Erica's Bday

For my daughter, Erica

I've used the Mojo Moday Sketch to make this card. The CS is from Bazzil Basics and the patterned paper is from Cloud Nine. The ribbon is from Michael's and I used my printer for the sentiment. The flower pieces are cut out on my Cricut from the Flower Shoppe Cart. although I didn't use them the way they were intended! I just love to create paper flowers! The petals are edged with Star Dust Stickles from Ranger. I'm not crazy about the colors, but my daughter will love them along with the circles and dots! Thanks for stopping by.

Aaron's BD and Kelsey Ann

Here is the card I made for Aaron's Birthday. It was on the 22nd but since we were all going
to be gathered on Thanksgiving, we had a little party after dinner.
The little cutie holding the pie was a Thanksgiving present (freebie) from
http://www.tiddlyinks.com
that I colored in with my Copics. The tree behind her is from the Cricut Alphabet Cart. that I cut
out on my Expression 2 and added a few details to, and the background paper is
from Heidi Grace/Colorbok. Wanted to keep it simple for Aaron so I just added a little hemp twine
and a button. The inside reads "No Cake, Pie!" which was OK for him since he got a Chocolate Cream
just for him from me.



This is my new Granddaughter, Kelsey Ann, born October 28th. My fourth grandchild but, so far, the only girl!

BB Shower Thank You

Here is the Thank You card I designed for Kelsey's Baby Shower. I stayed
with the same papers I used for the invitation and decided I
wanted a quilted design for the focus. So I pulled out an ancient book of quilt patterns
and found this one, it is called Twenty triangle (of which I am missing 4!).


So, I drew out my pattern so I could make all the measurements for cutting
and also to have a backing to attach the pieces to. I guess I could have done it the
easy way and just cut squares and glued them on top of each other, but I was
"keeping it real"

I used Ranger Distress Ink (Vintage Photo) around the edges
to add some depth.

I used an old Cricut mat to keep the pieces stuck down in the pattern
I wanted until they got used.

Once the pieces were all in place I added some faux stitching. As you can see,
the pieces are not exactly perfect and neither is the
stitching.....just like real quilting!
I then took the "Quilted Block" and attached it to the pink CS, added the ribbon
and tag, then the button with the hemp bow.

Since I didn't want to repeat this whole process 20 times, I took about a dozen photos in different lighting until
I got one that was pretty close to the original and then printed them out 4 x 5 1/4 inches
so that I could have an 1/8 inch matte around them, trimmed them all up and
made the replicas. They turned out pretty good, not the same as the original but
they have to be mailed so it's better for postage this way. I took the original and
put it on the cardstock and I will give this to Brianne for Kelsey's book.

Thanks for bearing with me, just wanted to share a little of the "making". Hope you all had a wonderful
Thanksgiving, ours was a great family sharing event with my 4 children, their spouses and significant
others, and my 4 Grandchildren.

Thanks for stopping by!

KShower

Mojo Monday!

I needed an invite for my new Granddaughter's Shower (Welcome Kelsey Ann!) and the sketch seemed to fit for what I wanted to put in it so here it is. Originally I wanted a flower with the bow...off to the side like the sketch, with a little baby bottle on the side ribbon but it just seemed too busy so I moved the bow over and stuck some pearls in the corner. I had fun and it turned out well......a win/win situation! The baby buggy and doily are cut from the Cricut Alphabet cart. that came preloaded on my Expression 2 (I'm lovin' it!). The "It's a Girl" and gingham paper is by Paper Pizzazz. The pearls are from Studio G, the ribbon from Offray, White Glitter paper from DCWV, and the "Sweet" stamp is from heidi grace. CS is from The Paper Co. and Core dinations. Thanks for stopping by and be Happy!

Vanessa's B-day

For my Lovely sister Vanessa


Outside






Here's the card Vanessa, wish you could see it in person!




Inside

Thankfully I took a picture of the inside....and as you can tell, I was a little late in getting it out.

Halloween

Outside

Inside

Just outsides!

Just a quick post.....these cards are going off to my sister's shop for sale. I'll see how they go over, my first foray into retail! I love doing Halloween cards, I'm just not quick enough doing them....have tons of ideas left.....digis colored but no home yet. I'll be starting on Fall and Thanksgiving here shortly and the digis will have to wait till next year, and then on to Christmas!!!!

Stay creative and thanks for stopping by, Happy Halloween!

tiddlyink

Here she is.....this is the image named "Cast your Spell".  I wish I had a better system for photographing the stuff I do, the lighting always gives it a different color cast that I haven't figured out how to edit out yet.  Another thing on my list of Things to do!

Mojo210

Here is today's project inspired by the Mojo Monday 210 sketch. I have been dying to color this little beauty that I downloaded from Tiddlyinks.com so I printed her out on a 5 X 7 piece of paper and got to work. I recently bought Photoshop Elements 9 and wanted to play around a bit with it so I can learn it, so I scanned the finished image and did the Out of Bounds thing on her and then printed it out the size I wanted and cut it out. I've used some more of the DCWV Papers from the Halloween and Fall stack mounted on some plain green CS and then added the top piece which I edged with an old pair of Fiskars Paper edgers scissors (Victorian) that I have lying around. I saw some Star Silver Diamond Dots from Stampendous in a store the other day and had to get them so I added a couple in the middle of the orange paper. There is some Diamond Dust Stickles on the skirt of her dress, wings, and the spell dust coming out of her hands which doesn't quite show up in the picture. I like the original image and will upload it right after this posting (which will make it first as latest.....) which has more detail. Those of you that like digital images should check out http://www.tiddlyinks.com if you haven't already been there. She has some really cute images, I specially like her "Gothic Cuties".

Cecil's Card

For Mojo Monday - Outside


I just loved this layout so I thought I would use it to make Cecil's Birthday Card. He was born on Nov. 1st but we always do a Halloween theme for his birthday because of the circumstances surrounding his birth....the short version...My oldest daughter was 13 (or rather one month and one week shy thereof) and my next oldest was 1 1/2 and since my (then) husband was on graveyard shift and trying to get some rest before work, my cousin wanted to man the candy bowl and the kids were set to go trick or treating it was up to me to take them. I was 3 weeks past my due date and dilated to 7 and still not in labor. We lived in a hilly neighborhood just on the outskirts of Albuquerque, New Mexico and I was scared to death that my water would break and I would go into labor at any time but this was the first Halloween outing for Brianne so we had to go! I had the stroller ready so off we went...My oldest kept running off and the wheel on the stroller chose that time to come off, I'm trying to haul Brianne around to the houses, pulling the stroller with the bad wheel, big as a house up and down the hills. What a night! Brianne had a great time and I made it through without mishap....although awfully uncomfortable. I got hubby off to work at 11:00 but was too uncomfortable to sleep, finally fell into a fitful nap about 1:00 and woke up at 3:30 with pains starting about 5 min apart.......30 minutes from the hospital and can't get hold of my husband. I got my cousin up and loaded everyone into her car and off we went. Finally made it to the hospital where they hooked me up and then the pains stopped. So off walking I went around and around the delivery ward. The pains finally started up again around 7:00, Hubby showed up not to long after but the pains wouldn't get any closer than 5 min apart......dilated to 8......they finally broke my water at 7:30 and he was born at 7:35. He should have been born on Halloween, I was at the doctors earlier that day....they said they would see me back in a couple of hours since they had taken the Mucous plug out, but I was so stressed that Brianne wouldn't have her first real Halloween that he just had to wait!

So, the skinny on the card is....I used regular colored card stock for the base, the patterned papers are all from the Halloween and Fall pack from DCWV, the Ovals, frame, and "Eerie" are all from the Cricut cartridge "Happy Hauntings" and the image in the oval is from another one of the patterned papers from the same stack as is the image on the inside of the card. No stamping on this card at all.....just cut and paste, unusual for me but it just happened that way. The ribbon is from Offray and the spiders are actually Iron Ons from "Howl-O-Ween" that I found in JoAnn's. I had the inside of the card on here but I did something and it disappeared....oh well, I'll just do another posting! Happy stamping to all and thanks for stopping by.

Dave's B-day Card

Today's project is for Dave's Birthday, another keep it simple card. I guess the details don't show up very well in this photo, can't hardly see the border on the bottom of the middle or the panels on the bottom. Aw well, it looks much better in person. I just love red and black together specially with gold mixed in. I've used all Verve stamps on this one and the border punch is from EK Success. I've used copics to color in the flowers. I used Cricut to cut the tag from the Tags, Bags, and Boxes Cartridge. All the paper is from DCW.....plain black CS, red CS, and a patterned red from open stock for Valentine's Day. I've used some Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Fired Brick) around the tag and finished off with some gold and red ribbon I got at a yard sale and some hemp twine to tie on the button (from my old sewing stash). Then I added some gold pearls from Studio G. I stamped some little swirls on the inside panels on the bottom and then used 2 coats of high gloss clear EP to give them a Tile look, which you can't see in the pic, take my word for it, it's there!

I was a bad girl and ordered the new Cricut Expression 2 off of HSN last Tuesday, Lord love the Flex Pay option or I would never have afforded it! The CS operater said that I would receive it on Oct. 6th......but it came in today. I don't normally order from them since I can usually find it cheaper on the internet somewhere, but it was a pretty good price and they threw in an exclusive Cartridge ( Art Nouveau) and the sampler Cartridge Spring Fever Holiday. I have most of the images on the Spring Fever Cart on other cartridges so I don't imagine I will use it much, but the Art Nouveau has got some beautiful artwork on it that I imagine will end up here on a project or two! It comes preloaded with 2 cartridges, Cricut Alphabet ( a nice font and some cute images) and the Essentials, which I don't have so it's all good. The new electronic keyboard has a lot of new features that I'm really excited about, is in color and allows you to do some editing right there, plus allows for mutiple size cuts on the same mat. Kind of like combining the Gypsy with the Expression. I also like the option of running both the regular cartridges as well as the Imagine cartridges.....it doesn't print but you can cut out the images. I don't have any Imagine cartidges since I don't have the machine, but if I happen to come across any............They also threw in a Wifi attachment not normally included with the machine so I can get in on the updates they have planned in the future......Oh yeah, it is fully upgradable!!!! Now all I have to do is find some space where I can put it ........ooops, have to do some rearranging. It won't be available on retail shelves for a couple of months.....they had a limited release back in July for their anniversary, but this one has a few newer features than even that one....and it retailed at $499, I got this one for $329 so I guess it was a good deal, will find out when it hits the shelves. Oh, and another cool thing about it is......no more keyboard overlays! A nice feature for those who cart them around for crops and such, one less thing to pack. I even got the little booklets for the preloaded cartridges.....bonus! Enough for now...Stamp Happy!

Clay's Card

I made this for my Uncle, who is doing a little time in the hospital, I've used scraps from some fall papers I have hanging around, so I don't know the maker! The leaf is from Spellbinders Shapeabilities and I used a brown Copic marker on the reverse side to get a shadow of the veins, then used Tim Holtz Distress Inks to give it that fall color ( starting with Peeled Paint in the middle and bringing in some Wild Honey, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick and Vintage photo from the outside). The Smile is from a Fiskars set and I embossed it with Fall Oak Tinsel Embossing powder from Creations Unlimited. I finished it off with a little bling from Studio G. Real simple but it's for a guy so you gotta keep it simple! The inside I finished off with some very colorful paper with fall leaves on it and printed out the sentiment on vellum and overlaid it on the paper. I think it turned out well. I will be taking this over to him later this afternoon to see how he is doing.

Shannann's Card

Outside

Inside

I haven't been around for awhile, my Sister has been having some serious medical issues and I took a trip to spend some time with her. My obligations piled up while I was gone! This is a card I did for my sweetie's daughter. Not really fancy but I just had to play with my "Songbird" cartridge from Cricut for the inside flowers (which hides a money pocket). The clouds are my first attempt to draw and color clouds, I watched a tutorial but I didn't have the right colors.....the sky is too bright and the grey accents in the clouds are too dark.....but I gave it a try. I'll have to order some more Copic's soon so I can try again! Don't know if you can see it but the flowers all spell out Happy Birthday. The outside looks like it might need a little something and I wracked my brains trying to figure out what but since I was working on a tight time schedule, I had to give it up. Stuck some puffy butterflies and a dragon fly from K & Company on and called it good. Still........if anyone has any suggestions PLEASE leave me a comment, I may do something like this in the future since I really like the Verve stamps I used for the sentiment and the design on the medallion. Be happy....have another card to post so be on the lookout!

Tim's Card

Haven't been here for awhile....been busy doing "Summer" things.....like camping, fishing and the like but I just had to do this card for Mojo Monday. My Son-in-Law is having a Birthday at the end of the month and was thinking about what to do for his card. I picked these papers up when I saw them last month since he's a BIG Boise State Bronco's fan, and when I saw the layout for this week I saw pennants so that's what I've done with the sketch! The only stamp used is from Inkadinkado and the papers are from Sportsolution. Thanks for stopping by....oh, I will be posting another card that I made for my sis Vanessa as soon as I know she's received it!

Josh's B-day

Here's the quick low-down.......Stamps are all D O T S.....which I used to stamp the star strip.....striped paper is also from D O T S...the rest of the papers are colored CS I got from JoAnn's. I used gel pens to add the stitching and Copics for the coloring. The button.....who knows? It's one I had hanging around...Tee hee. I had fun with this one...the inside of the card is basically the same as above except I used Cricut's "Old West" cart to cut the pocket and the Celebrate stamp is from Fiskars. Gotta run and get ready for the 4th! Have a safe and happy weekend!

Dad's Inside

OK Erica, here is the inside! I even made the flag to exact specs per official website....well.....as close as I could get!

Erica's Birthday Card

My daughter, Erica visits my blog once in awhile and she was asking me why her Birthday card was not up on my blog....I added some of my older (well, before I started my blog) cards when I first started but I didn't go back past Valentine's Day so I told her I would get this up. She is crazy about Butterflies, and teal, and I like to play around with making paper flowers so I made this for her Birthday. The stamps are from various sets of my clear stamps, all different styles so I mixed them up. Two are from Inkadinkadoo, one from Fiskars along with the Butterfly Kisses sentiment. I stamped the sentiment and then designed the banner to fit it since it had the curvy thing going on and looked like it belonged on a banner, it's been so long since I did it I don't remember the paper company.....I keep all the different left over pieces in a file folder and will go through that before I start any project and these were both out of that folder.....most the time the company name has been cut off so I don't really know who made it.....ooops. I do remember that the banner had been from a double sided paper and I used my Prismacolor pencils to add the shading. Of course I used Vintage Photo Distress Ink from Ranger to ink the edges of the flowered paper....my favorite thing to do! The flower is made from some paper in a stack from K & Co. I cut the petals using an egg shape on the Cricut Easter 2010 Cartridge and then cut off the smaller end and shaped them with an embossing tool from Fiskar to feather and curl the edges of the petals. I then wrapped and glued them together to make the rose bud. I have since discovered a much easier way to make a rose from a Tim Holtz video! The leaves are just plain green CS that I cut out with deckle shears from Personal Stamp Exchange and then took the embossing tool to shape them. The box I made for the card to go into is on the bottom left of the card ( She also likes the peachy colors and that CS is from a K & Co. Specialty Paper Stack that all the patterns are either Butterflies or Dragonflies. Very pretty with foil accents on some of them. The Butterflies are colored in with Marvy Markers....all I had before I discovered the joys of Copics! So, here you go Erica! Thanks for stopping by and Happy Stamping!

Happy Fifth of July

Here's a card I've made for my Dad for his birthday.....it's the 5th of July so I'm going with the Red, White, and Blue theme this year. I just love this little D. O. T. S. angel along with the hearts. I've also used the banner. For those of you who are not familiar with D. O. T. S., it's what Close to My Heart used to be called when they first started out. It stands for Dozens of Terrific Stamps and I wish I could still get them. I have an old catalog (actually more than one.....since I could only order when I hosted a party and could "earn" free stuff) and it brings back lots of good memories, back when my kids actually wanted to stamp with me. My cousin Kim is the one who first invited me to one of their demonstrations.....and I thought "What do I want stamps for?" I had never worked with them before but I went because it was a good excuse to get together with everyone. That was back in 1992 (I think!) and I have been hooked ever since. I used to only drag my stuff out for making Christmas Cards and Valentine's and was always frustrated because I could never get them colored in right and they always looked so one dimensional, then I just kind of gave up and they gathered dust a lot. Since I quit working I decided to play around with them again since I needed to get into my crafts again and rediscovered how much enjoyment I get out of creating. I have many crafty things to do but can't really do any one for very long before it gets to being a chore. I used to sew constantly for the kids but it's gotten so expensive....you might as well just buy the darn clothes.....and the kids are mostly grown. I sewed more for the girls than the boys and my youngest son is 11 ( Oh jeez....almost 12!) so I don't sew much anymore. Anyway....just wanted anyone out there that takes a peek to know what I mean about the stamps......I never see the old stamps on anyone else's blogs and they are a thing of the past......to carry on.....give credit to the other companies who's wonderful stuff I've used.......

I started with plain old blue CS that you buy in a pack from JoAnn's....the next layer is some old D. O. T. S. paper I still have hanging around. The hardest part of this card was figuring out the background for the little angel.....I finally settled on taking plain white CS and spritzing on Ditress Ink that I mixed with Perfect Pearls and water in a Mini Mister.....all from Ranger Inks. I used Fired Brick and Tumbled Glass then inked the edges with Vintage Photo. The stars are cut from the George Cartridge on the Cricut and then I accented the smaller ones with Diamond Dust Stickles (Ranger). The angel and banner are popped with dimentionals from 3M. Thanks for stopping by....Happy Stamping.

Dreams May Go

Product of a sleepless night! My cousins girl is having a birthday so I made this. I saw a video on Tim Holz's site, a tutorial for the paper rose and really want to give it a try...and of course I don't have the sizzix machine to cut out the same kind of flower to start with, but I found one on the "Mother's Day 2010" Cartridge by Cricut and got it right the first time! I had to create my own tag on my Gypsy and I'm not familiar enough to create the mat to go along with it since I had to tweek this one so much to get it right. Wish there was some way to just enlarge the whole thing....but it just doesn't work that way even when you "weld" the images. Oh well, maybe one of these days I'll do the whole thing over only 1/4 inch bigger. The leaves for the rose are cut from the "Picturesque" Cart. (Cricut). The lace running down the green strip is some hemming tape I had laying around. The Background Paper is from Bo Bunny, the green is some scraps from a K & Co. stack I have, Vintage Photo, Victorian Velvet, and Wild Honey Ink from Ranger, the pearls are from Basic and the ribbon from JoAnn's. The stamp is from Verve's "Blue Skies" set. Whoever designed the background paper must have used Copic markers.....I tried everything to match the green in the set but to no avail...so I just used white cardstock and then went around it with a Copic....which matched exactly. There is an image cut from Cricuts "Paper Lace" cartridge (Happy Birthday) on the inside and I colored in the spaces with Copics and they matched the colors in the paper. I'm going to submit this for Mojo Monday even though the sketch is rotated....I see people do it even when their card doesn't even come close to the sketch so I figure I might as well join in. Keep craftin'......Keep happy! Thanks for stopping by.

Fitz's Card

Okay, so here is "Fitz's" card for his Dad....he picked the elements, I did the rest. Oh, he did some of the background painting, but made me finish because he said "You know how to do it Mom". Well, I'm no artist either...but it came out OK. The ship and the palm trees are Cricut cutouts from the "Life is a Beach" Cartridge. I just cut them out in white and color them in and add details. The Clouds are Verve stamps from the "Up, Up, and Away" set and the sentiment is from Verve's "Dad's Day" set. The background is made with Ranger's Distress Inks - Wild Honey, Tumbled Glass, and Chipped Sapphire. They make excellent watercolors along with everything else you can do with them and then the sand is done with Vintage Photo, Wild Honey and Walnut stain. It's just torn White CS inked with a blending tool with the Wild Honey, then I took a larger brush and stipled on Walnut stain in places, then used a blending tool to work it in, finshed up with some antiquing with Vintage Photo. I used Copic markers to color in the trees and ship. Fitz may not have done alot, but at least we spent the afternoon together...and he did get to use the Cricut to make the cutouts! He just loves to watch it cut. On the inside.......

Here is his School Pic (again) using the Frame from Cricut's "Songbird" Cartridge and I used the anchors from the "Life is a Beach" to accent the corners.  I would have done a little more detail but the boys were getting hungry so I had to wrap it up and go BBQ some burgers!  Fitz hadn't given his Dad one of the newest pics so he wanted it "Fancied up" to give his Dad.  A fitting present I guess.  The frame is only slightly glued around 3 side with the top left open so he can remove the photo from the paper frame or he can just cut around it and put it in his own frame.  So, that was today's project...now on to the next couple.  Thanks for stopping by.  Stay busy.  Busy hands keep your mind from dwelling on sad stuff.

Happy Dad Inside

So here's the inside of the Father's Day Card. That's my son, Fitz and the Frame/picture is mounted with removeable adhesive so it can be transferred to an album. Hopefully more cards will be posted this week...have a few more to do!