Shabby Chic, Butterfly birthday card for the fabulous Betty Ward

This little number was a birthday card for the oh, so sweet, Betty Ward.  She is my Hubs Aunt and has embraced me as part of the family like all of his family so lovingly have.  I'm lucky to have such a wonderful and caring extended family.   They are always the first to lend a hand to someone in need with Betty helping to lead them on.

I used several stamps on this card.  I started with a corrugated card base, then layered the blue burlap and then the designer paper.  In the background you can see the blue flourish stamp that has been heat embossed, by Hero Arts, The yellow butterfly stamp was a gift from my long time friend, Robin Moore,  I don't know who makes it tho,.  I went over the butterfly once it was stamped w my yellow gold wink of stella pen and it gave it that bright color and shimmer,  I added bling flourishes from Priima and I layered many flowers but the largest one I made using yellow lace, layered with a small dollie and more gathered lace in a soft pink and finished off with a antique blue button with bling center,  The sentiment stamp is from Paper Tray Ink and I also embossed it in that same blue. To finish I added some pearl sprays and a couple of leaves.

This is  a shot of the inside of the card.  I layered both top and bottom with designer papers from the Prima "Something Blue" collection and layered it with the label die from Tim Holtz for Sizzix..  If you are wondering why the lay out is so it's the way the Preacher asked me to do them.  He wanted the sentiment to be on one side and them room for them (He and his wife) to write a message of their own,  I hope you enjoyed today's card.  I'll be back soon with more,

Till next time, be good to one another, just practice being nice and see what you get in return.  I'll be seeing you, till then, much luv and hugs, Amy k

Masculine Birthday card for Adult or older child

This is a Masculine Birthday card I made for one of the gentlemen in the church while I was still making their cards.  It's a pretty simple card and I find that is what most men like.  Clean and simple.  I think that's the reason us card makers struggle so with masculine cards, its because the majority of us are female and love to load our cards down w flowers and bling and lace and fussy cutting ,,,, the list goes on and on.  When you find yourself in the situation of having to make a masculine card just try to pump your brakes and take it down a notch or two.   You don't have to put all that stuff on a card for them to love it.  Or for them to even be impressed by it.  If you know the person well enough to know what kinds of things they are interested in even better, use that knowledge to give you a subject for the card.  Or a theme as it were.  Just a jumping off point..  I made this card for a very young hearted man who has worked hard all his life to make a living for himself and his family.  He raised two wonderful children and has been blessed with Grand children who in just a few short years may decide to bless him once again lol.  Point is that he's always been a pulp wooder and for those of you up north who don't know what that is its sometimes called logging.  It's cutting down trees and logging them out of the woods on transfer trucks.  I know you have all seen one or two of those trucks on the road with a load of wood on back.  Well this fellow owned one of those businesses.  So in this case I couldn't really take my own advice about using something they have interest in as a theme for your card so I fell back on some subjects I've come to think of as "Old faithfuls" .  They are subjects that are, for the lack of a better word, generic,  Here I used a basic patterned paper with muted designs and I did use a fancy rectangle die cut for the brown pattered paper and then I took two printables here that I got off of Pinterest and printed them  up on white card stock, roughened up the edges a bit.  The tag has a map printed onto it and the blue one of a plane is done like a blueprint drawing.  I don't know that Pinky Ward, who I made this card for, likes planes in particular  but hey, what boy doesn't right? and All people can identify with a map.  I just try and keep it simple when it comes to the Masculine cards.  I do have a man or two that I make cards for and they really seem to like the collage type stuff and I always try and remember and do that for them.  In other words, It helps to know your audience. lol 

I hope you have enjoyed today's card and like I've stated, I'm trying so hard to catch all these up from this year so you may be seeing alot of me for a while,  Till next time I wish you all much love and Hugs, Amy K,

Happy Birthday card for Mom

Wow, I can't believe it's been 6 months sense I last made a blog post.  I apologize for that to anyone  who is kind enough to keep up with the post I make and read them and comment.   You guys are awesome,  

When I left off making blog post in May, I was still trying to catch up all the cards I had made for 2014.  I know now that I will not be able to catch up and post all the cards I made from that time to now.  I had to step away for health reasons and I'm almost 100% but not quite there yet.  So, I'm still really slow about getting things done. I've decided to start off posting the cards I've made this year and hope that I can get most of them posted.  The church was kind enough to allow me to step down from my card making duties while I was getting better and now we still haven't decided if I will resume that part of life or if I do maybe we will have one style and deign card that is universal and can be used for any occasion.  We will see what the future holds,.  As of now I am not making cards for them and thus have more time on my hands to possibly get some post up so having said that, let me tell you about the card for today.

I made this card for Mom back in Jan.  I used several die cuts.  Both of the tags are from Sizzix and the scalloped dollie is a Spellbinders die. The sentiment stamp Is from Close to my Heart and the flowers are a combination of  Pettalo, Prima and The Paper Studio.  I removed the center that came with the teal flower and replaced it with one of my own bling pieces and I added twine from American Crafts to the tags .  To finish it off I placed a stick pin I had made in behind the teal flower and added vintage eyelet lace with a teal lace over that,  I ruffled the eyelet lace as I placed it on the flower to give some dimension to the card as well as popping the circle tag up on foam dots.  

I hope you like this card for today and I hope to be back making post on a regular basis now that I'm feeling better.  I also want to thank the church and friends and family (both mine and Brian's) for holding me up in prayer during the most difficult of times for me.  You all know who you are and you are such a blessing to me.. So, till next time, Much love and Hugs, Amy k