Card of the Week.com | Cards, Scrapbooking, and Papercrafts

Best of the Blogosphere: November 27th - November 30th

Here's what caught my eye this week.  Please hit the "read more" button at the bottom to see the entire list. 

If you'd like me to read your blog, post a comment here!

Photoshop Friday (Week 4)

Yep, last week for my Jessica Sprague class.  I need to find a snail mail for her so that I can send cookies or some other sort of "I want more, more, more" offering.

For all you stampers out there, guess what I learned in this lesson!?!... another color combo site!  Yep, there is a color combo site at http://kuler.adobe.com  The site puts together color combos -- many of which are submitted by professional designers.  For those of us who digitally scrapbook, this is awesome, because you can pull the colors right off the screen.  I'd have to make a best guess to match up ink colors to screen colors, but I like someone letting me know what combinations work. 

Merry Ornament - CASING Kristina

 

OK, did you check out Kristina Werner's blog yesterday?!  Check it out here.  This video tutorial is so cool that I actually ordered the music that she had playing too!  Anyway, I cased this card almost in it's entirety because of her sample.  I needed a lunch invitation for an upcoming event, and this was the perfect design. 

Differences between my card and Kristina's: 

• I used embossing instead of stickers -- while I really liked the sticker look better, they were too expensive and I need 17 cards! 
• I used the computer to do the tag line.  Again, I don't have that mini stamp set and I needed so many....

That's it. Thanks again for the inspiration, Kristina!  You ROCK!

Still Playing Scrapbook Catch Up

OK, yes, I've been really busy playing scrapbook catch-up in a wild and crazy attempt to finish all 2007 projects BEFORE 2008.  Of course, the pressure builds because I keep taking pictures for the holiday :D   This one is a truly old fashioned, all by hand, scrapbook page.  I painted the chipboard and doodled it for the "SANTA".  The "ho-ho-ho"s are done using Martha Stewart's double sided tape letters for glittering.  The border around the journaling was done with a 2 way glue pen and glitter.

 

Thanksgiving layout.  What a PAIN in the NECK!  When you get the crazy urge to cover chipboard, don't use really small chipboard letters!  Also, think about how long you want to spend filing and smoothing edges when you decide your title!  I love how this turned out, but it was really tedious work.  The pictures are a collage I made in PSE6 and then layered together with traditional elements on a 12x12 page.

 

All digi page using a template.  You can tell I'm feeling a time crunch now.  I'd rather wait to pick up the originals and be able to check the layout off the to do list.

 

Another all digi template layout.  I'm totally cheating now in terms of effort.  This page took all of 10 minutes.  Sad that it's also one of my favorites.  My kid is a nut.  I find it cute.

 

All digi template page.  I wanted to do this one in a more traditional format, but I couldn't come up with any really great ideas that involved this many pictures.  I do really like being able to stretch some pictures to really different sizes.  There is a definite perk to digi scrapping. 

 

All digi.  Another template.  Just a note on the templates that don't break out all the elements.... on a simple grid like this one, I could have totally done it faster without the template.  Laziness had a kick back this time!  Sigh.

OK, that's it.  You got a little bit of everything.  Some traditional, some hybrid and some all digi!  Only five more layouts to go before I'm caught up. Wouldn't it be great if I could finish up this week before the Advent calendar starts?!

Grumpy Birthday

My friend, Lisa, truly hates her birthday.  This card just seems to be the perfect card for the birthday hater.  The inside reads, "Happy Friggin' Birthday" (a lovely sentiment I lifted from Hallmark :D)

As a construction note, I printed the sentiment on the inside and the outside of the card by just running it through my printer.  Bella is stamped and then dressed in paper from the Stella Ruby collection by Basic Grey.  Bella is colored using my water color crayons. 

Pumpkin Fudge

One of my favorite things about fall is pumpkin.  I love to decorate, eat and carve them (not in that order).  There is something so perfectly "fallish" and comforting about pumpkins. 

I found this recipe ages ago and it makes the perfect little neighbor gift.  I stamped the pumpkins from the Papertrey Spooky Sweets set all over the bag in White Staz-On ink.  I made the bag toppers in Adobe PSE6 and just printed them on 4x6 cardstock.  You could easily stamp the toppers too.

Here is the recipe for the fudge -- I made 4 baggies with a little bit of leftover for us:

PUMPKIN FUDGE

MAKES ABOUT 3 POUNDS

PREP: 10 MIN., COOK: 15 MIN., STAND: 2 HRS.

Line pan with aluminum foil before you begin to cook the fudge. Once the candy thermometer reaches 234° and the remaining ingredients are added, quickly spoon the fudge into the pan.

3 cups sugar

¾ cup melted butter

2/3 cup evaporated milk

½ cup canned pumpkin

2 tablespoons corn syrup

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1 (12-ounce) package white chocolate morsels

1 (7-ounce) jar marshmallow creme

1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

STIR together first 6 ingredients in a 3 ½-quart saucepan over medium-high heat, and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Cook, stirring constantly, until a candy thermometer registers 234° (soft-ball stage) or for about 12 minutes.

REMOVE pan from heat; stir in remaining ingredients until well blended. Pour into a greased aluminum foil-lined 9-inch square pan. Let stand 2 hours or until completely cool; cut fudge into squares.

 

 

Enjoy :D

Gingerbread House Box

SQUEEL!  I saw something like this on SCS and had to try to make one.  I have no idea the dimensions of the original.  This is a 2, 4, 6, 8 box with the top cut to a point.  I cut little gingerbread men from the Hung Up on Christmas set :D  The artificial snow is liquid applique heated until puffy with my handy dandy heat gun.  It's filled with Hershey Kisses.  I think I'll be making more of these.  I'll try to figure out how to make one large enough to hold cookies and it will be the perfect little house box to make at my upcoming holiday workshop!

Best of the Week: November 17 - 23

Don't forget to hit "read more" to see the full list :D  If you'd like me to read your blog, please leave a comment and I'll add you to my list!

Photoshop Friday (week 3)

 

My first digital two page layout.  This page costs me $137.  Of course, the money went straight into memory for my computer.  It took me 10 minutes to save this digital page because my computer just couldn't handle the larger file size.  In terns of memory, this baby is HUGE!

This is my week 3 project over at the "Now We're Rockin' With Photoshop" class at www.jessicasprague.com.  Just so that you know, the layout design is Jessica's, but that stinkin' cute kid is all mine.

Transparent Thank You

I just love this stamp set.  This set is the often over looked "Tree for All Season" by Stampin' Up!  There are four stamps, one for each season, and they are amazingly useful.  I've done countless thank you cards, scrapbook pages, and crafts, all with my little tree :D

 

For this card, I stamped the leaf from Holiday Blitz, in white Staz On, all over a piece of acetate.  I layered the Apple Cider DSP to make a mat on the inside and outside of the card.  This construction hides the glue/tape that holds the card together.  The tree is also stamped in Staz On and then watercolored.  The sky is just watercolor pencil. Easy Peasy.