American Crafts

Cards | Love This

April 5, 2013 by Nancy Nally Leave a Comment

Feathers are hot, and as designer Yana Smakula illustrates in this card, they have a ton of uses! Here, Yana used them as a design substitute for a floral element. Feathers can substitute almost anywhere that you would use a flower!

Yana also used the dies to create negative space on this design. Instead of cutting out the dies and adhering the shapes, she took the front panel of her card and used the dies to cut the shapes out of it. The negative space then allows the card base to show through.

The rule of threes was used well here – the pearls and the large shapes all are present in threes, and there are even three sub-panels of patterned paper that make up the front panel of the card. It provides balance and flow to the eye.

Supplies | Cardstock: Dovecraft (Premium White). Patterned Paper: American Crafts Dear Lizzy (5th & Frolic 6×6 pad). Chipboard: American Crafts Dear Lizzy (5th & Frolic). Pearls: Dovecraft (Tea Party). Adhesive: Dovecraft (foam squares, foam tape, clear squares). Die: Spellbinders Paper Arts (On The Edge, Say What).

Designer: Yana Smakula

Yana Smakula is a newlywed from Ukraine (which is in southeastern Europe) with no kids but two black cats. She loves to travel across the world and meet new people, discover new cultures and just explore. So far together with her new husband she’s been to a few places in Europe (Poland, Check Republic and UK), Africa (Egypt, Tunisia and Israel), Asia (China and Sri Lanka) and USA. Their next dream destination is Madagascar, because they hear the nature there is simply breathtaking! Yana fell in love with the U.S. while living here (in Las Vegas, NV) as a high school foreign exchange student when she was a teen. She enjoys scrapbooking, mostly about her travels. Her other passion is cardmaking – she enjoys trying new products and techniques, experimenting and creating in different styles. She’s also very much into stamping (although she didn’t realize it until she took a close look at her cards and noticed almost all of them use stamps!). To learn more about Yana, visit her website.

Filed Under: Card Annex, Play Tagged With: American Crafts, Dear Lizzy, Dovecraft, Spellbinders, Yana Smakula

Cards | Thinking of You [Pebbles]

March 25, 2013 by Nancy Nally Leave a Comment

To close out Card Annex’s American Crafts brands feature week, we have a great card from designer Sharon Callis! Today we are focusing on Pebbles again!

This card highlights two of the best cardmaking Basics from the Pebbles brand – Cardmaking Pads and Card Sentiment Phrases stickers. These quick and easy basics make whipping up a card on demand problem-free!

Pairing the simple basics with some bling is the perfect way to quickly create a jazzy card. Sharon used a lot of bling paired with a strip of ribbon to create a visual block. With that level of detail and shine, that is all that is needed for a beautiful card!

Another thing to note about this card is that Sharon’s color palette establishes a tone for the message. The gray and blue gray palette sets a more serious tone for the sentiment of the card than if “thinking of you” was accompanied by bright pink or a cheery yellow. Sometimes an exuberant color palette isn’t appropriate to the reason for the card. This card’s palette is sensitive to those occasions.

Supplies | Card: Pebbles (Basics Cardmaking Pad 1). Stickers: Pebbles Card Sentiment Phrases (Thinking of You). Ribbon: Webster’s Pages. Gems: Habico. Adhesive: Xyron (Mega Runner).

Designer: Sharon Callis

Sharon Callis lives in Ireland and has been a crafter for over twenty years. In 2011, Sharon was named ‘Cardmaker of the Year’ by Cardmaking and Papercraft/ Quick Cards made Easy’ Magazines in the UK. Sharon’s work has been featured in publications such as Creative Cardmaking, Papercraft Essential, Create and Craft TV, Cardmaking and Papercraft as well as on various craft companies Facebook pages and blogs. She currently designs for Xyron, gel-a-tins and Little Yellow Bicycle. In addition to her passion for papercrafts, Sharon also likes to do a wide variety of crafts: knit, sew, cross stitch, machine embroider, plastic canvas, costume design, woodcraft, dollshouse miniatures, sketching, home decor, model making and baking. To learn more about her,visit her blog.

Filed Under: Card Annex, Play Tagged With: American Crafts, American Crafts feature, Habico, Pebbles, Sharon Callis, Webster's Pages, Xyron

Cards | Life Is Better In Flip Flops [Pebbles]

March 23, 2013 by Nancy Nally Leave a Comment

The card designed by Corri Garza for today’s American Crafts feature is perfect for life here in Florida, where flip-flops are considered office wear at many companies!

When is a card not a card? Corri used the Pebbles Basics Cardmaking Pad as patterned paper, cutting some of the sheets up to create the blocks that are the main elements of her design. The icon sticker stands out from the background with the pop of green in its border that appears nowhere else on the card. The buttons help draw the eye up to the sentiment, which is slightly small to compete with the visual weight of the bold patterns. With the buttons next to it, the visual text is enlarged and highlighted, making it more of a focus.

Supplies | Card: American Crafts Cards (Pool). Patterned Paper: Pebbles (Basics Card Cardmaking Pad). Sticker: Pebbles (Party Pool Round Stickers). Stamp: Scrappy Moms Stamps (Sun Kissed). Button: Unknown.

Designer: Corri Garza

Corri began paper crafting in 2009 when she purchased a Cricut at a Black Friday sale. She started following some blogs and immediately fell in love with card making. Recently, she added a Silhouette Cameo to her craft room and she loves working with die cuts to create cards, gift boxes and altered items. Corri lives just outside San Antonio, Texas with her husband and three kids. When she’s not in her craft room, she is watching her twins playing sports. They are involved in volleyball, baseball and softball, so there is always a game to watch! Corri also enjoys photography, especially taking nature photos. To learn more about Corri, visit her blog.

Filed Under: Card Annex, Play Tagged With: American Crafts, American Crafts feature, Corri Garza, Pebbles, Scrappy Moms

Cards | Hello [American Crafts]

March 22, 2013 by Nancy Nally 1 Comment

Welcome back to our American Crafts feature week! This lovely card is by Card Annex designer Evgenia Petzer, featuring a wide variety of American Crafts in her signature layering style.

It’s interesting to note the selection of collections that Evgenia has pulled from to create this card. She’s combined supplies from Amy Tangerine, Crate Paper, Pebbles, and Dear Lizzy – all of whom have very distinct signature styles that would not be considered naturally compatible at first glance. But by carefully picking and choosing specific elements, and centering on a color scheme, Evgenia has melded these very different items into a cohesive creation.

Evgenia’s eye for detail is always evident in her designs – even in finding supplies that others might throw away and turning them into beautiful pieces of her design!

When looking at the wonderful cut off strips of American Craft brand papers I can never throw them away, as they can give you some really nice extra touches. Like on this card – the sentiment hello and the mail stripe in the left of the card are these cut offs.

I really love to make cards and often compare it to puzzle making. I just absolutely love the moment when all the pieces come together in a way that makes my eye happy! In this card I also incorporated lots of little bits and pieces, and really hope you will enjoy it!

Supplies | Patterned Papers: American Crafts “My Girl” (Sunny Savannah), Amy Tangerine “Yes, Please” (Share, Consistent). Stamps: Amy Tangerine (Hey There). Brads: Crate Paper (Party Day). Flair: Dear Lizzy (Lucky Charm). Stickers: Amy Tangerine (Yes Please 3D stickers), Pebbles (Walnut Grove Masking Tape stickers). Ink: Colorbox. Other: Sewing Machine, Seam Binding.

Designer: Evgenia Petzer

Evgenia Petzer is from Russia. She describes South Africa, where she moved about 2 years ago, as “the most beautiful country that I have ever seen” where she can enjoy the sun almost every day. Evgenia has a 4 year old son, that is her inspiration. She started as a scrapbooker, but now mainly creates cards in her signature detailed, romantic style. Currently, Evgenia designs for Melissa Frances, Tattered Angels, Bo Bunny Designs, OUAS blog and a SOE kit club, and also works part time as a child & family photographer. To learn more about her, check out her personal blog.

Filed Under: Card Annex, Play Tagged With: American Crafts, American Crafts feature, Amy Tangerine, Crate Paper, Dear Lizzy, Evgenia Petzer, Pebbles

Cards | You Are Loved [Pebbles]

March 22, 2013 by Nancy Nally 15 Comments

Wow, look at all that gorgeous pattern! This beautiful installment of our American Crafts feature week comes to Card Annex from resident designer Annette Allen.

Annette shows a great example here of the principle of letting the pattern do all the work in her design. This much pattern, if not carefully matched with color, scale, and type, could easily be overwhelming. But well-matched and planned, it can create a fabulous card with only a few simple elements making up the card’s construction.

The chevron design is very busy, even in the lighter gray tone, so it could easily overcome anything set on top of it. The dark color background and relatively small design of the dots on the heart die cut allow it to stand out and not clash with the chevron, but coordinate instead. The flower being another polka dot, but a smaller one, provides contrast – but again, without becoming overly busy to the eye. The last pattern, the floral, is softer and multi colored, setting it off from the others.

The layered stickers create a design element that is bigger and more effective than using a single sticker by itself. When struggling with the size of an item not being large enough visually, don’t forget to consider using multiples!

Supplies | Pebbles (Basics Cardmaking Paper Pad 1). Embellishments: Pebbles (Country Picnic Layered Paper Flowers), American Crafts “Dear Lizzy” (Lucky Charm Flag and Label Stickers), Paper Accents (Chipboard Shapes Heart). Adhesive: 3M (ATG), American Crafts (foam).

Designer: Annette Allen

Annette started card making in 1997, when a neighbor invited her to a Stampin’ Up! party while she was living in Germany. She has since started a blog and taken part in many design teams. Annette has been published in Paper Crafts Magazine, Designed To Color, Whimsy Stamps Inspirations Magazine and Papercraft Inspirations. To learn more about Annette, visit her blog, My Clever Creations.