Thank You for a Lovely, Thoughtful Gift

Monday morning, March 17th, 2014, I had to put my beloved Hankie to sleep.  He was given to me in August 1999 by a teacher friend, and was my constant companion the last 14 years.  It was a terribly difficult decision, and I miss him more than you can imagine.

There's a video I posted on YouTube of Hankie calling me Mama - he never did that to anyone else.  I miss my Hankie very much.

 My dear friend Melissa came over a few days later and brought me a wonderful gift of an angel holding a kitty.

I made this card to thank her for such thoughtful gift. 

Co-worker Birthday

I made this card for our PE teacher's birthday.  She does so much for all of us, and the school - I wanted to make this card for all of us to sign. 

 Favorite color?  Green!  Again, I used the Thinlits die with the additional flap for writing - and the Gingham Garden DSP.  (I've been stocking up just in case they discontinue it with the summer's new catalog release.)

Here you can see the inside of the card.  AFTER I took the picture, I added an additional birthday stamp to the inside circle. 

March 2014 Stamp Club

At our February card club, my upline Kathy asked if I would run Club in March!  I was thrilled!

I love the color Bermuda Bay so much, one card just had to feature that color.

 I do love options, so each end of the table had these two card options - landscape, or portrait.  Same elements, just a different look.

 Colors?  Bermuda Bay, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo.  Stamp Sets?  Six-sided Sampler (and Hexagon punch)  Petite Petals (and small flower punch) and Hello, Lovely for the sentiment which we hand-cut.  A little embossing, some dimensionals and rhinestones - and a cute, springy card!

The 2nd card, Kathy asked if I would feature the thinlits card die.  At first, when I saw them demonstrated, I wasn't so thrilled.  There just wasn't enough room to do any message writing!  After looking at them for awhile, and debating about the price (There are 10 additional dies in each package.), I jumped in.

 You Tube is a wonderful resource for videos, and I found one that showed how to cut the die so you have an extra panel to fold in that leaves more than enough room to write in!

Now, as you've seen, I use them all the time.  In a few posts, I'll show another design using this die with a square card!  SUPER cute!

For this card, I used:  Pear Pizzazz and Whisper White card stock.  Gingham Garden DSP, and Washi Tape.
Stamp Sets: (4)  Flower Shop (and Pansy punch), Petite Petals (small flower punch) Bring on the Cake, and Delighful Dozen, and the 2 1/2" circle punch.

One of the best comments I received:  "This looked hard, but was easy once you got started on it."

Aunt's Birthday

I've been playing with the stamp set Gorgeous Grunge lately, and I'm having way too much fun!

There are 3 main colors to this card - Wisteria Wonder, because my aunt's favorite color is purple - Wild Wasabi, and Daffodil Delight - because green and yellow both go so well with purple.  I stamped the Birthday Wishes with Elegant Eggplant.

Before punching the butterflies, I stamped the cardstock with the paint splatter to give them the same effect as the card.

After the butterflies were attached, I got out a can of gold glitter spray, and gave it a coat.

This card is going into a package with some stamp materials since Nancy always has a wonderful project when the family gets together.

Card in a Box - Balloons

After playing around with the Card in a Box technique, I decided to make one with my very favorite tropical colors.

Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, Lovely Lilac (ret.), Peach Parfait (ret.) and Tempting Turquoise.

I found this combination while playing a game on Facebook, and thought how amazing they would look together.  After playing with them for quite awhile, I used this combination on an August calendar, and lots of other projects.

 I used window sheets and glue dots to make the balloons 'fly'.  The butterflies and sentiment all use the same colors.

I just couldn't resist a picture of this butterfly, using all the colors listed above.  After I've stamped, colored, punched, and added rhinestones, I like to add Diamond Stickles to give the butterflies extra sparkle!

 

Card in a Box 2

The base for this card, is Crisp Cantaloupe - seemed perfect for a spring-y bouquet of tulips!

My parents went on a trip to Europe a few years ago, and mom had MANY bulbs sent back from Holland.  They visited a very well-known tulip market.  When they arrived she had them planted in 2 areas of the yard.  When they bloomed - it was an explosion of color!  Every spring she has a huge bloom of the tulips around the yard.

After using this stamp a few times, I thought it would be perfect for the Card in a Box technique!

 All the tulips are colored with the blender pen - Pear Pizzazz and Wild Wasabi for the leaves, and Crisp Cantaloupe, Calypso Coral, Daffodil Delight, Crushed Curry, Bashful Blue, and Marina Mist for the Tulips.   I also used the same colors in marker for each of the butterflies.

 There isn't a die cut for the tulips, so they are each hand-cut.  It didn't seem to take very long at all to cut each of the flowers... I made this on a Saturday crafting day when my friends were over, so the cutting went along with great conversation!

Here you can see one of the ways to fold up the card to place in a regularly sized envelope.  I love how the flowers look when it's folded too!

I've started using a 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 inch piece of cardstock to cover the card and protect the embellishments during mailing.  It seems to work, and the envelope isn't torn as badly - especially with brads, or rhinestones.

February Stamp Club Cards

We made 2 cards, and a pin/flower project for February.

The first one uses DSP to make the candles, and 2 punches to make the flames - the bird punch, and the mini ornament punch!  We stamped and then die cut the sentiment.  This would be a perfect 'guy' card.

LOVE this Happy Birthday card!  The stamp comes from the current Sale-a-bration catalog, and is colored with blender pens.  

No, it's not paper - it's fabric!  We die cut it on the scallop border die, layered it onto a piece of circular sticky strip, and added a brad to the center.    This could be an embellishment on a project, or a pin.

Card in a Box with a link to a Tutorial

I do so love learning new crafting techniques!

One of the girls from my card club brings samples she makes in other groups.  We lit upon this Card in a Box she made.  

I've seen them before, but as you know, in person it's always more stunning!

HERE is the tutorial I watched to get measurements, and tips on making these gems.  Have paper and pencil ready so you can write down your own instructions.  Doing this helps me immensely!  I can remember watching the video while I reread my written directions.

One very AMAZING thing with these cards - they fold up to fit into a regular A2 envelope! 

 I (again) used my DSP Gingham Garden - I really love that paper!  It's so versatile, and the bright colors are usually what I favor in my crafting.

 Main colors:  Pear Pizzazz card base, Daffodil Delight, Melon Mambo, and Island Indigo.  I used the same colors on the larger butterflies - coloring them with markers, rhinestone bodies (as always) and then some Diamond Stickles to make them glitter.

 The larger flower centers are PK Glitz embossing glitter on regular brads...  Burgundy, Azure, and Honey.  The smaller flowers have rhinestone centers.

 Love that butterfly stamp and punch combination! 

Two Babies!

Just had to take a picture of 2 of my kitties.

Christmas Cards - March 2014

I love Christmas trees! 
I collect them!  I have Christmas trees around the house all year long... we keep our tree up in the living room way too long (usually until just before Valentine's Day), but I don't care!  I just love Christmas trees!  They make me very happy.  Plus, when I look at these, I can hear Bing Crosby's song Mele Kalikimaka.  :)

I saw this technique in a simpler form and thought to give it more detail.

I especially like Christmas trees that have Merry Christmas in different languages.  At school, almost every year, I have the kids color a tree with the Merry Christmas sayings in the ornaments and turn it into a card for their parents, or a favorite grandparent.

The effect I was going for was glowing lights on the tree with this technique.  The original had just triangles of green with just the circular ornaments.  I had this stamp - and this is how I made these trees happen.

I used Garden Green cardstock, and stamped the trees in Garden Green.  Use a white gel pen to color in the stars, circles, squares, and triangles on each tree.  Dig out the pastels from your stash (come on, I know you have some!), and color over the white gel pen with the pastel chalks.  While you're in the middle of the technique, it doesn't look so, but when you're finished you can see the lights glowing on the Christmas trees!

In hindsight I should have embossed the red background, but the trees are so busy I decided to let them have the entire focus.

I used the Artisan punch on its side for the sentiment and scraps of the Garden Green as a frame.

Here you can see the inside of the card, and the envelope.  Remember the saying... "No naked envelopes!"

Student Alliterations

Walking past one of the classrooms the other day, these MOST adorable creations really caught my eye!  Our 3rd graders were working on alliterations in their Language Arts class.  I remember so clearly doing this with my 4th graders!

Just wanted to show you some of their awesome work!  Please enjoy.

Valentine Cookies

Williams Sonoma had an unusual cookie cutter in their February catalog - an enormous heart!  It's about 6 inches tall, and almost 8 inches across.  I had to search for it in the store, and found a bunch hiding on the bottom rack of a display in a basket.

I rolled the cookie dough out a lot thinner than usual since the cookie is so large.  They were lots of fun to decorate!

 I had white and red fondant at the house, so I stopped at a local cake shop to pick up some pink fondant, and found some purple/pink/red heart sprinkles. 

 I baked 6 of the large hearts.  Our neighbors received a selection of the smaller cookies, spritz, and 1 or 2 of the larger cookies.

 On the trays, you can see the spritz cookies I LOVE to make!  I bought a Hershey's chocolate cookbook, and it had a chocolate spritz recipe.  The dough was not as nice as my butter spritz recipe, but they tasted fantastic.

 I like to dip the spritz cookies in the Wilton dark cocoa candy melts, and add sprinkles.  With these, I dipped them in the dark cocoa, then in white and added the sprinkles.  It was much easier to see them!

You can get a copy of my Sugar Cookie recipe (it really is fantastic) HERE, and the Butter Spritz cookie recipe I use HERE.  One comment on the Butter Spritz - I don't like almond flavoring in cookies, so I use  butter extract.  Makes the flavor amazing!