Discbound Notebook with the WRMK Mini Disc Cinch

I recently purchased the We R Memory Keepers Mini Disc Cinch. After playing around with it making a couple of prototypes, I made this disc bound notebook for a friend. I had seen others make DIY planners using Dollar Tree gift bags as covers, so I tried the same thing.

This is a gift set of goodies including the notebook, a bridge card, and a matchbook notepad. I also made tab dividers for the notebook with my WRMK envelope punch board and some coffee cup shaped paper clips.

You can watch my video walkthrough of this project and some thoughts on the Disc Cinch on my YouTube channel. Just click the picture!

Shadowbox 50th Birthday Card

One of our friends turned 50 this month, so I wanted to make him a special card. This is a true milestone for him and needed to be celebrated! I used the same template I made for my mother-in-law's birthday card (here: alcohol inked shadowbox birthday card). For that card, I inked up the whole sky with an alcohol ink technique.

For this one, I did regular ink blending with blending brushes.

 

Everything on this card started out as white cardstock. I used a grass mask by Lawn Fawn to make the grass line in the back. I used my homemade cloud stencil for the sky. The grass in the middle layer is a long grass die cut that I ink blended and the front layer is a short grass die cut that I also ink blended. 

 

Then I stamped the critters and coloured them with my alcohol ink markers and cut them out by hand. I dug into my stash to make this card! There's a whole medley of stamp sets! (It actually took quite a long time to make this card.) All the critters are from a Hello Bluebird stamp set. I found two gift stamps: a solid one and one I had to colour in. I used a Your Next Stamp balloon cluster image and I found a single balloon in another stamp set. I forget what stamp set the party hats are from, but boy they were REALLY TINY to colour in!

 

I knew I wanted a large 50 to be floating in the middle. I used acetate for that. Since cleaning my craft room, I put all my "leftover" bits (e.g. die cut but not used, stamped but not used, etc.) in what I'm calling my "bits box". So I dug in there and found the cupcake. I coloured that up and put it in!

I put a pocket on the back and wrote out a little poem for a sentiment on a separate sheet that I slipped into the pocket. I like how it turned out and our friend liked it too! I think it turned out fine for guys or gals, so I'm very happy with it!

Handmade Holiday Cards Received for 2021

 I thought I would show off the handmade cards I received for Christmas 2021 as my last post in the year. I love getting cards from my Creative Crew. I get to see their learning in action!

The first to arrive was Debbie's card. It's super glittery with a patterned glitter paper as the background. I cut tiny cardinals for Debbie. She just loves them. So, she made me a cardinal card!

The sentiment was left from the last card class we had together. The cardinal has glitter accents and the poinsettia is made from foiled paper. On the inside, she stamped an evergreen, put a golden start sequin at the top and put one of the tiny die cut cardinals inside.

The next card was from Norma. I seem to have a weakness for snowflakes so she made me a card full of them! Plus they have glitter accented ones in the paper too. Teal (leaning to blue) is my favourite colour, so this card speaks to me (and has only nice things to say)!

I got a lovely snowman card from Claire. Our last card class was an easel card class. So, she made a easel card to showcase what she learned! She stamped a happy snow-family and coloured it with alcohol markers.

You can see how the easel card stands in this image:

She put a die-cut greeting on the inside and her heartfelt message on the back of the card. I have the same die-cut greeting. I just love die-cut greetings. I think they stand out so well. You can also see in the second image how Claire added just a touch of sparkle to the snow with a glitter pen. All the falling snow is coloured in and there's some on the ground too.

The last handmade card I got was from Maria. Maria lives farther away so she doesn't get to come to the crafty classes, but she attends some near her with a local Stampin' Up! demonstrator. The colours are just gorgeous. It looks like she die cut some evergreens from some ink-smooshed papers. 

She arranged them on an embossed panel of trees. You can see the embossing better in the second photo. Her sentiment has been placed behind some vellum for a soft look and popped up on foam tape for dimension.

It's a very soft and serene card - also clean and simple looking, which is totally up my alley!

I am happy to have so many creative people around me. How about you? Did you get any handmade goodness this holiday?

Husky Christmas Card

 Our doggy had a big budget this year! I made a card for my husband to go with the gift our doggy bought him. The gift had to do with walking together in the winter, so I made a nice little winter scene.

Now, I don't ink blend often, but I do admire it! So, I decided to try it out. I bought this Clearly Besotted Holiday Huskies stamp set last year but didn't end up using it. I based my card off of a sample in another Clearly Besotted stamp set called Prancing Plushies. (Click the link to see their samples. Their plushie sets are adorable!)

I started out by cutting my tree masks. I used Avery Repositionable Labels from Staples (Business Depot). I bought a pack of it as 8.5 x 11 full sheets. This stuff is great! I used birch tree dies from Joy Crafts and a stitched hill from Creative Expressions.

Then I used mint tape from Scrapbook.com to mask a half-inch border on my card front. (Mint tape is like Post-It tape.) I used my glass mat grid lines and a ruler to help me get it straight. When the masking was done, it looked like this:

I used 3 colours of Distress Oxides to blend the sky (Salty Ocean, Blueprint Sketch, Chipped Sapphire). I bought these three colours years ago specifically for sky blending. This might be the 3rd time I've used them. (As I said, I'm not big on blending!) I used my make-up brush tool to blend. It look a long time to get a solid blend. In retrospect, I wish I had tried a foam dauber. It would put down ink faster, I think.

Here's what it looked like when the blending was done:

And then.... the big reveal!

From the Holiday Huskies stamp set, I chose two images and coloured them with my Copic Markers.

I had to colour the husky to look like our dog, Shadow! I cut out the images with scissors and then added a sentiment from the same stamp set to finish off the card.

Hubby liked it!

Do you make cards from your pets?