Fantabulous Cricut Top 5

Check out who made Top 5 at the Fantabulous Cricut "Love Is In The Air" challenge!  Check the cool blinkie I get too...woohoo!  I LOVE Top 5 honors because it means my item was chosen from the 134 entries as one of the 5 best.  That makes you want to run create more.

Here's the card that won...

Maggie Card Swap

I belong to a sweet little group on Yahoo Groups that likes to exchange kits to make cards and pre-made cards. This month's card swap theme is "Wouldn't It Be Loverly", a Valentine theme I suppose. Here's a photo of the card I made my partner, Beth...

This was a lot of fun! Little did I know when I was using my yummy bag of printed kraft pieces that these were actually scraps from a new line of card stock by Canvas Corp. I'm seeing it around now and at sneak peeks from CHA this week! Also used a number of Cricut cartridges for the hearts and my ever-growing supply of Copics for coloring, then tossed in some red Stickles and slathered things with Ranger Glossy Accents. There was also a generous amount of antiquing going on with various Colorbox stamp pads. Oh, and the most fun item is the little paper piecing I used on Edwin's overalls...that's more from the scrap pack by Canvas Corp I purchased at A.C. Moore. The ivory rose was snipped from trim purchased on eBay long ago. The trinket pin is by Maya Road with a little addition of a red glass crystal I glued in place with a small dab of Glossy Accents (that stuff is amazing and love it's "multipurpose-ness"!) I used Spellbinder's lacy square for the interior. The awesome black & ivory check ribbon is from a spool I won at May Arts...lucky me! Here are a few more close-ups for you to see:

Guess what? It's an easel card!

Tilda Valentine Challenge

Magnolia-licious is having a Valentine challenge. Be sure to check it out. Here's a look at my entry...

Notice I split the easel card base so the top of my heart shows! Be sure to check out the details below about my Tilda and Edwin image.

I used distressing & antiquing on the card and pop dots to lift the large heart off the base for some fun dimension.

I came across a tiny heart print cardstock in one of those scrap packs at my local craft store and knew I had to do a paperpiecing on my Edwin overalls. I also used the same print on Tilda's pocket. Edwins patches and pockets were colored with a Copic marker. I love the result...those hearts are the perfect size for this technique. By the way, all I did was stamp the image on the red heart cardstock and fussy cut and glued over my image used here. Easy peasy!

I made all the heart embellies on the card with my Cricut using hearts from the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge. The red heart window was a double cut of the same hearts, created using Cricut's Design Studio and my laptop. I pop-dotted the red frame over a black and kraft heart base, which I cut using the larger outer heart so they would match up perfectly. "I & U" were cut using "All Mixed Up". To give them more zing I highlighted the heart edges with Colorbox Frosted White stamp pad, added a layer of red Stickles, and slathered with Ranger's Glossy Accents. A heart-shaped faux crystal was added from my stash.

Here are the ingredients for my little recipe. (Oops - am showing the negative of the letters I used.)

I also plan to enter this card in the following challenges:
Just Magnolia and Hanglar Stanglar "Window" challenge. Hurry...this one ends Jan. 25th!

Mojo Back at Last!!

I have been in a recovery period since Christmas and finally have some mojo back and have been spending time in my studio making Valentine cards.

I LOVED this Valentine card so much last year that I thought I'd see how many I could make to sell in my Etsy.com store. It has been ages since I listed anything there also but am at up for a test to see how the economy is doing for handmade papercrafts. I even sat down and remade my logo to finally match my name.

The buttons are from a huge tin my mother gifted me of many years ago. My sister always got mom's heirloom jewelry, etc. and I got a tin of buttons, tarnished silverplate, and the like. Gotta love those two, they always took such good care of me! Anyway, I have always marveled at how bottomless that tin has been and how metaphoric is was for my life so when I sat down to create my blog it came to mind, hence my blog name..."Musings from the Button Box".

I hope you've enjoyed my little bit of family history and will check out my listings on Esty.com and stop back soon.

I have a number of Magnolia Valentines to post and enter in challenges this week.

HAPPY NeW YeAr!

In celebration of the New Year I thought a look back at some of my favorite projects of the past would be fun. If you like what you see, please be sure to click on the left column to follow and visit me again in 2012!

Enveloboxes!

Forgive me mother for it has been many days since my last post! Christmas came and went and we are on the horizon of a NEW YEAR so I thought I post this fun tidbit as one of my last posts of the year. If you hurry over to Tracy's blog, she is giving a lucky winner 25 of these wonderful creations on January 2nd.

Wowza! You have to run check them out:

OWH Veterans Day Blog Hop and Hero Arts

The nice folks at Hero Arts are asking cardmakers to submit cards for OWH. As an incentive they are giving away an awesome prize of new stamps made in collaboration with OWH! If you'd like to join the fun check links in the post below or visitHero Arts blog or upload photos at Hero Arts Flickr Group by November 14th.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Operation Write Home! Whenever I feel like I need to energize my creative batteries I sit down and make a few cards for them. I feel like it's my little way of giving back to those who sacrifice so much for us. Thank you, veterans everywhere...especially my uncles, friends, and father who passed away in 1987. Bless you all!!

Here's my card...

Hero Arts Holiday Card Challenge

This fun was a simple card to make but looks so elegant! I'm looking forward to making more of these for this year's batch of special handmade Christmas cards.

Hero Arts challenged us to make a holiday card with a non-holiday stamp. I chose my Blossom Art set of clear stamps and used only the leaf to create this wonderful poinsettia flower. I stamped and heat embossed 7 petals in silver on white vellum and fussy cut. I found it easiest to glue the petals to a punched green Bazzill CS star with Glossy Accents. A punched hole made quick work of assembling the poinsettia with a yellow crystal brad center.

The background is layers of: recycled corrugated cardboard; cream cardstock which was stamped using MS sentiments in aqua & clear heat embossed, 2 faux crystals separate words; 4.125" green Bazzill cs; 4" Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden dp were pop-dotted for some fun dimension; and finished with a tie of aqua netting.

Be sure to check out the fun, upcoming Hero Arts Challenges and Hero Arts Flickr group.

Wowzers...Loads of Card Sketches!!

Looking around the internet today I came across Card Positioning Systems indirectly from OWH and am I tickled. If you're like me, you love sketches or recipes since they make cardmaking so much easier. Haven't tried one yet? Be sure to check this site out and have a look around checking sketches. There are lots to see!

For those of you who are unfamiliar, "sketches" are digital puzzles of a sort that give you a guide to follow when designing a card. Check this one out and you'll understand what I mean:



Each geometric shape represents an element ie. the narrow strip across the middle could be ribbon or lace, the top square a white block with a stamped image, and the 2 background pieces could be patterned paper to coordinate with your image or focal element. I'll toss a quick one together so you can see how it all works! Check back in the a.m. to see what I put together for OWH.

Stamper's Dream Blog Hop

I rarely suggest a bloghop or blog about one (other than OWH) but this one was so enjoyable I wanted to share it with my visitors. If you have a few minutes and want lots of terrific inspiration Stamper's Dream is sponsoring a hop and has some terrific candy to share. Check their blog to get started. I promise, the cards and projects you see are very inspiring!
Here's a peak at their candy:

You have until Thursday, June 16th to comment for a chance to win!

I'm A Cover Girl...Woohoo!!!

This cute little card is the cover shot currently at the Yahoo's "Magnolia Card Kit and Swap" group. Thanks to Melanie for adding her! If you want to learn more about the group and join us please be sure to hop on over HERE. If you love Tilda and company you'll want to join us soon!

This card dates to when I was first teaching myself to color with Copics so I won't even go into the color selections! The dock stamp is not a Magnolia stamp and was just quickly stamped on brown Bazzill cardstock. I added a couple simple fish cut from the Cricut Doodlecharms which I pop-dotted and added a bit of twine to make them look to be hanging. Tilda's toes are dipping in a bit of water I deco'd with diamond Stickles. The sun is an ancient Sizzix diecut I purchased on eBay.

That about does it for this post. I hope you'll stop over and join the fun with our little group on Yahoo!

OWH Father's Day Shirt Card

It is amazing the wonderful things one finds on Facebook and throughout the internet, specifically I mean Operation Write Home OWH. It is one of my favorite charities! A few days back up popped a cool card for Father's Day that I just had to try. The tutorial offered here is on the OWH website. The challenge was to make 5 and send them in to fill a shortage of Father's Day cards destined for our troops in the Middle East. I was surprised when I ended up with 18! They were so much fun and afterall each 12x12 sheet of old "ugly tie" scrapbook paper yeilds 9 ties. And after you get the hang of the origami tie they move quickly. That means 19 cards made in 2 days...woohoo...it had been a dry spell so its fun to do something worthwhile again and before I knew it I had a nice size stack of them...

If you're looking for a way to use up old paper, this is a most worthy use. I love the blue pinstripe shirt and can see someone's dad wearing that crazy tie!

My new Whimsy Mini Everyday Postage stamp makes a perfect sentiment for a dad card for anytime during the year.

Tilda Valentine...

Can you tell I'm loving this new Tilda stamp? It's so versatile...I just love it! So today's card is a Valentine destined for one of the precious little gals I love.


This was one of the first times testing out my Zutter Distrezz-It my kids gave me for Christmas. It sure beats those handheld numbers but takes some getting used to. I went hog-wild with the distressing using some packaging from Christmas packaging as a base on top of the kraft cardstock. Coupled with lots of yummy ribbon & cluny lace from May Arts, this was a fun Valentine card to create. The DP is by Making Memories from the the Je T'adore collection. The cute hugs coupon stamp is one of those $1 clearstamps from the craft store. I added tiny punched hearts and faux crystals for fun.
I'm currently on the road and don't have my Copics with me so I can't list them but can tell you the flesh is the same as below in "Mellow Yellow". Brunette hair - E000, E50, E33, E99. Pinafore - O, C1. Dress - R??? (will update soon.)
I'm entering this in the following challenges:
All That Scraps - Queen of Hearts (ends 2/13)
Totally Tilda's Challenge - #15 Lots of Hearts
Challenge #14 7 Kids Kollege Fund - I{heart}U
Simon Says - Love Is In The Air
May Arts for the Love of Ribbon Challenge

My Mellow Maggie!!

Fellow Maggie enthusiast and cardmaker extroidanaire, Cabio, selected this photo for inspiration on the Magnolia-Licious Challenge blog.

There is something very soothing about this buttery palette and I just had to give it a try. Also new to me on this card is black hair. My Copic collection is meager in the yellow dept. but it it worked somehow. Mellow tones of yellow are rare ones for me but I think it turned out okay and I'll definitely try them again.

I followed the ingredients on the Magnolia-Licious HiLites blog as well where the recipe is 4 flowers, 3 DP, 1 ribbon, and 2 Magnolia images. My second image is the Tilda sunflower stamp.

Rosalie so kindly wrote and asked me for the Copic colors I used. I will try to post them more often in the future! Here goes:
Flesh - E0000, E00, E33, E50, R00, R11, R20,
Dress - Y00, YR21, E000, E50, C1, E99, E25 (see only 2 yellows used)
Socks - E50, E000, Y00, YR21
Shoes - E50, E33, E25, E99
Hair - C1, C3, C5, N7
I used my colorless blender on the hair, shoes/socks, & dress ruffles. Since I am still building my Copic collection I have to improvise but it seemed to work on this!

Challenges I'm entering:
Magnolia-Licious Challenge Blog
Magnolia-Licious HiLites

This card was a lot of fun but DH thinks it's too busy!

OWH Principals of Design FREE Online Seminar

The instructor for this series of free seminars sponsored by OWH, holds a B.F.A. from Parson's School of Design, New York. She has 25 years design experience and works as a Sr. Graphic Designer for a small Connecticut printer. Her freelance work includes public service campaigns for a wide variety of national organizations including the American Heart Association, NFL and National Parks Foundation. Check out what Paula has to share and participate please!!

The series begins today, January 29th but is totally self-guided so you can start at anytime. I'll add photos of my attempt to this posting on Sunday. Please check back to see more and go check out OWH if you're not familiar. This is a wonderful, worthy organization all cardmakers can love!

Naughty or Nice???

I'm sick today so am reaching back to a favorite card of this season that I haven't posted on the blog. I titled this card the Naughty Larakins because this pair of tiny faeries are scampering inside my tree and broke an ornament! Really, I'd love to have a live pair of these scampering inside the tree but I'm afraid my pair of hounds would make short work of them.

The Larakins were made from an Emerald Fairies digital stamp available exclusively at Debs Creations. Do yourself a favor and check them out. This great store is in Australia but you needn't worry if you buy digital stamps however, they do ship stamps worldwide.

I love using black & white gingham ribbon in unexpected places and it looks especially good along with distressing. I made the green ornament from vintage glittery paper by DCWV...I hope you can tell that's what it is supposed to be as the bow slightly obscures it. The cool Christmas paper is by Making Memories. I had to make it my favorite easel card so it can be propped on a table and enjoyed!

This is definitely one of my favorite cards this Christmas...so much so that I just couldn't send it to anyone so I'm keeping it to decorate my studio!

I found a couple super sweet and easy Christmas projects over at the May Arts ribbon blog. Check out the gingerbead man and Christmas tree tutorials here.

7 Kids Challenge - Winter Scene

I adore this KK Charlote stamp and had to find a way to give my card a holiday feel so I turned it into a little "altered art" dazzler from a stamp that wasn't meant for Christmas. I added Charlotte's gloves, boots, & earmuffs so she could run out to catch snowflakes without her coat and oops...a snowflake landed on her nose! Those earmuffs are a pair of tiny lt. blue pompoms and a strip of white cardstock!
I added lots of Stickles and Glossy Effects to give a wintry feel to my card. There are numerous MS snowflakes with faux aurora borealis crystals as centers. The small MS snowflake is very fragile so I coated it with Glossy Accents to help it stay together. The card stock is a juxtaposition of glittery and distressed treatments. The image was first colored with Copics then, for fun I coated Charlotte's dress and hair with irridescent Lumiere paint and lots of Stickles. The naughty little one looks very cold with so much snow and her pile of icy snowballs. I iced up the Magnolia snowballs with Stickles and a coat of icy Glossy Accents. I just love the palette of muted aqua, pink, ivory & silver.

I'm entering this in 7 Kids Winter Scene challenge.

Magnolia Lovers SPARKLE Challenge

This challenge was a lot of fun and added to my growing stack of Christmas cards for my faraway family this year. For as much as I LOVE making cards...I am the world's worst at sending cards but this year I am promising myself I MUST make it a holiday priority!
This card was inspired by a sheet of wonderful snowflake DP by Anna Griffin which I sewed to layers of coordinating Bling by Bazzill. Leftover scraps of assorted sparkly and coordinating paper were punch with a MS punch and Stickles added with a sparkly irredescent bow to top things off. The faux crystal & pearls finished the look I was going for on this one-of-a-kind creation.
My vintage Tilda sprite image was stamped on Neenah Solar White cardstock and colored with Copic markers in a subdued pallette to coordinate with the card and glazed the leafy skirt with touches of Stickles for a little more bling. I hope it fills the bill for "SPARKLE" at the Magnolia Lovers Challenge blog!