No pictures of Mother’s Day cards :(

…..so, I won’t be posting the cards I made for my sister and my mom!

However, I have a few that I will post from the last few months. The first was made for my niece.

I love making “girl” cards and although pink is not my favorite color, I find it very easy to work with.

The next one was made for Whitey’s niece who had a baby girl;

and the last one was made for my mother-in-law for her birthday in February;

See what I mean about pink?????

Christmas Card Challenge 2013 @ SCS

Wow, it’s been a while since I have posted. I really did not do a lot of card making this year until I decided to do Christmas cards at the last minute!

I decided to join the Splitcoaststampers Christmas Card Challenge and challenge myself to do at least 4 cards a month. If I can pull off more than that, good for me! I am also going to try and do the All Occasions Card Challenge to get some cards made ahead of time so I can  be on the ball when a birthday/wedding/anniversary etc, etc comes up!

For January, one of the challenges is to use non traditional colors and another challenge to make a card that you have CASE’d, which means to make a card using someone else’s card for inspiration, giving them credit of course! So I put both challenges together and came up with my CASE’d card using non-traditional Christmas colors.

Here is my inspiration card by Maile Belles;

And here is my creation;

I used PTI “In the Meadow” and “Holiday Photo Finishers” dies and stamps. The twine is from The twinery in “stone”.

1 down for January and 3 to go for the CCC13

0 down and 4 to go for AOC13

Papertrey Ink Get Well Cards

I recently found out that a good friend of mine who battled breast cancer a few years back has been diagnosed with pelvic cancer.

On Tuesday, I was told that another friend has double pneumonia.

I had been feeling sorry for myself because on Friday night, I lost my water. Well pump went kaput. It really threw me for a loop. Still makes me sick to think about it. Still, in light of the news of cancer and pneumonia that my friends are having to deal with, my close to 3 days without water seems almost trivial.

I bought the Papertrey “Postmarks” stamp set a while back, but  have never  used  it. Because  I wanted to make a couple of get well cards, I looked for inspiration on my Pinterest board and found exactly what I was looking for. Something clean, simple and quick. The card I used for inspiration was from a  March 2011 post on the PTI blog.

I really love it’s simplicity.

These are what I came up with;

I really like how they turned out and they were quick and easy!

Along with the PTI Postmarks stamps, I used Memento inks in Rhubarb, Rose Bud, Bahama, Pear Tart and of course, Black.

I added Pink Sorbet twine from The Twinery in the first card, just because I thought it needed “a little something”.

In the second card I used my Process Blue Copic marker to make my twine from just plain white Wallmart twine. I also spotted some paper tape on my desk that I had gotten at Target and  never used. I thought that the stripes gave it the kinda “postmarks” feel.

Now I need to get busy with some Christmas cards!

Rejoice

I made this card for a friend of mine who is going through a whole slug of on-going health issues. She is a very special person in my life, a rock, and spiritual mentor. Her strong faith and sense of humor in the middle of such difficulties is an inspiration to me. Although I doubt she knows about my card blog, I will say it anyway………………….Betty Ann, you ROCK!

Ok, I feel better now!

This shot is a little washed out. Still haven’t read my camera manual~;)

Christmas in May

Back in December of last year, I challenged myself to “re-purpose” some of the Christmas cards I had made years ago but didn’t make the cut for sending out. I even humbly posted some before and after pictures.

Well, making barb’s card yesterday kind of sparked some creative juices in me so I’m back at it today. It feels pretty good actually.

I don’t have a “before” picture of  this one, but the original card was 4×4 and had the greeting underneath the image. I cut out the image and made the greeting seperate, adhered it to a red base and added a row of glittery hearts that I cut out with my new PTI die cut.

My dear friend barb

I have not been in a creative mood for a while now.

Until I got a cute card from my friend barb yesterday. I wanted to send her a card back but, honestly, did I want to buy one with the gazillions of stamps and supplies that I own??? No.

So I dug through my stash and came across one of the first cards I ever made. Back when I had fun making cards and it wasn’t a “job”.  Back before I didn’t care if it was “perfect” or not. It spoke to me. Maybe because I had to put one of my horses down on Tuesday and I really connected with this image. I suddenly felt the creative urge to “update” this old card into something I could send my dear friend barb.

I met barb when she had first found out she had stage 4 breast cancer. She wanted to know if she could still attend my card classes. Hello?

She became my biggest fan, cheerleader and made me feel as though my classes had saved her life! Me and my “students” got to walk through the horror of this dreaded disease that also took the life of my husband on January 30th of this year. Was God preparing me???

Anyway, barb has been an inspiration to me and I love her dearly. Thank you barb for all you’ve done for me!

By the way, barb does not capitalize her name because her belief is that there is only One who’s name is worthy of capitalization!

Have a Great Day!

I made this card a while back, but I needed to remind myself that everyday is a gift, and not to ever take that for granted.

Birthday Card Trio

I did not plan to do 3 cards, it just turned out that way!

I needed to make a card for my middle son who just turned 31, so I had to make the much dreaded masculine card.

That is when I decided to do something with the  woodgrain background that I won from an Amuse challenge I participated in. Since he has recently taken an interest in photography, I decided to use an Imaginesce camera stamp that I’ve never used as well as a Heidi Swapp “smile” stamp that I have had forever and never used

On the first card, I had the camera in the middle, smile on the bottom and woodgrain over everything.

I then decided to make the card again, but have the camera directly over the greeting because I felt the camera got a little lost in card #1 . Also, I decided to mask the camera so that the woodgrain would not show up on the image.

Still not totally happy with the card.

So, for card #3 I decided that I would use black chalk ink instead, and color the camera in with copics.

Did not like it.

Thank goodness for clear stamps, because I was able to stamp over the chalk ink images with my black Versafine ink and emboss with clear powder. The camera had been stamped before the woodgrain, so it still shows on the camera, but I re-stamped the greeting after  the woodgrain (over the chalk ink) and embossed with clear powder and I like how it turned out!

Clear as mud?

My vote is for #3

Happiness is…

A whole new boatload of craft stuff I don’t need!!!

The unfortunate side of that is, another store bites the dust. Very sad. Paper Zone is closing its’ doors and that is sad for me not only because I love their stuff, but it was one of the first stores where I shopped when I first started stamping. One by one, stores are closing, very sad indeed.

Last week, their inventory was 30% off so I decided to hold out for 50% since I really didn’t ***need*** anything.  Yesterday I received the e-mail that the merchandise was 50% off so I made the trek up to Bellingham (63 miles) to get my coveted boxes of 250 ct. Neenah linen text envelopes and Neenah Solar Crest paper reams. Well guess what??? They had sold out all the paper and envelopes I wanted!!! Boo hoo hoo. (luckily I still   have a big stash, we crafters are like that!)

So here’s my loot!!!!

• 2 sheets of Basic Grey hello luscious alpha stickers, because who can’t use more alphas, right?
• 1 pk. 50 ct. Eams 80 lb. cover A-2 folders in natural white furniture weave. Looks more beige, which I like, and love the fact that they are pre-cut, pre folded, ready to go!
• 6 bottles of Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist. I have always wanted to try them, but since I am not teaching at the moment, I couldn’t bear to pay the 6.99 a bottle for 2 oz.
• 2 Tsukineko embossing powders in black and gold. I did not need these, but I figured I used these colors, for half off, I’ll get them! It’s not like they’ll go bad or anything and you never know when I might decide to teach again, right? I thought so!
• 1 Stampendous Pearl White embossing powder. See above explanation plus I don’t have Pearl White, just white!
• 6 full-sized Memento inks, just because I love Memento inks and can use them with my Copics. Nevermind that I have a numerous  full-sized ink pads in every color, every brand. But hey, I love Memento!
• 2 Versafine full-sized ink pads. Once again, see above explanation. One extra comment… I did not have Spanish Moss or Imperial Purple. Love, love, love Versafine. Best with acrylic stamps AND you can emboss even though it is not a pigment ink. Nuff said!
• 7 spools of American Crafts ribbon. Never mind that I have more ribbon than I can use in a lifetime, I didn’t have these particular ribbons! Need I say more?
• 1 Judikins wood mounted rubber stamp. Too cute, it’s a jeans pocket, I don’t have one like that!
• 4 Meri Meri tags…….. Just because.
• 4 cardboard magazine holders and 2 cardboard boxes, because I need the magazine bins!,
• 2 American crafts med. eyelets just because I like med. eyelets.

So there you have it. Told my hub it was an early birthday present to myself. Then I saw a BEAUTIFUL purse I could have gotten for the same price. Maybe I can talk him into both? We’ll see!

CCC12 February Card #1

Tis the Season~ Paper; Speckletone Kraft, Bazzill~ other; We R Memory Keepers Floss, Big Shot, Sizzix embossing folder, Tim Holtz ruler, paper piercer, tag

I believe this could be the first time I have ever hand stitched on paper. Now I’m hooked!!!

I used my Tim Holtz ruler and my paper piercer to poke my holes evenly. I decided to do a Christmas card, so I chose traditional colors for my floss. I  ran my paper panel through the embossing folder and Big Shot after I had completed the stitching. Love how it turned out! I found a tag in my tag stash that had similar colors as the floss and adhered it to the middle of the card.

This was a fun card for me since I was trying something new, even though clean and simple cards are so hard for me to do.

4 to go for February!