Graffiti Greetings to Go

Hello, blog hoppers! Thanks for stopping by as you hop along the Graffiti Blog Hop. I'm sure you are enjoying the fun and creativity of the various bloggers. You may have arrived here from Tiare's blog (iClassygirl). If not, go to the beginning (and see the entire list of bloggers) at Club Scrap Creates. 

I'm a scrapbooker at heart, but for the past year I've really been enjoying cardmaking. I'm not sure if it's the smaller size, the fact that I can complete a card in less time than a page, or the amount of cards I can create in one crafting session, but I really like making cards. 

For this blog hop, I pulled out my Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. Every month, the G2G pack includes enough materials to create 15 cards in three different sizes. First, I made this trio of cards. With Valentine's Day quickly approaching, the love theme is quite appropriate.

In my attempt to use more of my older supplies this year, I pulled out some Zig Writer pens to color in the stamped Love image from the Graffiti Greeting Unmounted stamp sheet.

The heart and string image, also from the Greeting UM sheet, makes a fun and whimsical background on the white panels. For one card, I stamped the hearts in Club Scrap Fuchsia ink, coloring with three Zig writer pens. A second card was stamped using CS Onyx ink (no coloring to allow the "Love" to pop). The third card background was created from the paint splatter stamp on the Graffiti Art Nouveau stamp sheet.

Here is another card I created from the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. The preprinted panel (love those!) had "Congratulations" printed on it. I actually have plenty congratulations cards in my greeting card boxes, so I stamped "Life is beautiful." onto a piece of white cardstock and trimmed it down. (That stamp is also on the Art Nouveau sheet.) I wanted to matte it with the same black as the large matte. Black papers come in so many shades that sometimes it's hard to get a perfect match. Using the exact paper fixed that problem, and I remembered a trick that Julie (Cape Cod Scrapper) showed us in a Club Scrap Creates post last summer. You can read her post HERE.

I adhered the stamped panel to the center of the black matte. Then, I used a craft knife and cutting mat to cut out the black piece--allowing plenty of space around the stamped panel.

After trimming the black matte with a paper trimmer, I mounted it to the center with black foam adhesive. You can see the dimension in the photo below. Layering the orange panel onto the black, then onto the white card, no one will ever know that I took a piece from the center of the black panel. (Sneaky, but smart!)

And there you have four of the cards I've made using the Graffiti Greetings to Go pack. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please hop along to Marya's blog: A Notebook Novel to see even more Graffiti creations!

Have a crafty day!

Lisa :-)

Stripes and Hearts

I haven't been participating in many challenges lately, but I recently acquired some new supplies and wanted to play with them. The January OWH* challenge hosted by Our Daily Bread Designs is to use stripes, so I pulled out my new 6x6 pattern papers from Gina K. Designs (newly acquired item #1) and cut 1" strips to create the striped backgrounds.(*Operation Write Home)

The other new item in my papercrafting studio is the Love & 5 Hearts die set from Hot off the Press. You can see the dies in their online store HERE. I thought it was a great purchase since we are nearing Valentine's Day. And they combine very well with my new Love Letters pattern papers. :-)

The cards are simple, yet intricate, with the layered die cuts. That's my favorite thing about cutting shapes with my die cutting machine--the intricacy. And the way these hearts fit on and in the other hearts really adds some interest and complexity to the designs. The die cuts were all cut from Club Scrap cardstock--my very favorite paper!







I'll be sending these cards in my February package to OWH. I've challenged myself to send 12 cards a month in 2014. While the Valentine card deadline has passed, since these don't say "Happy Valentine's Day," they are acceptable. After all, love is in style year-round!

Until next time, blog readers!  ~~Lisa Kay