Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Congrats


Well, the blog hop has wrapped up and it's time to announce the winners! We hope that you had as much fun visiting with all of the designers as they had working on their projects.  If you missed the blog hop for any reason, you can find all the participants here

The two winners of the MFT Gift Certificates are...

  • From my blog right here, Sue Ann - “MY DEAR is right ~ this is BEAUTIFUL!! All the elements are pulled together SO beautifully. What a way to wake up with such a beautiful card on this blog hop!!!”


  • From Jessie’s Blog, Thelma -“I absolutely love your coloring, your cards are always so much fun with your signature silver embellishments…LOVE it!!”

(MFT Winners: Be sure to check your email, MFT sent vouchers today via email.)

Winners of the $25 button assortments from Buttons Galore & More are...

  • liz aka javagirl - "Great hop excited to glance at your buttons Who doesnt love buttons"
  • megan mcdonald - “I love all the projects I saw I dont think I could pick a favorite… but I can say that I have add a few more people to my favorites list on the computer.” 

The Card set winner from www.365DaysOfCrafts.com Blog is...

  • Clare Dempsey - "Oh, I started paper crafting as a scrapbooker and now make my own cards. Still not sure of my skills with card layouts. So, I love these ideas to use my MFS and buttons galore! thanks for the chance to win!"

(Buttons & Card set winners: Please an email to buttonsgaloreteam@yahoo.com with your mailing address.)

And the winners of a Lilly Belle's Paperie package are...
  • Megan - "The card is so pretty! I love the colors. I must say, that precious baby in your blog title is just gorgeous!"

  • Clare D.  - "I love this card. I am so pinning it for a scraplift later! thanks for the chance to win!"
  • Amanda R - "This is so pretty, love how you have incorporated so many different elements."
  • wendy - "whow terrific card, so pretty"
(LBP winners: Please send an email to laura @ lbpaperie.com with your information.)

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Blog Hop & Give Aways

Hello, there! Today, I'm apart of the
My Favorite Things Stamps
and
Buttons Galore & More
blog hop.

Today I have a cute card project featuring Buttons Galore & More and MFT Stamps products. If you haven't browsed the MFT catalog over on their website, you really should. It's filled with fun images, sentiments, and one of my favorite tools: dies! It was nearly impossible to choose which one I wanted to work with today, but I finally decided on Botanical Beauty. What I love most about these flower dies is that there are so many combinations that you can use to create numerous looks. You could use the die cuts individually or stack them to create a layered look which is what I did this time...


The first thing I do when I start a project is to create a color palette. I usually stick with it, but sometimes I do change as I go along. Here you can see the color palette that I developed after pulling out a few papers and embellishments. The dies used today are from MFT Stamps, brads from Buttons Galore & More, and the rest of the crafting supplies from Lilly Belle's Paperie.
(You can find individual supply links throughout this entry and at the bottom of this post.)

And here's what I did to make the card...

1. To make the flower embellishment, layer your die according to the manufacturer's instructions in your cutting machine with a piece of vintage netting on top of the patterned paper, so that you create an embossed textured look to your flowers. This will not cut through the netting, so you can use it again for another project later!


2. Next, trim your base card (Lemonade cardstock) to 4.25"x5.5" and fold in half. Trim the Kraft cardstock to 4"x5.25", and the polkadot patterned paper to 3.75"x5". Another piece of Lemonade cardstock will be trimmed to 2.75"x4" and a piece of numeric patterned paper to 2.5"x4". The length of ribbon needed is 5.5". Your cut pieces should layer nicely as shown in the photo below.


3. Next, you'll want to add a small amount of adhesive to the back of the polkadot patterned paper and attach it to the Kraft cardstock in order to hold it in place while you add decorative stitching around the edge. If you don't want to sew on your card, you can fully adhere the polkadot and Kraft layers together at this point.

4. Next, layer the numeric strip on top of the Lemonade strip and attach to the polkadot patterned paper. I don't use any extra adhesive on the ribbon because I don't want to waste anything. I also never know if I'll decide to throw on a bow or knot later, so it saves in the area of deconstruction later too. You can see in these next two photos that I just secure the ribbon tails to the adhesive that I will be using to secure the card front to the Lemonade card base.



5. With the card band finished and attached to the card front and base, you can now decorate the front of the card. Normally, I would not attach the card front to the base until I am completely finished, but I knew at this point that I would not be poking anything else through my card, so I felt confident that I could seal it up while keeping the inside of the card clean.

6. The final step is to decorate the card front. I attached my flower layers to the far right with a cute chipboard button and some twine added to the center. Then I added three jazzy brads (with the prongs cut off) using glue dots, and finally my sentiment. I hope you enjoy this card!

Here's the finished card all cute & ready to give to your special loved one...


And here's a list of the participating blogs in today's hop including the design team members from MFT Stamps and Buttons Galore & More:


And don't forget, MFT will GIVE AWAY two MFT Gift Certificates for the blog hop. One $25 gift certificate to one randomly chosen winner from commenters on the MFT Designers' blogs and one $25 gift certificate to one randomly chosen winner from the commenters on the Buttons Galore Designers' blogs.  Buttons Galore & More will also give away two $25 button assortments the same way, so leave comments on all of the blogs participating in the hop. Winners will be chosen all over the place! I think I may even have a special something to give away to a random commenter and Google reader right here on my blog... Deadline to comment will be on July 29.

Additional Supply Links & Coupone Code Below:
Use the coupon code JULYCLEARANCE for 15% off at Lilly Belle's Paperie.

Monday, July 23, 2012

MFT Sneak Peek...

Yep, I'm still around. Nursing school is sucking the life out of me, but I still have time to craft every so often. MFT was super awesome in sending a few goodies my way to participate in a blog hop on the 26th, and I couldn't resist giving you a little sneaky peeky... 

I've also got a little coupon code for you over in the Lilly Belle's Paperie shop good for 15% off: JULYCLEARANCE

LBP is cleaning up to get ready for all of the new CHA goodness that's been coming out this week. If you've got a special product you're wanting, feel free to send a message over in the shop to make sure it's been ordered for you. I can't wait for all of my favorite things to start coming in!