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.

A Fun, Funny Cupcake Tutorial

I found this a while back and LOVE this zany gal and her family.  Check it out,  Someday, I'm going to make one of these yummy paper cupcakes!

LOTV Blog Candy

Woohoo...this is blogging worthy! LOTV is giving away 12, yes twelve, images in their candy that ends tomorrow.  So...hurry over NOW and enter your name.  I did!

New Year's resolution:  get some LOTV this year!!

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:

A Winterthur Christmas

Joy of joys!!!! There is no place like Winterthur for stepping back in time at Christmas. Last week, my pal Bonnie and I did just that...we had a fun morning touring this wonderful mansion which was home to the Henry Francis duPont family. The mansion and grounds are located in Greenville, Delaware which is truly the most beautiful place one would have ever been blessed enough to call home. I certainly did my share of dreaming that morning when Bonnie & I toured the mansion that had been decked in Christmas finery, we toured with just two other visitors. It was a real treat to have such a small intimate group with our knowledgeable docent, Ginny.

Here is the first thing I saw that caught my paper-crafting eye...

©Bonnie L. Campbell photos, Images in Time

Layers of creamy white paper cones, embellished with pearl dots along the edges make beautiful Christmas trees!

Here is the family's living room...ahhhh, and note the hand-painted Chinese wallpaper. Mr. duPont bull-nosed the ceiling edges to accommodate the wallpaper which arrived a little too long to fit the walls. It is an amazing result! Thank goodness for benefactors like this who have preserved our history. This place is worth a vacation to this area alone but write me if you do and I'll share more jewels you'll want to see when you come.

©Bonnie L. Campbell photos, Images in Time

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Tim's 12 Tags of Christmas

I happened across Tim Holtz wonderful blog of Christmas tags this morning and wanted to share a link so everyone can visit and marvel at his talent! Check out the blog by clicking HERE.

Here's a peek at my favorite tag by Tim...


Be sure to check out the video and complete tutorial on the blog too! I love all the "layers" of technique but am especially drawn to the crackling on the snowman. You'll love it!!

Sepia Tone Copic Tutorial

I happened across a most worthwhile post by a fellow Maggie lover and blogger, Penni. She has a wonderful video tutorial for coloring sepia tones with Copic markers that's worth a gander. Check out her video at http://lazycatscards.blogspot.com/2011/11/card-and-video.html or by clicking her name above. Then, send me a photo of your sepia-tone Maggie and I'll post it on my blog.
Keep eyes posted here to see my version soon...not sure I have all the E-Copics needed for her method but we'll see what I can do.

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...

OWH Veterans Day Blog Hop 11-11-11

OWH is having a blog hop in honor of our veterans. Be sure to check it out this Friday! The hop features 11 of the biggies in papercrafting: Ranger, Prima, Basic Grey, Tombow, Tonic, Studio Calico, Hero Arts, Copic, Sizzix, SRM Stickers and May Arts. Sounds like lots of fun so go ahead and hop on over to the Stars and Stamps blog to begin.

Check out the fun and prizes!