Happy Birthday by Cassonda

Cassonda Tadlock is here today to share 2 fun birthday cards she created. She recently celebrated her birthday and was in such the birthday spirit that she decided to create a card with a birthday theme! Who doesn't need a stash of birthday cards?  Cassonda loves layering all kinds of embellies in a little cluster just for fun. ♥

Cassonda decided to use some older papers from Girls Paperie & Imaginisce and added some fun stickers from SRM. She loves that SRM Stickers are are clear and can be added anywhere. She used the We've Got Your Border  Birthday stickers and We've Got Your Stickers Plus Birthday design. And see that little bit of doily peeking out under the flowers? That's one of SRM's super cute 4" white lace doilies. Cassonda stamped on top of the Punched Pieces scallop tag and heat embossed using raspberry and lemon embossing powder. So cute right? (no they don't smell but she sure wished they did!) She also added a little pull out tag with just a touch of Maraschino Twinery twine to write a sweet message for the recipient of this card. She topped the card off with pearls sprinkled all around.

For her second card Cassonda made a card for a friend who loves red, so she added a big red flower!  The stickers peeking out from under the ribbon are some Sticker Stitches/Valentine and Fancy Sentiments/Birthday.  And of course, she had to add a little more of the white doilies.  I think that there's a bit of a doily addiction going on here! :)

Love the way she finished off the inside of her card using more Fancy Stickers/Birthday.  

Have any birthdays coming up soon?  If you need a card, you've got your inspiration!  Thanks Cassonda for such pretty cards!  They are simply delicious!

By the way, today is MY birthday!  Thanks for the beautiful cards Cassonda!  So sweet of you to remember! :)  As some people get older they dread their birthdays.  Not me!  I love to celebrate for the week of or even the month of my birthday.  If you have any birthday cards using SRM, I'd love to have you post them on our Flickr.  

Birthday Tag by Annette

How about a fun birthday tag from Annette Allen?  She just loves giving gifts with fun tags.  They make the gift more exciting from the outside.  We all know how exciting it is to open a gift but when you see it all dressed up, Annette thinks it makes it that much more exciting… a gift to remember!

On today's project tag Annette used SRM's We've Got Your Border/Birthday, Stickers by the Dozen/Birthday Birdie, We've Got Your Sticker/Happy, small Punched Pieces in black, teal and baby blue and Charcoal Twinery twine.  

Annette added some Twine to this cute birdie to make it look like the birdie is holding a fun Punched Pieces 3-D balloon. Adorable!

With a fun border to finish off the bottom, you have a cute tag to dress up that perfect Birthday gift.  Thanks Annette for this darling idea!  Great gift wrapping just adds to the fun of gift giving!

By the way, tomorrow is MY birthday!  Thanks for the sweet tag Annette!  You shouldn't have! :)  

Create Your Own Vinyl Nail Stickers with Tessa

Hello from Tessa Wise!  It's summer time and who doesn't love pretty nails in the summer!  All the fun, bright colored nail polish comes out along with some great designer embellishments.  I thought I'd experiment and see if I could create some of my own embellishments using SRM Vinyl and my Silhouette Cameo. 

I chose to work with the glossy metallic gold vinyl but any of the SRM vinyl

 would work for this.  I found a few simple designs in my Silhouette library and shrunk them down to less than half of an inch tall.  You can see the designs I chose and the size they are compared to the background grid:

I set the machine up to cut my vinyl and sent it through.  Amazingly, my machine had no problem cutting such tiny designs!

I peeled away the extra background vinyl leaving only the cut shapes on the backing.  Aren't they cute!

I painted my nails in a pretty coral color and let them dry completely.  

Then I simply lifted the stickers off with my picker tool, being careful not to touch the back of the vinyl with my fingers.

I layed them down on my nails and pressed over them with my fingers so they were stuck down well.  With the zig zags, I cut the edges so they fit the width of my nails.

I sealed them with a clear top coat and let them dry completely.  Once the top coat was dry, they were good to go!  The stickers lasted as long as my mani did and looked so pretty in the sunshine!

I am so happy with how this little experiment turned out!  I'm going to try it again soon with tiny flowers! :)  Thanks for stopping by the SRM blog today! Now go check out all the arm Vinyl choices and plan your own nail party!

Summer Layout by Shantaie

Looking for some inspiration for summer layouts?  Look no further.  Shantaie Fowler is a genius with her Silhouette and decided to create a lovely summer layout that has lots of die cutting involved.  I love the 3-D, multi layered effect of what Shantaie has created.  She cut out the large sun with her Silhouette, stitched it down and then started laying her stickers.  Love how she used a SRM Doily to anchor her beautiful family photo.

Here's an up close view of all the amazing details that are part of this intricate layout.  In addition to all the lovely layering, Shantaie also loves adding SRM Sticker Borders as a quick way to add color and interest.  And Sticker Stitches… well, they show up frequently on Shantaie's work. 

The fabulous flower is made from SRM's Teal Punched Pieces.  How fun is that!

Shantaie loves clear SRM Sticker sentiments since they can be woven into any project looking as if they were printed on the paper. All the stickers used on this layout are from SRM's Water Fun collection.

Thanks for this happy summer layout Shantaie.  Your work is an inspiration!

Poppies Mini Calendar Tutorial by Cathy A.

Poppies seem to pop up everywhere in craft projects, so why not on a calendar!  

This project was created by Cathy Andronicou using SRM's Mini Calendar standard, Sticker Stitches Christmas, Year Of Memories 2015  and a small Glassine Bag that measures 2 3/4" x 4 1/4".

Here's a list of the other materials used: Penny Black Field of Dreams & Feather & Frames dies, Blooming Garden Stamp set, Chameleon Alcohol pens Chrimson Red, Black and Olive Green, Spellbinders Labels Eight, Dainty Dots Embossing Folder and Classic Squares LG & SM, Sizzix Small Easel Die and Circle Paddle Punch, Imagine Crafts/Tsukineko Memento dual tip markers, Rhubarb Stalk, Tuxedo Black and Bamboo Leaves, Green, Red & White card stock

And here are the step by step instructions on how to create this wonderful little calendar gem:

1) Cut 4 white pieces of card labels Eight, then cut squares (using 3 1/4", 2 3/4",2 1/4" dies) from three of the labels on the right hand side to create frame and holder for calendar.

2) Cut a square frame (using 3 1/4" and 2 3/4" dies) from red card to fit into the labels eight base.  Apply white sticker stitches to each side of frame.  Then adhere all three cut labels to the base, add in the red and white frames and cut a circle in the centre of the frame (this will allow you to easily remove and change the calendar each month). Cut the easel mechanism and trim down to fit on the back of the calendar.

3) Cut 6 2 1/4" squares from green card and apply mini calendar stickers to each side. 

4) Cut the Glassine bag top using the feather and frames die and emboss with dainty dots.  Adhere to back of calendar and put spare months into the pocket.

5) Cut Poppy from pearl card and colour with alcohol pens, then ink stamp with memento markers and stamp over the top of the coloured die cut to add texture to the poppies. Adhere to front of calendar with glue at base and foam pads on the flowers and seed pods (this will add more dimension to the project). Attach the year sticker and you are done!

Do you love creating hand crafted gifts for Christmas or Birthday presents?  Make multiples of this fabulous calendar and give them to your friends and family!  You can change the theme and color scheme on each calendar so no 2 are exactly alike!  Thank you Cathy for this wonderful project!  I'm sure that lots of our friends and fans will be CASing this calendar!

SRM Stencil Vinyl Tutorial by Lorena

Prepare for fun as Lorena Cantó shares SRM Stencil vinyl tutorial with us today.    Let's let Lorena tell us about her project in her own words.  



"Hello, SRM friends! Lorena here waving hello! Today I bring you a photo tutorial for what might be my favorite SRM product: his majesty the Stencil Vinyl. Not kidding, people! Susan and John will confirm how much I drooled over it when they introduced it last January at CHA ;)"

"And what perfect timing to introduce this vinyl! Because stencils were all the rage at the show. They where everywhere! Lots of different designs to suit any style. Now, enter the SRM stencil vinyl + an electronic die cutting machine in the equation. Custom stencils in any design you can dream. Yeah, it's possible! And I'm going to show you how to make them using the Silhouette Cameo/Portrait."

NOTE:  Cilck on these photos to see all the details.  Here's the step by step instructions:

"1. Open the design you want. It can be a cutting file from the Silhouette Store (type stencil on the search feature and you'll find lots of choices) or you can design your own stencil. Also, remember there are lots of freebies out there! I chose to make my own design by drawing a 5 3/4'' square and adding evenly spaced circles."



"2. Here are the cut settings I used: Blade at 9 (don't forget to turn the blade itself to 9 before cutting!), Speed at 3 and Thickness at 33. I also checked Double Cut because the SRM Stencil Vinyl is nice and thick. Before I discovered it, I used to make stencils with transparency sheets, but they were too flimsy. This material? It's a dream with such a heavy weight!"

"3a. Cut a 6x6 piece of stencil vinyl (I used my paper trimmer for this and it cut perfectly) and place it on the cutting mat, rough side down. My mat wasn't very sticky, so I secured the vinyl with some masking tape. Load the mat and send it to cut from the machine. 3b. Once the cutting is done, this is what you get. Remove the vinyl piece from the mat. 3c. As I said above, the stencil material is very sturdy, so you'll need a craft knife to remove the pieces. Just make a slit following the already die cut lines and pull softly. The material will pop cleanly. 3d. Here's the end result! The light that was coming from the window makes it look kind of wavy, but it lays perfectly flat. Promise.  By the way, the SRM Stencil Sheets are adhesive backed. Another nice feature."

"And of course, I had to make something immediately with my brand new stencil! First I made a card blending Distress Inks over the stencil. The stamped sentiment and stars are from Waffle Flower Crafts. I didn't add much more to let that cool background shine!"

"I also made a tag. Again, I blended Distress Inks but this time I also stamped a starry background in gold Delicata ink before removing the stencil. The sentiment word was die cut with the Cameo."

"Phew! It was a long post, right? But before leaving, did you know that the SRM Stencil Material comes in a 12 x 24 inches sheet? Imagine how many different stencils you can make!

Thanks so much for stopping by the SRM blog! See you soon :)"

Happy Summer {Card} by Shannon

Shannon Morgan is getting "punchy" using lots of SRM Punched Pieces on her cards.  She loves the 3 different sizes and the 10 different colors.  They make the creative possibilities endless.  

Let's take a look at Shannon's fabulous layered summer card.  And let's have Shannon, in her own words, tell us about her creative process. 

"I focus a lot on layers when I am creating. I always start with a base and build from that. Usually, my focus is also on colors. I think the key to layering is colors that compliment each other. Look at this card and you will see a trend. I started with the orange, placed the aqua on top. The yellow punched piece was placed on top of that. That becomes my base."

Shannon loves the new punched pieces.  Note how she splattered alcohol inks to decorated the large yellow punched piece and then added a bit of bling.

"From there I tuck things here and like the additional punched piece, the fish and placing the tag just slightly askew. I then added the beach ball and flip flops. They are adhered to vellum, so while they add a layer, they don't take away from what's behind them."

Shannon loves using vellum, twine and staples on her cards and layouts.  They are all part of the laying process.  

"The beauty of vellum, is I can add a foam dot behind the solid part of the sticker and no one is the wiser...adding dimension without sacrificing design. Wrapping twine around the card also adds a layer (that's an easy way to add dimension...if you're having trouble getting it to look just so, add a dab of clear glue behind the twine). Staples are also a big impact without sacrificing space."

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall watching Shannon create? We hope you'll give all of Shannon's little tricks a try!  And we hope that this blog post has been a "Shannon Tutorial" so that you can make cards as fun and free as the one we have shared today!  And remember that SRM's Sentiments are printed on clear and look like they were printed on your cards!

Here are the SRM Products Shannon used on her card: 

Punched Pieces - Medium Scalloped Circle 

Punched Pieces - Small Scalloped Circle 

Sticker Sentiment/Summer 

Live Life/Water Fun

FreeStyle/Water Fun

The Gold Trend by Cathy H.

Cathy Harper is loving the gold trend that you are seeing in almost all of the new paper collections this summer and she thinks that SRM has the perfect gold doily to embellish all of those projects.  Cathy loves how this card turned out and so do I! The gold doily really sets off the the colors in the papers she chose.  Cathy used her Silhouette Cameo to cut the fun card base and little banners.  



She loves the fun little detail stickers from the Sticker Stitches/Valentine set on the side where the mason jar vase is. And she loves the detail that the "best wishes" sticker adds from the Thinking of You Sticker Sentiments.

 Of course, Cathy added a bit of Twinery Twine in Blossom Pink. She rarely creates a card without twine.  It's one of her "go to" supplies. 

 Cathy can't wait to create a layout with these gorgeous gold doilies!
Here are the SRM Supplies you will need for making this card: 

Gold Lace Doilies

Thinking of You Sentiment

Red/Pink/White/Black Sticker Stitches

Blossom Baker's Twine

Thank You Glassine Bags by Michele

Michele Kovack always seems to need little thank you gifts.   Her daughter Cortney has many caregivers. People like her teachers, aides, bus drivers, and therapists.  They all know Michele is a crafter, which puts a lot of pressure on her to make them something they are going to like.  ;)  So what better way to give a little gratitude than chocolate candies in pretty SRM glassine bags all dolled up with doilies, bows and twine?

Michele topped off her glassine bags with with a classy gold doily from SRM and bows she cut using her Silhouette.  YUM!

Michele used a variety of thank you stickers, because as she likes to say, "Variety is the spice of life!" 

Michele added a pearl and a bit of color coordinated twine to finish her gift bags off!  Perfection!

Michele says "You will be seeing more gifty items from me because they are always in need around my house!"  So happy to hear that Michele.  We can't get enough of your beautiful crafted gifts!  Keep 'em coming!

Here's the SRM Products that Michele used in her project: 

Glassine Bags 

Gold Doilies 

Fancy Thank You Sticker Sentiment 

Twine

5 Months Layout by Christine

Christine Meyer loves all those awesome onesies and stickers that they have to help you document your baby's first year pictures!  And she thinks that SRM has the perfect stickers for personalizing your layouts for those!  Her little guy is 20 months old now but she's still trying to finish off a couple of these pages - so she dug into her SRM Stickers to get the job done!

Not only does SRM have the We've Got Your Number Stickers but we also have a huge variety of phrases and words so you can showcase that personality!  The label stickers make for a perfect little journalling spot. The brand new Punched Pieces are so perfect for all the fabulous circle stickers that SRM has!  Christine loves how they add a little something extra to her layout.

Christine had three pictures that she wanted to use so she made the fourth piece of her grid the title area.  It is made up of 5 different stickers: We've Got Your Number, Sentiment/Baby, Express Yourself/Everyday Boy, Stickers By the Dozen Valentine, and Sticker Stitches.

Christine added words/phrases to some coordinating yellow patterned paper and used those in addition to the punched pieces to help tell about her little guy.

Christine tends to do a lot of adding words and not tons of actual journaling, but in this case she wanted to make sure she documented his size and such.  The SRM Bright Blank Label sticker was perfect for doing just that!

If you do monthly scrapbook pages for your baby or grandbaby, you might want to give Christine's page layout a try.  And don't forget your SRM Stickers! 

Here are the SRM supplies used on Christine's layout: 

Labels by the Dozen Bright Blank

We've Got Your Number

 Sentiment/Baby

 Express Yourself/Everyday Boy

 Stickers By the Dozen Valentine

Sticker Stitches

Punched Pieces

Shine Your Light by Diane

Diane Jaquay has created a set of cards that she's donating to the women's ministry at her church.  It's a way of saying thank you to all the women in this group who have been a Godsend to her, uplifting her in so many ways.  She opes these cards will be used to encourage women who might be going through a difficult time.  What a wonderful idea.  And what beautiful cards. 

Diane said that these cards were a snap to make using SRM's Shine Your Light Sticker Sentiments.  She found so many wonderfully uplifting sentiments on this one sheet.  

Diane used the same formula on each card, simply changing out the sentiment.  

The cute little images that she used to create the banners are from We've Got Your Sticker Thanks and Hello designs. 

 Diane loved how nicely the colors of the stickers go along with her patterned papers from Crate paper's Little Bo Peep paper pad.  Diane said "These cards were a joy to create!".

And Diane has over 25 more sentiments to use on other cards.  With just one Sticker Sentiment sheet you can make 30 cards!  Amazing!