Thinking Happy Thoughts of You/Year of Thinking of You - June

Hi Friends!
I had that little bird from Purple Onion Designs out last week and decided to make another card using him. He's just so darned cute. I stamped him a few times on cardstock, colored him with Prismacolor pencils and fussy cut him (and his friends for a little dimension) out.  I decided to sit him on that little branch (also from POD) and situate him on some diecuts (Mat Stack 3 and Mat Stack 3 Layerz from PTI) and sponge in some sunshine. I also used the Herringbone Impression Plate from PTI for the background. And I finished it off with a sentiment from PTI from the Heart-2-Heart #12 stamp set.
That's all for today. I am off today on a little excursion with my husband. I'll have to tell you all about it when we return. Til then - have a good one!
editing to add - my sister-in-law is using this one for our "Year of Thinking of You" cards for June.

Dear Ones cards for January/Year of Thinking of You August

Hi friends! Here's a Dear Ones card I made for this month. (Dear Ones cards are those I send to special friends/family members who I rarely get to see - they live so far away - and they're all seniors - some get out - some don't - but they all appreciate a handmade card and a little note to let them know I'm thinking of them.) I made 8 of these cards very quickly.
I used Papertrey Ink stamps (Flower Fusion #'s 4 & 7), the Linen & Canvas Impression Plate, the die from Wonderful Words: Hello and those stitched rectangles from Lil' Inker.
It's been cold and snowy here in the 'berg and I am trying to think "Spring" - hence the color palette.
That's all for today kids - stay warm where you are!
I'm editing to add that my sister-in-law liked this card so she'll be using it for the "Year of Thinking of You" cards - August edition.

It didn't work for the challenge but I like it anyway

Hi friends. Did you ever see a challenge on a "challenge" blog and decide you're going to give that a go and realize... no, that's not gonna work. Well, maybe you haven't. Maybe you kept trying and you made something you liked and yay for you! :-)  This time I don't think it worked out for me for the challenge but I like that I still made something.
The challenge I saw was for paper piecing which I happen to enjoy so I thought great - I'll try that. Then I realized the stamps I had really don't lend themselves to paper piecing (you needed to use a particular company's stamps) - they're not line stamps - more flat image. I thought about it some more and said I'm making something with the stamps I have anyway - they haven't seen ink in a while. So I set off making this card. I went to my patterned paper scrap box and chose that plaid piece. Then I found another piece of patterned paper with polka dots and stamped my image on it with a similar but darker color pink. I liked how that came out and clear embossed it. I like that you can still see the polka dots right through the stamping. I found yet another piece of patterned paper - this time the green paper I cut the leaves from - it had a very subtle pattern and texture too. I stamped the leaf image from the set on the paper with a similar but darker ink - it picked up the texture which I really liked. I finished the card using one of the sentiments in the set and I had a card. Not the card that I set out to make but it worked out fine in the end.
Hope you're having a good day - it was lightly snowing earlier here but has stopped. I think we're dodging the "blizzard" bullet here in northern Virginia. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Michele

Today's card is for my friend Michele. And, as she is the owner of Purple Onion Designs, I thought I'd use some of her Stacey Yacula stamps for her card.
I'd wanted to use these guys for a while and had such fun making this card. First is Robin - the cute little birdie with the striped shirt. Then there's that cute branch (its actually got blossoms but I opted to color them as leaves - that's the wonderful thing about stamps- and especially the kind you can color with Copics - that's what I used to color all the images - you can make it anyway you wanna!) I also used the cute butterfly buddies, Flit & Flutter. I decided to stamp them several times, colored them, then fussy cut them. I used some Glossy Accents to attach the layers of each butterfly as I wanted to pop up their wings a bit - Glossy Accents is great for that. I also added a bit of Wink of Stella to give them a little sparkle. I cut the kraft cardstock with a Circle Nestabilities then embossed it with the Woodgrain Impression plate from Papertrey Ink. I popped the whole card up on some adhesived backed foam (I cut a piece using the same circle die which made it so easy). The sentiment was printed on my computer and cut with the Double-Ended banners die from PTI. Oh and one last thing - I did take some kraft ink to the kraft cardstock- the area surrounding the circle opening just to define it a little more - darken up those edges.
I think it came out pretty cute.
Happy Birthday Michele!

Celebrate, Good Times, Come On!

Sometimes when I'm making cards, I'm totally thinking about the person I'm making the card for and... I start singing as I work. My bff is having an extra special day this week - and this card is to mark the occasion. I started pulling out stamps, finding the "Celebrate" word first (from Papertrey Ink - Think Big Favorites #13) and it got me singing that Kool & The Gang song. I know... i'm a little nuts. But it is a happy occasion and I just got all happy thinking about it so I started singin! The "Good Times" and "Come On" were created using Papertrey Ink alphabet dies (Polka Dot Parade and Smooth, respectively). And that last line - well that's computer generated and printed out on some cardstock.  I think it will make her crack up and that's what I'm going for - so mission accomplished. Thanks for stopping by.

Year of Thinking of You - probably April

I say probably April cos I'm not sure if that's the month she'll use it. It seems like it might be better suited to May or June. Regardless, I made two cards: one with a red bike and one with a pink bike. The red one is going to my s-i-l and the pink one is going to a friend.
I used two stamp sets from Papertrey Ink: the bike image and sentiment come from Pedal Pusher. The flowers come from Just Smile. For both cards I drew my own banner, cut it out, then stamped on the sentiment. For the pink card, I drew in lines tying the banner to the bike. On the red card, I used some bakers twine to tie on the banner to the red die cut bike.

You can probably see that on both cards I used some foam tape to pop up those banners a little.
I added some brads to the red bike's wheels.

Oh and did you notice the envelopes underneath the bikes?  I found some old Making Memories long (business sized) envelopes in my stash. I had some cute washi tape my sister had sent me a while ago that had a very similar color scheme to those flowers on the cards - so I added some washi to the envelopes. I should've taken photos of those envelopes too - but suffice it to say it looks cute.
okay that's it for today. thanks for stopping by.

Year of Thinking of you - March

Hi there - had some stuff to take care of last week but I'm back now. Today I'm sharing one of my Year of Thinking of You cards for my sister-in-law.  While I was at it I made 3 - she's taking the yellow background one and the rest will go to my stash.
I used the Hello Sunshine stamp set from Papertrey Ink. It has such lovely sentiments. I made a similar card once before but I changed things up a little this go round. And for the three cards I used different inks and cardstocks. And I also used the Lil' Inker Designs Stitched Mats: Rectangles.
Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back a few more times this week. I've got a bunch of cards to show you!

Year of Thinking of You - February

So here's another for the "Year of Thinking of You" cards - February edition. I figured I might as well make February and mail it in the same envelope with January to my sister-in-law.
This was a pretty quick one. I'm also trying not to get toooo dimensional - this will cost one first class stamp - it's flat :-)
I used PTI's Birds & Blooms stamp set. I hadn't brought this stamp set out in a while - good to play with it again. It has just the prettiest sentiments as well as the cute bird and branch. I used the little heart in the set to embellish the branch with a bunch of hearts (it's for February right?).
That's all for today. Have a good one!

A Year of Thinking of You - January

Well those Year of Cards gifts went over well - so much so that one sister-in-law asked me to help her out with a little project of her own. She's got a friend who she'd like to send a card to every month - a Thinking of You kinda card. She asked if I'd come up with a monthly card - and why not? It's one of my favorite things to do - make (and send) cards. Let's share the "sending cards" love! What my sister-in-law really liked the most about my YOC's (which I'll remind you were all birthday cards)  was their seasonality. So, with that in mind, here's what I made for the January.
The sweater was created with the Sweater die from Papertrey Ink. The sentiment (from PTI's Keep It Simple: Thinking of You stamp set) was stamped on white cardstock cut with the Double Ended Banner die (also PTI). The patterned paper? - I created using my Silhouette. I used the Snowflake Fair Isle Background - filled it in with red - set it to No Cut and just printed it off. I think it makes a really cute sweater!
Okay - that's all for today! Have a good one

Birthday Tag

One of my nephews has a birthday this week. This nephew being my sister's #2 son who shall be 11, which seems impossible but it is so. As my sister lives on the other side of the country (insert sad face here) it is our practice for me to purchase his gift online (this year it's Legos... actually it's Legos most of the time LOL!) and have it sent to my sister. She wraps the gift and I mail along a card and a tag for the present. It works out rather well - except the part where I miss seeing his adorable face as he opens the package. But I digress...
So here's his tag for this year. I used all Papertrey Ink products: the Smooth alphabet dies for his name; Shaker Shapes: Star die; Herringbone Impression plate; Tag Sale #7 die; and the ball is from the Have a Ball stamp set. The red & white twine is from Doodlebug.
Alrighty - that's all for today. Have a good one!

Happy New Year! and a graduation card

Welcome 2015!
and welcome friends - good to see you for another year.
I needed to make a graduation card for a nephew/godchild who recently graduated college.

Now the color scheme here might seem to skew girly but I'm thinking more celebratory, confetti... I like it - sorta happy ya know? And what's happier than graduating college?

I used an older PTI set - Celebrations. It makes a fast card with those big sentiments - and you can't not love that. But for all its rainbowy, bold sentiments I felt it needed something. I decided on using an oldie but a goodie - a set of dies from Quickutz - a graduation cap. Those dies have more than paid for themselves given the number of times I've hauled them out over the years!
So yay - card #1 for the new year. And many more to come. Have a good one~