A Birthday card for my Mom

I wanted to make a pretty card for my beautiful Mother for her birthday.  She's such a wonderful lady who does so much for so many people around her.  I just wanted to let her know just how special she is to me and I do that best thru my craft. So here's the card.
For the card base I used a 5x7 pre-made card from K & co, for the background I used designer paper from Websters pages from the "life's portrait" line.  I used my Martha Stewart lace (I don't know what it's called) punch for the boarder strip and the distress inks I've used for this card are scattered straw and vintage photo.  I used that on the boarder punch piece and sentiment label and vintage photo all around the patterned paper and the card base.  I was really trying to highlight the yellow color from the patterned paper.  The flowers at the top left are layered primas and I've used glimmer mist on them to get that color.  I think they turned out pretty cool. the brown flower is from Wild orchid crafts and the yellow ones are from an unknown source.  I used some of my vintage buttons for this card.  The sentiment label die cut is from the Sentimentals cricut cartridge and I made it with my gypsy.  I used a stamp from Hot off the Press and archival ink in black.  Hope you enjoy this card and don't forget to leave a comment, I love hearing from you guys.

Enjoy the Journey Birthday card

I just thought I was late mailing my birthday cards in the last year.... I am really off to a bad start for this new year. Infact, this card was supposed to be mailed last year. lol. What can I say? I have really understanding family and friends. lol.
This card is for my cousin, Ben. He's a really cool guy and I wanted to make a card for him that would kinda reflect his laid back manor. I did alot of stamping for this card using several different stamp sets. I used two different visual artistry stamp sets from Tim Holtz for Stampers Anonymous for the car, the bingo card, and the "enjoy...." sentiment. The "thinking of you..." stamp is from the paperwork greetings set from Inkadinkado. The journaling label in the background and the label around the sentiment are from the Basic Notes stamp set from Basic Grey. And last but not least, is the Happy birthday sentiment. It's one you've seen me use numerous times before, its from the Say it in style set by Close to My Heart. I used designer paper from My Minds Eye; Jen Wilson's LePaperie stack. I used three different green tinted Glimmer Mist on it to give it that color. I used one of those wonderful vintage printed paper bags that my good friend, Robin sent to me for the bottom portion of the card. I did a white wash over it with antique white paint and crinkled it up and then dried it out before adhearing it to the card front. I also used antique copper paint around the edges and a little copper glimmer mist in a few areas. I colored in some of the cut out stamped images with distress inks in scattered straw and barn door and peeled paint. For a finishing touch, I added a vintage piece of brown lace.
It took me a while to get this card in the mail but I think It came together well. I hope that Ben enjoys it. I've got to go get ready for the next birthday coming up later this month. I think Mom's is the next one. Thanks for stopping by, please feel free to leave me a comment as I always do enjoy hearing from you guys.

Merry Christmas and some handmade gifts

I will try and keep this post short sense there are so many pictures.  I got the bird house ornament template from A piece of Craft.  Marion issued a challenge for people to decorate the bird houses on You tube and I thought it was such a pretty ornament.  You could make this ornament in any color or theme and it would still be lovely.  I used paper from My Minds Eye for mine.  Love love love this little bird house ornament.

The altered charger plates was also an idea that I got from the lovely ladies on You tube.  I got the idea from "Lovemyella".  I used paper from Basic Grey and some floral picks I got from Michael's and a photo of Brian and I from a couple of years ago.  I didn't have a more recent pic of the two of us as I am always behind the camera. I made two of these plates just like I did the bird houses, one for each of our Mothers for Christmas.  I hope they like them.

I made these charms for my mother.  She saw one of mine in the car the other day and mentioned that she would like to have some of her own.  I made each of these charms on lobster clasp so that she could easily add them to her key chain or to her purse.  Just where ever she would like to add them.  Okay, that's all for now, I've got gifts to wrap and desserts to make.  I hope you and yours have  a very Merry Christmas this Holiday season as you spend time with family and friends. Keep in mind the real reason for this season and keep the Savior in your heart.

More Christmas Cards

Here are a few more of the Christmas cards I made this year.  I was going for more of a vintage Christmas theme this year.  I love these images that I got off the Internet.  I love going to graphic sites like "The Graphics Fairy" and "Magic Moonlight free Images" to find these kind of images and they are free!  Gotta love that!  The first card at the top was especially made for my good friend, Robin, and her family.  I used the flowers I got from Wild Orchid Crafts for that card.  I made almost 50 cards this year, and some handmade gifts for family members so I have been very busy every sense Thanksgiving.  I'm ready for the new year to get started so that I can possibly get some rest! lol. I hope you enjoy these and thanks for stopping by.

Que Sera Sera birthday card

I made this card for my lovely Sis in law, Jennifer. Her birthday was a few days ago and true to form, I was late with mailing her card. lol. I wanted to do something special for her card anyway because she loves art too and I thought that she might really enjoy it. First of all, it's a huge card. It measures 8.25 x 5.5 inches.  I put some really dimensional embellies on this card with all the flowers.  I figured I could go all out sense I was going to send it to her in a padded envelope anyway.  The large flower and the lighter colored small one are some made by me.  That's a button in the center of the large one.  I just cut off the shank on the back and addhere it to the center.  I also used some Primas and Recollections flowers for this one.  I used some of that new yummy flower ribbon too.  Loving it! The paper and die cut is from K & Co., the sentiment is a stamp from Inkadinkado.  Hope you enjoy it=> 

Christmas time decorated bag

My family hosted an ornament exchange this past weekend and I decorated this bag to go along with mine. I used a plain bag from Michael's and an older Basic Grey paper line, Mistletoe & Pear, that I've had in my stash for a couple of years now. I just love the paper too much to throw out for something new. I'm working on slowly using it up and enjoying every minute that I get to play with it. I used the Lacy Labels cartridge for the cricut to make the top note die shape on the background. I used the Winter Woodland cartridge for the snowman and the sentiment. I added some bling and some white lace to finish it off. Hope it gives you some ideas for decorating your own. I'm off to get back to work, got lots more of these type bags to decorate. Thanks for stopping by.

My swivel clasp for the swap hosted by emoradesigns

This picture shows all the charms laying out flat so you can better see each one of them. We were supposed to make at least 10 charms for the swivel clasp but as you can see, I used a lot more. In fact the swap was for the Tim Holtz swivel clasp to be completed with charms but I wanted my swivel clasp to be bright shiny silver and so I made my own. I also made mine to be a bit longer than the ones from Tim H. I hope my swap partner doesn't mind.

This picture shows the charms as they hang on the swivel clasp as a whole. I am sorry that the photos didn't turn out to be of the best quality but hopefully you can get a good idea of what it looked like. I really liked it and found it hard to stop adding charms to it.lol. I just wanted to keep adding more and more but it looks pretty full to me so I think maybe I picked the right time to stop. I liked the little Christmas light charms. I found them at wal mart. I tried to make the swivel clasp to have a combination of big and small charms on it. I like the long beaded charms but too many of them on one swivel clasp kinda looks off balance to me anyway. I tried to do a mixture of both. My swap partner said she liked the classic Christmas theme and I hope I was able to give her what she was looking for. I really hope she likes it. Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to leave me a comment. I love to hear from you guys.

Happy Anniversary card

This card is for a couple of folks who really make me feel like they enjoy my cards. I mean, everyone that I send my cards to are always very thankful for them and they all tell me  how much they enjoy them.  It's just that a few people really seem to appreciate them and enjoy getting one of my cards more than others. I like to do special cards for these people. I hope this one falls into that category.
 I used the Paris Nights paper line from g.c.d. studios, and the "love... " stamp is from Autumn leaves. I used black embossing powder to emboss it. I made the flower out of Bazzill Basics Paper.  For the flower center I used a button,  removed the shank from the back and glued on a brad in it's place. The trim is from an unknown source, the sentiment is a rub on from making memories and its on a die cut from tags, bags, boxes and more for the cricut. I added some bling to match the button. I hope you enjoyed this card today.

More Christmas cards

These are my most recent attempts at finding the card that I will be making this year for Christmas. I thought I would put them up here and give you guys a chance to let me know what you think. Which one is your favorite? I think the last two are pretty much the ones that I'm leaning toward going with. I've changed paper stacks from the My Minds Eye stack that I started out with to an older Anna Griffin designer mat stack for the die cut images. I knew that I wanted to use the Cricut to do alot of the work on these cards for me so when I thought to use the patterned paper for a die cut image it seemed like a good fit. I thought that die cutting the patterned paper was a great way to bring the pattern into the card design. It's something more than just cutting your patterned paper into the regular square or rectangle shapes that we often fall back on in card designing, I like the smaller bow too. I really do like the plaid, wired ribbon but it would have really taken alot of it to make 40 cards. It was taking, on average, using about a foot per card so that would have been 40 feet of ribbon! I think the average roll of ribbon has about 6-9 feet on it. lol. I wasn't looking forward to buying that much ribbon or tying that many bows. lol. So, If you don't mind, leave me a comment and let me know which one is your favorite. We'll call them 1, 2, 3, & 4 starting at the top. I'd love to hear what you think. I'd also like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving today. Take the day to love and cherish the loved ones around you. They are precious know matter who they are to you. They love you enough to spend this special day with you and that is enough to make them special to you.=> "The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man." anonymous.

This year's Christmas card? (maybe?)

I've been working on the design for what will be our Christmas card this year and this is one of the ideas that I've had so far. Now keep in mind that I've got to make almost 40 cards. Yep, 40. In the years past It's been 30 something but I'm quiet sure that it will be about 40 this year considering all the new friends that I've made online. I'm happy to make them every year. I love giving my handmade cards. I know you've heard me talk about this in the past but there are a few things that you must consider when you have to make multiples of a card. First, you must be mindful of the amount of supplies that you will need to complete many cards. If your design calls for an embellishment it must be one that is easily replicated. I like to keep it simple when designing these type cards. I like to use stamps because they don't run out and other supplies like ribbon and buttons and cricut cuts. I don't usually have to worry about not having enough of these supplies.

For this card that I've come up with, it uses mostly those type of supplies. There are a couple of things that I may change. For starters, the size of the card. This card is 5x7 and the problem with that is that when I went to purchase the Kraft card stock the only size I could find was 8.5x11. If I keep the card at the current size then I will only be able to get one card out of a piece of card stock. That's and important thing to consider. How much waste will making this many cards create? The other thing that I may change is the bow. As much as I like it and think it is an important element to the cards' design, it takes almost 12 inches of ribbon to make and if you do the math, that's 40 feet of ribbon! If I cant figure out how to make the bow with less ribbon then I will have to rethink using it. As far as the patterned paper goes, I'm not too concerned about all of the cards having the same one. I think that if you have a 12x12 stack that you like and want to make your cards from that It's fine to use different patterns. When you use one pad of paper they all usually have the same feel to them so they will probably all work with your design even if the pattern itself is different.

So, I hope this has helped you in making your own choices in making multiples of the same card. It's really not hard to make a lot cards once you get the first one done. After that first one it's all cake!
Hope you enjoy this card and have a happy Holiday season.