Polka Dots & Paisley

I've been seeing these on other people's blogs, and on SCS. I really think they look neat, but they are a little bit difficult to make if you realize you don't have what you need at the moment to make them :) I used SU!'s window sheets (you need a thicker transparency than what I usually use for shaker cards, etc. because you want the card to stand on its own) and really wished that I had some of our new StazOn White pigment ink. I have black, but I wanted the images stamped on the transparency to pop. So - what did I do - I used Craft Ink. AHHHH!!!! It doesn't dry, at least not anytime the day you do it, so I think to myself, "let me see if I can emboss it with clear e.p." Well, the transparency held up pretty well under the heat of my embossing gun. It warped ever so slightly, but the embossing powder sticks to the transparency like those little grains of magnet stick to the magnet when you drag it around in those old "give Harry hair" types of kids toys. Do you remember those? Well, embossing is NOT a good idea :) Spend some money on StazOn ink pads from wherever you can get them. I wish SU! still had all of the colors that they used to. Anyway, the embossing worked, but not with results a perfectionist like me would want to replicate again. Finally, to keep the image vibrant, I used my craft inks on the flowers and words themselves. I adhered the green galore to the window sheet with glue dots (sticky strip would work too) and then put a same-size piece on the inside of the card to hide the back-side of the green galore and the pesky glue dots that would have shown if I didn't. This stamp set is one that Shelli Gardner gave to SU! demonstrators as a Christmas gift. It's called Polka Dots & Paisley and it comes with 2 word stamps (the one featured on the card, and the word "happy"), the flower stamp, and the petal outline stamp (the regal rose color on the flowers), the large paisley image (stamped on the transparency), and a background style stamp that has polka dots that are both dots, and small circles, and both (a dot with a small circle around it). The following two cards feature the stamps that are in the set and weren't used in the card above. This is a really cute set and it will be available in the Spring Mini catalog in a couple of months. Any way, I hope you enjoy the cards and learn from my fumblings and mistakes!



This card is called a criss cross pocket card. It's only the 2nd one that I've made. I seem to have a hard time "balancing" them. I don't really like how this one turned out, but I like the design of criss cross cards in general, and the fact that you can really get creative with them. I kept this one fairly simple, and have directions for you here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=179212 This is a card that is on SplitCoastStampers (SCS) and Michelle Wooderson is the creator. I thought that she did an excellent job of explaining how she made hers, and her card is so adorable. Visit the link that way you can get the directions AND you can leave her a comment and tell her how cute you think her card is. We all like comments! Anyway, I didn't use patterned paper for this one, you don't have to, but I did adhere an image and add some brads (that you can hardly see) in the top right corner. I decided to keep the inserted card fairly simple so that I could actually write one it, but it's fun to basically make it a whole second card too. I hope you enjoy it!

This last card is another simple one, I was just trying to use up the rest of the card stock that I had sitting out. Like I've said, this is a fun set and I used the 2nd word stamp on this one. I think these are very Spring-like cards, but one can never be too early, right? I hope you like it.

These last few pictures are taken on Christmas day when we went on a bike ride (Mommy and Daddy pushing the girls the whole way, if that's a bike ride!) with Sarah's new tricycle and Emma getting some real practice on her training wheel Dora bike. On the way, we stopped at the playground on our street and I got some cute pics of the girls. I just love these girls!!!

This is Sarah on her tricycle:

Here is Emma on her bicycle (she was a little worried because Mommy was in front of her taking a picture and not next to her with her hand on her back):

Lastly, these are of the girls at the playground. Sarah's hair stood on end going down the plastic slide and Emma was watching her when I snuck a picture of her.