Black White and Antique Gold Birthday Card

Sharing an easy birthday card that requires no cutting machines or equipment besides a paper cutter and a punch. 

Supplies: 

• DCWV "Decor Noir" Stack ( I've had this one for a while so not sure if it's still around but I know I've seen similar stacks at JoAnn)
• Black Cardstock ( I used Recollections 110 lb, Michaels)
• Antique Gold foiled transparency ( Michaels)
• Cream and Antique Gold glitter scraps
• Recollections ( Michaels) Washi Tape
• Self adhesive 3D sticker embellishment strips ( stash)
• Star Punch
• Foam Tape
• Double sided tape ( I used my trusted tape gun)

The Deco Noir stack includes a couple sheets of different sentiments / sayings like the one I used for the focal. Cut from sheet, trim, add two strips of washi tape, add 3D embellishment strip,  mount to cream glitter scrap. Punch Antique Gold star from glitter scrap and mount with foam tape as shown.

Cut the black cardstock to 5x7 and trim a sheet of the "alphabet" paper from the stack to the same size. Adhere to front of card.  Cut  the transparency to 4.5 x 6.5, and layer the front panel to it, then adhere to card and voila. Done and done!

Bleached Bottlebrush Trees

I love the look of vintage holiday decorations and have long wanted some vintage bottlebrush trees. I’m automatically drawn to displays of them in stores. I am not always drawn to their price so once again, I decided I could make my own.  SO easy. Another why didn’t I do this before project.

You will need:

• Bottlebrush trees. Can be found at hobby and craft stores or where Christmas villages etc are sold. I bought a big bag at JoAnn’s last year for 75% off after Christmas knowing that I wanted to make some this season.
• Household bleach.
• Water
• Container
• Time
• Spray adhesive
• Glitter

I googled around for some hints on how to bleach the trees. All of the instructions were similar: mix equal parts bleach and water in a container; submerge trees, wait. Time is the tricky part and my conclusion is you just have to keep an eye on your trees vs an absolute amount of time. One tree took 15 min. Another the same size took 30. Just bleach until they’re the color you want. I wanted natural but may do some more and stop at pale green. I've seen tutorials where people have dyed them all kinds of colors or used spray inks etc.

Mr. Chocolate only looked at a little oddly when I told him I was bleaching trees. He just doesn’t ask anymore. What’s weird is the color bleaches out but the flocking stays on the trees.

While the trees were drying from their bleach bath ( rinse with plain water once you get the color you want), I made their bases by wrapping some wood spools with washi tape.

When the trees were dry, I used a spray adhesive (Elmers) and silver and iridescent glitter. Spray, sprinkle, turn, repeat.  Then hot glued them to my spools.

They’ll likely end up on my mantle but since I’m a diehard about not decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving , I haven’t totally decided yet.

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Keep Calm and Study On Card: The Graphics Fairy To The Rescue

The daughter of one of my besties is off to London for a Summer study abroad program so I whipped up a card to send her off.

I knew I wanted to do a variation of the "Keep Calm" theme but also wanted a British flag so went  to my go to source: The Graphics Fairy . I downloaded the image, then aged it using a graphics program which I also used to generate the text. 

Made a 5x7 card from red card stock, layered with a vintage looking red and white striped paper from the Union Square stack by Recollections ( Michaels), added two strips of American Crafts white glitter tape and mounted the focal image on gold and cream cardstocks.

Added a couple strips of washi tape, gold rhinestones, and a silver paper crown. She may be there for the birth of the new Royal baby so it seemed appropriate.

College student in London….I couldn’t resist a reminder to actually study! Not that it’s really needed. She’s a smart young lady and she’ll do great.

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Mothers Day Cards in Pink and Gray

If I could have sent each of my bloggy mom friends a handmade card, I would have. Since I can’t, I’m sharing the ones I made for the moms in my non-bloggy life who have been shocked to see pink coming from me!

I am not known for being a pink person but for some reason I just felt like using pink.Maybe it was the washi tape I found? OK it was the pink washi tape!

I stamped on cream cardstock using a Hampton Arts rose stamp and black pigment ink then embossed with clear embossing ink. Some of the images I colored the area behind the rose with pink chalk ink. For others, I colored in the flower with colored pencil. Trimmed and layered with black and pink papers. I added a drop of pink liquid pearls to the center of each flower. I used  a combination of grey and silver floral papers, pink papers and embellishments including American Crafts glitter tape to finish the cards.

Wishing all the moms out there a very Happy Mother’s Day!

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Beachy and Botanical Altered Cigar Box

I wanted something special to hold the earring and bracelet sets I shared in my previous post.

Not long ago, Mr. Chocolate came home with several empty cigar boxes for me ( and came home with MORE again this week!)  I grabbed one of them and got to work.

For this project you will need:

• Cigar or wood box to alter
• Paint ( I used Ceramcoat Paradise and Martha Stewart Wedding Cake)
• Decorative papers (I used a piece of scrapbook paper and some washi paper I collect but rarely ever use)
• Embellishments (I used botanical rub ons by K&Co, postage themed tag stickers, self adhesive copper frame, and coordinating washi tape)
• Mod Podge
• Clear drying dimensional glue

I started by painting the edges of my box with the beachy blue ( Paradise). I didn't sand or remove any of the paper that's on top of the wood. I liked the texture. Just painted right over it.

After that was dry, I dry brushed it with the white paint. I was going for a weathered beachy feel.

I measured my scrapbook paper ( top, bottom, and inside lid) and the washi paper ( sides) and then applied them to the box with Mod Podge. Added scraps of the washi paper to the corners of the top and then added the postal tag stickers and botanical rub-ons.

For the focal point of my box, I used the brochure from the hotel owned by the recipients. Placed an adhesive copper frame over the section I wanted to feature and added some super glue to get it really good and stuck. Trimmed using an XActo knife and filled with clear dimensional adhesive to give it a 3-D  look.

Ooops I got a bubble in there but oh well. If you catch those before your glue is dry, you can pop them with a pin. Once the glue was dry, I superglued it to the top of the box.

I finished up the box by applying the same scrapbook paper to the inside of the lid, added more washi tape and a couple more of the rub ons.

The owners of the hotel are avid gardeners so I thought beachy and  botanical worked out.

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Create Craft Love Keep Calm and Link Up #36

Green Craft: From Chocolate Box to Guest Book

So we have an upcoming family birthday celebration and I was asked to bring a guest book. Doesn’t everyone automatically think of an empty chocolate box as a guest book?

For this project you will need:

• Recycled cardboard box
• Scrapbook papers
• Strong adhesives ( I used double sided carpet tape)
• Embellishments ( I used vinyl scraps, some corkboard cutouts I picked up for $.97, washi tape, and a key sticker)
• Paper for your pages 

I opened up my box and immediately saw a book in the two main panels and cut them as follows:

The spine was from a scrap piece the same length as the two sides. I covered each of the cover pieces with scrapbook paper from my stash. Sealed the paper with Mod Podge.
Since I’m a borderline hoarder, I save scraps of everything and had some gold glitter vinyl leftover from a previous project. I decided to use this as “book cloth” to cover the spine.  Applied the carpet tape to the underside of the vinyl , then lay the spine piece in the middle, the two cover pieces on each side and then folded the top and bottom of the vinyl. Since I was using up scraps I couldn’t cut my vinyl piece long enough so that when folded over, it met in the middle but I had enough to cut another piece to fill the gap.

Fold over and this is the front of my guest book before embellishing. I added the washi tape and cork accents ( they were on clearance @ JoAnn) , a metal key sticker, and then College Boy reminded me: “What’s a guest book without a pen” so I made one. 

Well I didn’t make a pen but I embellished one. Just a plain stick ink pen covered with a scrap of paper from my book. Mod Podged it on, added a strip of washi tape and then hot glued some paper flowers (you can find bunches of these in bridal aisle) on the top. Left the wire stems on and just wrapped them around the pen.

For the interior, I cut regular copy paper to size , clamped it together with binder clips and coated one of the short sides with PVA glue. Glue to a chipboard panel cut the same size to make a pad and then glue the "pad to the back cover. 

More Birthday Fun With Tim Holtz Stamps and Embossing Folder

I’m sharing a couple more things I made to celebrate Mr. Chocolate’s birthday. As we get older, we’re less about giving each other “things” and more about experiences. So for his birthday this year, I planned a day filled with stops at some favorite spots as well as a couple of places he’s mentioned wanting to check out.

Since he’s a good sport and comes with me on some of my crafting stops, I’ve discovered that he likes Tim Holtz designs. So Tim helped me out with my birthday plans.

You might recognize the stamped car on the front of the card from the altered cigar box I recently shared. That box held the card, along with the little altered box shown above.

For the card, I covered a blank 5x7 card with a piece of “wood paper”. It’s actual wood veneer over cardboard. I picked it up at one of my favorite stores before they went out of business. I added strips of paper from the Tradewinds collection by DCWV to the top and the bottom.

I ran a piece of chipboard through my Cuttlebug using a Tim Holtz gear embossing folder. Went over that with Ranger Distressed Ink in black and Fresh Ink pigment ink in grey, leaving some of the chipboard exposed.  Layered this onto more of the DCWV paper, alternating with black cardstock,  and added some gear charms by Bead Landing. I stamped the car and sentiment ( both Tim ) onto scraps of the wood paper and tore the edges. Finished with some coordinating washi tapes.

The other part of this present was a little altered “clue” box I made. I created vintage themed clue cards for  the places we’d go during the day (breakfast at a favorite spot, a tour of a local small batch distillery, a fun little 20’s / 30’s style tavern with a secret room, and a favorite restaurant for dinner)  numbered them and tucked them inside the box. I told  Mr. C. throughout the day when it was time to look at the next clue. In between our "scheduled" stops we had fun roaming around new neighborhoods and places we just stumbled upon. Including a CHOCOLATE FACTORY! More on that next month.

The box ( see how it matches my wood paper!) I found in the  $1 bin at Michaels. You know I had to buy a few of these right? I decided not to cover the whole thing but went over parts of it with printed tissue paper and washi tape, sealed with Mod Podge. I forgot to take pictures of the sides but I traced around them and used up the last of the DCWV paper from the card and Mod Podged them to the box.

Accented the button closure of the box with another of  the gear charms.

We had a wonderful day and even had cooperation from Mother Nature with the Seattle weather! 

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Bejeweled and Altered Mini Composition Book

This is one of those projects that was born of necessity. Just because something has a practical use, doesn't mean it can't be pretty right? 

On the personal side, I am supposed to be watching my blood pressure. Haven't been the best at that and with the New Year, I'm trying to be more diligent. I'm sure there's a whiz bang iPhone app that I could use but sometimes you just need to go old school. So I altered a mini comp book to keep right next to my sphygmometer er, blood pressure thingy. It's 4.5 by 3.25 so I can easily drop it in my handbag when I go show my doctor how diligent I've been.  

I pulled a sheet of paper from my stash, traced around my book, cut, glued on w/ Mod Podge .

Of course that wasn't nearly enough stuff. I chose this great wood and metal pendant by Blue Moon Beads as my journal's focal point. Its flowery design went well with the paper: 

Glued it to the center of one of  flower on the front and then added coordinating black and white washi tape from my stash. As a closure for my journal. I slapped some of the washi tape onto a binder clip. See? Practical and pretty! 

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