Si Minuscule et Merveilleux

No...I'm not taking up French! (I actually took three years of French in high school and don't remember a thing! LOL!) I thought a French title would work well with my justjohanna Eiffel Tower image. (If you're curious...the title means "So tiny and marvelous!" I'm referencing this adorable image from jj, of course!)

This was one of my biggest jj challenges yet....Using this one image (a sentiment could be used as well) to create a card. It's a very small image, maybe an 1.25" in height. (Johanna has a large Eiffel Tower image too, which is just as fun!) In one of those late night, laying awake in bed thinking, "what in the world am I going to create with that image", moments, the lightbulb went on! Why not use the image multiple times, in a row? So that's what I did!

For some reason I really liked the image on gray paper so I went with two colors of gray cardstock and a black card base. The paper colors are simply alternated to achieve the final effect. (You should have seen me cutting and lining up the tower image!) The background pieces of paper have been "Cuttlebug'd" and a few black brads were added to hold the Eiffel Tower images in place. Oh la la...

So the moral of the story? Trying to figure out what to do with a small image can be daunting but small iamges are perfect for using multiple times on a single card! (I've seen this done brillantly by Emily Gunnell, over at Icing on the Card, with a tiny jj cupcake!)

Happy Creating!

Supplies:
All images by justjohanna
Cardstock & brads by Stampin' Up!

SALT Bi-Weekly Challenge - LIGHT

Happy Thanksgiving and welcome to another SALT challenge! This week it was Ruth's turn to set the challenge and she chose Light. Here's her description:

Light is mentioned so many times in the Bible, and has many facets of meaning and symbolism. I am the LIGHT of the World... The people walking in darkness have seen a great LIGHT ...The LIGHT shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it...In the same way, let your LIGHT shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

God cares for us in much the same way that a parent cares for a child. That thought was the jumping off point for my coaster artwork. My verse, taken from Proverbs 4:18, describes how the path of God's children is like the shining sun. I thought that this was a wonderful verse to share with a child on how beautiful life is for us when we know the love of Christ. I created this with a mind towards adding some journaling to the back page telling of my love for my own child and my hopes for his life as he grows.

I used paper by Cosmo Cricket, two double-sided sheets, so that all of the colors and patterns coordinated. The lettering are all rub-ons, don't recall manufacturer. The sun and moon images are by Stampin' Up!, cut out and colored with Copics. I had drew the arrow, the idea taken from a Paper Trends magazine...I like the added graphic and one of my rub ons fit perfectly within the arrow! Love when that happens! And aren't the hinges fun? I love the way they look on the outside but found out after I put this together that my book won't close! Yeah...I rarely try to figure out how something works before diving right in and, usually, making a mistake! LOL! However, I intended this to be something that sits out on a desk or shelf so I was ok with my mistake. If I had put the hinges on the inside then the piece would have closed like a book. I'll have to try another one of these coaster "books" another time, with the hinges in the correct location!

Please create a piece of work using LIGHT as inspiration and leave the SALT team a message so we can see your creations!

Happy Day!

Thanksgiving...again!

My second Fall, aka Thanksgiving, inspired card using more of my justjohanna stamps! I love these little gourds as much as I love the pumpkins!

This card layout was inspired by Deb Olson (who doesn't she inspire every day!) :-). The front of the card is about 1.5" shorter than the back of the card, attaching colored cardstock on inside of the card to add some complimentary color to the patterend paper. The corners of the card has been rounded with a corner round punch for a softer look. The orange strip of paper at the top of the page is part of a double-sided Fall paper, picked up at Wholly Scrap. My scalloped punch, made with a Marvy punch, has been layered with a smaller cream circle, which serves at a holding place for my gourds and leaf. A chocolate brown ribbon finishes the piece!

Happy Thanksgiving!

PS - Speaking of Thanksgiving...check out the quote I found yesterday (located on the right side of my blog) from Helen Keller. It's humbling to read a quote from someone, who was faced with such adversity, who was still so thankful for their life. It's so easy to complain about petty things....Like me being cranky last year because my coffee pot broke during a huge snowstorm and I had no way to have my morning coffee! Geesh...I had to do some repenting for that attitude! :-) So...BE THANKFUL for all that you have and enjoy your holiday!!

Happy Thanksgiving - justjohannaStyle!

Can you believe in just a week it will be Thanksgiving? This year has gone by so quickly...I can't even imagine that in just about a month we'll be celebrating Christmas. I feel as if I just barely pack up the tree ornaments and cleaned up all of the pine needles from last year!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, right up there with Christmas! I love getting together with friends and family to just enjoy each other's company and all of that yummy food! I don't send out Thanksgiving cards (gee, I can hardly get the Christmas ones in the mail on time) but if I did...justjohanna would have an image and saying that would be perfect!

The next few cards I'll be posting were created using the recently released Harvest images. I adore this pumpkin image (I just love pumpkins and anything made with pumpkin...can you say "pie!") and the leaves. The center design was created using four different stamps; the pumpkin, the acorn, and two leaf stamps. I really like that Johanna creates images that face either left or right. It enables you to really change the layout of a design, like having two separate leaf images that point in different directions. Each of the images was stamped and colored with my Copics and then cut out and adhered with Stampin' Dimensionals.

My card base is SU! Chocolate Chip, layered with Kraft paper. The green paper on the left and right sides of the card is from Crate (it's a double-sided piece of paper, the green is on one side and the cream is on the other). The cream paper was run through my Cuttlebug to give it a bit of texture and the green was attached with the new giant SU! eyelets - love them! I used a circle punch to create the notch.

Happy (almost) Thanksgiving!

justjohanna Holiday Celebration - Take Three!

Here's my last justjohanna card, created new the newest release of awesome holiday images! This is my favorite card out of the three (although I still laugh out loud at the sight of the tangled fish!) I really like the word background images that Johanna has created. I love what they say and I like that you can use them alone or layered with other images. I image that a pure white card with the word background stamped in black ink would be beautiful...Maybe I'll have to try that!

Simple layout (I'm into those lately) for this card. Base is SU!'s Real Red with a fun piece of shimmery holiday paper (don't remember maufacturer) layered on top. The word stamp was then added to a piece of Whisper White and I traced around all of the type with a pale olive Copic marker. The edges of my words image have been sponged with Old Olive ink and then mounted onto a piece of Old Olive cardstock. A tab was added to the top of this piece, with a button embellishment. Lastly, the stocking was colored with Copics and added to the bottom (with a Stampin' Dimensional) of the words section. Fun!

Don't forget to go to the justjohanna web site to check out all of the new holiday images...they rock!

Happy shopping!

It's a justjohanna Holiday Celebration! - Take Two!

Sorry about the disappearing justjohanna post! I wanted to have my SALT post at the top of my page for a day so I hide my tangled fish card for a few days! :-) The good news is that now Mr. Fishy is back (below) as well as a new justjohanna card, using another one of her new holiday images. And this one is just as fabulous as the fish! A rockin' bird! The new set of images include a bunch of these rockin' birds with sayings like, "have a rockin' Christmas", "you rock", and "rock and roll." Too funny!

Simple card layout using SU!'s Bravo Burgundy as a base. The patterned paper is one I picked up from Wholly Scrap...don't recall the manufacturer but I've seen this paper making the rounds on blogs. It's a fun paper with a bit of shimmer built into some of the circles.

The edge of my card has two rows of piercing and my bad rockin' bird was stamped on Whisper White, colored with my Copics, and mounted to a piece of Old Olive. The "you rock" sentiment fit perfectly behind a piece of chipboard that was covered with ink. A small piece of ribbon was added to the chipboard for an accent.

Head over to justjohanna's web site to check out the entire catalog of holiday images...they are very, very fun!

She's at it again...Johanna that is, creating fun new images for the holidays!! I'll have a few more justjohanna holiday cards to share over the next few days...this is the first!

This is by far my favorite image from the collection...this poor fish wrapped up in Christmas tree lights with a star stuck on his nose! The look on his face is just hysterical! That Johanna has the best sense of humor! :-) And isn't the "tah dah" just the perfect sentiment to go with the fish? Now to pair up the fish with one of the Priscilla (cat) images...hum...now, that could be fun!

My apologizes for the not so great photo. I was in a hurry to get these in the mail and didn't have much time for staging...so...it's a little difficult to see the doodled scallop border around the larger oval (both ovals cut with my new Nestibilities die cuts - oh my, how fabulous!) but it was a fun addition since the oval was looking a bit plain. I'm not sure of the name of the patterned paper but it was part of a bunch of fun holiday papers I picked up from Wholly Scrap awhile ago. I like it because it's not a traditional holiday paper, has a bit of a twist! Other plain cardstock is SU! Always Artichoke and Purely Pomegranate.

Head on over to the justjohanna web site to check out all of the rockin' new images...More fun to follow over the next few days!

Happy creating!

SALT Bi-Weekly Challenge - HYMNBOOK

This week it was Lythan's turn to set the challange over at SALT and she chose to have us create something based on our favorite hymn. (You can read her entire blurb on the SALT blog)

This was an easy challenge! I love a whole lot of hymns but my favorite is a no-brainer! :-)

Page 271 in the Trinity Hymnal, which focuses on the church and the amazing grace of Christ. The hymn was written by Isaac Watts in 1707 and the scripture verse noted above the hymn is Luke 14:16, "A certain man made a great supper, and bade many." (This parable, found in Luke, is well worth a thoughtful read...)

The beautiful lyrics to the hymn mentioned are below:

How sweet and awful is the place, with Christ within the doors,

While everlasting love displays the choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs, join to admire the feast;

Each of us cry with thankful tongues, "Lord, why was I a guest?"

Why was I made to hear thy voice, and enter while there's room,

When thousands make a wretched choice, and rather starve than come?

'Twas the same love that spread the feast, that sweetly drew us in;

Else we had still refused to taste, and perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, o our God, constrain the earth to come;

Send thy victorious Word abroad, and bring the strangers home.

We long to see they churches full, that all the chosen race

May with one voice and heart and soul, sing they redeeming grace.

Makes me weepy every time I sing it! As soon as I get to "why was I a guest", I'm done... :-)

Now onto my fun little suitcase! I'm thankful to Valerie Stangle, a Splitcoast Stampers regular, for the suitcase idea! She included a link to the template, which you can find here, and that I used to create my suitcase. This is a tiny suitcase, about 3" W x 1.75" H.

Once I cut out the suitcase template from SU!'s River Rock cardstock, I stamped the bottom and top portions of the suitcase and then assembled the pieces. The bottom piece was stamped using SU!'s Print Pattern and Canvas background stamps and the top was created using another SU! set, All Aboard. I then aged my corners..because I can't even help myself! The handle was created using a piece of a SU! retired fancy fibers set, which was thread through two Old Olive eyelets. The last piece of the puzzle was to attach two pieces of ribbon, which wrapped around the entire suitcase, and was held together with two small pieces of Hodgepodge Hardware.

To showcase that good 'ol Hymn 271, I used my copy machine to shrink down the hymn to about 50%. I then torn, crumbled, and aged the edges of my sheet of music. Kind of made me think of someone stumbling upon an old suitcase, perhaps found in a Grandmother's attic, where this beautiful piece of music was found. Like finding old love letters...

We'd love to see what you create based upon this week's challenge. Hop on over to the SALT blog and leave us a comment with a link back to your blog or gallery!

Happy singing!

Pocket Card Tutorial

Sorry for the delay in getting this tutorial posted...I had taken photos of this awhile ago but can't seem to find them anywhere so I had to find the time to take the photos a second time. :-)

Without further delay...here is how to make a folded pocket card, which I used on my justjohanna card posted below!

1. Start with an 8.5" x 11" piece of cardstock. (Using double sided paper is especially nice!)
2. Fold the paper in half horizontally
3. Unfold and fold paper in half vertically
4. Unfold
5. Pick one corner and fold the corner up, diagonally, until it meets the crease
6. Move to the corner diagonally opposite where you just made your last fold. Also fold that corner up diagonally but stop about an inch away from the crease.
7. Using your scissors cut crease (see photos for details):
8. With the larger diagonal fold in the upper left hand corner of your paper, fold the bottom right hand side of your paper (with the smaller diagonal fold) to the left.
9. Fold the larger diagonal fold forward so it's resting on top of the paper you just folded.10. Wrap the remaining piece of paper to the back of the card.

You're finished!
Now you can stuff the front two pockets with extra cards, photos, journal pages, or gift cards! This entire piece can be used as a stand alone card (you'd need to add adhesive to hold it together) or attached to a larger piece of cardstock. Fun stuff!!

Enjoy and happy folding!

Cupcake Take Two!

Here's my second justjohanna cupcake card!

I'm not sure if this style of card has an official name but I call it a pocket card. The two pockets are created from one 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. Using double sided paper works the best so both of the coordinating patterns can be viewed. A pocket card can either be used as the entire card as once it's folded you'll have a front that opens just like a regular card. However, for this card I decided to sew the entire card together, using only the front two pockets. And isn't this paper fun? It's a retired SU! paper and it's perfect for a celebratory card! Full of fun and love!

After coloring my cupcake and adhering it, with brads, to a circle cut with my Coluzzle, I created two "tabs" for my pockets. The tabs would be perfect for photos, a gift card, or a sentiment. The entire pocket card was attached to a Chocolate Chip card base.

Check back tomorrow for a tutorial on how to make the pocket card...

Happy creating!

Supplies:
All images by justjohanna
Paper, inks, and embellishments by Stampin' Up!