Sending You Big Hugs

On Friday I'd hoped to join the PTI blog hop but it just didn't happen. I spent the day with my bff, June (hey June!). When I got home I thought I'd give it a try and started stamping all over some cardstock with a stamp from Ruby Reprise. And well, as often happens around here something else needed tending to so I had to put it aside. I fooled around with it a little yesterday - and this morning finally got a minute to finish the card. I used the Phrase Play #6 die and stamps. At the bottom I tied on some ribbon I had and adhered a button but decided I wanted to do something else.  I took out a small round punch, stamped it with a heart and then used my Glossy Accents on top - kinda like a little button cover. The picture doesn't look as cute as it is in real life :-)
Okay - hope you all are having a lovely Sunday! I just took a break from working on my scrapbook of London. Having lots of fun with all my PTI Monthly Moments stuff. Have a good one!

Morning Glory Hello

Got a quick one one for today
I bought the Papertrey Ink Year of Flowers Collection a long time ago but really hadn't used them a whole lot. They recently introduced dies for the set and I couldn't wait to pull out that stamp set. I love a number of the flowers in the set but I think the morning glories are one of my favorites. For this card I used some Papertrey patterned paper, the Monthly Moments: Instant Photo 2 die and some Rustic Creme twine. I colored the image with Copics. The "hello" sentiment is from a new set: Big Ticket Additions. I had to do a little masking (to remove the ticket portion of the stamp) but it only took a few minutes. Despite the floral image I think the card has a bit of a masculine feel (as this card is going to a male member of the family). Ok - gotta run. Hope you have a wonderful day!

Make it Monday #173 - No Outline Watercolor

So you may've noticed - I'm not the trendiest girl in town. I am intrigued but it often may take me a bit of time to jump in. It's more of wallet issue with me. I love classic things (at least in my mind what is a classic ok) and I find it easier to put my money down on something I know I'll use for a long time.

Watercolor is classic for sure. And it makes the rounds in the stamping world and it's back again. It really never went out of style right? Nah :-) That being said, I am often reluctant to pull out my watercolors when I've got pencils and markers that can get me there a little quicker. But I decided I had a couple of cards to make and I'd try this week's Make It Monday over on the Papertrey Ink blog. I haven't participated in the MIM for a while.

This is where I segue into the little promise I made to myself. What's that you say? I need to give some of my older stamps some love. You know how it is - you buy new stuff - use it for a bit - then you're on to the next thing. Am I right? C'mon... you know what I'm talking about :-)
Okay so I'm determined to make it a regular habit - I'm makin a new category here on my blog - Everything Old Is New Again. After overhauling all my woodblocks and looking at quite a collection of clear stamps - I need to use them! So... here's my first installment.

These are not my oldest stamps for sure - but they haven't gotten any love in quite a while. I used PTI's Strawberry Patch and Background Basics: Sheet Music. The sentiment is new - Banner Sentiments (and I didn't even use the banner - go fig!)
I pulled out my old watercolor set and some watercolor paper I had and stamped in PTI Fine Linen. I stamped twice figuring I'd just see how it went. Watercoloring and me are not the best of friends. I used to get very frustrated with them. I wish there had been a course in watercolor when I was in school. But it seems these days I've gone from the perfectionist I was (back oh 10 years ago) to a more go-with-the-flow kinda girl. I like her better ;-)

So I colored away with a water pen and really enjoyed myself. I decided the finished card might look nice if I did something with the background. I picked out the sheet music stamps. I pulled out a post it note pad and made myself a mask (not being too fussy about it and stamped that music all over.

On the second card I did go back and edit the mask a little - cutting deeper into the image hoping to get some more of the music stamped there. Then I stamped on the sentiments (one's a little crooked and one's slightly smudged - that Versafine can be a little finicky but its such a gorgeous black yaknow). On one of the cards I decided to try some Rustic Cream twine. And on the other card I went back in with a white Gelly Roll pen and put the seeds back in the strawberries :-)

Overall - I'm pleased. And it was a very relaxing to just paint away and not get too wound up about every little detail.  I may have to pull out the watercolors again real soon.
Have a good one!

Year of Cards - July

Hi there. I'm busy working on some card sets I intend giving for Christmas gifts to family. When I first saw Dawn McVey's Birthday Classics stamps at PTI I thought this would be a perfect gift for each family. I've been getting one set each month since they debuted in February but I hadn't had the chance to begin making the cards until today. As I mentioned the other day we've got a bunch of birthday's in July to celebrate and I needed one more - then I made 8 more for the gifts.
Here's the one I made for a family member. I'd seen a really cute example from Dawn McVey (scroll way down to see it) where she used a stamp from a flower set to create fireworks on her card. I really loved that idea but didn't have that flower set (although I'd love too LOL!). I'd recently been to a stamp store and when you spend a certain amount you can pick a free stamp from a basket. I looked through the basket and found a Memory Box stamp I thought I might use for backgrounds so it came home with me! And when I started these cards I thought it would be perfect to make the fireworks on my cards. Here you'll see I did the fireworks in 3 different embossing powders (silver, red and holographic). The holographic one doesn't show up that well but it is pretty. When I went to create the July cards for my gifts I decided to eliminate that embossing powder - it makes the cards a little more focused - less is more and all that. But I do like how sparkly it is for this card.

Now on to the cards for the Year of Cards sets.
You may think I'm crazy making all these card sets but I think it'll work out pretty well. I'm making one design basically and changing them up slightly with positioning (of elements) and colors. Not one is alike - and we know how I like to do that: my valentines being the prime example. It's a little challenge for me and it keeps the process from getting boring you know? And once you have the basic design the rest is a piece of cake (and we KNOW how much I love cake!)
These really did come together quickly. I like
embossing a lot as well as the assembly line. I didn't take pics of the envelopes but I did a little stamping on those as well (just some stars).
So July is done. I'm going to backtrack and start making the cards for February through June and then continue on through December as I buy each set. January will need to wait til next year :-)
Hope you're having a great weekend!

Cool & Sweet

Two cards to share today.

My husband has a large family and there are several during the month of July. And for July birthday cards you kinda think summer-y stuff right? Popsicles are summer-y 

I love PTI's Summer Sweetness stamp set - it has great sentiments and the cutest popsicles (yes... there are not as cute popsicles out there in the stamping world. really. ;-) By nature popsicles are cute - you're right- but in the greater popsicle world - these have the highest cuteness factor).

By the way there will be quiz at the end of this post regarding the number of times I have included the word popsicle.

I cut those cute popsicles out of some glitter paper I purchased at Hobby Lobby (It's Doodlebug!). This card uses the "coolest" sentiment. The second card uses the "sweetest" sentiment. It's a nice little feature of this set - being able to easily swap out those words. (The two lines in black are one stamp - the words "coolest" and "sweetest" are separate stamps)

I used Papertrey Ink's Background Basics: Super Chevron for the backgrounds on the frames (which were cut with the PTI Monthly Moments Instant Photo #1 die). I also used the Herringbone impression plate from Papertrey for the base on the second card. I got my inspiration for both cards from .... darn I can't recall which design team member it was! 

Anyway that's all from me for today. Hope you have a good one (and ... it's 7... the number of times i said that word..;-)_

You are My Cup of Tea

Hi there again! Surprised you huh? Yup I'm back again.
Just a quick post today. I really need to finish up some more craft room purging and other things keep gettin in the way. Isn't that life? LOL
Here's a little card I made to brighten someone's day. I think it's quite cheery! All from Papertrey Ink: Background Basics: Super Chevron, Phrase Play #1 Stamp set & die, Tea for Two Additions and teacup die.
(Secretly I would love it to say "cup of coffee" cos that's my go-to hot beverage - but the tea is mighty cute huh?)
I love this Phrase Play series of stamps and dies. They make the quickest & cutest cards and are easy on the wallet too!
Okey dokey... on with today's show. Hope you have a good one!

Reorganizing: Unmounting the Wood Block stamps

So it was about 2 weeks ago I mentioned I've been purging and reorganizing all around the house. It's one of those things you just gotta do now and then. This ongoing project finally brought me to my little craft haven - my art room. OMG - tons to be done in here.
A big problem was the amount of space my stamps take up. A lot of crafty real estate to be sure. I have two large bookcases on one wall of my room and 2-1/2 to 3 of the eight shelves were just Stampin Up stamp sets. There were also 5 acrylic frames (11x14) filled with more stamps from various companies. (I won't even go into the unmounted stamp sets in CD cases and foam block stamps, PTI stamp sets. the list goes on. But hey - I've been stamping for probably 17 years. You accumulate a lot of stamps right?  And I know I have much less than others I know - you know who you are! LOL ).
So I finally decided I could gain back a lot of space if I unmounted all those woodblock stamps I wanted to keep. I finally finished un
mounting and remounting on EZ Mount cling today. YAY!
This is just some of the blocks that have made their way to the recycling bin. I didn't take a pic of the ones that I'd already disposed of - which was probably about 3 times this amount.
Here's the last batch I did today. I still need to pull off the labels (if they have them - some of the images are printed right on the wood - can you see the photo boxes behind them - 2 high... it's a lotta wood!)

Before I started this project I looked around online to see if I could glean any tips. I did find a big fat one - via You Tube - that I thought I'd share in case anyone out there wants to do this to their collection.
I would have done what I always do when using EZ Mount. Get out my Kai scissors and go to town. And of course the scissors get sticky and you have to be cleaning them repeatedly during the whole process.
Well there is a much better way to do this girls. It's called a Hot Knife. I got mine on Amazon (I think the company is called Walnut Hollow) but you might also find it at Jo-Ann's. It is a mighty handy tool I'll tell ya. My daughter came through the kitchen when I was cutting with this tool and she said - what's that? Like a hot X-acto knife?  And that is exactly what it's like. I highly recommend it ladies.  Here's one last pic I took while I was cutting. You can see the blade there on the right. The blade turns black from the adhesive being heated but it causes no problems.
So now - what was once occupying almost 3 shelves of my bookcase - now is all contained in several binders - on about 1/3 of 1 shelf. How about that? Incredible.
I do have some remaining woodblocks that I keep in those photo boxes. They're two different categories: Holiday stamps (Christmas, Valentines, St Patricks Day, Halloween) and Background Stamps (mostly StampinUp but one or two others). I'm debating whether or not I'll unmount those. But for right now they're nicely organized in those boxes and it works.
Now onto the final phase of reorganizing my craft room: all things Scrapbooking. This includes 10 photo boxes (full of photos), various containers of loose random photos and memorabilia and a ton of albums I've already made and those in progress. I'm drowning in the stuff and it needs to be better organized so I can get some scrapping done. I've been working on current scrapbooking (like the photos from our recent trip) but I need to get to the old stuff- kwim?
If you have any tips or tricks - please share! In the meantime - have a good one!

HAPPY Birthday

Well - let's make it four days in a row shall we? LOL

I don't know about you, but I try to take pictures of what I'm making - mostly so I can remember what I made! (I might want to make it again right?)
And as I've been sorta "crafting on the go" taking those pics, before I send a card out the door, really is a must.
So the quality of this pic leaves a little to be desired but I'm posting it.  I cleared an area on my drawing board and you can see some of my practicing with the PTI Background Basics: Venice stamp set in two colors. Ultimately, for this card, I decided I liked the look of  one color. A little less complicated and decidedly more masculine (this card was for the husband).
I also used the PTI Tipped Top Dies - I love that "HAPPY". I cut it a few times/glued it together to get a little more dimension. I wish I could recall which set that "birthday" was from - ah well.
Happy Saturday!

Sorry I'm Late Tag and Ballerina Card

Can you believe it? 3 posts in as many days?
I had mentioned that I've still been making things even though I haven't been posting.
I was talking to my sister earlier today and she mentioned something about a card I'd sent to my niece (her daughter). I went and looked in my photos and sure enough I had taken a pics so I thought I'd share.
I'd made my niece a birthday card (inspired by one made by Nichole Heady) using the Ballerina Beauty stamp set & die from PTI. I'd colored the ballerina to look like my niece (brown hair and dressed in a pink tutu). In the background I'd used a die from Anna Griffin (it is just the most beautiful flourish ever) - I'd glittered up that flourish as this niece is the one who loves all things sparkly! My sister had told me she was going to put the card in a frame to hang in her daughter's room as she'd loved it so much (awww - happy Aunt here).

Now these little packages - were for my niece and my sister. I'd sent them along with the birthday card but they weren't actually birthday presents. Inside were little St. Theresa medals I'd purchased for them in Italy (matching one I'd bought for myself.) St. Theresa is my saint - and my mother's as we share that name. The medals are something we all can wear and think of my mom :-)
Anyway - I made the pillow boxes (using some PTI patterned paper ) on my Silhouette Portrait. The little tags were die cut using the PTI Tag Sale #9 - I love that die.


And the wee little snail? Well it's Tucker from Purple Onion Designs and it is THE cutest thing you ever did see. And Tucker needed to be pink and girly for my niece so I colored him appropriately and added some more glitter.
Too stinkin cute for words! Tucker looks a little more like Tucker-ella, right? Then I tied it all up with a little bit of bakers twine.
Oh and obvi- I just wrote in the "sorry I'm late" - it's a snail... get it?
Ok.... that's all for today.

Kitty Birthday Card

Finally, I got this card to cooperate and upload. This is the card the kitties made for my husband for his birthday (well.... they had a little help ;-))
We used PTI's Cat's Meow stamp set - sooo cute!
The black cat is a dead ringer for our little Westley - he was colored using Prismacolor pencils. The "yellow" cat is supposed to be our sweet little Willie (short for Wilhelmina dontcha know) - who is a beautiful buff colored kitty. We colored her using Copics.
They decided a birthday banner would be cute on their card and we stamped "DAD" using an alpha set (i believe it's an old Hero Arts set). The "happy birthday" is from PTI's Keep it Simple: Birthday. The patterned paper is also from PTI.  Okay - that's all for today. Have a good one!

Hello Birthday Boy

So things are still busy but I thought I'd pop in here real quick and share another birthday card.

I wanted to share another kitty birthday card but perhaps another day when my computer is not making me crazy.

For this card I used the PTI Phrase Play 3 stamps & dies. I also used some PTI Enchanted Evening patterned paper. It's simple but I like it and it was perfect for my son - those masculine cards are tough though, right?
Have a good one!

Oh I've been busy...

Guess you figured that out since I haven't updated the old blog since April. Thanks for continuing to stop by in my absence.
Let's see - what have I been doing?
Well, there was a trip to Europe in April and the beginning of May. Yes, it was amazing. 3 weeks on the road with my favorite people in the world: my husband, son and daughter. It was a trip of a lifetime. London, Paris, Venice, Florence and Rome. I have something like 1500 photos. \
Yes, I've started the scrapbooks. Thank goodness I've been pocket style scrapbooking for years now. If I hadn't already, it would be a good time to start right? It's the only way the pics will get into books with the accompanying stories (and you know there are stories). And for me that's what it's about - getting those stories down.
So yes... scrapping has begun. London is in books, (and the stories are partially done) Paris, Venice & Florence photos are sitting here waiting to be put into books and Rome pics need to be ordered.

At the same time I'm doing a little redecorating around the house as well as a house purge.  The purge is ongoing and I've arrived at my little art haven here. I shall be stuck here a while but I'm making great progress! At the moment I'm remounting my wood stamps on EZ Mount cling - and while it's taking a bit of time it's quite therapeutic. And I'm finding wonderful stamps I'd almost forgotten I had. And as this process continues it's great to see that I'm freeing up space in here and I'm feeling more organized then ever. And the more organized I feel the more creative I feel. A little less bogged down with stuff - you know what I mean?

Throw in a few birthdays, visits with some friends - the very best friends in the world. Add  emptying out a condo, cleaning it, and selling it. I've been a busy girl.

Have I been making cards - you betcha! Most of the time I even remembered to snap a picture before I sent them out the door :-) Here's one I made for my son - from our two silly kitties. I used Papertrey Ink stamp sets: Cats Meow, Keep It Simple: Birthday. The balloon die is from Birthday Bash and I also used the double ended banner die. The little party hats are just scraps of PTI patterned paper.

Okay - I'm off to get a few things done with the rest of the day. Thanks for sticking with me. I'll try posting some more cards shortly.  Have a good one!

Make it Monday #159: No Sew Quilted Cards

So this week's Make it Monday challenge is to create a card and impress a quilted pattern on it using an impression or cover plate. This card is my second attempt. I'd originally gone with a series of cut circles. I'd had visions of a quilt my grandmother had made using circles - you'd cut out a circle and run a stitch around the edge and pull the threads creating a little puff - I think I've seen them called Yo-Yo quilts. But hers was a little different. (The gathered part was inside. There was a backing on the reverse side of the quilt.) And so beautiful.  I wish it was still around to show you. My mom had told me she remembered my grandmother making that quilt - she'd be out playing in the yard and my grandmother was sitting nearby sewing the circles. :-) It was a sweet little memory she had of her mom.
I digress. No surprise right?
Regardless, my attempt was not successful. I think the circles were too small and I chose a cover plate that was to busy for it. I may try again :-)
So I regrouped and still went with a small measure - but this time squares - and a much less busy cover plate - the new Deco Cover Plate. I had a lot of scraps from an old Basic Grey paper pack and I was off and running. The sentiment is from Keep it Simple: Thank You. I was going to stamp the sentiment right on a piece of Lemon Tart card stock but the color was a little too bright. So I opted to stamp on a piece of vellum and adhered that to the card stock which was just right (thank you Goldilocks). Throw in a button and some Lawn Fawn twine that has a bit of gold in it - and I'm very pleased with my results.
Okay. Off to have lunch with one of my favorite people in the world - my aunt. Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday to my little sister

 It's her birthday today and of course I made her a card. Well, actually I made 2 cards. Here's the cute card :-)
A few years back I saw an adorable card made by Heather Nichols - I'm sure it's on her blog somewhere - regardless she used the PTI Cupcake Collection and some of this PTI Dark Chocolate pattern paper. Her card had a doily in it and I think it also had 2 cupcakes. Anyhow it stuck in my head mostly because the cupcakes looked like little Hostess cupcakes - with that little squiggle of white frosting on top. That sealed the deal for me. I knew one day I'd make a card like that for my little sister. A few years ago my sister was visiting me right around my birthday. And she baked up some faux Hostess cupcakes for the occasion - she made the cream inside and the squiggle on top. One of the cupcakes squiggles actually said my name. She is a clever one. Not only were they cute they were yummy.
 

So last week I made this card for her using that cupcake stamp set. The squiggle was made using the Loop De Loop die and I used the Double Ended Banner die stamped with the Keep It Simple: Birthday stamp set. I think it came out pretty cute. Oh and there's lots of foam tape popping up those cupcake tops there so it's very fun.










I called my sister a little while ago. She loved her card :-)
Oh and I included something in the card that I found recently while going through my mom's things. I found an old wallet of my mother's. I opened it up and there was this little blast from the past. My mother had saved this newspaper clipping for 50 years. From the New York Times, a photo of my little sister. She was an absolutely beautiful baby. Seriously she was stinkin adorable.  Still is. The photographer must have thought so too because he used her photo for advertising his business.  So when I found that clipping maybe a couple of weeks ago I scanned it and then put it in the envelope for my sister.

Funny - you see the caption - Pictured Forever. He didn't know how true that would be right?
Okay - that's all for today. Have a good one!

Birthday Shaker Card

Hi there!
You'd never know it from the lack of posts but I have been making cards.
Lots of cards.
I just have not had the time to post them. I'm grabbing a few minutes right now to show you one.
We're going out shortly to celebrate a birthday - my daughter's 23rd birthday in fact. It is extremely hard to believe she's 23. It is cliche, yet so true, that the years have flown by.
Anyway, this is a card for her. She's not a girly girl. No pink for her - although on occasion she likes something a little sparkly.
I had gotten the Text Block: Birthday die from Papertrey Ink and I decided a shaker card would be a fun choice. I rifled through my stash and found I still had some beads. I had a packet of these yellow ones - sort of a combo - seed beads, bugle beads - all kinds of sparkly pretty yellow beads. And while I was at it I threw in some sugar beads (if you're not familiar - they're really not beads per se - they're clear little balls- super fine).
After I'd assembled the shaker I realized it was probably a little too full. I had a tough time getting it sealed shut. Those little sugar beads wanted out and got stuck on some of my foam tape. So I sealed the problem areas with a little Glossy Accents and was good to go.
Alright - that's all for today. I'm hoping to post some more cards soon. Have a good one!

Make It Monday #157 DIY Cover Plates

Thought I'd try my hand at the Make it Monday over at Papertrey Ink. I used the Leave it Be stamp set along with the sentiment from Bold Bouquet. Don't even say it... I know that sentiment is stamped a little crooked. It's killing me but after fooling around with this card for way too long I decided I could live with it LOL! The person this card is going to won't give a fig if he even notices. What he will notice is my tip of the hat to mon artiste preferre- Henri Matisse. As soon as I saw the Leave it Be stamp set I had to have it - I saw the one leaf image that is so reminiscent of his cutouts it was a done deal for me. I like how my card turned out - despite my sentiment crookedness. :-) Alright - gotta run. Saturday is waiting ;-) Have a good one

Papertrey March Blog Hop Challenge

wow... it's been a while since I last posted. Life's been too busy. But the other day I thought I'm going to make something for this blog hop! The challenge is to incorporate anything with high gloss into your project.  I hadn't gotten to try a new die I'd gotten from Papertrey - the Text Block: Birthday die. I'd seen so many cute creations with it and I had a little time to sneak in a card.
So here's what I came up with. Now I am sure I could've used Glossy Accents on that die. But I decided to drag out my UTEE (ultra thick embossing powder). It's easy to use and I wanted to get a real thick glossy diecut. And the UTEE certainly will get you that - although at a certain point you risk it cracking. I just inked the whole thing up with Versamark and then had at it with the UTEE. I think I did three coats.
The background polka dots were done with PTI's Polka Dot Basics - stamped with Versamark and then embossed with regular clear embossing powder.
I decided I'd like another bit of gloss so I inked up a piece of black cardstock - just around the edges to create a frame-  for the background - more UTEE.
And the shine.
Can we talk about it?  It reminded me of the patent leather shoes I had as a kid. They were sortofa requirement back in the day. Not sure if little girls still wear them - but gosh they were cute shoes. All shiny- throw in the gloves, the hat, matching coat and the purse.. well back in the day you had to have it all to be prepared for church on Sunday. I'll have to dig up a pic or two of that.
Here's a closeup. I found it hard to get a good pic of that shine but here's another attempt

(pardon my hand) Now there you go. Glossy, shiny... looking a little liquid.
Okay. I gotta get moving for the day. It's snowing outside as I type here. Yet it is Spring. (I keep saying it so it must be so!)
Have a wonderful day!

PTI February Blog Hop

So over the weekend I was anticipating this blog hop and didn't know what I was going to do. I did however want to try something I'd been thinking about for a while - which was trying coloring images on different colored cardstock. So I pulled out the Year of Flowers: Daffodils set. I'd bought it a little while back but hadn't had a chance to use it. I stamped the image on Fine Linen, Soft Stone and the Guide Lines 1 Grid cardstocks. All were colored with Copics (originally stamped with SU Sahara Sand - I wanted the stamped image color to be more muted).
The first image here is the one stamped on the Guide Lines Grid paper. I think this one's my favorite. I stamped the sentiment in New Leaf ink.

The second card is stamped on Soft Stone. I kinda like yellow and grey together. I masked the same sentiment to just use the word "hello" and stamped in Smokey Shadow. Not my favorite - I was having some trouble with my shadowing ;-(

And for the last card - stamped on Fine Linen cardstock. The sentiment is stamped in Kraft ink.

It was a fun little experiment. I actually did another card - stamped on Kraft cardstock and colored with Prismacolors - that'll be a post for another day.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Sympathy Card

Haven't had much time for card making the last few days. Been working with paper but not the fun kind! You'll find me under a large pile of paperwork. Boo! However I did need to carve out a few minutes to make a sympathy card. (I really need to work up a stash of cards again. I have a small stash but alas no sympathy cards. )
These are always the most difficult cards - you want the convey the proper feeling and use a suitable sentiment. I recently purchased a wonderful sentiment set by Lizzie Jones for Papertrey Ink called Words of Comfort. It has the most perfect sentiments. I paired it with one of these ferns from PTI's Meadow Greens.
As often happens with me (don't know about you) - I start off with an idea of how I want a card to look - and I end up in a completely different place. I started making what was in my head and it just wasn't working. I did want to use the Linen and Canvas Impression plate (also PTI) which gave the Vintage Cream cardstock such a beautiful texture (I think you can see it in the photo). Then I thought why not stamp directly on that? Not exactly a new idea - but sometimes the simplest idea is best.
Okay I'm off to jump back into that pile o'paperwork. Hope to take another break to make something soon. Thanks for stopping by!

Special Delivery Challenge - Papertrey Ink 7th Anniversary

Okay normally I don't post more than once a day - see below for my Valentine Rakarama post. However I saw the challenge posted on Papertrey Ink's blog. I've just been making some little notes for friends at work - and decided I'd enter in this challenge. I made envelopes with the WeRMemory Keepers Envelope Punch Board using the paper (My Minds Eye) I used in my Rakarama cards. I had lots of scraps :-) perfectly sized for these little cards. The cards themselves are 3x4. I cut some gold shimmery cardstock I've had in my stash forever using the Wonderful Words: Friends die. I also used a PTI scallop die. The inside sentiment is from Boutique Borders: Friends. Such a pretty sentiment.  For the envelope I used the Label Basics dies to cut out the two angled rectangles (one from the My Minds Eye paper and one from Rustic White cardstock).  The envelope sentiment is from Mini Blooms. I also used some kraft and fine linen inks to age that sentiment strip.  And the flower - I ripped a page from an old dictionary and cut it using the Notched Flowers die.  I stippled the flowers with some SU Purely Pomegranate ink as well as the PTI Kraft and Fine Linen inks. The button is from the Holiday Mix Vintage button collection. I stitched those flowers together with my bakery twine.
Sorry about the pics - I'm in a rush to get these finished - hope you're having a good Valentine's Day!