Pinwheels and Flip-flops

Today I would like to share with you a couple of cards I created for my granddaughter's birthdays. There are two family birthdays in mid-August and five the first week of September! Between the birthdays and my daughter's wedding coming up the beginning of October I am overwhelmed with paper and other crafty projects! The first card below features a working pinwheel that can be removed from the card. This is for ❤Ellie, who is turning 6, my youngest granddaughter.

If you would like to make one, start with your basic square pinwheel design, the directions can be found on many online sites. A skewer or chopstick can be trimmed to the size wanted for the stick.

Using two lengths of floral wire, thread them through a button, then through a bead, then the pinwheel, then another bead, then twist the wire firmly around the stick. Be sure to curl the end of the wire inward so there won't be any sharp ends. Leave a little "play" between the button, beads and pinwheel so it will spin nicely.

I wanted the pinwheel to be easy to remove and put back onto the card so I fashioned a tube with coordinating card stock and some ribbon then glued it to the card. I handmade the little flower in the corner (http://paperoasis.blogspot.com/2011/05/dream-card-bargain-shopping-and-paper.html). The bear and his little pinwheel are from Create a Critter.

The next card is for my 12 year old granddaughter ❤Ruthie. She went to a party this summer where the girls decorated flip-flops so I thought this was so appropriate. I designed and cut the flip-flops using Design Studio and the George and Basic Shapes cart. I "cheated" a bit and used the flip-flops from Cricut's Life is a Beach cartridge as a template. I don't own Life is a Beach but Design Studio allows you to work with all the shapes from all the cartridges on screen but you can only cut from the ones you own. So I welded some skewed ovals and other shapes together from George to form the flip-flops using Life is a Beach as a guide. It worked great!

I wrote the sentiment "The ten best things about summer...  flip-flops," and printed it from my computer.

The flowers on the flip-flops are handmade (http://paperoasis.blogspot.com/2011/05/dream-card-bargain-shopping-and-paper.html). The butterflies are from K&Company. I think it turned out super cute!

I'll be back soon with more birthday cards! Thank you for visiting Paper Oasis ❤
Cindy 

What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday?

Seriously, I ask you, how is it possible to make such a mess making one little paper pinwheel? And I'm not even showing you the rest of the room!  I want to add a working pinwheel to my granddaughter's birthday card. I finally figured out how to do it - it works - now, to make the card to put it on...

I'll be back with more details!
Thank you for visiting Paper Oasis,
Cindy

A Card for a Midsummer's Day

 

Hello everyone, I hope you are having a simply fabulous summer! I wanted to share my latest card and some photos I took along the way when creating it. As you can see, it is a stair-step card. I chose the colors pink, yellow and orange for the flowers because I think they are so warm and summery and just plain pretty together.

I began by making all the flowers. For the small ones I used a McGill punch called Petite Flowers. It cuts three different flower heads. The leaves were die-cut from the Cricut Serenade cartridge. The polka dot glitter card stock is from the DCWV Homemade Christmas Stack. The stems were cut free hand. I inked the edges and used craft glue to assemble.  I made 14 small flowers, approximately 2" tall.

Then I made five larger flowers of varying sizes. These three orange flowers were cut from the Serenade cartridge...

Flowers are 3", 3 1/4", and 3 3/4" tall. Stems and leaves cut freehand.

...and the layered pink ones were too. Serenade is kinda' my go-to cartridge. It was one of the first cartridges I purchased and I still love it and use it all the time. The stem/leaf cut used below is from Walk In My Garden. All the edges were inked and the flowers were assembled with craft glue. Glitter was added to the five large flowers.

Flowers are approximately 3 1/4" tall.

Next I die-cut 'Happy Birthday' for the sentiment. The Winter Woodland cart has a wonderful font that I welded together using Design Studio. The letters were tipped this way and that to add a little whimsy. I saved the 'Happy Birthday' design to use again in the future. You can zoom in on all the photos for more detail.

And now...

...time out to look at my gorgeous youngest grandson, Logan. He's sleeping in grandpa's arms. Look at those eyelashes! Doesn't he look so sweet and innocent?  XOXOXOX

❤ Of course, this is what he is really like! He's two and a half and totally rotten! XOXOXOXOXOX ❤

Anyway, back to the subject at hand! Flowers and sentiment,
all ready to go!

I had a ready-made template for this stair-step card. I've been making all my templates out of this lime green card stock to keep on hand. On it are the overall dimensions and where to make the score lines. This one is 6 1/2" by 10 1/2". Scored at 1 1/4", 2 1/2", 4 1/4", 6", and 8 1/4".  A cream colored card stock was used for the base.

Being an old-fashioned Graphic Designer, I like to do things by hand.

After the card base was folded I decided on a background color for the flowers. This blue really made them pop.

Green 'hills' were cut freehand to 'plant' the flower stems on.

The biggest flowers were adhered first. I wanted them to be the focus with the little flowers surrounding them.

As I arranged and adhered the small flowers I closed up the card from time to time to make sure the layers were flowing together nicely.

I decided the Happy Birthday sentiment needed a drop shadow to make it pop a little. Back into Design Studio to group and enlarged the words a little and cut them out in yellow card stock.

After 'Happy Birthday' and the rest of the flowers were adhered, the back panel was covered with coordinating paper and a flower was added. This makes a nice space for someone to write a personal message.

And here it is all finished!

I hope you enjoyed seeing how this stair-step Birthday card was created and thank you for visiting Paper Oasis!
Cindy

Dream Card, Bargain Shopping and Paper Flowers

Hi, I wanted to do a quick post and let all of you know I'm still around. Not long after my last post we had Blogger's several-days-long service disruption and then shortly after it was back online, my computer crashed! So, to make a long story short, I am back online and now have Windows 7 instead of Vista. Thank goodness for a future son-in-law, who, along with his many other positive attributes, happens to be a Computer support specialist. I've been busy reloading my software and getting everything updated and working properly. But I still managed to get in a little craft time! The little cards you saw in my last post (http://paperoasis.blogspot.com/2011/05/workdesk-wednesday.html) have been converted into a banner. Most of this card is made from a few of the papers in DCWV The Botanical Stack. I love the soft earthy color on these sheets.

Sorry for the quality of these photos. Maybe someday it will stop raining and I can take pictures outside. Sigh.  Anyway, I've also been craft shopping and picked up a few fun things from Michael's $1.00 bin. These little teardrop could be used in a lot of different ways to embellish cards and pages. I used a few in the center of this paper flower.

Recollections Boutique Fleur Mini Teardrop Gems

Then I found this glitter that really rocks. I bought 3 bottles but after using it I went back for more. Don't tell anyone, but I'm not a big Stickles fan. I know, everyone raves over Stickles, but I've found it comes out in big messy globs, but not this stuff from the $1 bin! It has a small tip and comes out in a nice manageable line. Hmmm, maybe I should go back for more...

Studio g Glitter Glue

Then I found these nice rubber stamps. They're a good size and quality, not like what you usually find in the $1 bin. I also picked up more of the one dollar rhinestones (can't have too many of those, right?) and a little stapler with colored staples that was on clearance. All the Recollections stuff was 40% off, so I got a few cardstock packs and metallic mini brads.

I was watching paper flowers tutorials on You Tube a few days before my traumatic computer crash. If you are interested in making paper flowers you must spend a little time browsing though a few videos. Here are some of the flowers I came up with after watching:

 

Most of these are loosely based on this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_hFRymeVfo&feature=related  by selectionsbyER. This red one is my favorite:

 

Here's the yellow flower with the blue teardrop center.

 

This is a nice coppery one:

 

The one below couldn't be easier. It is 8 scalloped circles, edges inked, stacked, with a brad in the center holding them together. They were misted with water and scrunched up toward the center, reshaped and let dry. It reminds me of a carnation with the edges dyed. The video is by pinkaboo6691, check it out at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eufh8sFpKc8

I appreciate the comments in response to my last post and all of you who emailed me or contacted me through yahoo groups to answer my question (if there is interest in photos of the various stages of creating a card). So, in the future I will take more photos to share my card-making process with you (such as it sometimes is, LOL). Now I'm off to Michael's for more glitter glue! I hope everyone has a relaxing weekend and thank you for visiting Paper Oasis!
Cindy

Workdesk Wednesday

What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday is a weekly event at http://stamping-ground.blogspot.com. I thought I'd join in and give you a glimpse of what I'm working on this week. I haven't cleaned up from the last couple of projects so "it is what it is". I have so many ideas that I often can't wait to start the next project before cleaning up the clutter from the last. (Also cleaning isn't nearly as much fun!)

I'm working on a garden themed card using the sketch from this weeks challenge at My Favorite Things. I should have taken a photo of my trash can because half of my ideas for the card went there last night!

You also get to see my giant magnifying glasses!

I've gotten pretty good at tossing something that just isn't working out. I've been wondering if you might like to see photos of the various stages of creating a card, not just the finished card. I know most of you know the techniques involved, but show more of the thinking process that went into making the card. Photos of what I think works, what I toss out, etc. What do you think? Leave a comment and let me know, and thank you for visiting Paper Oasis!
Cindy

I am in full sunshine now!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day weekend. My husband made my mom, our daughters and their families, and I a big dinner for Mother's Day; stuffed mushrooms, Chicken Cordon Bleu (with the most fabulous cream sauce), twice-baked potatoes, green beans, rolls, and dessert. Thank you honey, it was delicious!

Wow, I don't know how long it will last but we finally have sunshine today in Ohio. I decided to play along with Mojo Monday's sketch this week, and the sunshine inspired me to make this card.

I'm going to try to post more often and thought entering a few challenges might kick my you-know-what in gear. Maybe, we'll see ;-)  I actually made this card this morning AND took the photos AND had half the blog post written, all before I went to work at 2:00 p.m. Amazing - for me anyway! Normally I'm very slooooooow.

 

All the paper is from K&Company's Spring Blossom Designer Pad. The 3D daisy is cut from a few of the sheets. This next photo was taken in the full sun. It washes out some of the detail but you can see the dimension better.

The butterfly is also K&Company (yes, I am a fan!).  The vellum quote is from Joann's. I hope you are having a beautiful sunshiny day wherever you are! Thank you for visiting Paper Oasis!

Cindy