Happy Birthday Centerpiece

Hi, everyone! Java Jen here from JAVA JEN CREATIONS to share a little Thursday inspiration with you!  Thanks, Sheila for yet another opportunity!   I am always making centerpieces as gifts for people. I like to think of them more as paper bouquets! :-)  I made this one for a co-worker and she was amazed that I made it! (I just didn't tell her how easy it really was!) :-)  I used several different cartridges like Sweet Treats, Birthday Bash, Birthday Cakes and Celebrate. I simply cut my images out at the size I thought would look best and attached them to wood skewers and stuck them in a foam block inside a mason jar.  I used tissue paper to hide the foam block! So easy!

Thanks for stopping by today!!

Birthday Window Card - 3 Year Old

Hi, it's Sheila and today I get to share this adorable birthday card that I made for my little 3 year old Aiden! He loves trucks so I used the little dump truck from Boys Will Be Boys and went to town. The base of the card is a frame from the Art Philosophy cart from Close To My Heart, the Happy Birthday is from birthday Cakes and the 3 is from my favorite Mickey Font cart.

 The yummy paper is from DCWV Solids and Strips stack. I just love the shine the paper has. This card is a real winner with bright colors that were used on it along with the little truck.

See how easy it is to design and put this card together. Because the card has an age number and was so personalized for Aiden I only made one. I have to tell you I am not used to having all these scraps left over... enough to make another card!

This is a close up of the little truck, I have to tell you it was hard getting a good photo as the paper was so shiney kind of like a perfect sheet of aluminum foil.
I sure hope you liked today's little card. It sure was fun to make and I know my little Aiden will just love it. Thanks for your sweet sweet words of encouragement. Your comments inspire me to continue sharing with you. Have a blessed week.

Happy Birthday Tri-Fold Card

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Good Day! This is Sheila and today I get the privilege of sharing with both you Bugs Byte and She's A Sassy Lady followers.

Ever since Provocraft came out with the E2 I have been fascinated with the Tri-Fold Card. I quickly decided not to use up a couple of months of my scrap budget to purchase the E2 however I had to have that Tri-Fold Card!

The card presented some interesting design challenges for me yet I am getting pretty good at altering my template and quickly coming up with a new design for any given occasion. I did just that with this card but ran into a few challenges along the way in cutting and thought I would just go through those, so as you make your cards you can hopefully alleviate those same mistakes and whiz through your card.

Look at these yummy papers I picked out. Only the bottom sheet was a full sheet of paper and it was from K and Company. The rest of the papers were all left over pieces from various vendors. I was so happy that I had so many sparkly piece left.

I just love this base paper and it really made all the colors of the card come together.... this was my blunder though.... I forgot that we are looking at the inside of the card in this photo. That is how I designed the card so when you are laying out your mat remember you are looking at the inside. See I had a perfect cut but I forgot to flip my paper and the opposite side was too pink for my elements so I had to re-cut the base of the card.

I thought I would show you how some of my other elements were laid out. this however was my second mistake. I mixed paper depths and that created a problem as it didn't cut through on the center piece so I had to run it through again. Because I was using scraps another design had to be used. Again remember to plan carefully.

See how only parts of the cut made it. Now I must caution you if this happens you can always take off the other elements and re cut just remember DO NOT SAVE the work or they will be gone.

Then I scored my card and folded the flaps. Now you need to know I did not make score marks but you can easily see where the sections meet, score and fold there.

I have a busy schedule this week getting ready for out of town guests so I placed each card and all the pieces in a little Ziploc bag so nothing would get lost while I was waiting for a few extra minutes to put this together.

The first thing I did was put the elements together. After adhering the pieces of the cupcake together I stickled the frosting to make it look like sprinkles.

I put the little pieces of the hat together. I cut it and the horn out twice so it would be thicker. Now I did all the dots as I had gold speckled paper and didn't want to loose that sparkle effect. If I was using a plain paper I would cut the holes to have 2 colors. Cut for your preference and adjust accordingly.

I then adhered the tassel at the top of the hat. Isn't this paper awesome?

Then I put together the little horn. After it was dry I stickled the paper part that would move when you blow with pink stickles. This gave it a polka-dot effect and made it sparkle too like the rest of the paper.

I then proceeded to put the card together. And this was so simple after all the elements were together. I adhered the Happy Birthday first and then moved on piece by piece until the card was complete.

 Look at how this just shimmers, don't you just love the paper on this?

Thought you might like to see the card straight on with both flaps closed, don't you just love that layered look? I like that it gives plenty of opportunity to write on the inside.

 Even when it is laying down this card looks good. Don't you just want to pick it up and look on the inside?

I hand cut the sentiment area the same and attached to the inside of each flap. This offers plenty of room to get personal and write a special note. I also thought that for the right flap you could turn it in to a little pocket to hold a check, cash or a card.

 Just another close up of the card.

That hat is so unique with this paper.

And one more glimpse of the completed card. I sure hope you liked today's project. If you would like the free Gypsy file, just click HERE.

I just love these Tri-Fold cards and hope you enjoyed learning a little more about them. Thank you for your sweet sweet words of encouragement. Your comments continue to inspire me to share with you.

Using Sketch Sheets to make a scrapbook

Hello everyone!! Java Jen here from Java Jen Creations again! Thanks so much, Sheila, for allowing me to share here again!  Hope you're all having a great Thursday! Our summer has been filled with lots of traveling so far and we've been having lots of great family time!!
We all know how to scrapbook our own pictures by grouping pictures from particular events or themes but it becomes a little more difficult when we are asked to do someone else's pictures. I want to show you how easy it can be by using the FREE sketch sheets that are available to print at Above Rubies Studio ! A friend at our church asked me to make a scrapbook for her daughter's 1st birthday. She brought me the pictures that she wanted in it and we decided together, what pictures would go on what pages and what page titles would work for each one.  If you go to the Above Rubies Studio site , you will see a link on the right side to download and print the free sketch sheets. There are many different ones, depending on what your project is.  I used the ones for 12x12 layouts.

The nice thing about these sketch sheets is that you can simply give yourself a blueprint to work off of. On the back of the pictures, I used a sticky note with the page # they belonged to. We had these sketch sheets filled out and pictures sorted in about a half hour!  I managed to take pictures of several of the completed pages before we left for vacation but I'll have to post the others later. 

 I used Storybook for the font for her name.

 I used Once Upon a Princess for the word Princess and the crown.  With my Gypsy, I welded the words "Our Little" using the A Child's Year font.

The words on the pages above and below were welded using the Birthday Cakes font. The expectant mommy is from New Arrival. The tags are from Don Juan. I used a clipboard stamp from a new set I recently purchased from My Creative Time with Emma . I just love her stamps!!

These pages were so much fun! I used a cloud cut from Create a Critter and embossed them with the Swirls cuttlebug folder - then inked them with a light pink ink! So easy to do but it adds so much pretty detail! The newborn cut is from New Arrival and the words were welded using the Baby Steps cartridge.

Close up of the embossing and inking and the little newborn cut.

You'll notice that I left journaling places on each page or two-page spread so that they can fill in the details of their stories. That is definitely something that I always encourage my customers to do. I can't do that part for them! :-) The "Grand Adventure" cut is from Baby Steps.

I hope this project encourages you to try these sketch sheets for yourself! Once you have your sketches done, just pull out your Gypsy and design away! That's the other reason this project was manageable! 

Have a fantastic day and thanks for stopping by!

Gypsy Made Simple - Window Birthday Card

Good Day! I know you are going to LOVE - LOVE - LOVE this card and it is so easy that you will be making window cards in no time at all. Just turn your Gypsy on, grab a cup of coffee and let's get to work.

Today you will make any type of window card you want or need. I made this cute little card for my grand son Aiden who turns 2 in July. He is such a little cutie and loves cars and trucks, so this will be perfect for him.

This little video will take you step by step through the designing process on your Gypsy. Use any frame for the base of your card. I like Gypsy Wanderings as I am so familiar with it and the others I really need to search to find and the selection is pretty good. Remember people will be looking at the artwork and the way you decorated rather than the base of the card.

These are the yummy colors I used from DCWV the Primary color stack. I alos used left over glitter paper from the Shadow Box I made and that worked out great.

Look at this cut.... one piece and it came off the mat just beautifully. I love DCWV it cuts like butter.

Well I got everything cut and then went on an inked the little hub caps and then Glossy Accented the window so it would look real. I also inked around the edges of the base of the card so that the inside would look nice.

See how easy it is to make one of these cards! I just love the look and you just don't see anything like these window cards in the store. I sure hope you like today's project. I challenge you to make a window card of your own, for any occassion and then link it up to my blog for everyone to see how beautiful it turned out.

Click HERE for a copy of today's file and all you need to do is change out the number for the age of the little boy you are gifting to. Or, if you prefer keep the base and change out your artwork too, to fit your special person. Thank you for joining us today and for your sweet sweet words of encouragement. Your comments continue to inspire me to share with you.