Life in the box

Well, it's really my second 'card in a box' and using the same 'life in the forest' set on this one too :-)

 

The pattern paper is from Birthday Basics Designer Series Paper pack, the trees are stamped on a green paper from 'epic day' designer series paper and the sun rays are stamped with the sale-a-bration banner blast stamp set and punched out with the banner punch (which will be available again in the new catalogue, as of June 1st)

The fox is done the same way as the previous version, except this time I used Very Vanilla for the face and tail 

So, this was my last posting from Ottawa! I will be posting things on here from Finland (I'm taking various crafting supplies with me, so I really need to push my creativity with the limited supplies). I guess I should show my dear husband where things are in my craft room, in case he needs to mail me some additional supplies :-)

Have fun creating!!!

Card in a box

Okay, I have wanted to create one for such a long time, but just haven't had the time.

When I first saw these 'card in a box' things, I thought 'way too much work for me'. And I'm not a one to display cards on a table - I hang them on a wall, so it really was something neat, but not for me.

Then when I saw more and more of them created, I started thinking that a lot of people actually do display their cards on a table or a book case (and they fall over SO easily). So, here I am, creating my 'card in a box'es :-)

I knew I wanted to use the 'life in the forest' sets and both my nephews have their birthdays coming up, so this was a perfect time for that.

This version (yes, there is a second too!!) is using the cute little critters from the life in the forest stamp set. I stamped the fox on Tangerine Tango card stock and on Whisper White card stock and cut out the mask and the tail from the white, and glued them on the fox.

The Coastal Cabana chevron paper is from the Spring occasions paper pad 'Fresh Prints'

The camera is done with the 'on Film' framelits. I used the Crumb Cake Core'dinations paper and sanded the surface to bring out the inner layer, and give the camera more dimension.

I won't bother giving you dimensions or instructions on how to make this card. If you google 'card in a box', you will get hundreds of written and video tutorials. Just pick one ;-)

Hope you will enjoy creating your own 'card in a box'

Simply My Digital Studio Challenge: Frames with a twist

I have to say, this photo of Tom is one of my favourites. And it's just a quick snapshot of him at Starbucks. He just happened to look outside and the light from the window lighted his face perfectly. Okay, I did edit it in my Camera+ app quite a lot. I think I used the Ansel set up and some vignette edits on this too.

the challenge on this one was to use frames, but not in your typical way - framing pictures. I did use a mat under my picture and some embellishments but my frames are more around the sentiment and at the background. 

The stitching frame is actually 2 L-shaped stitches, one is just flipped around and then overlapped with the other.

Why don't you give your smartphone a run for it's money and snap some pictures? Try some non-conventional edits on them too. the nice thing about digital editing is that you still keep your original image, in case your editing doesn't work. And you know how easy it is always to use the same edits? why not try something totally different - like a purple haze? or download a new photo editing app and give them a try. I only have 16 on my iPhone :-)

and remember, who's stopping you from editing the photo in several different apps?? Let's face it, some of them have better frames, some of them have better picture editing tools. So give them a try! 

Simply My Digital Studio Challenge: Using stamps

It's been awhile since I last created some digital pages. I have done couple of newsletters and a new blogheader (I just LOVE the colours on this one!!!), but no proper pages. My PC was constantly crashing when dealing with large sized items, so I had to keep things simple.

Now with my new MacBook, I'm again good to go....

(as long as I can figure out all the new commands and this North American keyboard... dots in odd places, and where in the world are all the /@«\÷æ‘…¬ symbols....

So, so far I have created two pages, both for the "Simply My Digital Studio" Facebook group challenges.

This first one is a challenge to use stamps. No embellishments here. Just stamps.

The background is created with an ampersand stamp, which I coloured Bermuda Bay. Then each vertical row was done in different opacity to create the gradual change in the colour.

I used a whisper white background card stock to get the opacity right

I have to say, using stamps is not the easiest thing for me. I tend to veer towards embellishments - I guess they are just easier :-)

I hope you like this and my next page. I will be posting more digital creations during the next 5 months, but don't you worry, I am bringing with me enough 'real paper' to create you traditional cards too. 

I hope you get inspired with both - remember, you can get inspiration from digital work for your paper crafting too - and why not give My Digital Studio a try?? After all, it is free for the first 30 days. 

don't think of it just as a scrapbooking tool. You can create cards, business cards for you or your family, blogheaders, Facebook headers and add embellishments to your photos. So really, it's a very multifunctional program.

Enjoy!

while waiting for the spring weather...

I love winter, but I think it's time to change the weather pattern - eh?

 

We went to Sudbury (ON) for 4 days to visit Tom's parents and got dumped with 15cm of snow on Sunday. But we did get some sunny weather too, as you can see from these pictures - taken at the Big Nickle

 

So while we wait for the snow to melt (and hope that the forecasts for more snow are not true), I decided to create a card using two of my TOP 10 stamp sets: "Happy Watercolor" and "Petite Petals". I'm not really sure if I truly could narrow my favourite stamp sets into 10, but right NOW these two will surely fit that category :-)

The card base is Blushing Bride and I stamped the Happy Watercolour "blob" with various neutrals:

Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake, Baked Brown Sugar and Soft Suede. I stamped the image first on a piece of scrap paper and then on card stock. Then I stamped the Petite petals with various different pinks: Pink Pirouette, Blushing Bride, Rose Red, Calypso Coral and Strawberry Slush.

 

Then I thought it needed some bling and I added 3 golden sequins

 

 

What the fox says.... ring-ding-ding-ding-dinga-dinga-ding....

When I first saw the "Life in the Forest" stamp, I thought it to be cute, but not for me. Then I saw couple of cards made with it - and I was sold. There were 2 Stampin'Up! demonstrators, who inspired this card: Nancy Smith, with her question mark (she had an envelope, the mouse from the same stamp set says "Mouse goes Squeek" and THAT was an AHA-moment for me. I knew I had to get this set.

 

The trees and the mushrooms are from the same set. The trees were stamped on a Gumball Green Epic Day Designer Series Paper and the mushrooms were coloured with Real Red marker (stamped on Whisper White).

And then I remembered another product, that would make this perfect - our TALKING TAGs!!! I was not sure if it would work - after all, I was not planning on singing that song myself.

So I loaded it on my iTunes and played it with my computer while recording the sound with my iPhone. Well.. the sound quality is not the best, but works for me :-)

The other demonstrator, Linda Heller, had the best fox - I saw plenty of foxes coloured with markers or blenderpens - but Linda had actually stamped the fox on Tangerine Tango and Whisper white card stocks. Then she cut the full fox out of Tangerine Tango and cut the face mask and the tail from the Whisper White fox and glued those on top of the Tangerine Tango fox. She then coloured the ears with White gel pen. - PERFECT!!!

So here is a picture of my talking tag - I tested it, and if you download the app "TalkingTag.mobi" on your smart phone, you can listen to my 60 sec of Yelvis and Fox :-)