Love accordian Book

My mom sent me this little card this week. I loved it so much that I just had to repurpose it. I cut it apart to make the little accordian books that were the free for all challenge at SCS. I added some paper roses, some quilled tendrils, and some hot glue pearls. I think it is going to go back to my mom for Mother's day.

MEARLS

If you are like me, who is crafting on a very tight budget, you really have to be creative.

I had run out of MEARLS, so I decided to make some more and show you how I do it. MEARLS was the name my friend Kelly gave to my MariLynn made Pearls.

I have also called the hot glue pearls, because in reality that is what they are.

I start by making little round dots with my

hot glue gun on a piece of cardboard covered with foil.

When the hot glue cools, I take pearl fingernail polish and cover the hot glue drops.

When the polish dries, I peel them off of the foil and Voila, I have MEARLS.

They don't take very much time to make, and they cost very little,

especially when I buy the hot glue sticks at the dollar store.

WOW medallion

Kelly's word of the week or WOW, was Expend. to pay out,spend, consume by use, or use up. I had been hoarding this paper that is at the top. I would think that hoarding would be the opposite of expend, so the only way I could expend was to use it up on this card. I cut out the medallion. I colored parts of it in with my prisma colored pencils. I added some pearls from my friend Anne Ryan, and I added a hot glue pearl to the center. I added ribbon at the top which disqualified me from following all the rules of today's limited supply challenge to use only 4 embellishments. I tried to argue that the center was really not an embellishment since it was only hot glue and fingernail polish and everyone knows that glue is an adhesive not and embellishment. I don't think anyone bought that excuse. Oh well, I did get the other part of that challenge to use spooky, fall color combos.

Don't blame me, Blame the purse

OK, I wish I could say that every card I make is a work of art, and looks like I wanted it to. I'ld be happy just to say I make pretty cards. But I can't honestly say that. This card was made for the splitcoast inspiration challenge. We were to pick a purse and use it as our inspiration. I picked this purse. I thought I could try and make panels that looked like the mother of pearl panels on the purse. I took an acetate folder and drew with several different markers on the inside. I sprayed the folder with water and put my paper inside the folder and rubbed on the outside. I then stamped flourishes. I took my versamark ink pad and went over the paper and added UTEE (ultra thick embossing enamel) and used my heat gun to melt it. I then cut the paper into squares with rounded corners. I sewed each panel in the corners. It looked really plain and ugly at that point. I decided that what it needed was "beads" because it looked like the purse had beads. So I took a white colored pencils and made little circles all around the panels. I then outlined them in black. Then my card didn't look plain and ugly, it was busy and even uglier. I asked both of my daughters for help. Sometimes when I am stuck I will ask them and they will make good suggestions as to what the card needed. Kristina, my second oldest daughter looked at the card and looked at the purse and said "Mom, you picked an ugly purse to start with." She did however suggest that maybe a ribbon would help. I added a pink ribbon and heated it with my heat gun to make it melt and crinkle. It still needed something so I added hot glue pearls. When I finished I thought to myself this is such and ugly card who could I send it too? I still haven't figured that out. It is growing on me though.

Sunset

This is for the Sketch Challenge at SCS and for my friend Kelly's WORD OF THE WEEK challenge. WOW02. Her word for today was IMPEARL, to form into pearls. I used my hot glue pearls. I formed the hot glue into pearls by dropping them onto foil and painting them with white pearly fingernail polish. I played some more with my brayer. I paper pieced the little girl's dress.