri Michaud
Leigh Ann Baird
Amy Duff
Jennifer Wuthrich
Amber Hight