Birthday card for niece, 4th Birthday

Today's card was made for my adorable niece, Penelope.  For this card I used the Berry Sweet collection from K & Co.   I bought several pieces from this collection a couple of years ago when it first came out.  The minute I saw it I knew it would be perfect for her pages and cards.  I used Core'denations cardstock for the card base.  It's an A2 size card so it's 4.25 x 5.5" card.  I cut the paper a 1/4 inch smaller all around to allow the card base to peak through, then I layered a diecut journal sheet (not from the Berry Sweet collection) and a pink piece of card stock cut into a banner shape and stamped with a Close to My heart stamp.  I added the 'Princess' chip board piece.  The rainbow is part of the piece. and some flower die cuts from card stock.   It was so easy to put together with all the pieces being from the same collection and automatically matching.  I am so glad I collected all these pieces of the line.  

I hope she liked it.  She's 4 now and getting to that age where she starts saying what she likes and don't like.  I guess the cards may be harder to make the older she gets. lol.  She's our Princess so I thought it was fitting.

Here's a shot of the inside of the card.  I layered white card stock on top of a piece of that same pink card from the banner on the front.  The sentiment and all the images are from the rub on sheet.  I thought they just looked so cute!  Those rub ons went on smooth as butter.  I've had problems with rub on's from K & Co. in the past but these were great even though they are a couple years old.

I hope you all liked the card for today.  I personally think it's so cute even if I have to say so myself. lol.  I don't usually brag on myself but I just love this collection!  I hope to be back in a couple days with another card.  Till then I hope you all have a very blessed day!  Till next time, much love and hugs, Amy K.

UMC female birthday card- young lady

This card was made using the creative cards cartridge for the cricut and the echo park, This and That Graceful 12x12 paper collection.  It's to simple to make a card using the creative cards cartridge's for the cricut.  All the measuring is done for you, all you have to do is pick your patterned paper or colored card stock to cut and load the machine.  I love this idea for cartridges.  I have several of them but just haven't gotten around to using them much.   I still would rather design my own cards but these are great in a pinch and when you are on a time crunch.  I made this card for a young lady in our church by the name of Madison Mckinney.  Such a bright and sweet girl.  I just love the colors in this card for a young lady of her age.  I think they are bright and fun.  The sentiment is a stamp from Close to  my Heart.  I forget the name of the stamp set but I think it's retired by now anyway but If you would like the name and want to try and find the stamp set just leave me a comment and let me know and I'll get you that information.  The last thing I added to the card was some homemade enamel dots,.  There's great tutorials on you tube on how to make them from pony beads.  Fun stuff!

I hope you enjoyed today's post.  I'm keeping it short today.:)  sorry it's taken me so long to get around to posting this card.  I haven't been feeling the best here lately but I won't complain.  Nobody likes a cry baby lol,  I'll be back soon with more cards for you.  Till then have a blessed day.  Much love and hugs, Amy K.

Church card -Female Birthday

Here's another birthday card made for the church.  It's always helpful if I know the person I'm making the card for on a personal level.  That being said, this one was an easy one.  It's for my BFF, Wendy.  I think I know her pretty well. lol.  I've mentioned before that when it comes to the church cards I plan to make them a little more simpler than my personal cards that I make and send from Brian and myself,  So If you saw the other post of the card I made for Wendy from us then you know this one is much more on the simple side.  I'll link to that post here.  I used another of my card making cartridges for the cricut to make this card.  It's great because the layout is there for you and all you have to do is pick out the patterned papers and embellishments that you want to use and you can make it as fancy or as plain as you want to.  You can go really heavy on the embellies or not.  I've explained that to keep cost down on the church cards I don't go heavy on the embellishments.  So in making this card I just picked some pretty patterned paper from My Minds Eye that I thought Wendy would like and pretty much just stuck to the layout the cartridge gave me.  

Here is an up close pic of the butterflies.  I just inked the edges with a brown color of distress ink and added flat backed pearls down the centers.  I just adhered them down the body and left the wings to be free to stand up a bit from the card.  I heat embossed the sentiment with black and added a couple more flat backed pearls.

That's all I've got for today.  Hope you enjoyed the card.  I'll be back soon with another card for the church.  Lol, are you getting sick of all the birthday cards yet? lol.  Till then, I hope you are blessed in all you do.  Much Love and Hugs, Amy K.

Female Birthday card for the church

I made this card for a lady who is not only a member of our church but she's also Brian's cousin and someone we love dearly.  This is a 51/2" sq card and I've used patterned papers from My minds Eye, I used a border punch from Martha Stewart and a few dies from Sizzix and Tim Holtz like the flourish and the top note label die, I've used the dizzy doily die from Memory Box dies for the sentiment and that sentiment stamp is from Close to my Heart. The winged angel is a mod podge melt  made from a mold that I made.  I colored it with Viva Deco rubs.   I made the flower using the Ariana Blooms dies from Heartfelt Creations and the patterned paper from the collection.  I colored the seam binding bow using my glimmer sprays. And lastly, I distressed all the edges using my Tim Holtz distress inks. 

That's all for this post.  I hope you all are having a blessed Sunday morning.  I've got to keep this short as I've still got to go get dressed for church.  I am trying to make a solid effort to get these cards posted and catch up my blog.  I hope you are enjoying it:)  I hope to be back within a few days with another card.  Till then,  Much Love and Hugs, Amy K.

UMC Female Birthday card

Sorry, guys, that it's been so long sense my last post.  I just don't know how I will be feeling day to day with this Fibromyalgia.  I wish it didn't impact my life as much as it does but hey, what you gonna do?  You just have to live each day and be grateful the situation isn't worse. Right? lol.  I try to have a healthy outlook, If I didn't it would consume me.

This card was totally made from one of the new Cricut card making cartridges.  I think of these as my "Cheater cards" lol.  I think of them as such because all I have to do is pick out a sentiment and paper to use and the cuts are all right there and the card is totally designed for you.  It's great when you've got to make a card in a rush.  And I'm not ashamed so say that in making all these cards for the church sometimes I have to rush and I just don't have the time to totally design every aspect of the card.   I've bought all 3 or 4  of these card making cartridges and I'm very happy with them.  This card was made using the Creative cards cartridge.  I just used a few sheets of colored card stock and I cut out the bottom three layers (including the card base) with the cricut and then I added the doily die cut to the center using a Spellbinders die.  I used a floral image from an Inkadinkado stamp set and used my Prisma color pencils to color it in.  The sentiment stamp is from Unity Stamp co. I inked the edges of all the cuts then added a few bling to finish the card off.  Easy peasy! Gotta love it.  By the way this card was made for a beautiful Lady in our church by the name of Donna Smith.  I hope she really enjoyed her card. I definitely had a good time making it.  I'm really glad Art, our preacher, asked me to make  the cards for the church.  It keeps me busy and doesn't allow me to become too lazy. lol.  I just can't keep up with all the blogging and posting of the cards once I get them made.   The process defiantly doesn't stop once I complete the card and turn it in.  There have been many a Sunday that I'm out in the front yard with my camera and set up taking pictures of the cards for the week before heading to church where I hand them in to Art and Sylvia.  I always fear that one card may escape with out having it's picture made and then It would be  lost to me forever.  I have hundreds of photos on my computer of past cards made.  I've been taking photo's of my creations for years before I even started blogging.  I love to look back thru them and remember each card I made.  I've had to start making notes of who they were for because I just cant remember that part to save my life. lol.

That's all for today, I hope to be back soon with more cards to share with you,  Till then, may you all be a blessing to one another.  Much love and hugs, Amy K.

Birthday card for our Nana's 89th birthday

Nana is actually my hubby, Brian's grandmother but she has claimed me as one of her own for years now and I have always felt like she and I had that kind of bond between us.  Brian doesn't have to be with me for me to stop by and check on her and spend some time with her just talking and catching up.  She's a wonderful lady and such a joy to be around.  You know how it is when a person has lived as long as she has and been alone for the better part of the last decade.  By that I mean her children are grown and husband is passed and she lives alone and has for years.  Most of her grandchildren are parents themselves now.  I can't remember how many grand children she has but I know that she has 25 great grandchildren.  Isn't that amazing!  She's so awesome and we all love her dearly.  I am always happy to make cards for her.  This year I got to make two cards for her, one from Brian and I and the other from the church.  I will show that one in another post.

For this card I used a card base from Micheals and went around the edges with white gesso and then added a sheet of patterned paper from a Paper Studio paper pad from Hobby Lobby and I just distressed the edges (I use my dremol tool to do that) and the added some Vintage Photo distress ink.  I just layered a doily then some vintage lace and some seam binding that I colored using some of my glimmer sprays and a few flat backed pearls on a strand.  I used my bow it all to tie the double bow then added a brad with a pearl in the center to the bow after I removed the prongs from it.  I added the chipboard flower after I went over the top of it with some white pigment ink to bring out some definition to the raised areas.  I stamped the sentiment from Close to My Heart with Black India ink from Hero Arts on cream card stock and then cut it down into a flag shape.

That's all  for this card, I hope you enjoyed it.  I thought it turned out really nice for Nana and I'm really enjoying this color combination lately.  I will show you another card in the coming post that uses the same color combo.  I just love the gold with the white and cream.  I think it looks so classy.  I will try and come back tomorrow with another card for you so until then I hope you have a wonderful day.   I will be back soon, till then, Much love and hugs, Amy K.

August, Altered Birdhouse challenge for the Craft Hole group on FB

BFF Birthday Card

Good morning all.  Well, morning is about over so I guess I need to hurry up and get on the ball before this day gets away from me.  I just wanted to pop in and share a birthday card that I made for my BFF, Wendy.  Yes, I'm still very behind on posting my cards because you all know her birthday was last month. lol.  I'm working on it, I promise, so if you've received a card from me or from the church but haven't yet seen it posted just wait a little bit longer, It's coming. lol.  I may catch up before the end of the year lol.  

So, Wendy's card.  Anybody who knows my girl, Wendy, knows she loves her some loud and gawdy stuff lol.  God love her.  She just can't help herself lol.   So I included some things I know she loves like flowers and feathers and bling.  I do hope I got it right, She did say she loved it when I gave it to her but you know she may be just trying to be nice :)  This is such a big card that I didn't even bother trying to make an envelope for it.  I think the patterned paper measures 6x6 so with that boarder around it who knows how big it is lol.  I knew I was hand delivering it so I really didn't worry about the size.  Anyway, here's the card I made for Wendy and I do hope she really liked it. :)  

That's all for now, I say for now because the way things are looking I may have to start posting twice a day to get caught up lol.  I'll see you back here real soon.  I've got to film a You Tube video for my birdhouse project I did for the Facebook group "The Craft Hole."  So keep a look out for that.  For all my Facebook peps I will be posting the link to the video there too so you wont miss it.  Thank you all for checking out my cards and videos, you mean the world to me.  Don't forget I love to hear from you guys so I know somebody is out there reading this and I'm not just talking to myself. (like usual). lol.  I hope you all have a wonderful and blessed day.  Don't forget to be good to one another. Till next time, have a great day.  Much love and hugs, Amy K.

Female Shabby Chic Easel Card

When I started making this card I had someone particular in mind and the more time went by and longer I worked on it I kept thinking, "You know, I don't ever get to keep any of my creations any more now that I'm not scrap booking so much."  So long story short, by the time the card was done,  I had completely convinced myself that there was nothing wrong with me wanting to keep a creation here and there and I was not behind in my obligations to the church so I wanted it and decided I would keep it!  So this became my birthday card to myself that I just so happened to make about 3 months later.  I think this is a tradition that I will be keeping tho.  I think every year I would like to make a birthday card to myself to keep and remember where I was in my hobby at that time in my life.

I do love the card, It's not because I made it, it's the stamps and the inks and the patterned paper that I used.  I would never brag on my own work like that and say "It's beautiful" "Look how beautiful I made this".  No, I think that's other's place to judge whether something I made is beautiful or  not but I am allowed to fall in love and think that the products used are beautiful. lol.  I used the Divine paper stack in 6x6 from Prima for the patterned paper and the banner is also from a sheet of that paper. I just covered the tops with glossy accents to make them shine. I used a lot of Close to my Heart stamps for this card and the coordinating die cuts from the cricut cartridges that Close to my Heart has come out with.  I used mostly inks from Hero Arts, Shadow inks, and Colorbox fluid chalk inks.  I have the most colors in these ink pads and I just love the colors that they have.  I am sure I would probably love Close to my Heart or Stampin up ink pads too if I ever tried them.  Who needs that extra stress tho. lol  I have a hard enough time finding room to store the ink pads that I currently own and I always feel the need to own every color in each line that I fall in love with.  I have a whole other blog post about what ink I love and why.  It's on a card post but just a few post back so it shouldn't be hard to find if you are interested in my opinion's on that subject.  Just look for the longest post in the past month. lol

I think I may have mentioned that this was a 6x6" easel card and when I made this one I had only made like one before it.  So hey, it's not perfect. lol.  I added a lot of hand made flowers to this card.  Most of the roses were made by me.  I have  yellow striped Prima flower there that I changed the center in and the beautiful pink tie-dye looking flower at the bottom is from The paper Studio at Hobby Lobby..  It has a new center as well, actually the flower was so sloppily made that I had to take the whole thing apart and re glue it so I just added the center then too.

Here's a shot of the card opened up:

You can see where I distressed all the edges with my Prima distress tool (I actually use my dremol tool most of the time for this) and then went back over the edges with distress ink from Ranger.  I used an ek success boarder punch and just punched along both edges of a strip of paper then layered it with a Martha Stewart strip punch and inked the edges of all that and then finished off the layer with a scalloped circle punch that had been stamped with more Close to my Heart stamps in pink Hero Arts ink and the sentiment was from Hot off the Press and stamped with the Hero arts blackboard ink. love that black. It and the black India black ink. For the stopper I used a fragment from Tim Holtz and used patterned paper from the line to back it.  It doesn't show here in the picture but I later went back and added another one to the other side to make the card stay open better and sit a little straighter. 

Here's one more picture then I promise to let you go:

This is a better shot of what the inside or bottom of the card looks like.  I did the whole card on a brown card base.  Like I said, I love the way this card turned out.  All the colors and products just seemed to work so well together for my taste anyway.  I guess that's why I wanted to keep it.  I finally turned out a card I was really proud of and I wanted to keep it to hold on to that memory and sometimes pictures alone just wont do it..  I make a lot of cards and all I have to show for it is pictures.  I wanted something real this one time.  Please don't judge me.  Till next time, Much love and hugs, Amy k.

Boy and a girl "Teen Themed" Thank you for visiting the church cards.

Today I've got something special in store for you! Are you ready, awe you've  already read the title of the blog post.  But, yeah, I've got some teen themed cards.  That's something that I rarely get to do unless they are graduation cards.  From time to time I will get a birthday card for a teen that I do.  I think now that I'm making the cards for the church I'll get to make more of these types of cards.  Or at least cards for this age group, I should say.  I loved it, making these cards.  They are so fun and freeing.  You get to just get out your supplies and play and I think we all need some "crafty play" time from time to time.  You know that time when you just do what you feel to the project and there are no rules and you aren't making it necessarily for one person or another.  It's just for you in alot of cases.  I think it keeps us moving forward creatively and that's important.  I was just saying yesterday while getting my nails done, I finally took time to do That for myself and it felt so good! but I was saying that I never even have time to do scrapbook layouts anymore and that is my first love.  With all the cards that I'm making for the church I am always on a time crunch it seams.  I wish I had more time to craft for me.  I don't get to join swaps right now but I feel that making the cards for the church is important.  I'm getting some wonderful feed back and people are thanking me for their cards and I think that's wonderful. If making the amount of cards that I do for the church becomes too much for me to create individual works then I can always switch to what I call cookie cutter cards where you have one sketch that you follow and just change up the papers and the sentiments and some of the embellishments. But for the most part the cards are just the same.  Some months are busier than others and last month was really busy but I managed and I was happy with the cards I made.  You will be seeing those cards coming up on the next few weeks and who knows maybe one month I will only have a few cards to make and will be able to get back to working on my layouts.  I know I don't do any blogging about my scrap booking but if its something you would like to see then shoot me an email or leave a comment below and I'll post some layouts for you to see.  Okay that's enough talk, lets see these cards!

Now, keep in mind that the purpose of these cards, both of them, is to give to visitors of the church to thank them for attending service and let them know we enjoyed them just being there.  So with that in mind, here is the female version of the card.    I used some distress ink to add color to a white sheet of card stock.  lately I'm using the Neenah 110lb  exact index smooth card stock.  I'm really loving this paper.  It's a good quality, heavy card and super smooth.  It's great for stamping and doing techniques with distress ink.  I haven't really used it with water so I can't comment on that aspect but for the money I think it's a great card stock especially for stampers.  I am using my Georgia Pacific white to make the card bases out of still but for the stamping Im always using the Neenah.  I used some image stamps from Autumn Leaves.  I am not sure what black ink I used but It would have either been versa fine or Hero Arts India dye ink.  That's another product that I'm really loving.  I've got a huge investment in Hero Arts ink pads as it is.  I have all the dye ink colors except for the soft colors.  I will be working on that next.  Ink pads are something that I have no shortage of.  I also have  a huge assortment of Color box fluid chalk ink pads.  Not the little q's either I've bought all the big ones.  I don't think I have all the colors but I've got a really good start on it anyway.  I use the Hero Arts for all my stamping unless I'm using the clear Acrylic stamps which we all know are a lesser quality stamp and alot of ink will just bead up on it and then when you stamp it out you get a blotchy image that's not clean and smooth.  I bought alot of the cheaper acrylic stamps when I was starting out in paper crafting mainly because they were cheap and I didn't know there was a difference in the quality of the stamp.  I thought that all clear stamps were created equal.  lol, How little did I know. lol.  These Autumn Leaves stamps are acrylic but versa fine and the Hero Arts black ink, well the India dye ink and one more they have called blackboard, they will stamp out pretty clean on these stamps.  I will add one more thing sense I'm talking about stamping, I've had those specific stamps a long time and I've conditioned them so that they take ink much better.  To do this all you have to do is take a white art eraser and rub the stamp image a few times, make sure you get all the areas and then clean all the eraser droppings off the stamp and give it a try.  I got that tip from my good friend, Robin who has been stamping over 20 years.  She also said that if that didn't work you can use a fine grit emery board and scratch the surface of the stamp up a bit and that will help it hold ink.  I found that the Colorbox Chalk ink stamps beautifully with these cheap stamps and that is why I spent the money on buying so many of them.  Also they come in beautiful colors and the browns are wonderful for doing some edging on you paper.  I bought the refills for the browns because I use

them so much.  

Here's a shot of the inside of the card.

You can see I've lined the inside with yellow card stock and then done some more of the image stamps from Autumn Leaves.  The sentiment stamp is one I bought from an online seller, its an old Stampin up stamp but I love the whole set I got from that seller.  I was looking for some faith based stamps and she had just what I was looking for.  That's another of the stamps I got from her on the front of the card.

Okay I'm going to try a wrap this up, it's turning to a really long post.

Here's the Male version of the card:

Once again, I turned to my trusty distress inks to color the background paper.  This time I used watercolor paper and water with the distress inks to help them blend and get that water colored effect.  I used a stamp set from Close to My Heart and heat embossed the controller straight on the watercolor piece with white embossing powder but the piece that says "next level" is heat embossed on a coordinating die cut from the Artiste cartrige for the cricut.  The sentiment is from a Hobby Lobby stamp set and I also used a strip of filmstrip washi tape.  I used my white paint pen to draw in the cord to the controller.  i thought it looked weird just floating there in the middle of the card and the cord helps ground the image to the edge of the panel. Lastly I added  home made enamel dots and my white gel pen to add dash lines around the edges of the card and I used my corner chomper to round the bottom edges.

Here's a shot of the inside:

To line the inside I used the red and green distress ink from the front of the card to color these panels then added white to finish it off.  That sentiment stamp is also from that seller and it's stampin up too I believe.  I just ran the piece thru the printer to add "Thank you visiting  us a Fisher's Chapel".  I did that to the inside of both cards then I leave the other side blank to give the preacher room to write.

Okay, that's finally all for today, sorry It got to be so long.  if you stuck it out to the end then God love you, Is all I've got to say. lol.  I will try and keep the post a little shorter from now own.  I have no idea who will be getting these cards, that falls on the preacher to decide but who ever it is, I hope they enjoy them.  They were fun to make but It also was good exercise for my creativity. I hope I get to make more cards for this age group.  I know I have a few birthday's coming up.  Till next time, have a wonderful and blessed day. I'll see you in the next post.  Much love and hugs, amy k