GDT Post using products from Secret Garden on FB and Crafty City

Wow! It's been a while sense I've made a blog post.  I'm sorry for being away for so long but I've had a few health issues which I hope are now resolving themselves.  Anyway, no one wants to hear my heartaches, lol, I've got some cards today made w flowers from The Secret Garden Facebook group and craftycity.com.  Archana is the wonderful woman behind these two stores and she does an awesome job of getting us beautiful flowers for our crafty projects.  You should go over an check out both sites right now,  she's running specials right now.  The best thing of all is that you can buy Wild Orchid Crafts flowers that you love from Archana in her stores here in the US with out the wait of ordering the same flowers from them over seas.  You can't beat that!
This card shows just a couple of the small Gardenia flowers that I got in white and then used my color mist to give them the color and shine to match my project.

This is another 6x6 Easel card, same as the first one, and it features a ton of flowers from Secret Garden, The largest is the Ivory 40 mm wild rose, The Beautiful Pink Peonies, a couple of dark maroon WOC sweetheart blooms, And a few more that I know you will love.

This last card shows another of those ivory wild rose and a two tone pink and white lily and couple of white and pink roses.  

There will be more information about these cards in the video in the previous post if you would like to check it out. I thank you for stopping by and checking out the blog today and don't forget to go over and check out these shops while they are both offering discounts.  Till next time, much love and hugs. Amy K.

GDT for Crafty City and Secret Garden shops

GDT post for Secret Garden, Crafty City

Good Morning all.  WOW! It's really been along time sense my last post, right?  Well some of you know I've had some health issues but I'm back and doing much better now and hope to have lots of new projects for you.  This card was made for my Guest Design Team spot for http://craftycity.com/ And The https://www.facebook.com/groups/SeeCreatGarden/?ref=bookmarks Group on Facebook.  The lovely, multi

talented, Archana is the owner of both stores, If you want to purchase lovely, paper flowers from someone here in the US all you need to do is visit either of these stores, if you want to join the Secret Garden fb group all you need to do is go over and click join and she will add you to the group, simple as that.  You can find lovely papers and all things papercraft at the Crafty City store.  

I wanted this card to showcase the beautiful papers Archana sent me in my GDT package. Its called "This and That" from Echo Park. I made a Mothers Day card but you could use it for any occasion.  I layered the Patterned paper on a red card base cut from Bazzill Basics card stock and used my Lindy's spray on the red doily and then die cut a Prima doily (you can get the die at Crafty City) and then finally a white doily from Martha Stewart.  I added some gathered vintage trim and then I used the patterned paper to cut a small envelope with the Cricut and also made a small card insert..  I made the flowers from the patterned paper with dies from Heartfelt Creations and Diemond Dies. I finished the card off with a word bead and an applique and some bling, gotta have bling!

 I hope this card inspires you to go over and visit either of these sites and see just what Archana has got instore.  I also happen to know that she is currently running a sale on flowers at Secret Garden, so hop on over and tell her I  sent you!

Have a happy crafty Day, hugs, Amy K.

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

Masculine card made for UMC member, Joe Lanham

Joe is a longstanding member of Fisher's Methodist church and not only Joe but his whole family are very active members of the church.  They are pillars of the church community.   I'm only a first year member of the church myself so I don't exactly know the details of the role(s) Joe plays in the church I just know what I see and from where we (Brian & I ) sit, it appears that he's one of the ones that keeps the activities flowing thru the church.  But, like I said, that's not limited to just Joe, his whole family are very active members.  I've known Joe and his wife Annette for about 17 years.  That's when Brian and I first started dating and the twins were about a year old.  They were still babies to me.  Now those babies are grown and graduated high school this past Saturday.   I know Joe and Annette couldn't be prouder.  They have raised two good young men and are now raising their God Daughter, Chloe, and time flies so she'll be grown in a minute.

Making this card was a breeze, and a joy to make.  I have nothing but respect for Joe as he has never treated me with anything less.  He's one of the good ones, as they say.

The card base is made from a navy sheet of Bazzill basics card stock.  It's heavyweight makes it ideal for card bases.. I used a printed sheet of 6x6" Bazzill layering paper for the first layer then used my Hexagon Spellbinders dies to cut out the patterned papers and inked around all the edges with Stormy Sky distress ink (It's a dark navy blue color).  I got those patterned papers from a 7 gypsies 6x6" pad. I like to use the smaller papers for my cards because the print is smaller and looks more pleasing to the eye on something as small as a card or tag.  In the middle right of the card I've added a couple strips of washi tape.  FYI if you didn't know, washi tape is a technically a Japanese masking tape.  It's low tack and comes in a multitude of patterns and colors.  Love the stuff. For the sentiment die cut I used the cricut and cut the shadow cut too out of the navy to give it a layer.  I stamped the sentiment from a Close to my Heart stamp set. On the inside it has a matching sentiment that says, "wondering what happened" lol I just love that sentiment and I have to be careful who I use it on but usually the men are tough enough to take it all in fun and no one gets their feelings hurt.  I knew Joe would get a laugh out of it.  Hoped he would anyway lol. I just added two brads on each side of the sentiment because that die cut out with holes there.  I didn't want to leave them bare.

That's all for today, I hope you enjoyed the post today.  I'll be back soon with another card for you. I sure wish I could figure out how to schedule post on blogger then i would have  a card for you every day but when I tried it and thought I had it figured out and my post never showed up so I gave up on it. Maybe I'll give it another try lol Might be worth it even if I have to do a little research. Till next time, be good to one another and have a blessed Memorial Day.   Don't forget those who've fallen fighting for our freedoms,  much love and hugs, Amy K.

Feminine Birthday Card for a Lovely Member of the UMC

Pat Tudor is such a lovely, sweet lady and we are proud to have her as a member of the church.  I wanted to make a really feminine, floral, girlie card for her.  One that only women love.  I used a pink floral patterned paper from a stack from the Paper Studio on a complimenting green card stock.  I placed a white paper dollie in the background then built the rest of the card around it. The Ivory ruffled and beaded trim is from Recollections by Micheal's.  The paper flowers are also made by the Paper Studio.  I just changed the center of the little flower on the bottom to a button in gold and white that I had removed the shank from.  That big, lovely green leaf is from a Recollections pack.  You will have to forgive me, I make so many cards using so many supplies and I don't get them posted right away because I am trying to get them posted in the order they were made, so from time to time I forget what products I used on that particular card by the time I get around to posting it online.  So, true to form, I have forgotten where I got the birthday sentiment stamp and I apologize for that. I do know that I used a punch by McGill to punch out both the sentiment and the green patterned paper in the top label shape.  The one punch punches out the label shape and the oval shape all at the same time.  That's all I've done to this card.  Sometimes the ones you love the most are the simplest of all. I do love this card and I love it for Pat. I just hope she enjoyed getting it. 

Till next time, I hope you have a good day.  Be good to your fellow man and do something nice for someone today.  You'll feel better for it.  I'll talk to you again soon.. Till then much love and hugs, Amy K.

Masculine Birthday card for UMC member using Tim Holtz

I made this card for an awesome member of  UMC named Darin Smith.  He's great with the youth of the church and one of the people you see every Sunday with his family. After as many cards that I've made, I still struggle with the masculine cards.  It's so easy for me to make a "Pretty" card for a female but to make a masculine card it takes some skill, practice and some fancy tools. lol.

I used a lot of Tim Holtz products on this card so we'll just say, for the sake of time, that every thing is Tim Holtz product unless otherwise noted. Ok. now that we've got that out of the way, let me tell you how I made this card.....  

I forget what Tim calls the technique that I used but basically what I did was use my non stick craft mat and put some distress ink down in colors of red, blue and grey.  I then sprayed the ink with water, (We all know that distress inks react with water), If you didn't know that, what it does to the ink is make it act more like a water color. The ink just moves around the paper so easily. It's great for making backgrounds.  So once I sprayed the ink with water I gave it a minute to puddle up then placed a sheet of watercolor paper cut to the size of my card, face down into the ink and water and just picked up the color. Notice how it all blends together nicely.  You can then heat dry it and continue picking up more color in layers as many times as you like or until you run out of ink. I then used a labels die to cut out the piece for the sentiment and stamped the blueprint present in red and the "make a wish" in blue to match the background I had created.  I added some ribbon from my stash tied in a bow and a flower from the Paper Studio and some black enamel dots that I made.  I also did some stenciling with modeling paste on the background.  You can see it good to the top and right of the present stamp on the red.  The modeling paste is white so I went over it with some silver Inka Gold Metallic Rub.  It's a waxy water based product that I just love to use.  It covers quite nicely. The only other thing I did to the card was I changed the flower center and added one of my vintage buttons for the center.

That's all for this card.  I hope you enjoyed it. I will try not to be so long between post from now on.  I've just been having some personal issues to deal with but they are being taken care of so maybe I will be back on track soon,  Till then much Hugs and Love, amy K

Birthday card made for Teen girl UMC

I've made another birthday card for UMC, my church family.  I've explained before that my Pastor asked me to make all the cards for the church to give.  That includes but is not limited to, all birthdays, get wells, thank you for visiting, and we've been missing you at church cards.   That is precisely the reason that you see so many birthday cards here on my blog.  I love making the cards for the church even tho I must admit at times I struggle to keep up they are pretty forgiving if I'm a little late with a card or two from time to time :).  I love my church family and I love that the Pastor gives me a birthday list and Its up to me what kind of card I want to make for each person so to say, each card is individually made just for that person,  I guess you could put it simply and say, they are personalized.  

The thing about my small country church is most of the members is that they are either kin to my husband and I or he grew up with or at least knowing them.   They mostly all live in the same area of the county and they all love one another.  I tell you all this just to simply say that this card is made for a special young lady who was born to my Husband's cousin, Jason and his wife at the time Joan, just about the time that Brian and I started dating and this young lady is now almost grown.  Her name is Jordan Ray and she's beautiful and just the sweetest thing you could ever know.  Let's see, Brian and I met in 1998 so I guess she was born in 1999 or 2000 so that now makes her 15 or 16,  It's been a real honor to watch Jordan and a couple more of these children grow from babies to the young adults they have now become.  I love each of these kids.  One important thing they all share is their love for our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.  I see every one of these kids at church every Sunday and they even do better than Brian and I because they are each in Sunday school too each week. 

On to the card,  I made the shaped card from one of my cricut cartridges.  I forget which one but It's one that I've used for a while now. To cut the patterned paper to size to fit the front of the card and not cover the back, I had to place the cut on my gypsy device in such a way that the back side was hanging off the cut area and then once it was cut with the circut I cleaned up the cut with an xacto knife.  It's really simple to do you just have to keep in mind which side is going to be the front and which is the back on the gypsy. Please forgive me as I've forgotten what paper line I used it's been so long and I've made so many cards sense this one.  I know I used that same die cut from yesterday the one from Anna Griffin and another die cut from Memory Box called dizzy doily.  I used a flower from ek success and some washi tape with colorful crosses on it.   The label die with the sentiment on it is from Spellbinders. 

Here's a shot of the inside.  For the layer of circles I used a Sizzix die and on the left side I cut that die cut from the designer paper and the layered some strips of designer paper that I used my boarder punches on then a piece of lace.  On the right side I die cut a piece of cream card stock and just distressed the edges with my brown chalk ink.  I like the soft look of the chalk ink. I also used that chalk ink in a  darker shade of brown to stamp the sentiment  on the left.

That's all for today.  Sorry if you don't really like long post.  I just had the children in my heart this morning and wanted to share with you all.  I hope you like my card.  I may be back later today or maybe in the morning as I want to share my Brother's birthday card I just made.  His birthday was yesterday.  Till then,  I hope you all have a very blessed day.  Much love and hugs, Amy K.