Saturday, January 11, 2014

Oooofff....

It has been soooo long since I have blogged.  Well, over a month now.  I have been able to do a bit of crafting but have not have the chance to photograph or sit down long enough to record it.  I hope and expect that now life will slow a bit and allow me to get some fun crafting time in.  It has been very cold here....we have been at the heart of the polar vortex and have had wind chills inexcess of -40-50 degrees.  It has been so cold that my son boiled a pot of water and then we went out on the deck and threw it into the air....it disappeared immeadiatly....literally it freezes to mist in an instant.  It actually was so cold that we did stupid winter experiments....Fun in the Midwest!

Anyways, I made two card sets for a friend of mine for Christmas.  She loves to have sets of all purpose cards about and I wanted to try out a new die that I had ordered from Taylored Expressions.  I ordered this die some time ago and finally had the chance to  work with it.....it is the Colorblock Die Plate and I just am so happy with it.  The sets came together really quickly and I can see using this die many, many times.  I first made her a set that was pink and then remembered that her favorite color was yellow....so, no problem!  I quickly whipped up a yellow set too ;-)

First is the pink set which I just LOVE!  This particular color combination is lovely to me....I hope that I have enough paper left to make another set for myself ;-D

The first photo shows what the gift looks like all packaged.  I made a simple belly band and then used JustRite stamps for the decorative image as well as the sentiment.  I matted the sentiment upon a piece of paper that coordinates with the inside of the card.  The band goes around an acrylic card box.


Then, I cut out 5 cutting block plates out of black paper as well as  5 plates out of coordinating patterned paper.  Then I used the different black sections to make up "chalkboard backgrounds" for the various sentiments. 


I had never tried the blackboard effect before this but really am pleased with how it turned out!  I will definitely be using this technique again.  I am late to this trend's bandwagon but I will do my durndest to keep it going!


I switched around the cards....some were vertical tents, some were horizontal tents and the rest were "book" openings.



Finally, this is what the inside looked like.  Just very simple and clean!




Here is the yellow set....I won't do a walk thru as I followed the same directions as I gave above.  I will point out though that I added to both cards sets a bit of coordinating colored pencil to both card sets' chalk sentiment area.  I love that little pop of color.  I can remember being so pysched when I was younger to be able to use the colored chalk!





Anyways, my friend loved the sets!  And, I will for sure be making more of these to have around the house....so easy and so quick!  I hope you all are staying warm wherever you may be ;-D

Be well,
Sheila

2 comments:

Dawn T said...

what a great idea to make sets as a gift and what amazing sets Sheila. Love the yellow set. Such a great colour combo

rcwidow (Linda) said...

Beautiful Sheila! Love how you used the chalkboard look!