Felicity's Fabulous Cards

My friend, Heather, has the most creative sister.  She lives in another city but is always sending Heather incredible cards.  What a GREAT sister! I just love her layouts and color choices.

Here are a few:

This one uses dies from My Favorite Things.  The Hen House will be carrying these dies in the near future.  I can't wait!

The card above she made to match the Starbucks gift card below.  How cute is that!  And again she used some dies from My Favorite Things.

Another card using the MFT dies.  Can you see the hand stitching on the kite panels?  Amazing!

Last but not least, this super cute snail card.  She hand stitched the circle.  I can't wait to be able to craft with Felicity one day!

Hen House Swap Club

The Hen House Swap Club was a full house this month.  We actually had more swappers than we planned for but being the crafty chick that I am and being that crafty ladies are some of the nicest people around...we were able to work it all out so that everyone was happy.

That being said, I don't have photos of all the cards.  But I wanted to share what I did have because the ladies are really doing such a fabulous job.  So here goes..

Aren't they just fabulous!  Next month's swap club is already full!  Stay tuned to see what they create next month!

Ink Cabinet

Meet the newest connection to my craft room.  I have a wonderful cabinet filled with ink pads.  I sort them by type...permanent, chalk, Memento, distress, pigment, dye based, rainbow, etc...  Here is a photo of my ink drawers.

I like the ink drawers a lot but there are certain inks that I need to get more often, especially since the Hen House carries them and I use them in my classes.  So I repurposed a medicine cabinet to hold some of these inks up on my work table, where they are more visible and easier to access.

I just LOVE it!!! I labelled the side of the Distress inks and sorted them in color families.  I will definitely be using a greater variety of inks now that they are so handy.

Ribbon Gutter

As most of you know, recently I had my craft room remodeled.  I just love it.  All things said, though, there is always room for improvements.  I used to have my ribbons on dowels.  I loved the look of it.  But when I needed a whole spool of ribbon for a class, I had to take the entire dowel down and remove a lot of spools to get to the one I wanted.  This is a old photo of the ribbon and punch cabinet with the doors open.

I had heard of ribbon gutters that some craft stores sell.  I priced a few and they ran about $40.  I would need at least 5 so that was cost prohibitive.   Then I saw this great idea on Pinterest.

She used actual plastic rain gutters.  I had to try it.  My husband and I bought a 10 foot piece for $7 and then got some end caps for just over $2 each.  The total project for five homemade ribbon gutters was under $40!!!

Here is the final product...

I am so excited about it!  I actually have more room than before in my ribbon cabinet now!

Glitter Paper

For my second card, in my May Glitter and Glimmer Technique class, I played with various glitter paper sold at the Hen House.  I found this one from American Crafts that was rather light weight but extremely vibrant.  Best of all, I found that it was easy to stamp on!

So here is a close up of the lanterns that I stamped from a Hero Arts set and cut out for my card.

I just love how nicely the paper took the ink!  Come join me in May and you can try it for yourself.

Shoe box swap

I wanted to share the cards from the latest shoe box swap that I participated in.

Here is the card I made.  I was inspired by some cards on Pinterest that have been using masking.  It was a simple but elegant card.

Next, Heather "Felicity" Pacheco ;-) , designed a cute square card that used some Jolee stickers.  I have a ton of these 3-D stickers and always forget to use them.  I need to pull them out soon.

 Here's the inside...

Here's is Marti's card.  She is definitely the queen of the Cricut.  Her cards make me want to use mine more often.

Here is Marie's card...I loved the tiny flowers at the top of each pennant...although they were a bit hard to attach.

Here is Debbie's card.  I love the fold and how the circles align on the card.

Denita and Renee couldn't make it this week.  If you two are reading this, please know that I am keeping your mom in my prayers.

Glitter and Glimmer

If you have known me for a long time, you know that I am not much of a glitter and glimmer gal.  I like earth tones and texture.  Well, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and use some of the many glittery and glimmery products that the Heh House carries.  Thus, the birth of my May Fast and Fun Technique class...Glitter and Glimmer!

For my first glitter and glimmer technique, I played with Perfect Pearls misters.  I learned in the online Tim Holtz class that these mists work best on dark paper.  I wanted to see how they worked on pattern paper.  I experimented with colors and application methods and found that making puddles on the craft mat gave me more control of the color.

Here is a close up of  the card I designed.  Notice that the three squares have the same patterned paper.  One is covered in a golden mist, one in a blue mist and one plain (no mist).  It's hard to tell from the photo but the misted ones have a nice shimmer to them. 

Sandy the Design Chick

My long-time friend and partner in crafting, Sandy, is going to be teaching classes at the Hen House!  We co-taught my Fast-n-Fun techniques class last month and she caught the bug.  Look at two of the cards from her first class! I am going to be the first person to sign up!

I just love her color combos and how she makes the Paper Smooches images come to life!

New stamping friends

One of the best things about teaching card classes is all the fun people that you meet.  Last week, I was invited to participate in a shoe box swap.  These wonderfuly talented ladies have been getting together every Wednesday for a long time.  I am so lucky that they included me.  Thanks to Heather, Debbie, Renee, Maria, Denita and Marti for sharing their talent and friendship with me.  Marti was our gracious host so I am featuring her fabulous card and envelope.  Check out Denita's blog to see all the other cards we made.

I can't wait to craft with these ladies again!

Hen House March SWAP club

We had another wonderful swap club in March.  I have been super busy so I will just post the photos and let them speak for themselves....

Cupcake Hero

I just love text in my images and Hero Arts makes a lot of images with text.  I played with Prismacolor and gamsol and made this card with one of their clear stamped images..

I pulled out some colored Crystal Lacquer to make the heart shine.  I think it turned out just yummy.

White stamped background

I have searched for a good white ink for a long time. If it has been on the market I have probably tried it.  Recently, I purchased the Hero Arts white ink.  My hopes were not high since I have been so disappointed with other white inks.  Much to my delight, this ink stamps beautifully on dark paper!  Very clean and crisp!  Yippee!

So, of course, I had to figure how to incorporate my new discovery into my April background class.  Easy!  Stamping a background on black using coordinating images from an Artistic Outpost stamp set.

Here's a close up of the background. I also used some inks and pencils to add color on the fish.  Which inks and pencils work best on dark paper?  Can you guess?

Here's a photo of the whole card.  I thought it would be a good father's day card or anniversary card for a great husband.

Fun with Scraps....

I have seen tons of cards on Pinterest that use scraps in clever ways.   Here are a few...

I was motivated to us some of my scraps too... Here is my scrap happy card...

  I think I went a little overboard on the free hand drawing around the scraps. What do you think?