A couple of cards

Today, I got to crank out a couple of cards with my buddy, Kim.

Card number one, an anniversary card for my hubs.

I have seen several cards like this on Pinterest, and thought I would try my hand at it.  I used my Silhouette with Impact font.  I searched on the web for a site to count the days (no, I did not sit and count the days...).  I used some newly purchased Starform heart stickers.  The cutout letters are done with Lawn Fawn patterned paper.  I used Bazzill kraft paper and black cardstock for the card, as well as a white gel pen for the border.

Card #2 is for a friend who lost a beloved pet.  

We used a couple of Simon Says Stamp sets for this one.  The cat was from You Are Pawsome. The "Always Remembered" sentiment, as well as a few sentiments on the inside, were from the Pawprints on Our Hearts set.  We used some SU! linen thread, some Basic Grey grunge paper, and some Bazzill kraft cardstock.

I'm back!

Yeah for summer! My schedule has slowed down tremendously, school's out, my kids are home with me (and I'm one of those nutty parents that enjoys that very much), and, after a dose of crafting with my gal pals yesterday, I am ready for a creative summer. I have so much to catch up on!

I decided that I will use the thing that gets me motivated the most-- music-- to inspire me in my creations this summer. June is a CRAZY month in my family. Birthdays and anniversaries galore! My niece is even expecting my great niece this month... another June birthday for the fam! Geminis unite!

I had been listening to the song "All I Believe In." What you might remember about me is I am what you might call a "Twihard." Love the Twilight books. Like the movies. Love RPattz and am totally Team Edward. See how off-track I got just saying Twilight? OK, well, this song is on the soundtrack for New Moon. It's so peaceful. Give it a listen (ignore cheesy video...spend time reading the description of the artists if you wish).

So, with that in mind, I had hearts in my head. Next weekend is the wedding of a friend as well as my own anniversary (18 years). So, I felt inspired to hit one of those two occasions. I think I'll be using this as Scott's anniversary card from me.


Cute, simple, sweet.

Size: 4.25 x 5.5"
Cardstock: Stampin' Up! Basic Gray and GP white
Ink: Stampin' Up! Craft White and Basic Gray
Stamps: Stampin' Up! Always and Whimsical Words
Also used: Pop dots for one of the hearts and paper piercing

Ode to a Tree

As I drove up to my house this afternoon, I could not get over the tree in my front yard. I have no idea what type of tree it is... guess I should become more alert to that stuff... all I know is, next to the starkness of the day, this tree was a gorgeous site. Beware, the tree is one of the thorniest trees I have ever encountered. I guess it has to be, as it is protecting its bright red fruit.

So, being the good crafter that I am, I ran up and took a picture with my iPhone. And thus, a color inspiration was born! The picture just does not do this tree any justice.

One of the events I missed this week was my sister's wedding anniversary, so this card is for her... ever so belated. She lives in Southern California, and the changing of seasons is not as dramatic as it was on the "Other Coast" where we grew up. So, I'll send her a little fall and some good wishes.

Size: 4.25 x 5.5 inches

Paper: Chocolate, SU! Groovy Guava, SU! Ruby Red

Stamp: Verve Stamps Anniversary Birds

Accessories: SU! Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon, Spare Parts silk flowers, Making Memories eyelet

Ink: SU! Chocolate Chip

Holy Moses!

Thank God for Labor Day! Today I shopped, and I made cards. I do have "work" to do, but it's somehow easier when I have been playing all day.

I have so desperately missed making cards and scrapbooking, but I literally had neither time nor energy for anything but survival for the past three weeks. I am hoping to break THAT pattern.

Today, I made three cards.

The first was with my new Simply Scrappin' Winter Retreat kit from Stampin' Up! If there's one thing we have all agreed upon in the SU! circle in which I hang, it is that the new catalog has fantastic papers. I think these kits get overlooked. They, too, have a great mix of papers. Typically, they have been single-sided, but the paper with this pack is double-sided. The kits also come with great cardstock stickers. Everything coordinates. So, everything on this card, except for the Bordering Blue base, was included with the kit. This card is an anniversary card for a friend.

The next two cards are birthday cards. One is for my nephew, the other for my niece. Both are late (yikes). How awesome do the filigree brads look on my niece's card? Love them! And the Manchester and Maine Blueberry papers were so fun to work with. I am loving the SU! On Your Birthday stamp set, especially the one that says "(a little late)." How totally me right now.


Speaking of stamp sets... yeah to SU! for FINALLY die cutting some sets in the regular catalog. On Your Birthday has twelve stamps, and, typically, that would have taken me forever to cut and mount. It may have taken 5 minutes, tops. Such a helpful thing!

Ployshrink Anniversary

Today's Ways to Use It challenge, Mini Madness, asked us to use small things. I immediately thought of polyshrink. I just HAD to have some a few years ago... only to wait a few years to open the package. I must say I love it. It's the whole shrinky dink thing coming back to me, except my heat tool gives me much faster gratification than an oven. {That sounded sick and wrong to the dirty-minded, I guess. Or maybe to just me?}

So, I needed another anniversary card. I knew I wanted to use the polyshrink I had, but which stamp and what ink? I started with Royal Purple Staz-On, but when it shrank, it looked black. I then went to copper pigment ink, but, you know, it did not dry when it shrank. It looked cool... very... but stayed liquidy. If I had waited for it to dry, maybe it would be different. I have a wedding card to make, perhaps I will give silver a shot and use some patience.

I ended up using Azure Staz-On. Again, it looked pretty dark, but, with the white backgrounds and Not Quite Navy ink and paper, it looks great.

The image stamps are from the SU! Always set. The sentiment is from Verve's Anniversary Birds set. Inside, I stamped, "Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, love gives us a fairytale," from SU!'s Full of Life set.

The background is a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The heart is popped up. The card is 4.25 x 5.5 inches. I used Papertrey white cardstock, which I love.

Verve Anniversary

Yet another anniversary! Summers in our family are filled with them. This one is for my brother and sister-in-law, who are celebrating 30 years of marriage. Yes, you may remember a previous card for another brother and sister-in-law celebrating 30 years of marriage at the beginning of July. It's true, they married within a month of each other. Talk about a busy summer of 1978!

I used Sketch Challenge 184 from SCS to design this card. The dimensions are a little challenging, but it seemed to work best with these:

Main white square: 2 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches

Silver mat for main white square: 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches

Three smaller squares: 1 inch square

Mats: I used my paper trimmer, but my best guess is that they are 1 1/8 x 1 1/8 inches. My next square punch was too large to mat them (1 1/2, I think).

Card base: Bazzill bling (yeah, baby) cut to be 4 1/4 x 6 inches (start at 4 1/4 x 12 and fold at 6). The typical card size was just a bit too small.

Now, let me chat a minute about my new Verve stamps. Are they not adorable? This is from their set called Anniversary Birds. I bought the set because this summer I realized I did not own one stamp hat wished someone a happy anniversary. Crazy.

The picture at the top is also from that set. It is the sentiment on the inside of the card. I stamped it originally for the outside, but there was just no rooom.

I also used some bling (The Paper Studio Gemstones). The Bazzill bling just deserved to be dressed up. I topped it of with a sheer white ribbon tied with my Bow-Easy. In all, this is one stinkin' cute card. I'm so humble.

Enjoy Every Moment

This week's Featured Stamper, {Teneale}, is definitely a favorite of mine. Way back in January, when I got serious about needing a diversion from what was happening in my life, I happened upon a late-night posting of hers. Immediately, I CASEd her for a sympathy card I needed. Now, I get to CASE her again! I'm pretty happy with that. She's great.

I chose to CASE her Baroque Butterflys, which is such a nice use of neutrals. I was drawn to the Sahara Sand, one of my favorite colors.

My 4.25 x 5.5 inch card, Enjoy Every Moment - Anniversary Edition, keeps the primary use of Sahara Sand, but throws in some brown distressed patterned paper (Basic Grey Archaic) as well as some Blue Bayou. In place of the ribbon, I chose to use half-pearls from my Pretties set. I will say that they were too small for my smallest Glue Dots, so I had to use some Tacky Glue. I think they look great. I kept the theme of the card a happy one, and still used Baroque Motifs and a butterfly.

I used Versa Mark on the background, resembling {Teneale}'s card. I gave my large, horizontal panel more layers, but kept the white-embossed Baroque Motifs pattern. At thins point I used a mixture of stamps. Enjoy (stamped in Sahara Sand)and every moment (stamped in Buckaroo Blue) are, oddly enough, from SU!'s Enjoy Every Moment set. The blue heart (stamped in Buckaroo Blue) is from SU!'s Little Pieces. The butterfly (embossed on Sahara Sand and raised on Dimensionals) is from SU!'s Garden Whimsy. I am not a butterfly gal, but that Garden Whimsy set has been a popular one with me this weekend (see the Inspiration card I made this week).

The inside (also shown) uses American Crafts Mini Marks, Elegant Book Two. At the moment, I have no stamp that says "Happy Anniversary," so this set of rub-ons has been used twice for that purpose. I think one of the sets I ordered this week has that sentiment. I cut part of a longer rub-on to make the two side pieces for the sentiment.