{ my secret heart }

Let the good times roll!

Happy Fat Tuesday! Want to bring Mardi Gras home this year? Check out my festive cupcake topper tutorial at Fiskars.

Have a great day!

Mindy

Happy weekend!

It is a bright sunshine-y day here and I am reminded that spring is just around the corner. Thank goodness! It has been an incredibly mild Kansas winter this year and I'm not complaining, but I am tired of grey days.

So, how about a card for a spring occassion?

I was bound and determined to use this circle frame stamp. The stamp is from a Studio Calico kit and, while I loved it from day one, it had never been used. 

So, my idea was to stamp the frames on kraft cardstock, cut out the center and fill them with patterned paper designs. I used Basic Grey, Crate Paper and a bit of new paper from October Afternoon's 9 to 5 line to fill the frames.

In fact, I didn't set out to create a Mother's Day card. Bella Boulevard, however, was kind enough to recently share some of their colorful and fresh products with the Fiskars DT and the Mother's Day sentiment sticker was the perfect addition to my card.

I felt like my frames were a little empty, so I embellished a bit more with a Technique Tuesday stamp, a resin flower from Pebbles, and an adorable hot pink button from a Crate Paper set.

And, of course, I added a couple of butterflies punched from kraft paper with the Fiskars/Jenni Bowlin punch. Butterflies are a trend that never seem to get old.

I hope you have a crafty weekend!

Mindy

Card Week...

...is back on track! After life and work completely derailed my fun card week plans, I am hoping to salvage what is left of this week.

As promised, here are two new cards. Both were created with the February Jenni Bowlin Mercantile kits. The design was inspired by the vintage-sytle illustrated October Afternoon cards in Artisan kit.

The frames on each card were cut from a piece of JBS/Coredinations cardstock that has an embossed frame design.

I filled the frame on each card with the illustration and pieces of patterned paper to create a patchwork look.

I love mixing and matching patterned papers to create the just the look I want. These papers are from Lilybee, GCD Studios, Cosmo Cricket and October Afternoon. 

How about these sweet sentiments? They are from a sticker sheet by Cosmo Cricket, and the label stickers behind each sentiment are also from Cosmo Cricket. The facted hearts are by Prima. I heart them. ;) 

Thanks for sticking with me this week. More cards to come this weekend.

Mindy

A brief delay

Well, life is interrupting Card Week! Or, more specifically, work travel is interrupting my crafty pursuits. I'll be back tomorrow with TWO new cards.

In the meantime, here is one of my favorite songs right now. 

Pretty good, right?

Mindy

Card Week - Day Two!

Happy Valentine's Day! It's not too late to whip up a card for your Valentine!

This card idea features a design concept that might be the love of my life -- the grid. I do love me a good grid. :)

I simply stitched a grid on the card base with the sewing machine. It's easy, I promise! And it doesn't have to be perfect.

Then I added punched rectangles in each of the spaces within the grid. I used the Fiskars/Jenni Bowlin picutre frame punch to create the rectangles. 

With the exception of the card base (Canvas Corp) and kraft cardstock (Bazzill), the patterened papers are a mix of Jenni Bowlin products.

I also embellished a bit with another Fiskars/Jenni Bowlin punch -- Blue Ribbon -- and used the pinked circle from the punch as the base from a JBS pink pearl button. To create the small hearts, I used a Fiskars pop-up punch.

Then I added my sentiment with Jenni Bowlin alpha stickers. 

Easy, right? 

You can find all of the Jenni Bowlin products here. And I can think of no better Valentine's gift to yourself than to do a little shopping at JBS Mercantile!

Mindy

Card Week!

Welcome to my first Card Week! This idea was inspired by three things... 

Utilizing stamps and tools before they gather another layer of dust. Trying to use up my stash before it comes to life and eats me alive. And a desire to create -- just for me.

Every day this week I will be sharing a new card idea. I consider myself to be a paper crafter who makes cards, so you will see a little bit of everything -- stamps, patterned paper, tags, etc. Basically, this is all about creating things that make me happy.

Here we go!

Nine times out of 10 I use pre-made card bases. I like being able to grab one and go. This a card base from American Crafts that is available at Hobby Lobby.

The green/floral patterned paper is from Studio Calico's Countryside collection. I'm not sure if it is still available, as I found it in my stash and know I've been hanging on to it for some time.

The butterfly background was created with the Jenni Bowlin butterfly stamp, which is one of my favorites. I first stamped it in Jenni Bowlin Chewing Gum ink on white Bazzill cardstock and then layered the orange butterfly on top with Tim Holtz Spiced Marmalade Distress Ink.

To get a clean stamped image on the cardstock, I used the back side of the paper since the top has a bit of texture.



The sentiment is a combination of American Crafts Thickers and a tag from Elle's Studio. 

I also added a staple in opposite corners of the card to give it a finishing touch. I like to use the Tim Holtz Tiny Attacher for projects such as this.

Soooo, I've succeded in using one stamp, one tool, two inks, one tag, two staples, five letters and approximately one sixth of a piece of patterened paper. I have a way to go before I make a dent in the stash! Nonetheless, I hope you'll stop by again tomorrow for another new card idea.

Happy Crafting!

Mindy

Miscellany

I had this entire post typed once. In fact, I thought it was scheduled to post...but it didn't. Apparently something went crazy wrong -- which has been the theme this week -- and here I am redoing this post. <Sigh>

1. CHA FAVORITES  My CHA favorites are posted at The Scrap Review. There's some serious enabling going on over there. ;) 

2. JENNI BOWLIN MERCANTILE UPDATES  Looking for some inspiration this weekend? Check out the recently redesigned JBS Inspiration Blog. There's now a quick link button on the menu bar that will lead you right to the DT gallery, which was just updated with more goodness from the February kits.

Here are two new layouts I created this month. Both use the new Fiskars punches designed by Jenni Bowlin. If you don't have any of the punches yet, put them in your shopping cart before they are gone (they're limited edition)!

3. CARD WEEK  Starting Monday, I'm going to be launching my first card week. New card ideas every day! I'm planning to do this once a month (we'll see how that goes -- ha ha) for the rest of the year. I hope you'll stop by and check it out. Here's a little sneak peek.

Have a great weekend!

Mindy

Back to reality

Well, the sun has set on my first CHA experience and I am attempting to recover from the inevitable exhaustion that follows. If I had to pick one word to sum it all up, I would say that it was "interesting". By interesting I mean that it offered a look inside the industry that you don't otherwise see as a consumer.

For a very true-to-life description of how the show works, check out this post by Julie Fei-Fan Balzer. I could not sum it up any better myself.

Lessons learned...

• Understand your role at the show. Are you a vendor, a buyer, a designer, press, etc.? Knowing this helps manage the experience because without a purpose it could simply be overwhelming.
• Wear comfortable shoes because you will walk for miles.
• Network. Building relationships is key.
• This is work. Sure, there are elements of fun and socialization to the show, but just about everyone is there to work in one capacity or another.

Ok, so how about some of the trends?

• Lots of vintage-inspired goods. 
• Chevrons and tapes were everywhere. 
• Gnomes, kites and hot air balloons may be the next big thing. Not all together. :)
• Expect to see more mixed media creeping into the world of paper crafting.

Due to the lighting, it's rather difficult to take good photos at the show. However, for photos of product that I enjoyed seeing at the show, check out my Twitter feed here.

I'll be back with new projects very soon!

Mindy