Gift Card Holders

If you follow the Pennywise blog regularly you might recall these AOL cd boxes that were in desperate need of alteration:

I’d collected a substantial amount of them years ago when they could be found on the counter at the post office free for the taking (and taking, and taking).  Even just two at a time, they added up quickly when you consider that back then I went to the post office five days a week.  Best of all, these very unique boxes are made of WOOD!

On the first weekend of December, I sat down with four Stampin’ Up paper packs, Sure Tac Glue and 28 AOL boxes.  I was determined to have my project as close to completed as possible before the weekend slipped by.

I’m proud to say that I attained my goal and even got a head start on the handmade poinsettia flowers to embellish each one.  (Jolee’s eat your heart out!) 

With a little help from my friend Chriss Grabb, the flowers were finished during several episodes of “White Collar”. Ü

The boxes are even finished on the inside!  (Spellbinders dies made them look so professional!)

All I had left to do was make the  tags and add the gift cards!  I chose Restaurant.com cards to show my appreciation to the Pennywise Arts Design Team.  I got a great discount on them and I think it’s fun to go hunting for deals at restaurants we haven’t tried yet!  Design Team members, be sure to read the instructions on the back of the card!

Thanks everyone for your input, ideas and feedback.  I look forward to a prosperous 2011 and hope you’ll be right there with me!

Hugs,  Suzanne

I Love A Party!

Everyone that knows me, knows how much I love a party.  It doesn’t even have to be a really big whoopdy-doopty shindig.  Just a friend or two, some good conversation, some good eats,…. that’s all it takes for me to be completely and utterly “party-fied”! 

Michele Aiello Zendejas designed this fun party hat card that has been embellished to the hilt (in Michele style) with brads, charms, paper clip, clear micro beads and embossed stamped tiles.  The purple and lime green colors make me wanna plan a party!  Oh, ya,… I almost forgot that I am!  I’m in the thick of planning the PWA party of the year, our annual shoebox retreat!  Now that’s a party to look forward to!  Wish you could all be there!  Ü

Hugs, Suzanne

Birds Of A Feather Flock 1

We’ve been busy, busy on the Pennywise Arts Yahoo group!  With several swaps in play all at once I’ve found myself moving with fervor to meet all the deadlines.  Swapping this week are our beautiful birds……..

Bird Above By Kathi Hall

Bird Above By Eunice Creswell

 

Bird Above By Jennifer Toussaint

Bird Above By Julie Imsland

Bird Above By Karen Slusher

 

Be sure to check back!  Another flock of birds will be posted tomorrow!

Springtime Flower Bouquet √

Is it Spring yet?  It’s hard to tell in the Snoqualmie Valley!  Yesterday it was hailing and today the sun is shining.  Last week was similarly crazy with sun and snow mixed!  My flowers are confused and so am I!

This flower bouquet isn’t confusing though and with it sitting on my counter it feels like Spring every time I glance that direction. Ü

Marianne Colschen created this simple to replicate card using her diamond Cuttlebug embossing plate on white cardstock.  She added Sure Tac Glue to half of the lines and then dipped the card into clear micro beads.  Any size bead will do!   The larger the micro bead the more reflection you’ll see from the light refracting through them, that’s what makes this card especially sparkly.

Prima flowers of all shapes, sizes and colors were layered together and added across the center diagonally with more Sure Tac Glue.  Micro beads in the middle finish the flowers quite nicely.  We love Sure Tac Glue because it flows nicely and dries crystal clear.  It’s perfect for micro bead accents anywhere you need them.

Pretty ribbon and a couple more layers of colored cardstock give the front of this card design a blooming finish.

But that’s not all folks!

Inside Marianne continued the same techniques and theme.  I love cards that are decorated on the inside.  I wish I took more time to follow it through that way!  Usually I’m lucky to have a card done just on the outside, forget the inside and the envelope!  Ü

Would you like to see this card with your hands?  Leave a comment below and you just might! 

Stamp Credit:  The Paper Company

Love Is In The Air

It’s been so much fun going through the many, many boxes of cards and creations by our design team and beadie buds! 

I find it especially fun (and funny) when I email Julie that I’ve found a great card that she made some time ago and since I know she saves all of her instructions could she please email them to me?  And she does, even though she has no memory of what the card looked like she can find those instructions every time!  So here it is for all of you to see – including Julie!  Ü

P.S. I think it’s quite clever how Julie made the shaker look like it was part of a picture frame hanging on the wall!

Love Is In The Air Shaker

By Julie Imsland

Supplies:

Pennywise Arts: Big Window Basic Shaker Template, Green Translucent Glass Micro Beads, True Green Opaque Glass Micro Beads, ¼” O’So Sticky Tape™

Uptown Rubber Stamps: F23112 Cloud Swing Couple

Karen Foster Design: 00372 Mini Casual Snap-Stamps

Mini Heart Flower: Unknown Source

VersaMark ink

StazOn Ink: Jet Black, Black Cherry, Eden Green

Black Embossing Powder

Memory Box: Red Mini Plaid Cardstock

Other Cardstock: White, Black, Red

Dritz: Large Red Eyelet

Scrap Arts: Black Square Mini Eyelets

Black Wire

Chalks

Acetate

Foam Tape, Adhesive

Directions

1. Stamp Cloud Swing Couple with VersaMark ink onto a 3” square of white cardstock, heat emboss with black embossing powder. Color as desired with chalks.

2. Begin preparing shaker as directed. After cutting frame opening, stamp “love is in the air” with the snap-stamps and black StazOn ink . Use chalks to color around frame.

3. Ink mini heart flower stamp with red and green StazOn inks and stamp repeatedly along bottom edge of frame opening.

4. Stamp mini heart flower stamp with red and green StazOn ink along bottom edge of a 2.75” acetate square.

5. Continue construction of the shaker as directed. Use a very small amounts of the translucent and opaque green beads for filling the grass area along the image.

6. Once shaker is constructed, punch 2 small holes at the top of the shaker and set 2 small black eyelets.

7. Affix a black wire hanger with adhesive behind each eyelet.

8. Adhere the hanging shaker to a slightly larger square of black cardstock.

9. Punch a hole centered near the top of a 4.25” x 5.5” mini plaid piece of

cardstock. Affix shaker to mini plaid card front with a small piece of foam tape.

Wire hanger should be caught when setting the large red eyelet.

10. Mount the card front to a top folded 4.25” x 11” red card.

Happily Ever After

Annette Lanker had a great idea to use birdseed in her wedding themed shaker card!  Won’t be long and wedding season will be upon us…… 

All You Need Is Love

Francine Domschine-Hill sent in this unique shaker card design using a paper punch design in the background of the shaker card.

Don’t forget that we have lots of FREE shaker card templates on our website here:  http://www.pennywisearts.com/supersimpleshakercards.html

If you’ve never made a shaker card before our simple tutorial will walk you through it step by step.  Shaker cards are a fun and interactive card to send or receive.  Whenever I need to really concentrate on something  I will  often pick up a shaker and tip it back and forth to create the soft swooshing sound the beads make as they roll back and forth.  It’s almost a hypnotic sound that helps me feel calm and relaxed.  Try it! 

Coming soon!  Free SVG cut files of our shaker card templates!!

Blue For You

Blue and brown together really do it for me.  I love this color combo!  Designer Christine Plumb put them together beautifully in this layered up valentine card that she sent to me last year. 

Yes, it’s true, I save all the cards people send to me!  I treasure them because they are a symbol of the friendships that have blossomed over the years and I love to decorate my studio with others artwork as my inspiration. 

It reminds me of the time when I was being filmed to be on HGTV’s show Crafters Coast to Coast.   (I just looked, and by golly the tutorials from the show are still available online – just click the hyper link to be taken there…)

What a crazy time that was!  I had redone my studio just weeks prior to the arrival of the film crew.  As part of my new decor I had posted artwork by my “beadie buds” all over the cabinets that would be in the background.  The producer of the show told me that I had to take them all down, or have signed releases for them to be on television by the next morning.  I put the call out to my Yahoo group, the source of all that amazing art, and how I wish you all could have seen the look on her face when I handed the producer a stack of release forms an inch and a half thick the next day!  It was priceless!!

Not sure what got me off on that tangent but  in case you can’t see the hyperlinks in the above text, click here to see the four  projects that I made on HGTV:  http://www.hgtv.com/thats-clever/cowboy-boot-tray-painted-aluminum-wall-art-microbead-box-and-pen-set-lacy-beaded-thank-you-card/index.html

And click here to be directed to our PWA online community on Yahoo groups:  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PennywiseArts/

 

Hugs,

Suzanne

Flower Basket

This sweet flower basket by Michelle McCarthy doubles as a cheery spring card and the colors get me in the mood for Valentine’s too!   The whole flower basket has been covered with clear micro beads to add texture and glimmer!

Stamp Credits: Stampin Up!

Floral Trio

I am so ready for spring! Are we there yet?? Winter days are just to dark and dreary here in the Pacific Northwest. Living in a rain shadow definitely doesn’t help any either. To brighten things up around here I am getting out all the springy-est creations I can find in the arsenal of amazing artwork I have collected over the years.

Here is a fun floral trio that Julie Imsland made last year for our design team:

I love how the pink accents make the elements on this card really pop! If you click on the photo you can get a better look at those micro beads too – they are sure hard to capture in a picture but in person the added glimmer and texture are really something.

You all know the “tape trick” right? The secret to lining a piece of O’So Sticky perfectly over the top of an image? If you don’t then be sure to check out our “Bead Basics” Tutorial in the “online class archives” on the Pennywise website. It will really save a lot of money and frustration!

Stamp Credits: Stampington & Co.

Julie’s Christmases

Coming up in January, PWA will be spotlighting projects created by designer Julie Imsland.  Julie is a long time “beadie bud” and talented artist hailing from North Bend, WA.  Here are a few of the Christmas cards she has made in past years for our design team…

Stamp Credits: Paper Inspirations

 

Stamp Credits: Rubberstamp Ave.

Stamp Credits: Rubbermoon

Santa Hat Shaker

Kelli Green used colored plaster to create the amazing texture on this Santa hat.  She crafted a fun shaker card rim with red and clear micro beads over a red snowflake background.  Her hat was finished off with a cluster of holly leaves and berries.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

This festive hat was made by Karen Slusher and comes packed with lots of added details!  A mixture of  micro beads  and 1/4” O’So Sticky Tape stripes add texture to the wallpaper effect in the background.  A three dimensional sticker has been layered and embellished with Stickles and fun red pom poms border the hat’s brim.  Karen also added red stickles to the snowmen bordering the bottom edge to create glittery hearts.  A large pom finishes off the hat and was created from crumpled paper, a silk flower and a fancy brad.

Holly Jolly Santa Hat

Tracy Mathia’s Santa hat has by far the fattest cotton balls I have ever seen!  Her background has lots of texture happening with embossed patterned paper and a glitter embossed “Merry Christmas” over the top of it.  Tracy then added red micro bead holly berries and she used her signature micro bead fabric technique to create the holly from O’So Sticky Tape that has been cut and beaded on both sides. 

Lady Chat Got Plastered!

This self titled fat hat was made by Melissa Ragsdill, also known as Lady Chat in the PWA Yahoo Group.  She used plaster to create the texture of the background which doubled as adhesive to hold a whole lotta clear micro beads to the brim.  A wide sparkly ribbon creates the perfect trim and a really, really fat squishy “something” with a peppermint candy image in the middle is the final, fun touch. 

Heartful Snowman

Karen Slusher added her unique and classic style to the creation of this snowman with hidden features.  Paint and stamps start it all off in the background while hand punched snowflakes and Stickles take the stage to create the face and icicles on the hat.  The arms are ornament hangers and the vest is cut from patterned paper.  Not shown in this photo is the surprise inside when one discovers that the vest actually opens up and underneath is a large crystal snowflake heart!

Snow Angel

One of two snowmen in the Pennywise Arts fat book swap came from PWA designer Julie Imsland.  Julie was super creative in making her snowman into an angel and here’s how she did it…  The snowman body is covered in three white felt circles which have been aptly adorned with the basic snowman outfit of eyes, nose, scarf and heart.  (Everyone knows that snowmen have hearts!)  To keep her man’s head warm Julie created a hat from an old tube sock (clean of course!)  The wings were made from scalloped chipboard that she found at Michael’s last summer.  She cut each board in half to get the shape shown.  Painted white and run through her Cuttlebug, Julie added embossed snowflake texture to the background of the wings before rubber stamping snowflakes over the top with gold ink and adding them to the back of the snowman to create her warm hearted snow angel.

Let The Angels Sing

Our only angel in the holiday fat book came from Jennifer Toussaint.  Her heavenly design consists of a neat crackly background with lots of white feathers, beaded trim, crystals and comes with it’s own set of musical instruments.

Another Marvelous Mitten

Lynn Lake created a fuzzy blue mitten with felt cuff adorned with chilly snowflakes and a warm cup of cocoa.  “Tis the Season” don’t cha know!

And More Marvelous Mittens

This marvelous mitten was created by Julie Imsland.  To truly appreciate this creation you’ll want to be sure and click on the photo for a larger version.  Julie has used an assortment of patterned paper as well as hand held punches to create this fun design.  Behind some of the punched out patterns she has used O’So Sticky Tape and micro beaded it.