April Cookies - Take 2

As soon as I saw the Inspiration Photo for Challenge #115 over at If You Give a Crafter a Cookie , I immediately thought of the rabbit-shaped gift cards I recently saw at Starbucks. I love it when an idea pops into my head like that !!

I knew I wanted to create a scene for this card and these cute flowers and the sun from Unity Stamp Company's Susan K Weckesser's Create Your Day stamp set were absolutely perfect !! I had a gorgeous Spring day to take a picture of my card and I hope that you like it .

• On a pale blue card base, I placed a piece of blue striped paper from the  fun 6x6 paper pad by My Mind's Eye " Well, Hello "  .
• I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink to stamp the 3 flowers and the sun .
• The sun was paper-pieced with a yellow-checked pattern also from the Well,Hello paper pad.
• The flowers were colored with my Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens.
• A piece of blue/green patterned washi from Scotch was placed along the bottom of the blue-striped paper.
• The rabbit was adhered in the lower Left corner with double-sided removable tape so the recipient can use the gift card !!
• The Hello and bee are puffy stickers from Jen Hadfield for American Crafts.
• I placed a blue,pink and gold sequin on the card for a bit of shimmer.

Hop on over to the IF YOU GIVE A CRAFTER A COOKIE  blog to see the rest of the Design Team's projects. We hope you will be inspired to link up one of your own. This challenge runs from April 18 - May 1. Thank you all so much for stopping by my own little corner of the crafting world - Meticulosity. I greatly appreciate it and also the comments you make.

Debra Davison

Create - GIU Day 3

I love making tags. I love embossing paste and glitter. And I absolutely LOVE Susan K Weckesser and her stamp sets for Unity. So I combined all of those and came up with a project that showcases all of these.  Remember to comment on all of my posts this week for a chance to win a grab bag of 25 Unity stamps. There will be 2 winners chosen at random. This tag will hang in my craft studio and remind me that I am in there to CREATE - it feeds my spirit, tends to my soul and makes me happy. When I take care of ME, I am better able to take care of others !!

• I started with a Prima tag and applied Faber-Castell Whipped Spackle over a Tim Holtz Doily Layering Stencil down the Left side of the tag. I then sprinkled "Pralines and Cream" Fairy Dust Glitter over the spackle
• The house from Heart-Full Homes was stamped with Colorbox Color Pop Archival Dye ink by Susan K Weckesser - the color is Mystery. I stamped it on a scrap of paper with a word-patterned background, then fussy cut it . I also like to stamp on book pages. 
• The house was colored  with a combination of Distress Markers and Faber-Castell PITT Artist pens. I also adhered a glitter heart to the roof. 
• On a scrap of Live in Color paper  also by Susan K Weckesser, I stamped the word CREATE from the Painted Sentiments stamp set . The ink color was  Kiss. I placed a strip of double-sided tape on the bottom of the paper and sprinkled it with Tumbled Glass Distress Glitter .
• The fun in making these scenes with the houses is that you can use all of your scraps, favorite washi, punches and anything else on hand . I placed a piece of grass washi across the tag bottom, then built a flower with another piece of green washi, a paper-punched circle and a colored glass center . Several paper-punched clouds were placed above the house on the tag.
• I adhered the CREATE image and all of the other elements to the tag, using a combination of Tombow Adhesives - Xtreme Adhesive  Runner and MONO Aqua Liquid .
• Scraps of several favorite ribbons were tied at the top of the tag to add some more color.

I will see you again tomorrow for my 4th project this week as a GIU girl. It's been fun inking up old favorite Unity stamps, as well as some new favorites, like the Planner Gals. I hope you will sign up to follow my blog and continue with me on my creative journey.  Looking forward to sharing a few more posts with you !!

Debra Davison / Meticulosity

Heart-Full Homes

I have had SO much fun creating these postcards for an amazing group that I have joined recently - The Global Postcard Art Swap / heART Exchange  .  The cute little houses are in a stamp set designed by Susan K Weckesser -  Heart-Full Homes. These houses are so fun to create with. I have stamped them on patterned paper for this swap and then colored in different elements of each image. They were then cut out and adhered to the postcards with my favorite adhesive - Tombow MONO Aqua Liquid Glue.

I used Strathmore Watercolor paper / 400 series from a 6 x 12'' pad. I can get 3 postcards from each sheet and there are 12 sheets in a pad. I buy them when I have coupons to my local craft stores and can get them for under $5. The watercolors are from a $5 set I purchased at Michaels. I made vertical stripes on each card in several colors and widths using different sized brushes and amounts of water. The theme of this swap was PEACE so I also used a Peace, Love, Joy stamp by Paper Source and a Peace On Earth stamp from Wordsworth / Ampersand Press. The clouds were punched out with a paper-punch from the same paper that was used on the houses. Grass washi by Scotch was a fun addition to the bottom edge of the card.

Postcard stamp by Amy Tangerine / American Crafts

The Global Postcard Art Swap is a group that "creates art from the heart in the form of a postcard to send and receive around the world". You can check out the Facebook Group or go to this link and sign up to be a part of the swaps that occur several times each year.The connections that are made through these swaps/groups are priceless !! At this time of Thanksgiving, I am so very grateful for all of the wonderful people that I have in my life. And it is through the joy of letter-writing /snail mail, that I have made some of my strongest friendships.

 

Postcards that I have received

Having fun with the Rhonna Designs App on my phone

I added some Susan K Weckesser images to my postcard photo.

Susan K Weckesser's "Heart-Full Homes" stamp set

Wishing you and yours an amazing Thanksgiving..

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity !!

Very, Very, Merry Banner

I'm seeing Christmas everywhere I go and Halloween hasn't even gotten here yet ! Carols being played in stores, Red & Green everywhere in the craft aisles, holiday flyers in the mail.. And I guess it rubbed off on me because I got out my favorite holiday Susan K. Weckesser stamp sets and created this banner. I started out by thinking I would be making tags, then figured I could use them for cards and finally when I had them all finished ---- I decided they would make a fun banner !! I have it hanging on the shelf in my studio but for Christmas, I will probably hang it across the mirror in my foyer.

I had several graph-patterned journal cards that I cut in half to use for the bases. The stamp sets I used are Very,Very Merry , World of Christmas and Journal Doodles With a Heart. All images were stamped using the fabulous Clearsnap Colorbox Color Pop Mini ink pads by Susan K Weckesser. The colors I used were Kiss, Ice, Mystery and Shimmer. This is a great project for using those bits and pieces of twine, rhinestones, washi and other embellishments that you either have been hoarding or that you have left over from other projects. I used some candy dots from American Crafts and pink glitter dots from Queen & Co. that I just absolutely adore. And who doesn't have some of those little clothespins around your craft space. They were perfect for this banner !! I colored the images with my Stabilo pens and my glittery Kaisercraft Gel Pens.

 washi, twine, rhinestones, banners, candy dots

 hemp cord, glitter pens, washi

 washi, glitter dots, banners

This was a fun project to put together !! I liked looking through all of my bits and pieces and choosing different embellishments for each one.. I am not a fan of making the same card, banner, item over and over again.. I like every card to be just a bit different. 

 Journal Doodles With a Heart

World of Christmas

Very, Very Merry

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity !!

I { HEART } Books ( and bookmarks )

Yes, that is exactly what it says -- I { HEART } Books !!  Apart from my absolute love of card-making, I am also quite fond of books. From the time I was a child and would walk to the library with my dad, I have had a fascination with books. Growing up in a very small town, we knew everyone, and the town librarian was a friend of our family. After I had read all of the children's books in the library, my father wrote out a permission slip for me to be able to take out any book that I wanted. Miss Faust kept it in my file so I never had a problem. I remember going through the card catalog alphabetically and just finding topics of interest, then taking many books home on that 1 subject. That was in the days before computers when we relied on the Dewey Decimal system  ( now I am really showing my age ).. More info on that at the end of my post of you are interested.

So where am I going with this, you might ask ?? Well, with a love of books comes a love of bookmarks. I have used the occasional slip of paper to mark a page  ( have never been one to dog-ear a book !! ). In the past, I have even cross-stitched bookmarks for myself and as gifts. But lately I have been seeing these cute ones made from envelopes and just had to give it a try.

Any book-lover MUST get this amazing book that is an alphabetized reading list that I refer to often. Nancy Pearl is an American librarian and author who shares her love and knowledge of books with all of us. And isn't my cute owl just perfect in that corner !!

I used the Going Wild stamp set by Susan K Weckesser co-branded with Unity Stamp Company. After stamping the images with Susan K Weckesser's  Clearsnap Colorbox Color POP Dye ink in Mystery , I colored them with a variety of markers ( Distress, Stabilo and Stampin' Up ). I fussy-cut them and applied Ranger Glossy Accents ( if you don't own this, you need to run right out with a coupon and buy some ).. On the owl, I applied the Glossy Accents to the glasses. There are also a few strips of feather washi on the back of this bookmark.

The fox image also came from the Going Wild stamp set. I added a strip of grass washi to the bottom of this bookmark, then gave this cute little fox a cup of coffee cut from a fabulous roll of Paper Studio washi. A few cups were also placed on the back of this bookmark along with a favorite stamp of mine from Paper Angel. Glossy Accents were applied to the ears, paws and polka-dots on the bow tie. The fox and owl were adhered using my TOMBOW Mono Aqua Liquid Glue -- my bookmarks get lots of wear and tear and TOMBOW is my go-to adhesive !!

For those of you as OCD as I am, and who could not just cut a corner off of an envelope to make these bookmarks -- this is how I made mine. I used a 5 x 7 Kraft envelope because the Kraft paper is sturdier. On the bottom corners of the envelope, on each side I measured 3 inches in, made a dot with a pencil, then drew a straight line connecting the 2 dots. I then cut across the line and erased any pencil marks that remained. Use your imagination to create any kind of bookmark that you want !!

I hope that you enjoyed hearing about my other LOVE- Books !! I love all kinds of books and finally did get a nook which now has about 1000 books and samples on it. I still love the feel of a "real" book in my hands but also love the ability to have so many choices with me at one time.

My current reading list includes :
1. The Fireman - Stephen King
2. The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend - Katarina Bivald
3. Packing for Mars - Mary Roach
4. Collage Playground - Kimberly Santiago
5. The Woman in Cabin 10 - Ruth Ware

And who says you can't use a bookmark with an e-reader ?!?!?!?!

And for those of you who have never seen how I used to find my way around a library, here are a few pics. Now I wish I had a card catalog like that for my craft supplies !!

 Dewey Decimal System

Thank you for visiting Meticulosity !!

Home Sweet Home

Today is my first "official" post with the Susan K. Weckesser Creative Team and we are celebrating  Home Sweet Home. My first idea was to make a card but I wanted to try something different.  On a larger scale. I had a chalkboard vinyl bulletin board that I have not used yet, so what better time than now as I plan on keeping track of my new responsibilities. Susan's new team already feels like family - another Home Sweet Home for me. 

On the board,which is on the closet door of my creative space, I have our upcoming blog themes along with a calendar with my dates marked. Susan has so many great house stamps for me to work with -- I chose 4 of my favorites .

I started out by using many of my paper scraps and stamping the houses on different papers so that I could paper-piece some of them. The yellow floral and  green scribbly roofs are made with some scraps of adhesive-backed fabric. I used Susan's line of Colorbox Color Pop Archival Dye Ink in Mystery to stamp all of the images. 

I punched out circles of Susan's Color Burst paper and placed Doubleclick Skittles in their centers for added dimension. A few other creative touches are a sequin for a doorknob and white polka-dots on the roof scallops using my favorite Uni-Ball Signo Angelic White Gel pen

For more details on a watercolor technique I used and other creative touches, please check out a more detailed description of all supplies used ( and more pictures )  on our blog -  My Sweet Earth . I'd love for you to leave a comment there on my post and continue to follow us. Thank you for being a part of my creative journey-- I feel so at home with this fabulous team !!

Stamps Used :

Painted Sentiments

The Happy Homestead

Le Mason

Little Haven

Heart-Full Homes

Debra Davison

Susan K Weckesser Creative Team