3D Interactive Pop-Up Cash Card!

Who doesn't like cash? 
I have 2 teens on my Christmas list this year, and they are saving their money for some big-ticket items, so I was happy to contribute cash as their gift this year (saves me shopping stress!)
But as nice as it is to get cash, it's kind of a downer not to get a gift to open. 
So I made these:



 

 

 

So fun!

And I feel good that I put a little bit of effort into their gifts. 

 

Should at least earn me some "Coolest Auntie Ever!" votes :)

 

 

Here's a close-up of the pop-up part for those of you who want to make one yourself:

 

• Sorry, I don't have a template for the pop-up part, I just "winged it". 
• There are basically 2 pop up tabs cut out of the center of the card, with snowbanks glued to them. 
• Instructions for money origami can be found HERE. 
• I used glue dots to adhere the cash to the card, easy to rub off without damaging the money.

 

Note: the new Canadian bills that are sort of plastic don't work well for origami folds, make sure to use the older paper bills for this.

 

I wish everyone a wonderful Christmas!

Lorrinda

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My 2012 Christmas Cards

In all the holiday chaos, I forgot to post my Christmas cards I sent out this year:

Inspired by Lisa Stenz, check out her blog and you will be inspired too!

Inspired by my friend Vicki (and not the first time either, she has the best ideas!)

Inspired my many starburst cards I found on Pinterest

Direct CASE from a card found on Pinterest by Monica

I kept these all very simple and non-bulky because I hate having to pay extra postage when I'm mailing out a bunch of cards. 

I have a couple more "Gift" cards to work on today, which are definitely more bulky and not simple at all...I will post them for you soon.  I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and not getting stressed out with a bunch of last-minute things to do!

Lorrinda

December birthdays don't always suck...

Most people born in December seem to get shorted for their birthdays, or forgotten in all the holiday hubbub...not my BFF Rene!  She just celebrated a special birthday this weekend. Here's the keepsake card I made for her:

You can click on the photos to see a larger view

 

 

 

 

 

And of course I made her a cake!

My recipe "White Russian" Cake, there's Kahlua in this cake! Used it in the cake, the filling and the frosting, YUM!
 

She's going to kill me for posting this on the internet, but Happy Birthday girlfriend!

 

If you want the recipe for this cake, you can find it HERE

See, December birthdays are AWESOME!
Lorrinda

 

 

 

 

HAS October card

I'm a little late posting the Humble Artists Swap card from October. Better late than never.

 

I'm not crazy about how this card turned out, but I had limited supplies to work with.

 

Of course, we are to use all CTMH products.  The guidelines we had to follow were tough:

• Use at least 1 new ink color >I used slate
• Use at least 2 new ribbons >Burlap ribbon, Harvest Baker's Twine...took some liberties here, but it's the only new product I had on hand:)
• Use at least 3 new patterned papers >Avonlea papers
• Use at least 4 new cardstock >Avonlea Green, Avonlea Teal, Avonlea Offwhite, Slate
• Use at least 5 embellishments (including the 2 ribbons) >Chocolate flower button, paper flower, brown sparkle, liquid glass and ribbons
• Use at least 6 stamped images >coffee bean border strip, spoon, cup, pot, steam, fleur de les border strip  (stamps from B1404 Cup of Cheer and C1488 Victory WOTG)
• Use at least a 7 word sentiment >from B1404 Cup of Cheer
• Use at least 8 layers >check

I used a Mojo Monday card sketch, and the images are colored with a mix of watercolor pencils, ink and markers.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Lorrinda



Welcome to Our Home! 3D Decor

Ok, I officially suck as a blogger. I have been so bad at posting this fall...my excuse is that I have been held hostage by Pinterest and have pinboards full of crafty goodness to make.  I have been crafting, I even have my Christmas cards done, but have I photographed them?  Not yet.  I really have to get on that, it's almost time to mail them out!

 

Today, I have a 3D Home Decor item to share...I made this Framed chalkboard decor to enter in the CTMH Edmonton Regional 3D Contest back in September!. We had some specific guidelines to follow, and I must say the competition was fierce! When I saw what the other entries were, I knew I had no chance of winning, but I honestly made this to hang in my own home, so I love it anyway! 

 

 

All products CTMH, if you don't recognize them and need to know details, ask away!

Time to share...I have started this post a few times, but them I got sidetracked trying to add a PinIt button to the bottom of the post.  I really want to add a PinIt button to my blog, but all my attempts have been futile. I have searched for, and tried, no less than 5 tutorials to add a PinIt button to this blog so my fellow pinners can easily pin away...but alas, none have worked! I really want to add a button to the bottom of each post, so if any of you have a way to do this, please share! I am looking for a way for it to automatically be inserted at the bottom of each post.  I may have to bite the bullet and hire someone to do it for me.  I really don't consider myself to be computer-handicapped, but for some reason the silly little PinIt button has me stumped.

 

I truly appreciate each and every one of you who continue to follow my blog, even though I have been quite lax in posting!  I also have been blasted with spam comments as of late, and since I detest word verification, I have had to implement comment moderation... so please be patient and your comment will eventually appear, I promise!

Lorrinda

 

 

August HAS card

I finally got a chance to post my Humble Artist Swap card for August! I have had a crazy month, and today is the first day that I am at home since school started.  Hubby went hunting, kids are at school, and I am enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee in my jammies and finally updating my blog.  For all of  my followers, a big apology for my lack of new content! Thank you for not "unfollowing" me! Now that kids are back in school and life is sort of getting back to "normal", I will try to post more regularly.

 

 

The over-the-top guidelines for our August swap cards were:

• CTMH products (no problem, all I ever use! check)
• Minimum 8 layers (see point at dress form shoulder? check)
• Use ONLY neutrals and one color (black, white daisy and grey wool, plus sorbet. check)
• Use one stamp set with the work "background" in it (see houndstooth pattern? check)
• Use one stamp set with the work "borders" on it (see sorbet scalloped cs strip? check)
• Have at least 3 Art Philosophy shapes (sorbet scallop border, large scallop circle, small sentiment circle. check)
• Have at least 2 other stamped images (dress form and sentiment. check)
• Minimum 3 embellishments (buttons, ribbon, hat pin. check)
• Card must be at least 4.25" x 5.5" (check)

And the swap cards I received in the mail from my talented swap buddies? FABULOUS! I love swapping with these gals, check out their blogs in my sidebar and you'll see why!

Thanks for popping in today!
Lorrinda

The Family Forest

Hello!  I see that it has been a while since my last post... but no apologies, I have been busy living this summer!

 My Mother's family gets together every 2 or 3 years for a summer reunion, and this year my aunt asked me to make a cover for the family "archives" album she has been working on.

This is the cover I made, featuring my Grandparents:

The photo was taken on their 40th Wedding Anniversary, in 1978.

 

a couple of close-ups:

 

And this is our family prayer, for the inside of the front cover:

 

A bit of background info:  My Grandparents, Adam and Emelia in the photo above, had 17 children. (That is NOT a typo). Seventeen kids, 2 sets of twins, 11 boys and 6 girls.  The oldest and youngest are 20 years apart.  And they supported them without a reality TV show for income. They grew them on a farm, raised their own food, made their own clothes, and saw that each of them had a full education.  (They did this without pampers, microwave ovens, televisions or computers.) My grandparents are guardian angels now, and they have a lot to look after...at last count I believe there are 129 of us...their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

 

Here are a few pics from the reunion, so I can prove I didn't make this up:

 

Their living children:

These would be my aunts and uncles on my mother's side, my mom is front row, center

With their spouses (also known as the outlaws):

This would be more aunts and uncles for me

 

 These are some of their grandchildren:

That would be me in white in the front row, with my sisters on either side

 And here are just some of the great-grandchildren:

My daughter is back row, 3rd from left. My son is middle row, 2nd from right

So, you can see why it is necessary for someone to be in charge of the family archives (photos and important info).  I can't wait to see what she puts into this binder.  With such a large group, I'm lucky if I can remember all of their names. It sure helps that we make the effort to get together every couple of years. And this is just my mom's clan, my dad has 8 brothers and sisters and 8 step-brothers and sisters, plus all of their offspring.

 

Fit THAT on a family tree!

 

Lorrinda

June Humble Artists Swap

Here is my card from our last swap in June.

The strict guidelines were:

• Must have a min. of 8 layers stacked
• Do not use any patterned paper
• Do not use any neutral cardstock (except for card base)
• Do not use non-paper embellishments such as ribbon, brads etc
• Do not use stamp sets with "border" or "background" in their name
• Use at least 6 different stamped images
• Create a paper embellishment that can count for at least 2 of the layers
• Card must be at least 4.25x5.5"

I must say that I really struggled with this one! I scrapped a couple of designs before I settled on this one (mostly because I was running out of time).  I had difficulty not using neutral colors, and I reeeeally wanted to add some ribbon or at least a button...but managed to create them with paper. That's what I like about these swap challenges, they force me to step out of my box and think. No patterned paper allowed? Emboss and stamp!
The cards I received form the other swap gals are stunning as usual, they make it seem so easy! You can find the links to their blogs in my sidebar, go check them out.

Thanks for stopping in today!
Lorrinda

Can you absorb sugar calories transdermally?

I sure hope not!  This month has had me up to my elbows in sugar (literally), and I'm sure I've gained 10 lbs just by osmosis and inhalation! Tell me, professional bakers...how do you not gain weight working with sugar all the time?


Here's my latest project:

  This awesome Mom is going all out for her daughter's Sweet 16. Since she has a summer birthday she has never really gotten a party with all of her friends, so her Mom decided to fix that this year. She wanted a fabulous cake to go along with the amazing day she has planned. She told me her favorite color was purple and she loved zebra print.

And I learned that you can use Stickles on dollar store candles!

Just scrape off the yucky green border that it came with, and add some glam!

I found out that purple is a really hard color to tint fondant...plus my hands were almost fushia for 2 days. Yes, I know you can wear latex gloves to work in the color, but the fondant kept sticking to the gloves so I ditched em.  All in all, I had a blast making this cake!  The zebra stripes were actually very easy after I watched a couple of youtube videos. 

I want to wish Jenn a very special Sweet 16 Birthday!

What does 4 lbs of sugar look like?

A quick post today to share a Graduation cake I was asked to make for a big party.  Here is what I've been doing for the past 3 days:

Now, this is a gigantic cake...to give some scale, the base of the grad cap is a stacked 8" round cake! It was ordered for 75 people, so should be plenty.  The cake is a chocolate fudge sour cream cake with oreo cream filling, covered in buttercream frosting, with fondant/gumpaste accents.  The grad cap board is covered cardboard, but everything else on this cake is edible. The entire grad cap is covered with modelling chocolate.
It didn't actually take 3 days worth of labour. One of these days I will have to time how many actual hours go into a cake like this, but here's how I break it down:

Design Stage-browse internet for ideas, sketch a plan, confirm with graduate's mother, browse recipes, check supplies, order supplies if needed because I live in the middle of nowhere, make up grocery list, buy ingredients, pick up supplies from the post office. (?several random minutes over a week, I'll estimate 2 hours)
Day1-bake the cakes (There are four 9x13" and two 8" round in this one, 20 min mixer time and 4-5 hours oven time but I was also doing laundry) Plus cleanup. 
Day 2-make filling and fill and stack cakes. Also make icing and crumb coat cakes (maybe 2 hours) Then make fondant and gumpaste accents (while watching TV...probably 3 hours in the evening, and let accents dry/harden overnight) Plus clean up.
Day 3-do top smooth coat icing, add all the accents, pipe the borders (approx. 2 hours), swear 800 times when I smudge the smooth coat with my boob and have to fix it (if you look real hard at the 2nd picture you'll be able to see where), swear another 200 times when I realize that the cake drum board flexes when the cake is moved (causing icing to crackle!) so hunt for another cake board to support weight, swear some more when the second board won't fit in the fridge and have to find another...pause to have an adult beverage and think...find large cutting board that will fit and slide it under the first one without wrecking the cake...get the whole thing into the fridge without wrecking it...have a second adult beverage while staring at the mess that is my kitchen. Then 5 min making a sign for the fridge that says "Open this door and you die" to keep everyone out (I have a second fridge in the garage for extras that I use for my cakes, but the popsicles and beers are in there and it's summer)  So...Day 3 was pretty much all cake related, but if you subtract time spent swearing and drinking...maybe 4 hours actual cake labour) Plus clean up.
Rough total: 3 days of kitchen chaos, 15 hours of work plus clean up time.
It's the clean up that I hate the most. Anything that touches the buttercream icing is very greasy to wash off, and there is usually icing sugar everywhere. I have a rolling cart that I store all my cake decorating supplies in, and it is usually strewn all over the kitchen and needs to be sorted out and put back.

I enjoy doing this for family and friends, but I don't think I could make this a career. Too much to clean up, and way too much swearing and drinking going on :) And, I would need to do this at Cake Boss level to make any money at it. For now, it will be another one of my messy hobbies that my family has to put up with. They don't mind too much, I let them lick the bowls when I'm done.

Happy Canada Day!
Lorrinda

Cruisin to Father's Day

It's been a while since I've had a chance to play along with the challenges at Heart 2 Heart, I've missed these ladies!  This week's challenge is to create something for Father's Day. 

I happened to be working on Father's Day cards, so this gave me the push to finish them early (Yay, I won't be scrambling the night before for a change!). I made 2 similar cards:

Why don't you join the fun at H2H?  Create a card for Dad using CTMH products, and link it up!

Have a great day!

Lorrinda

Supplies used:

CTMH Cruisin WOTG kit G1039

CTMH stamps: Born to Ride C1483

Stars, letters and shapes cut with CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge  Z1686

Jute ribbon from Really Reasonable Ribbon

Butterfly

My Mom asked me to make a birthday card for her to give to her sister. (Fun fact: they have birthdays on the SAME day!  Isn't that cool?) They have always been close, probably because they had to share birthday cakes growing up :) 

Well, my aunt likes butterflies, so this is what I came up with:

I used some retired papers and stamps on this one.  The verse inside was found online and just printed onto white cs.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lorrinda

Recipe:

Paper: X7135B Wings Level 2 Paper Pack

Stamps: D1452 Find Your Style, C1257 Happy Birthday

Inks: Vineyard Berry, Juniper, Sweet Leaf, Black

Z1398 Pleated Ribbon

Z1335 Licorice Opaques

Black Embossing Powder

Heat gun

Nestabilities Labels One Die

Cuttlebug

Humble Artists Swap Card

As promised last month, here's another HAS card from previous swaps:

October 2011

October 2011 requirements:

• Must use new papers and a new stamp set from CTMH 2011 Fall/Winter idea book
• Must have at least 7 layers stacked
• Must use at least 2 embellishments, one from the new idea book
• must be at least 4 1/4 x 5 1/2"

Thanks for popping by!

Lorrinda

Sweet Baby

When my kids were very little, I had a young nanny named Brandy who came in every day while I went to work. We grew to love her, and were heartbroken when she had to leave us. That was 10 years ago, and we've kept in touch with her and her family. This past Mother's Day, Brandy had a baby girl and they named her Sage.  We got to meet little Sage today, so of course I made her a card:






The center panel is popped up on 3D dots.  I tried to get a better pic, but they all look like the center piece is hanging over the edge of the card, but IRL it doesn't. I just bugs me on the picture.

Inside is a pop-up gift card. The big blur at the bottom is because I wrote in the card before I took a picture of it, and that is the extent of my Photoshop skills :)



Little Sage is a beautiful baby, and she smelled so good!  Almost made me want another one. I know first hand that Brandy will be a great Mom, Sage is a lucky little girl.  Don't you just love it when nice things happen to nice people? And to have a baby on Mother's Day makes it extra special, don't you think?

For this card I used up some of my hoarded paper stash that has been long retired.

Thanks for popping by!
Lorrinda

Humble Artists Swap April 2012

The ridiculously talented swap group had some over-the-top requirements for our April cards:

CTMH products of course:)
- at least 8 layers
- use patterned paper from 2 different paper packs
- use 3 different colours of cardstock (not counting neutrals)
- use at least 3 different embellishments
- tie it up (use hemp, twine or waxy flax)
- use an Art Philosophy shape
- be at least 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"

I made my card 5x7" to fit in all the requirements:

You should check out the Humble Artists Swap blogs in my sidebar, I just love swapping with this talented bunch!  We split into 2 groups, so we have to make 4 identical cards, and each get 4 cards in the mail every 2 months. Thanks to these ladies, I have a fantastic selection of cards in my stash!

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Lorrinda

Humble Artists Swap (HAS)

Back in April of 2011, I was honored to be invited to join a very talented group of CTMH Consultants known as "The Humble Artists". This group of gals creates fabulous cards using CTMH products, following very strict over-the-top guidelines, to swap every second month.  You may have noticed the new addition on my sidebar, with links to the HAS members' blogs. Make some time to visit their blogs, these are some creative paper artists and I just love getting their swap cards in the mail!

I was trying to tidy up my craft room, and came across my stack of HAS cards that I haven't shared here yet.  In the next few posts, I will feature some of the cards I've made for this swap.

Humble Artists Swap card April 2011

We have to follow some specific guidelines when designing our swap cards, here were the HAS April 2011 Guidelines used to make this card:

• Card must be at least 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"
• Must use new CTMH Kraft Borders
• Must be 8 layers stacked on top on one another, somewhere on the card
• Must use at least 2 patterned papers from 2 different paper packs in new CTMH Spring 2011 Idea Book
• Must use a new CTMH Spring 2011 Idea Book stamp set
• Must not use any animal stamps
• Must use 3 different embellishments
• Distress something with ink, scissors or sand paper

All products used are from CTMH.

Thanks for visiting my blog today!
Lorrinda

Happy Easter!

A quick post today....on our way to my parents' for Easter supper.

I found the idea for this cute little Easter Bunny Basket on Pinterest, and had to make some of my own. The entire thing is made with pieces cut from the Cricut CTMH Art Philosophy cartridge, and went together in just minutes! (link to instructions at the bottom of this post)

front

back :)

for girls and boys!

I found the instructions HERE. 

Thanks to fellow CTMH consultant Christine Adams for posting them!

HAPPY EASTER!