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

Tutorial Tuesday

The tutorial of the week is this Star Medallion Tutorial by Julie Buhler at Paper Pleasing Ideas.   I'm not sure if my copy of Julie's picture does it justice, but this is three layers and has some great masculine "pop"!  Click on the links and try this one out for yourselves.

 

 

Honorable Mentions:  the other tutorials that really caught my eye were not stamping related, but I'm sharing anyway -- you can use your imaginations to work this into any card or scrapbook page!

Check out this cool new blog that I discovered -- BriannaNicole's Wedding Monogram Tutorials.  This tutorial shows how to use fonts and dingbats to make really great signs and logos.   The next time I make someone a personalized stationary set, I'm going to consider mixing it up a little and making their name using a technique like this.

 

I don't have an adequate picture to share, but click over this tutorial if you're at all digital -- BobbiJo at It Works for Me shows you how to use Photoshop to change the colors of different objects.

Congratulations Lorie!

Lorie from Live-Love-Laugh-Create was the winner of the Copic Marker set!  Congratulations Lorie!  Don't forget to upload some of your new new colorful cards to the online community group!

For the rest of us, I'll be tweaking the site and the new community group over the next month to see if I can come up with one address to umbrella over everything.  Once that happens, I'll be reaching out to advertisers for more frequent prizes.  Stay tuned!

BRAK from LeAnne

A special shout out and thank you to LeAnne Stover at for this great card!  LeAnne, I went out to get my mail and came back so happy!  It's just so nice to get something that isn't a bill!  You made my day and I'm really thankful. The card is beautiful.

Scrapbook Saturday: Best of the Blogosphere for Scrapbooking

Welcome to the first Best of the Blogosphere for Scrapbooking!  I'm an avid scrapbooker and I've been flagging top tier scrapbook pages off many excellent blogs -- I decided to give those really top tier layouts a shout out each week and perhaps turn you on to some new sites for inspiration.

Scrapbook Page of the Week:  Kristina Werner at KWerner Design.com for this hilarious layout.  Kristina, I WANT TO BE YOU IF I GROW UP!  You just simply make me laugh.  I often wonder what I will scrap about when/if I choose to grow up (I'm 39 now).  I hope I can start to capture my sense of humor in my pages.  I love this.

 

Shout Out:  I loved this layout by Janet at This is My Life, I will Embrace It.  I never scrapbook about myself and I love the way that she arranged this.  It's this kind of creativity that really grabs me and make me love the idea of journaling my family.

Another shout out to Janet it goes for this layout --

as a back story, Janet's friend lost her son several years ago.  Every year on the anniversary of his death, they celebrate "Heaven Day".  Janet is giving away a free template to commemorate this wonderful boy and his too short life.  I encourage you to download the template and scrap someone you love.

 

Shout Out:  Check out this AMAZIING layout is by Jennifer Pebbles, over at The Good Life.   This is a hybrid project -- part digital, part traditional -- and is rapidly becoming one of my favorite ways to scrap. I love how it grabs your eye, conveys the travel theme, but is still simple and clean. 

 

Shout Out:Last shout out goes to Elizabeth at My Inner Martha for this killer mini-book.  I strongly encourage you to click on the link and see the rest of her pages.  It's an incredibly cool  book and I love the weathered almost "travel" feel to it. 

 

Lastly, here is my creation for this week.  This the last layout for the Jessica Sprague Digi in Deep class.  I learned how to do photo extractions, make my own brushes, papers, alphabets, gradient masks, and more.  I am sad that this class is over.  Jessica definitely earned a lifetime fan in me.  I'll be faithfully watching to see what she comes up with next.  She hinted that there may be a class that shows me how to use my Silhouette Die Cutter. That would be a blessing, because right now, it's an expensive paperweight!!!

 

Card of the Week & Best of the Blogosphere: April 19 - April 25

Card of the Week:

Our Card of the Week this week was just a simply amazing card by Laurie from Just Give Me Stamps.  When I saw this card, it simply took my breath away.  This card would be awesome for any girlfriend, Mother's Day, birthday, etc.  I also think that this idea is easily adaptable to the Stampin' Up stamp sets and papers, so that it could easily be a workshop card. (Stampin' Up should make a butterfly punch).

Here is the link to Laurie's post so that you can see the supplies and the envelope templates that she used for this awesome creation.  Thanks for sharing Laurie!

The Card of the Week runner up this week goes to Curtis, The Stampin' Kub.  This beautiful card has that soft, simple, elegant look that would be so nice for just any occasion.  I love the watercolor effect. 

Best of the Blogosphere:

Quick announcement:  BOB is going to split into three different days -- I'm going to continue the BOB for Cards, Wraps and Paper Crafts on Fridays, but move the very best scrapbooking pages to Saturdays.  Tuesdays will feature the tutorials I found that week and feature the very best one.  Just another reason to keep on reading :D  Remember to hit the "read more" hyperlink at the bottom of the post to see the full list with pictures.  Please email me at barefootstamper@gmail.com or leave a comment on a BOB post if you'd like me to read your blog.  (Hey, if I'm not reading your blog, how can I possibly feature your work?!)  One more piece of business -- you can set up a free blog at our new Card of the Week Online Community!  It's growing like hot cakes.

Wow!  Everyone is ready for Father's Day -- I'd like to remind you all that it's not even until JUNE!  What about Mother's Day?!  You wouldn't believe the amazing and FAB projects popping up everywhere celebrating dads. 

Here are my three favorites, and then onto the full list:

This great gift idea from Taylor over at Taylored Expressions.  Taylor used the egg box from PaperTrey Ink -- which I thought was brilliant. 

 

Erika, at Stampin' Mama, has this great wrap for a batch of cookies.  (Peanut Butter Cookie recipe found at Donna's site, Spatulas, Corkscrews & Suitcases).  You better believe that I'm going to be super mom of the year when I make a batch of these and jazz them up when I'm snack mom at the baseball game!  This would be SO easy -- heck you could use Thickers if you were lazy like me!

Another stand out project was this was from Charmaine at Oodabug Alley.  Charmaine, I LOVE THIS!  Yesterday was my dad's birthday and I've been racking my brains trying to figure out what to get or make for him.  This is it -- I'm totally casing you.  Brilliant project -- thanks for sharing it :D

The full list!  Read it -- it's full of some great stuff -- more than I could list this week -- you're promised lots and lots of inspiration!

Copic Giveaway and a New Online Community

Yes, you read it right.  I'm having a Copic Marker GIVE AWAY.

With the launch of the new website, I decided to launch a community group as well.  I've been searching high and low for a paper crafting community that hosts videos, shows pictures, offers a forum, and  networking opportunities all in one place.  I looked and looked and then I decided to make one. 

What do you have to do to win these very expensive and only slightly used (one time, that's it) markers?  Well, here's the deal:

1.  Join the Group
2.  Add this badge to your website

View my page on Card of the Week: All Things Paper Crafting

3. Pray that the random generator picks your number.  The random generator's name is Jake and he's 6.

The winning number will be selected and announced on Monday, April 28th.  It will be a great way to start off the week!!!!

** Full disclosure:  these are $75 markers only used one time -- and then only a couple of the colors.  They are in MINT condition.  The box is chipped on two of the bottom corners.  I don't know how that happened, but hey, they are still great markers and they are still FREE!

Join me on Facebook

I'm inviting you to join my Facebook group "Card of the Week: Paper Crafting, Rubber Stamping, Scrapbooking, etc.".

I'm going to try to build up a serious paper crafting group to share videos, photos, links, etc. to all things paper crafting!".

To see more details and confirm this group invitation, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=578341365&k=YWGUQVPSUXZM51ECXA44XR

Everyone can join Facebook. To register, go to:
http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=578341365&k=YWGUQVPSUXZM51ECXA44XR&r

By the way, I'm blogging this right from Facebook -- how fun is that?!

Susanna

Piece of Cake Birthday Gift and Card

 

April is birthday hell month for me.  I actually have 10 family members who celebrate this month -- that's 10 gifts to buy or make.  Those 10 birthdays do NOT include friends -- I have another 3 or 4 friends who have birthdays this month too!  Needless to say, that my financial budget takes a hit akin to Christmas, and I really try to be very creative in what I give. 

As you may have seen on the weekly Best of the Blogosphere, Erika over at Stampin' Mama and her mother, Donna, at Spatulas, Corkscrews and Suitcases, have started a weekly feature called "Bake It, Make It, and Take It".  I was totally inspired by the concept and this was the perfect month to break out the idea of making a festive wrap for food and using that as a gift. 

This project was especially easy -- ages ago, Nicole Heady at Capture the Moment, put out a digital set of birthday wedding designs.  You can still get it HERE.  (There is no picture of the kit on this linked page -- just a link.)  I used this Piece of Cake digital card set to print a large medallion for the top of a box I already had in my closet.  I also printed the journaling tag and just used the ticket corner punch to jazz up the sides.  It was that easy, and it looks really "custom".  Ha!

The cupcakes are actually just cake mix.  My dear friend, Rachel, convinced me that cake mix is just fine -- it's the frosting that people remember. Well, she was right.  These cupcakes were an out of the park, over the fence home run. The icing is my own creation:  White Chocolate Ganache :D  Here is the recipe:

Icing recipe:

1 cup (6 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used white chocolate chips)

½ cup half and half

1 cup butter

2 ½ cups powdered sugar

In a saucepan, heat first 3 ingredients over low heat until chocolate melts.  Remove from heat and let sit 15 minutes.  Stir in powdered sugar.  Place sauce pan in a bowl of ice and beat frosting for 8 minutes until it reaches spreading consistency. 

Top with  sprinkles, because it's not a real celebration without sprinkles!

Enjoy :D

 

 

 

 

Now, just so that you don't think I've stopped making cards, here is the down and dirty birthday card that I came up with:   It's a "glamour shot" of the cupcakes, set off by a chocolate mat.  On the inside, it reads, "eat cake". 

Tutorial Tuesday

Introducing Tutorial Tuesday!  Yes, this is the Best of the Blogosphere for Tutorials!  Your one stop shop to see the very best in what the artists from around the blogosphere have to share.  The tutorial that I picked for this week is perfect for Mother's Day --

It's this awesome tote from Melanie at Head, Hands & Heart.  I can see this filled with seed packets and a note that says "thanks for helping me bloom" :D  For the full tutorial, click HERE.  Want a bigger version of the same bag?  Just make the front and back pieces and adhere them to a lunch bag, cut down to size!

Scrapbook Saturday & a FREE Template & a Feature Opportunity

Week Three is the Jessica Sprague "Digi in Deep" class.  I'm amazed by how much I've learned -- my poor ol' brain is just spinning with the ideas that are suddenly popping in on me.

This week, we did self portraits.  I don't usually scrapbook myself, so I'm glad that I actually took the time to do it.  I think my kids will enjoy looking back on this and seeing who I was at 39.   I would love to have had something like this of my mother -- or my grandmother.    It all boils down to scrapbooking is leaving a legacy.  It's like having a journal or a diary, but with pictures.

One of the things that I learned in the class has been how to make a template.  It should have occurred to me before that if I was doing a set up in Photoshop, I might was well make something I could use over and over again. 

This is my first template -- we had our first really warm day and all went outside to play.  I wanted a sunburst in the background.  I would have colored it in yellows, but that kept overwhelming the layout. 

Attached is the template that I created.  It's yours for FREE.  I'd love it if you'd email me a 500x500 pixel image of your creation.  If you are a paper scrapper, just print the template and use it as a sketch. Send your entries to barefootstamper@gmail.com. I'd still love to see what you make.  I'll feature all the results here next week.

Download my_first_template.zip

Just to show that I do sometimes still paper scrap, here is my 6x6 double scrapbook card/page for April.  My husband just had a birthday yesterday, so the pages will be filled with pictures of him.   Hey, he has to leave a legacy too, right?!