I'ts Heartfelt Wednesday

Today I thought I would take a break from layouts and share a quick and simple card I made this week, it is a perfect any occasion card.  This one was fun to create especially with the Magical Mica's that add so much shine to the flowers.  I wish you could see it in real life.  Well here is the card.

The holes around each element were done with a needle, quick and simple and it really gives the card something special in my opinion.  Well that is it for my project but the rest of the designers have some spectacular projects to share with you.  Make sure you check out the Heartfelt Creations Blog to see all the gorgeous creations from the DT team!

Have a great week!

It's Wednesday... Heartfelt Creation Wednesday to be exact...

Ever have a week or 2 where the mojo is not flowing as it should well this is me going on my second week of being completely and utterly unable to throw a page together.  I have tried and tried... I actually have a few bases completed because I started a page with an idea, started putting it together and lost my focus and had to start over.  I must have demolished 5 pages of pattern paper cutting it this way and that way till there was nothing left, lol!  I would hit a block and have to start over.  Yesterday I was getting desperate because I was still had nothing to show you today.  I'm not sure if it is the vacation that through off my balance or stress or what but I know that nothing was working.  I scoured the internet for a sketch that would inspire me and I found this great sketch over at Sketchabilities and thought it might work...

well I started throwing stuff on the page and it started looking good to me, it was put together in no time.  Today I was going to glue it down and I couldn't it just didn't look right to me (again) and as hard as I tried I just lost the vision or something.  I figured I was out of time so with a half hearted effort I glued it all down.  It was still missing something but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.  Then it hit me I needed some more color.  It was looking sort of blah.  I took out my scissors and started cutting down the edges of the cardstock... not so easy to do after everything is glued down.  Added a peice of pattern paper as my mat and now I like it... I really like it!  Here it is...

I had a picture with my daughter, neice and nephew playing with the rabbits so I cropped the picture to get just 1 child per picture.

I then added foliage and flowers, including my lacy glass flowers from the tutorial here.  The pink flowers were made from plain vellum that I stamped, inked with alcohol ink and shaped with my stylus.  I think I like the vellum flowers besides the glass flowers.  They work well together in my opinion.  Oh and butterflies... I fussy cut the butterflies from the back of the green paper and stacked them added a bit of glue and glitter to the centers to finish them off.  Oops and bling... lots of bling on this page.  With the gorgeous flower centers that I got from Heartfelt Creations I needed some bling to bring even more focus to the gorgeous centers.

I used some sticker alphas for the title, these are from Prima and I love that the gems are already on the stickers.  The more sparkle the better.

Well that is it... that is my page.  I'm so glad with the way it turned out, I'm just sad that I couldn't get it done quick enough to get it showcased on the Heartfelt Creation Blog this week but hopefully I have found my way out of my blah-ness.  Yes I know that now I'm just making up words but it is the only thing that seams to fit with my issues the last 2 weeks.  Well hope your creativity has been sparked and don't forget to check out what the rest of the DT team did this week.  I can guaranty that there is nothing wrong with there mojo!  Those girls rock!

I'm late! I'm so very late!!

Well due to some technical difficulties... possibily more operator error then computer glitch, although I'm not ready to completly admit to that yet... my pre-schedualed post did not work... argg!  Going to have to try to figure out what went wrong!  I am at the beach this week... came home for a golf tournament today and noticed that this didn't post!  Well Wednesday was the reveal of the brand new release for HC's Botanical Garden Collection... and what a gorgeous line it is and as always the folks at Heartfelt creations will give away the entire line to a lucky person... beleive me when I tell you that you NEED this line!  Does not matter whether you make cards or pages... if you like flowers you will without a doubt need this line!  Winning is easy.  Leave a comment on this post or on the Heartfelt Creations Blog and you could win!  What could possibly be easier.  and when you are there check out what the rest of the team did... Pages... Cards... Tags and so much more!  What a versatile line!!  Here is what I did with these new stamps!

Here is my little confession... I normally start with the picture and add the paper and then figure out how to embellish it but when I got this new stamp set... well I started with the flowers... I stamped, cut them out and sprayed and shaped them and then I though OK what am I going to do with them... this page came together so easily.  I found a great sketch and followed it... where did I find the great sketch?  I have no clue!  I looked and looked and can't figure out where it came from!  LOL!  Some days I am a little sillier then most.  I so wish I could give credit for this sketch!  When I find it I will add it to this post but in the mean time here are a few close ups of the flower clusters.



Well hopefully you will have fun with this set and remember to leave a comment here or on the Heartfelt Creations blog or any of the designers blog by July 19 and one lucky person will win the entire release valued at $75.00. The winner will be announced on the HC blog on July 20.

My first tutorial!! Lacy Glass Flowers!!!

Here is my version of a glass flowers, inspired by Laura’s plate glass flowers (Following the Paper Trail).  Of course I changed them up quite a but but the basics are the same.  Of course mine have the Heartfelt Creations flare to them, here are the flowers that I made for this tutorial…  Hope you like them

so lets get started, Materials used on this as follows;  Clear acetate,  HC makes a great clear cardstock perfect for these, I used the following stamps from HC as well Flora Grande and Distressed Leaves, my flower centers are sold by HC they are the Alexandria Diamond Flower Centers.   Now for the non Heartfelt Creations products I have some lace, Staz-On ink in Timber brown and glossy accents.  As far as tools are concerned I used scissors, tweezers, heat gun, crop-a-dile (any hole punch will work), hot glue gun and a paint brush… not included in the photo.  Go easy on me this is my first ever tutorial!

First thing is to prep the lace.  I used a cheap lace because that is all I can get in this town and I cut off the top part so it would lay flat.

Then I cut the clear cardstock down to the width on my lace…

now you need the acetate your glossy accents and your paint brush

Apply a generous amount of glossy accents to the acetate

And spread it out with the paint brush so that you have a thin layer

Now lay your lace over the glue and press down.  I ran my paint brush back over it so that I could ensure there was a good bond between the lace and the plastic.  At this point you can leave it to dry by itself but I don’t have that sort of patience so I heat it carefully with the heat gun… make sure you don’t get to close and pat it down with your hand as you go.

Once it is no longer tacky trim off the access material and here is what you are left with

Now comes the fun part, stamp the flowers on the acetate sheets using staz-on I am making 2 large fowers double layered and one single layered flower.  Using the stamp set listed above I stamped 2 of the largest flowers and 3 of the medium flowers.

I also stamped some leaves; you can heat set the stamped images to make sure it won’t smear.

Now the most tedious part is cutting these out.  I tried my die cut machine and it cut through the plastic just fine but the lace gave it a bit of trouble… I have a cuttlebug. It probably would have done it ok with a shim or a tighter machine but I decided just to use my scissors.

And now the FUN part, take out your heat gun and start playing with these puppies…  I found what worked best for me was to do a few petals at a time hold up the flowers and leaves using your tweezers and heat till you can see it start to droop and start shaping, they will be warm but not hot enough to hurt,  Work quickly as it cools fast and then it isn’t pliable anymore.  I found working in small areas, 2 to 3 petals at a time was easiest

If you don’t’ like the way the flower is shaped beat it up till it goes flat and try again!

Do this to all your pieces till they are all shaped the way you like them.

Now if you are using vintage buttons that don’t lay flat (like I am) use your crop-a-dile to make holes in your flower centers this will help you flower sit right.

Now gather up your layers for the individual flowers

And assemble using hot glue… I tried glossy accents first and although it could have worked I just didn’t have the patience… Hot glue is my glue of choice when working with difficult products. 

Here is a variation that I did using the Posy Patch Flowers and Sophia Diamond Flower Center.  This version uses 2 large posies and 1 of the smaller flower.

Well I hope you liked this tutorial and I really hope you will let me know if you use it on one of your projects… I would love to see!

It's Wednesday!!

Well it is that day again and I'm honored to be able to share yet another project with you.  Today I'm sharing this page I created of my cousin and her new husband.  The new wedding collection is perfect for cards but it is just as perfect for scrapbooking pages.  This page is actually quite a simple design... a bit of paper and some stamps and that is it... so simple and yet I really love the way it came out.  Here is what the completed page looks like...

As always the details for how to complete this page are posted on the Heartfelt Creations Blog but I wanted to share some close ups and a few tips along the way.  Here is a close up of the bells that I colored in with the copic markers.  I used some manicure scissors to get in as close the flowers as possible.  Since the cardstock was white the bits and pieces around the image clashed with the rest of my page.  Tea die distress ink was perfect to match the beige of the background paper and the color is light enough to not interfere with the copic colors I had already applied.  My white pen was also great for the finishing work on these as it let me highlight around the bell and cover up little mistakes like color on the dangle part of the bell and the rim. 

The most complicated part of this project is the metal work so I just wanted to share a bit on how that was put together.  I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole at the top of the bells.  The Tim Holts lace chain package contains the chain... jump rings and some closure clasps.  I attached the closure clasps on the bells themselves and then added the chain to the clasps using the jump rings. The whole thing was attached up to the BoBunny broach with the jump rings as well.  In my opinion, it is those extra details that make the page extra special.

Last close up that I'm sharing is the scroll I love the combinations of copics with the distress inks it is so simple yet so pretty.

I was amazed that I could do a page without adding my usual flowers.  I really fought the urge to add more to the page but figured that adding more would take away from what was already there... Maybe less is more sometimes... still I ended up with something that I love.  I love experimenting and trying to do things differently it lets me grow as an artist so I hope I have inspired you to try something different and to push yourself out of your comfort zone every once in a while.  You never know you might discover that not every page needs flowers.  LOL!  But most due… so tune in next week to see what I came up with...