Whirlpool of Imagination

Preparing for the Year of the Dragon

Happy Tuesday! I took a little break over the holiday weekend and am ready to jump right into the Chinese New Year!

Do you know that we are fast approaching the Chinese New Year. It will begin on January 23rd. This year is the year of the dragon and this week I have several cards to show that will celebrate the dragon.

Today I went with an iris folded dragon.

The dragon image was hand cut from a template I found on Circle of Crafters and then the image was filled in with a shiny gold paper ribbon. I kept the dragon size fairly large so I went with an A7 card size.The edges seemed a bit empty so I added a gold border to finish the card off.

Lots of fun to create but be careful with the shiny paper ribbons. It's very easy to get your fingerprints all over it! I ended up using a cloth I have for getting fingerprints off pictures for scrapbooking. I worked carefully in the direction of the ribbon and was able to get the picture cleaned up and looking shiny again.

I'll be back this week with some more dragon examples. Have a great day!

Sparkly Green Dress

I back with another entry for my card maker's guild March challenge (the monochromatic green with a bit of sparkle challenge). This time I pulled out a technique that I haven't done ina while ~ iris folding.

I saw this template at Circle of Crafters and knew it would look perfect with a certain sparkly green card stock I own.

Because I used a fairly heavy card stock, I knew that the dress layered would need to be adhered with mounting tape so I cut the shape out of a die cut nesties shape which then could be added with mounting tape after the dress was completed.

I added the Swarovski rhinestone because that kind of dress just needed something like that.

I really like this pattern and am excited to try it with other card stocks and papers.

Quick post tonight ~ UCONN is almost at tip off and I need to go root for the Huskies!

Have a great night!

Play Ball!

Tonight's the night ~ baseball season starts with the Yankees playing the Red Sox. If you didn't know it, we are a split household here.....girls vs. guys. I'll let this card I made a few years back tell you which team Meg and I will be rooting for......

Here's to #28!

Iris Folded Bear for Baby

Happy Thursday! Our snow day was a dud - barely a couple of inches of snow and now we have a day to make up at the end of the year. I must say that the weatherman was funny. This morning, since he had been wrong (very wrong), he had the traffic girl crack an egg over his face since he had "yolk on his face" for getting the forecast wrong. Gave me a good morning giggle.

Today I had a reworked iris folded card. I made this design ages and ages ago but decided to update it a bit. 

 

The bear shape was cut out of the flipside of some Bobunny sweet pear dot paper and folded with poly satin ribbon. Well, I use the word fold but the ribbon lays flat. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and stamped with hunter green ink (Stampin' Up). I wanted a card that was a bit bigger than an A2 so I used an A6 size for this which turned out to be the perfect size.

I spent the last two days working on the kids' Valentines. I will try to take some pictures in the morning to show what I slaved over.....

Have a great night!

Iris Heart

My pen pal group at Splitcoast recently issued a color challenge as way to inspire one of our members whose mojo had left the building. We were all to create cards with the colors red, pink and brown to help Carol jumpstart her creativity.

Well with those colors in the middle of January, how could I not do a Valentine's card?

The ironic thing is that not one bit of stamping was done on this card. I'm hoping it will inspire Carol anyway!

I found the heart pattern on the message boards at Circle of Crafters. It's not my pattern so I cannot forward it on to you. If you are interested, I urge you to check out that site. It is full of incredibly talented pattern designers.

I used pink patterned paper for the actual iris. Since I did use thicker paper, I did not fold it but rather kept it flat. That's not technically iris folding but its my variation. I used some gold peel off stickers to accent the heart and finised off with some brown brads. I have to say that I adore these three colors together. Next time I may just have to STAMP something with them!

Did you see the Superbowl sale over at Viva Las Vegas stamps? From now until the Superbowl all stamps are 43% off. What's even better is all sizes of Miracle Tape are also on sale. I use that tape all the time with my cuttlebugged layers so I took the opportunity to stock up.

I am also valiently trying to resist temptation. Some really cute stamps have recently been released or are about to. My wish list is way longer than it should be and I'm not known for resisting long. I really want the new Valentine Lily and Billy stamps from Pink Cat so I think that will be my downfall when they are released on Thursday. Is there anything out there tempting you lately? Go ahead, show me. How much more tempted could I get???

Iris Wedding Couple

As you know, we had a really hectic weekend. Saturday was the wedding day. Meg was the flower girl so we had some extra duties. In order to look nice, Meg and I spent 21/2 hours at the salon. She's so funny - she was so excited and asked about a million questions. Luckily, our hairdresser is the best and answered them all good naturedly. Because I like to keep myself hopping, I opted against making an easy wedding card and went with the Iris folded wedding couple. You've seen a variation of this card before (2 years ago!) so I thought I'd bring it back again for this wedding.

This pattern was not created by me. It was created by Sarah over at Circle of Crafters.

The colors of the bridesmaids dresses were two different shades of purple so that dictated my color scheme for this one. I used glossy black cardstock for the groom and poly satin ribbon for the bride. There is not a lot involved in the card except for time. And me, in my rush, wasn't paying attention the first time I cut this out. I accidentally had the pattern backwards and cut it out the wrong way! That will teach me to check all my details the next time.

Other than that, I just added some peel offs and ribbon to finish it off.

The wedding was nice and the kids were well behaved. You don't realize how much waiting around there is at weddings except when you have kids with you. Bless them, they were probably bored 90% of the entire time, but they were great. We have two more weddings to attend this summer (without the kids) but I think I may go a little bit easier on myself for those cards! Have a great night.

Couple in Heart

Since this is the season of weddings, I thought that I'd do a love sort of iris folding card today. This pattern is not my design, but rather from one of the generous talented designers over at Circle of Crafters.

I'm sorry about the glare in the picture. I tried to avoid that and this was the best I was left with.

The design is made using black poly satin (florists) ribbon. I outlined the edges with peel off stickers.

We had a fun time at Conor's friends party yesterday. I have to say that having the party somewhere else and letting them do it all makes for a less stressed mom! I had a wedding shower to attend yesterday as well and it was nice to know that later on in the day, I would have the help I needed for Conor's party.

Today the family is over to celebrate. We have a new recipe we've been using for a side dish. I think that may be this month's recipe. So keep your eyes open if you are looking for a new and tasty bean dish. Have a great day!

Abstract Iris

One of the members at Circle of Crafters has developed some really cool abstract iris folding designs. She's getting ready to release them in a CD and she asked for volunteers to test drive patterns to make sure they were clear. I asked for a couple of easy ones and here's the first of the two I was sent.

I really like this pattern. It actually was a bit bigger but I wanted to make a long card so I adapted the design. The pattern is made up with poly-satin ribbon and I used solver peel offs for the swirly design.

I like how this design can be used for so many occasions - I plan to make up a bunch in various colors. If anyone is interested in abstract iris folding, drop me a line and I'll let you know when Jolis releases her CD. This is an easy pattern - there are some that a quite difficult for those up to the challenge.

Day 2 of a sick household. Meg is still battling a fever and threw up this afternoon. Ah well, I guess I'm staying home for the next couple of days. And then there's Conor who has the energy of 10 kids! Quite a challenge keeping her quiet and him occupied!

I finally figured it out!

I probably made this card a lot more difficult than it should have been but I honestly think its my brain. I was never good at geometry and anything that you have to "see" in your mind, probably the reason why my husband is so much better at packing and organizing than I am. But I persevered and, I have to tell you, finally finishing feels good!

Please meet my iris folded Elvis. This pattern was created by the wildly talented Sarah at Circle of Crafters. I cannot pass on the pattern since its not mine but her user name is snarfsplat if you are interested.

My biggest problem was working out the face. Usually with iris folding, you have the outline cut out but here the face is its own piece as well. I kept at it and finally made it work.

The actual IF was easy because I used all black for the silhouette look. I used poly-satin ribbon, not folded, for the folding. I didn't want to take away from the image so, at the end, I added a couple of strips of cardstock and some silver peel-offs and there you have it.

Isn't Sarah brilliant - she takes a picture and makes a pattern out of it. I am trying how to figure out how to do that with pictures of Meg and Conor - I thought that it would be neat to make framed IF pictures of them - I just need to figure out the cutting and where the shadows are for the IF. No problem, huh? If I figure it out, you'll be the first to know! Have a great day!

Under the Sea

I guess this card is appropriate since it rained all day today!

I started with white glossy cardstock and, using alcohol and dye reinkers, created the background. The sea horse pattern came from one of the talented designers at Circle of Crafters. I wasn't sure what to do with the bit of card on the top and bottom of the image layer, so I ended up adding a score line just to add a little something to the final card.

Fairly self-explanatory, just a bit more time consuming to make this one as the folding takes a bit of time.