more goodies!

birthday ones, that is! dontcha just looooooove it when your birthday lasts more than a day?! i do, that's for sure!

here's a gorgeous card from kristie, with basic grey butterflies & layered felt flowers & my favorite shade of bright pink. i LOVE it, can you tell?! thanks, kristie!!!



this one is from leslie (my sister in word verification hijinks!) i'm waaaaaaay diggin' the adorable owl...not to mention the hilarious sentiment...and do you see that cool branch of leaves? they are texturey AND dimensional! seriously fabulous, leslie, i smile every time i look at it!

and then there's miss stephanie, who just always KNOWS what i want...quite often before i do! she not only chose some AWESOME sentiment stamps for me... (which i *totally* need...i never buy enough, a fact i usually notice when i go to send the card i made 2 weeks ago and suddenly discover it has nothing INSIDE it!!!) ...she also shared her coveted curly girl stuff with me...AND packed it all up in one of the awwwwwwesome stamped-window gift bags she made for our last caardvarks challenge!

can a birthday girl get ANY LUCKIER??! noooooooooooooo siree, i don't think so! many many thanks to all of my lovely friends, i am pretty sure i had the BEST BIRTHDAY EVER!!!!! :)

shortcuts: ♥4U♥

this *might* be my favorite card from this challenge. at least, this one comes the closest to looking like the picture in my head whilst i was making it. i don't know why it always seems so VERY exciting to me when that happens, but it does! i also managed to photo it rather well, without needing 9,000,000 retakes. believe me when i say to you that with clear/shiny cards, this factor alone would be sufficient to make me love it!!!

(clear full sheet from shortcuts; patterned paper: scenic route, reminisce, basic grey; chipboard arrow & numeral: basic grey; gelly letter: chatterbox; epoxies: love elsie, sue dreamer, autumn leaves, sei, michaels $ spot; rub-ons: american crafts (inside); inks: colorbox;)

simple enough idea: frame a sentiment with a load of cute epoxy stickers...big ones, small one, different colors and patterns. i've done variations of this more than once, and it always looks good. it's bright it's colorful, it says "GUY CARD" all over. putting it on the clear card base is--IMO--even better, though!

here's the back:

completely unintentionally and unexpectedly the backs of the little epoxy stickers have made a sort of scalloppy frame around the cardstock! sweeeeeeeeeeet!

here's the inside:

i've used one of shortcuts awesome gift card holder folders, which are absolutely brilliant and i can see them becoming one of my "necessities" that i keep on hand at all times. in this case, since i was mounting the holder to a clear card, i decided i needed pattern on both sides, so i traced the "real" holder onto a sheet of heavy stock-weight scenic route patterned paper and cut it out. a few little birthday rub-ons later, the inside was DONE. gotta love a product that makes your life so easy, right?!

shortcuts: your smile

here's a card with which i'm not 100% happy, but i think in the future when we look back and ask, "where did lauren's obsession with combining rub-ons and stitching on acetate begin?" this will be considered "CARD ZERO". because i can see the vast and wonderful possibilities in this realm, my friends, and i've hardly scratched the surface.

(shortcuts frosted full sheet; colorbok chipboard frame & flower (thanks, june!!!); patterned paper & small florals: prima; rub-ons: my mind's eye; velvet flower & small stick-on gems: k&co; fancy brad: paper studio; plain mini-brad: queen & co; stick-on pearls: kaiser)

i made the card out of an 8.5 x 11" frosted sheet from shortcuts* and hand cut the central window with scissors after tracing the cute chipboard frame's opening. i attached a piece of clear acetate (from a potential card which went awry) to the back of the chipboard frame with tombow's "power bond" mono-adhesive runner and embellished it with rub-ons before gluing the completed window to the card.

i drew some simple flourish shapes on a piece of scrap paper, and when i had a design i liked, i used it as a pattern to punch holes in the frosted sheet with a paper piercer. in order to avoid "carrying" thread across the swirly design (or having to end off repeatedly) i used the holbein stitch, which also has the virtue of looking almost exactly the same from the front or the back. (in this case, you can *see* the stitching on the inside of the card, so appearance was a factor.) after running the end of the thread back through my work to secure it, i tacked the end neatly with a tiny drop of diamond glaze.

i can see this technique easily and quickly becoming a mini-obsession of mine...so i apologize in advance for its overuse! don't say you weren't warned, ok?! :)

*i cut the card down to the 5 x 6" size you see here after i had completed all the stitching. i realize this seems wasteful, but having found with the "home sweet" card how much the plastic wants to bend during stitching, i recommend starting large for increased stability whilst you work!

shortcuts: home sweet home

i apologize...once again...for my lack of photography skills. this card looks *WAY* better in real life, you are just going to have to trust me on that, despite the entire lack of evidence before you.

i've used a shortcuts clear card blank to make my A2-sized card. i love the fact that the sheerness allows you to split your design between the exterior and the interior of a card! thus, i've put the sky on the inside and the house on the outside of this "new home" card for my sister and her family. when the card is closed it's an integrated design, that looks cool...but also, from a practical standpoint...having part of my inner panel covered with paper gives me a place to write my greeting!

(shortcuts clear card blank; patterned paper: american crafts, love elsie, prima; chipboard heart: heidi swapp; rub-on: my mind's eye; embroidery floss: dmc; pen: zig; ink: colorbox; adhesive: tombow monoadhesive runner)

the stitching around the inside panel is faux, but the outside has the real deal. i used a paper piercer to make regular holes along the sides of my little paper house and hand stitched with embroidery floss for a "homey" touch. since i didn't want to place a panel inside the card and obscure my lovely "floating" design, i knew the reverse side of my embroidery would be visible and thus i took a bit of extra care to ensure the very simple backstitch looks almost as neat inside as it does on the exterior. for a more complicated design, the holbein stitch is ideal, since there is no need to "turn corners" or cross over. at the end i worked my thread neatly through the stitches and secured it with a teeny drop of diamond glaze applied with a toothpick.

shortcuts to clearly great cards!

are you ready for a new CAARDVARKS challenge?! because i am...and luckily it's a really EXCELLENT one with a great sponsor:

and a FABULOUS sketch for you to use:

it doesn't get much better than that, right? oh wait a minute...it DOES get much better than that, actually, because we have an extra-special expanded design team gallery for you! yep, the folks at ShortCuts sent us some of their awesome frosted and clear acetate full sheets, card blanks and gift card holder folders...so of course we went crazy with awesome ideas to use those babies!!! but first, wanna see my sketch cards? yeah...i said cards, plural: it's such a good sketch, i couldn't just make one!

for my main card i went a bit crazy with clear layers: there are transparent & frosted sheets from ShortCuts, a printed transparency, some frosty patterned vellum, a ghost clock, and a butterfly i stamped and embossed on a scrap of a ShortCuts frosted sheet! (the frosted product embosses nicely, although it tends to buckle a bit--which actually worked to my advantage with the butterfly. it gets QUITE hot, as well; you might like to use tweezers while embossing!)

(clear and frosted acetate sheets by shortcuts; seriously eldery patterned transparency of unknown origin; anahata katkin clip art image; close to my heart patterned vellum; hero arts butterfly stamp; heidi swapp ghost clock; prima gem flourish; making memories brad;ribbon from michaels; adhesives: tombow monoadhesive runner, uhu gluestick)

here's my second card. it has less layers, but i was starting to get into the idea of really USING the clear cardbase to my advantage by putting some of the sketch elements on the inside and others on the outside. again i enjoyed playing with things that show off the "transparent" aspects of the product: i've got some lace cardstock, a small printed transparency frame, some rub ons, and ribbon that wraps around to be an inside AND an outside element at the same time!

(clear and frosted acetate sheets by shortcuts; hambly transparency frame; ki lace cardstock; close to my heart patterned paper; heidi swapp ghost stars; making memories star brads; mambi gem star; rub-ons: cherry arte, dcwv, mambi & basic grey; ribbon from michaels & some vintage silver metallic ribbon; adhesives: tombow monoadhesive runner, uhu gluestick, 3m foam tape)

tune in tomorrow for another one of my gallery cards! in the meantime be sure to check out the CAARDVARKS and SHEETLOAD blogs, and start planning your sketch card for a shot at the lovely prize!!!

mr. fix-it...fixes (a very fancy) dinner

those of you who've been around the old blogstead a while will be aware that lovely husband jeff's loveliness includes the ability (& willingness) to repair a bewildering variety of items, an affinity for tools, the happy knack of translating written instructions into lauren-friendly language, and a completely puzzling (to me) enjoyment of of cooking.* in fact, 90% of our meals are "LHJ productions" with a further 7% being takeaway, and 2.5% consisting of foraging in the fridge for haphazard edibles. very occasionally (.05%) *I* am called to microwave something. i am fairly sure even the microwave dreads this. :)

the other night LHJ decided to assay a recipe from one of the touristy mags we acquired whilst in myrtle beach. (apparently, to cooks, new recipes are like new art supplies to the crafty: alive with possibilities and excitement. go figure.) now, we eat well, in these parts, there is no denying it, but we're not what you call *fussy* folk. high-falutin' presentations are generally eschewed. so i'd never expect to see something which looks, like...say...this, to show up in front of me on a random monday night:

centerfold, coastal carolina dining summer 2009: "the shrimp issue"

...of course...i could be WRONG...

not to foment jealousy or unrest of any kind, but it actually *TASTED* even better than it looks. sorry, darlings. try to content yourself with the fact that i will never be a size eight again, ok??! :)

*at times like these, my single friends are apt to ask, "does he have a brother??" in fact he does, but said sibling is not single...and perhaps more significantly...not anything like LHJ. best to keep looking.

did i mention the cake??

wegmans' ultimate chocolate cake, that is. we had a (small one) yesterday. it was here when i got home from work. i'm not sure why.

also puzzling, when i woke up yesterday morning, i found this:

i'm thinking the two may have been connected.

but what does it MEAN??

the lovely june made me a gorgeous card...

...and sent *GOODIES* i cannot wait to play with!!!!!!

my friend barb found a gorgeous vintage leatherbound edition of dante gabriel rossetti's collected poems at a flea market:

(my friend cheryl, on the other hand, found "pride & prejudice & zombies" at borders. what does it say about me that i love both, pretty much equally??!)

there were also a lot of cards and phone calls and emails, and a few more presents, (including divine origins' GINGER goodies!) then, for dinner, there were baby lambchops in a bordelaise sauce with rosemary potatoes and steamed asparagus. (my favorite!!!)

apparently, a whole lotta people are under the impression that i was

BORN YESTERDAY!!!

did i mention the cake??

(a smart--& perhaps less greedy--girl would've snapped a photo whilst it was INTACT. i am not that girl.)

♥♥♥ thank you thank you thank you to everyone involved in what may well have been the best birthday ever!!!!! ♥♥♥