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!

Happy Dad

Mojo Monday again! I needed a card to send off to my Dad (cuttin' it close, I know!) and it's going into an envelope so not too much 3D :( ! And this week I wanted to use all Verve Stamps. I angled my ribbons so that the bling on the center strip would show up - not much detail in the picture, but it's there.....little dots and stripes in glitter. I can't remember which company the paper is from, it's one of my left-over strips. The corners are cut from the "Picturesque Cart from Cricket and the Fluer de li's are punch outs from a K & Co. edger. The Tag in the middle is from the "Songbird" Cart (Cricut) since I don't have the fancy Nestibilities Dies, but at least I can make them any size I want! The inside of the card will have a frame cutout from the paper I cut the tag out of with a picture of my son Fitz inserted....only reversed. Might as well make use of the scraps! I feel this is a little bare, but it for a GUY so it's all good! I added a little bling in the lower left corner to offset the bow on the right side. Hope you enjoy, and Thanks for stopping by.

Stamps: Verve, Dad's Day.
Paper: Unknown, Heidi Grace from Colorbok, assorted color CS from DCWV.
Ink: Walnut Stain and Vintage Photo Distress Ink from Ranger, Tuxedo Black from Memento.
Accesories: Songbird and Picturesque Cart. from Cricut, Border punches from K & Co., ribbon from JoAnn's, Pearls from Queen & Co., Rhinestones from Expressions, Hi-gloss Clear EP from Enchanted Creations.

Life's a Beach

Mojo Monday Sketch 6-6-2011

OK, so I didn't exactly follow the sketch, I was going to, had some other papers cut out and everything.....but I just didn't "feel" it. I had originally wanted to go with blue, lightly patterned papers in between some cutesy floral on really light backgrounds and picked the light blue as one of the strips, I just love the color. It reminds me of a summer day and that's where I was at.....thinking of a summer day when my Honey came home. Time to think about dinner instead. We watched part of the CMT Awards last night and one of the back drops for a song was kind of like a sea scene....and it came to me....the scallops at the bottom remind me of waves. Yee Haw, an idea! Instead of going to bed last night (oops) I stayed up to create. I drew a little sketch of what I thought I wanted and this is what happened. I've had the blue paper I used for the water for a year or two but have never had the chance to use it (It's supposed to be for an album page for the pictures from the trip to the coast we took 2 years ago!)There were supposed to be a couple of puffy clouds, but I have discovered that I need to get a puffy cloud stamp after trying a little freehand....my seagulls came out rather well. I made two to make up for the lack of clouds! I decided to distress the strips for the sky because I kind of liked the idea of vertical and horizontal stripes and with the pattern the strips just didn't stand out on their own (and the last strip from the edge was printed with some distress). The sun is a little whimisical stamp from Fiskars "Flower Garden" set, the sand edge is one of my old "D. O. T. S." stamps, and the greenery is from Rubber Stampede. I popped the sun and the sand with some 3M dimentional tape and there you have it. I wanted to put "Oh Happy Day" down in the sand, but just couldn't figure out where to put it, so I let it be......I'll put it in the inside. There is also a little Stardust Stickles along the top edges of the sand.

Stamps: Fiskars, Rubber Stampede, and D. O. T. S.
Paper: Paper Pizzaz, white CS.
Ink: Chipped Sapphire - Ranger, Memento - Tuxedo Black.
Accesories" Copic markers.

Summer Guy

Another Mojo Monday Card.....for a guy's B-day. You can't tell from the photo, but the wings are done on Vellum to give it that translucent look. Off to the family BBQ to honor June B-days and Graduation. Looking forward to rockin' the scaled down golf course and catchin' up.

Summer dream

Well, I just haven't had the heart to be working on cards, or much of anything lately, since Danielle passed. I miss her so much. But I don't want to wither away in grief, so I have done a few cards in the last week. I didn't get a picture of the one I made for Brianne's birthday, I know I will kick myself in the butt for that later. There are lots of birthdays this month and I saw this sketch on Mojo Monday and just loved it so I thought I would give it a try for one of the cards. I am happy with this, and had fun with the picture in the middle.