Happy Birthday Hana

One of my best friends had a birthday this week. For her card I used a few new favorite stamps and dies.

I am in love with the lace square dies and am really excited to finally be able to create this kind of cards. I am also seeing so many possibilities to the owl punch and woodgrain stamp combination - I have a few ideas - stay tuned :-)

As a gift I prepared for her a mini album (my first). I will show it tomorrow.

I am submitting this card to the Simon Says - Anything goes challenge and I made this challenge by Lifestyle Crafts.

Supply list:

InLinkz.com

Storing my dies

I am working on a big project (well... big for me) that will be delivered this Thursday and until that time I can't show it, for today I wanted to share how I store my dies. I think it's a clever way and I hope someone will benefit from it.

I started with storing the dies in their original packaging, but for the life of me, I can't understand why the dies manufactures choose to put them in containers that the jaws or life have a hard time opening (Yes - I'm talking to you LifeStyle Crafts and Nestabilities...). So that method was quickly determined as time waster and at least once I managed to cut myself trying to get the die out of the package.

I put the dies on a piece of cartoon with a magnet, and store it all in a clear plastic protector in a binder. It is real easy to find the one I'm looking for and pick just the right size. This method also helps me keep track of the dies I used and need to put back in place.

I also try to put the original image of the dies along with their name. It makes it easier to pick them when I'm looking for specific one.

 

Here is how my binder is looking today. Currently I have 15 dies stored in that binder, I think I can fit a few more, but probably not more then 20.

 The plastic package itself I cut into flat squares and am planning on using it sometime in the future. The rest goes to the trash.

Low cost Embossing helper

לפני מספר שבועות רכשתי לי אקדח חום ואני נהנית מאוד מהנסיונות איתו. אבל מאוד לא אהבתי את השאריות של האבקה שנשארות דבוקות מסביב להחתמה.

חיפוש מהיר בגוגל העלה שיש כרית מיוחדת או כלי של EK שאפשר לקנות לנטרול החשמל הסטטי. כמובן שפה בארץ אי אפשר לקנות את זה באופן מהיר אז הייתי צריכה למצוא פתרון ביתי מהיר.

מסתבר שקורנפלור פשוט עושה את העבודה מצויין ולא עולה הרבה. שמתי בגרב של אחד הילדים (אחת מהגרביים שנשארה יתומה...) ווואו! התוצאות פשוט מדהימות.

A few weeks ago I purchased a heat tool for embossing and am having lots of fun experimenting with it, but I was really  not loving all the extra small sprinkles that were left around most of the embossed images.

Quick Google searched turned out that there is a pouch I can buy called the Embossing Buddy. Being here is Israel means I can't just buy it and have it the next day, and being the impatient person that I am I tried to find an alternative. 

Turns out that if you put Corn Starch in a kid sock, it will work just as great and really doesn't cost anything, since it's two things that every house hold has :-)

And - WOW!! the results are just magnificent. So of course I had to share.

Here is how the image looks without the help of the embossing sock

הנה החתמה ללא האבקה לפני

 And here is after using it

והנה עם האבקה לפני, תראו איך אין בכלל נקודות מעצבנות

Such a big difference!!

Here is a picture of the sock :-)

והנה הגרב במלוא תפארתה....

Bon Voyage

This card was created for a good friend of mine who is going away for couple of years to the land of cowboys, beef and hunting (Texas...) due to her husband's job.

They had a farewell open house yesterday, and she got a few Hebrew DVDs for her daughter and this card. They are paying for their own shipping, so they are not taking anything heavy with them, so the gifts had to be light weight.

I searched a lot for a good "Bon Voyage" stamp that I can download, since I didn't have time to physically go and buy something and finally found this cute suitcase stamp on ebay. Bought it and a few hours later the card was ready. I am open for suggestion for a good farewell set to buy to have on hand for the future.

Again I added the Hamsa (Hand) symbol for good luck. The writing is "Bon Voyage" in Hebrew.

I am submitting this card to the Young Crafters Unite Challenge #4 - Use Dies

Supplies:

Simon Says.... SKETCH TIME Challenge

What do you say about this cute happy birthday card?

I worked with the Simon Says sketch challenge for this week.

The DT team is showcasing the La La Land stamps plus glitter and stickles. 3 of my favorite things - How could I not participate.

I choose the sweet Marci stamp and paper pieced her dress, hair and shoes. I added red stickles to the trim of the dress for some shine.

The page is from the Sweet collection by DCWV. The paper had lots of glitter and shine in the design. Really love it.

I them added some sticker flowers with lots of glitter and shine, and to finish it all up, added the banner sentiment (Happy Birthday in Hebrew) with lots of silver stickles around it.

Here is a close up to all the glitter and sparkle.

List of supplies:

InLinkz.com

My babies - Canvas Silhouettes

In the past few days I have been working on a Silhouette project. I got the inspiration from Pinterest and found many good tips there as well.

Here are the 3 finished canvases. I am so proud of it, it looks a lot like them to my great surprise.

Here are the steps and a few good tips I gathered along the way on how to do it.

1. Take good profile picture of the kids. Preferably with a white background.

2. I converted the image to the outlines in Photoshop (if you want an explanation on how I did this, let me know, and I'll add it).

3. Use a wall paper (טפט) to print on.

4. Make sure you print on the other side, not the shiny sticky side, I tried printing on the shiny side and the ink will not dry.

5. Cut the image out carefully.

6. Spread Mod Podge on the canvas. This is a very important step. I'll show you at the end of this tutorial what happens if you don't. Wait for the glue to dry completely.

7. Peel the wallpaper and stick it on the canvas where you want the image to show.

8. Paint the canvas, front and sides. I used acrylic color.

9. Wait until the color is fully dry and peel the wallpaper. You can see how the canvas is looking after I peeled the wallpaper and on the left side, you can see the wallpaper on a scrap paper.

10. Spread another layer of Mod Podge to protect the color, also I find the color to be a little sticky even after fully dry and the Mod Podge layer just makes the canvas nicer to touch. Once that layer is dry you are done.

Here is a picture of the 3 canvases I made hanging on the wall.

 And lastly, remember in step 6 I told you it's important to paint the canvas with Mod Podge before you start with the color.

Here is why: notice how in the left side picture (no mod podge) the color bleeds into the canvas and you don't get a clean line when you remove the wall paper. I had to learn this the hard way... But hey - at least you now have a picture to learn from :-)

How to make an envelope for mini cards

Yesterday I posted about mini cards and got a question on how I did my envelopes, so I prepared a quick tutorial.

Here are the envelopes you will be making

For your convenience here is a PDF file you can download - How to make an envelope for mini cards (Believe it or not, but finding a way to upload the PDF file took me more time then this entire post... if you have good suggestion to pdf upload let me know in the comments).

Let me know if you want a video, I'll be happy to add one later this week.

Blank mini cards

I prepared a few mini cards for my mother-in-law. She asked for card for all occasions, so she'll have a stash she can use when needed.

I also prepared matching envelopes. I used my new Martha Stewart scoring board.

Here is a look at all the cards. They are all 3''*3''

The last one is slightly larger 4''*4'', I tried that size, but didn't like it.

Here is the lot. Next on my crafting table is a few misc cards for my mom.