My friend Hetty wanted an apple for her New Year cards. Here is a digital apple for everyone to use.
Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of September 13 and ends in the evening of September 15. Happy New Year!

Creation Destination 4 Card Makers Retreat

We are happy to announce the forth annual Creation Destination card makers retreat coming in October. Registrations will be accepted beginning July 1 2015 at www.strongstamps.com Hope to see you there!

Blog Candy!

Hi everyone,
I have a piece in the summer 2015 issue of RubberStampMadness. It's in the section called Black & White + One. All the works published were required to be in black and white plus the addition of one color. Mine is called Elephant Mandela for obvious reasons. I am giving away my signed original to someone who make a comment on this blog entry. The deadline is Friday May 15. Thanks for checking out my blog and good luck!

Congratulations!

I know I said I would announce the Blog Candy winner at midnight but honestly, I will not be able to stay awake! So I put the numbers from one to 32 in a hat (well, really a tupperware bowl) and pulled out the winner. Congratulations to Laura Holm! Your Easter goodies will go into the mail tomorrow. Happy Easter and good night all.

Easter Blog Candy!

Here are some Easter/Springtime treats for you. Just make a comment on this post and you could win everything you see here, two kits of each of the cards, seasonal silhouettes stamps a paper pen, a glitter pen and a pearl pen plus a baggie of punched flowers. I will choose a winner at random tomorrow at midnight and your goodies will be on the way to you. Good luck!

Springtime Blog Hop

Welcome to my stop on our Yahoo Group's Spring Blog Hop! 

My card is composed of a wreath of colorful punched flowers and leaves surrounding a little bunny from my Seasonal Silhouettes stamp set. To aid in keeping the wreath somewhat round, I attached the flowers all around the edge of a 3" round piece of cardstock in the same color as the background. I then attached the round to the center of the frame. It's a little cheat but it works great. The bunny was embossed with Pearlescent Ivory embossing powder followed by a pale pink dye ink applied with a foam dauber. I finished the flowers with Cream Pearl Pen centers. I hope this card gives you a little inspiration to join in our seasonal card making challenge which starts today.

Now, hop on over to my friend Hetty's blog for a real springtime treat! http://craftchaos.blogspot.nl/

Recycling Aluminum for Card Making

 Instructions at the bottom.

What you'll need.

Clean aluminum cans

Scissors with sharp points

Alcohol ink

Felt Ink Applicators

Cuttlebug embosser or any other embossing machine (plus plates)

Embossing folders

Paper towels

Aluminum foil or silicone craft sheets

Paper trimmer

Here’s how to do it.

Poke two holes in the side of an aluminum can with sharp pointed scissors as shown.

Carefully cut around the bottom of the can side and the top of the can side. This will remove the top and bottom of the can and leave you with an open cylinder

Cut the cylinder from top to bottom as shown. This will give you a long rectangle of raw aluminum.

Using a paper trimmer, trim the rough edges away from the long sides of the rectangle. Trim the two short sides of the rectangle. This will give you a piece measuring 8” x 3 ¼”.

For my cards, I cut this piece in half to yield two 4” x 3 ¼” pieces. (side benefit – this sharpens the blade of my cutter!)

Place the aluminum inside an embossing folder. Be sure to put the blank side of the aluminum facing the manufactures mark on the folder as shown.

Lay down a piece of aluminum foil or a craft sheet under your paper towel work surface. Alcohol ink will leave a permanent stain on your work surface so be sure to protect it. Also if you wish, you can wear gloves to protect from staining your fingers.

Squeeze a little alcohol ink onto the felt applicator. Rub the entire surface of the embossed aluminum to make a base coat.

Add more ink to the same pad and start dabbing the ink here and there onto the base coat.

Add drops of ink right from the bottle here and there and let it puddle. The ink will react in different ways to the texture of the design and to the dryness of the underlying layer of ink.

Experiment with the inks until you like the color placement. You can also come back in and use the applicator to “blend” the colors a bit although the object is to make the colors as freeform as possible.

This is addictive and fun and a great way to recycle aluminum!

Enjoy.