Silver is the new awesome

Have I mentioned my love for Die Cuts With a View metallic paper?  It cuts like buttah on the Silhouette, has just enough shimmer to make things look fancy, and the silver color looks great on any card.  For example, this fancy-looking silver, gray, and black anniversary card for a friend:

To answer your most pressing question, the font is Algeria with the shadows removed (simply "ungroup" your text in Silhouette Studio, then double click the letter/number and delete the unwanted points).  Of course, while trying to find the link, I came across this font which is almost the same, but with the shadows removed.  Doh!  But at least I know for next time, right?

The rest of the card: Polka dot paper is My Mind's Eye Lime Twist Out of the Blue paper pack, black scalloped circle with Silhouette Studio file, I made an offset shadow of the letters in black, and the numbers are up on foam tape and they look fabulous:

That little swirl at the top of the five just kills me!

In other news, the kids show up today at school.  I'm pretty excited about my schedule, plus I'm having some kids for the second year in a row and they're the type I actually like to have twice, so I'm hoping it might be another good year like last year.  Plus with my new haircut, I can sleep in an extra 15 minutes!  Bonus!

Fabulous 44th!

Today is my parental's 44th anniversary, so I whipped out the ol' Silhouette. Well, to be honest, I tried stamping first...I was going to do an embossed SU Medallion behind the sentiment (like this card), but the glossy medallion just didn't work with the textured paper.  Yes, I broke down and bought some DCWV paper to use in the Silhouette.  It definitely lowered the frustration level I was having, especially paired with the hint to mirror the image, that way you get nice pretty cuts on the front of the paper.

This is some old Jillibean Soup printed kraft paper-isn't it gorgeous?

Silhouette Hint O' the Day: If you want your font to be a little bit thicker, but there's no bold option for it, offset it by about .02, then just use the offset to cut your paper  (I then went back and did a thicker offset for the black).

Hold on to Your Hats

I think I'm getting pretty good at this whole Silhouette card designing.  I made two anniversary cards for my DH, and I really can't decide which one is my favorite, so that will be an exercise left to the reader.  Are you ready?
Card #1:

The silhouette is based on this picture from our wedding: 

(side note: check out our photographer's blog for some haunting tornado pictures) It took a couple tries to cut this as I'm still having issues with some of the fonts not cutting cleanly, but I think the result is well worth it. 

Card #2:

GET IT?!?!  "Otter" half?!?!  Hahahaha.  This pun is from pinterest, and the image is based on a t-shirt (that of course I own) that is based on this video (make sure you watch it until 1:20 for the cutest part):

The polka dot paper is Echo Park, and the "water" paper is My Mind's Eye Love Me Do collection--it has little hearts all over it, so I couldn't resist using it.  The font is Chowderhead, and I used word wrapping and welding to wrap it around the circle.  I used the "trace" feature to trace the otters and their bellies, then used the "trace outside edge" feature for the black matting. I left the black the same size, then glued it just a smidge off so it gave it a water/shadow effect.  I definitely had to add the black to the feet, otherwise, they looked like, shall we say, "Baby Ruths."  

In other news, the subway art was definitely appreciated by Mr Corgi!!  I think he may have gotten a bit misty-eyed when he read the "as you wish."  Or maybe it was the paint fumes.  Hard to say.

It's Cookie Time!

We all know that it's cookie time all the time, but this week is super cookiebaker time on SCS.  Charlene is not only the Guest Designer for the CAS challenge today, but also the Featured Stamper for yesterday's challenge!  Take a gander at her gallery and blog and just try not to be inspired--impossible!

This is the card for today's CAS challenge, based on this cake from the outrageously expensive inspiration cake website.  I know, I know, who am I with all this orange?!?  The flowers are from some Costco Inkadinkado sets, stamped in Colorbox Tangerine Chalk Ink onto PTI Soft Stone paper.  The sentiment is from PTI Mega Mixed Messages.

This was my card for the Featured Stamper challenge yesterday, based on this card from cookiebaker. I really liked the one-stroke copic coloring she did on her flower, and tried to emulate it using PTI's Delightful Dahlia.  I used R22, which worked nicely with PTI Berry Sorbet ribbon.  The sentiment is from PTI's Birthday Basics.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday yesterday!  Our neighbors decided to set off some fireworks, which Addison was none too pleased about!  We watched The Proposal which was surprisingly better than I had thought it would be. Anyone have any good rentals to recommend?

Love is in the Air

...because it's our 3rd anniversary today!  I cased this card from Vanessa Menhorn because it's so adorable and I knew my DH would LOVE it (he's a big fan of planes.  BIG fan).  I stamped the PTI Tiny Treats: Valentines plane onto PTI Ocean Tides cardstock, colored in the propeller & heart with prismacolor pencils, cut out, and glossy accented.  The hearts are from the Fancy Pants Little Star set (which, even though it is a "baby" set, is actually a useful all-around set with hearts and stars and leaves and birds and swirls).  I stamped them onto PTI Berry Sorbet with versamark and clear embossed.  I used embroidery thread to tie around the hearts and adhered the thread to the back of the plane.  Then the plane and hearts were all popdotted.

For the clouds, using a stencil cut with a scallop circle nestie, I sponged PTI Fresh Snow onto PTI Sweet Blush and heat embossed with white embossing powder.  Matted with Berry Sorbet and mounted with foam tape.  For as clean as my black embossing was on my medallion card, after a few attempts embossing the sentiment, this was as good as it got.  Maybe it doesn't like the cardstock and prefers the smoother dp?  Hmm...

Inside I put five coupons for free hugs.  See why here: Modern Family

So for our third anniversary, I hope you indulge me in a little top three list of why my DH is the bestest.

 He can finish the line to the song I'm singing from Dr Horrible.

 He makes me feel like somebody loved.

He is my shelter in the storm.

Another Anniversary Card

First of all, the mystery has been solved: Dawn of Wplus9 was sweet enough to leave a comment and explain what Wplus9 stood for: 

Wplus9 is short for my last name "Woleslagle". W plus 9 letters. No one can ever spell it or pronounce it, so Wplus9 sort of became a nickname. (thank goodness it's not the Kate +8!)

 Although that does bring up a whole new mystery, how do you pronounce "Woleslagle?"*  In honor of the solved mystery, I made another card with the Wplus9 Woodgrain sets:

Edit: I got an accidental sneak peek of the Res-Q-Challenge for this week in my google reader.  Then I made the card and went to link to the post only to figure out the new challenges are posted on Fridays.  Doh!  I tied the twine around three times. 

Yes, this is another anniversary card, but no it's not for my hubby.  It's for my parentals--43 years next week!

This paper was the back of the October Afternoon Daydream ledger paper I used for my card yesterday, and I was just in love with it.  Not only that, but it's a perfect match for PTI's Aqua Mist.  I stamped the flowers with Versamark and clear embossed.  And then--then!!--I stamped the woodgrain onto Dark Chocolate with Versamark and clear embossed.  The result was heavenly; I almost hated to cover it with the image panel!  Extreme closeup:

Although I think my clear embossing powder has been tainted with some white, unless there's another explanation for the white specks that I'm unaware of.  

And did you check out that fabulous burlap twine?  Emily (aka Stampingout) was sweet enough to send me a bunch of it in different colors after I left a comment saying that I need to get some after seeing her wonderful rainbow card.  Thanks again, Emily!  The button was from PTI Ocean Tides stash, with the shank dremmeled off by DH.  Punched the tag and stamped Happy Anniversary from PTI's Mixed Messages.  

Are you still reading?  Well, my friend, have I got some blog candy for you:  in recognition of having over 100 hits (watch out, Beate!) and because this was a good book that wasn't worth much to sell on Amazon (wow, are you feeling the love?), one lucky random commenter from this post will win a gently-read copy of Addition by Toni Jordan.  I really enjoyed it as a nice summer read.  You may also choose to substitute Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl, neither of which I read more than 100 pages and therefore would not recommend, but hey, maybe they're right up your alley.  If history is any indication, you could possibly have a one-in-four or up to a one-in-one chance of winning!  I'll do a random number generator tomorrow evening.  I'm reading quite a lot this summer, so there may be more chances in the future for you as well.

Medallion Anniversary Card

This is the first of two cards I'm making for my DH for our 3rd anniversary next Wednesday. I really wanted to use the medallion for Taylored Expressions Sketch #116.

I started by stamping the Stampin' Up Medallion in versamark onto new-to-me discontinued SU paper and embossing with black embossing powder.

Ok, to be honest, I didn't start that way. I first tried to stamp the middle with cream and the outside with black and do clear embossing, but my black pigment pad turned out to be useless. Then I tried stamping the middle & embossing with white, then stamping the outside and embossing with black. Since you don't see that on the card, I bet you can guess how that turned out.

Anyway, I then went to work on the side panel. I knew I wanted to use the cream buttons--they were extras from my wedding dress, here they are on the dress:

The buttons were kind of lonely by themselves, so I added some black grommets that I got on clearance at HL. Now, of course I didn't read the fine print about using them with the Crop-a-dile big bite, but I thought that it was more of a guideline than a rule anyway. Turns out: grommets are not fun to pry out of your crop-a-dile. I ended up setting them with a screwdriver, which actually wasn't too horrible and about $30 cheaper than a big bite.

I printed the sentiment using Bernhart font (if you ever see a computer generated sentiment you'd like to have, let me know and I can post or email the file). After cutting it out with a Spellbinders ribbon tag die, I sponged some Old Olive onto it. This yummy scrunched ribbon is from Hobby Lobby, it was a set of 5 different colors for less than $5. The final step was attaching the two panels using Scotch Mounting Tape, which I must say I could learn to like. I'm definitely going to take Angela's suggestion of scoping it out at my local home improvement center (note to self: also get magnetic radiator covers for nestie storage needs!).

And just because this photo was near the other one and it makes me happy, I'm going to end my post with it.

A perfect moment from a perfect day.