I'm Back With a Birthday Card Inspired by Julie Davidson...

Life has been crazy and hectic and really I just haven't been myself lately.  But today I had some time in my craft room and I wasn't busy putting together December Daily or Christmas cards or tags for gifts or one of a million things lately that has taken over my life.  But I do have a couple of people with birthdays coming up that I needed cards for my stash is woefully depleted.  So today I made a new card, well actually two of the same card to get me through this card drought.

For this card, I took my inspiration from this card on Julie Davidson's blog.  I used the Lunar Lights set from Lawn Fawn along with the tag die from Winter Gifts (not just for winter at all) to stamp and cut out the focal tag of the card.  I used Versafine Ink in Onyx Black then set it with some clear embossing powder (I am so grateful to finally have a working heat gun again.  Mine died right before Christmas and with my shopping embargo, I was not allowed to buy a new one.  I got one for Christmas but it died the first day.  I'm beginning to think I wasn't supposed to have a heat gun anymore).  I colored the lanterns with Distress Ink and then sprayed them with some water to wash out the color a bit to more closely match the paper I had selected from the Party Day 6x6 pad from Crate Paper.  I fussy cut the lanterns then layered them on my tag and finished off the tag with some Hemptique baker's twine. 

I finished off the card by putting the patterned paper on a mat of solid blue that I had distressed with a little Black Soot Distress Ink and wrapped in the same Hemptique baker's twine.  I added the tag with some pop dots.

I inserted a panel on the inside with a sentiment from Inkadinkado's All Occasions stamp set, also heat embossed to match the front and set on a blue mat inked with a little Black Soot Distress Ink.  I then finished off the entire card with a bit of Wink of Stella on the lanterns and topped with some Glossy Accents. 

Fight Like a Girl - Inspired by Julie Davidson's Herringbone Faux Quilt Technique

I learned just before I left for Denver that another program manager in my office has cancer, which is just inconceivable considering there are only five of us, well four following the recent death of another co-worker.  I wanted to make a card to let her know I'm pulling for her.  Coincidentally while I was in Denver, the Stamps of Life released their new sets, including ribbon4cure.  I had to call the hubster to give my my club code because I wanted the set right away and didn't want to wait to order it when I got home. 

Strangely enough though, on Saturday I simply didn't feel like spending any time in my craft room.  At first I thought it was the headache caused by the air pressure that led to Saturday's crazy thunder and lightning show.  But yesterday, I realized that it went farther than that when the hubster and I both came up sick.  I spent all day yesterday in bed watching a marathon of "Under the Dome."  I even e-mailed in sick today because my throat was on fire and I was running a temp.  But by 2 p.m., I had to get out of bed.  I just could NOT lay there any longer, but I also found out that I have no energy to do anything else either.  I managed to stumble up the street to the mail box. But by the time I got back (seriously the mail box is one house away) and sorted through the mail and unpacked the new Sodastream that arrived, I was exhausted.  So then it was break time in the chair for more cuddling with Smoke and some crafty TV.  That's where I saw the video by the Stamps of Life announcing the new set ribbon4cure that had arrived in the mail that I picked up earlier that day.  From the video, I learned that all the profits of this stamp set go to the Susan Komen foundation and that the pink of the stamp is special for this limited release.  Now that I had bit of a nap and some inspiring information about my new set, I went into my craft room and made this card based up a video showing the herringbone faux quilt technique posted by Julie Davidson today.  I just used strips of the Lively 6x6 paper pad from Authentique to make the herringbone pattern.  I matted it on another piece of paper from that pad and made the banner from a strip from that same pad.  The sentiment from the new set was stamped on with Chocolate Chip Stampin' Up ink and then folded over to resemble a banner before I adhered it with pop dots. 

 

The inside was stamped with the large ribbon in Spun Sugar Distress Ink and the sentiment stamped on top of it with the same Chocolate Chip Stampin' Up ink.  



 

 

And that's all the energy I have tonight.  I'm going to bed.

Swallowtail Thank You Card

The hubster had to work on Saturday because they had a busy day of caterings.  He then went on to explain that it was even busier than expected because one of the employees was in a car accident while making a delivery.  He asked me to make a thank you card for a woman who witnessed the accident and stayed to get the employee some help.  I knew just the card I wanted to try.  I saw it on Julie Davidson's blog recently and was excited to try it out.  It's a cute card, but let me tell you, it took some work.  The outside was pretty easy.  Just stamp the Stampin' Up Swallowtail stamp with some Momento Espresso Truffle ink.  Then, I just colored my little heart out with some colored pencils.  I added the sentiment in the same ink using a stamp from Inkadinkado's Thank You Words set.  Then I mounted that on some pink paper from Authentique's Lively collection in the 6x6 pad. 

 

Then I had to set that aside to work on the card base and the inside.  I drew out the card base in Silhouette and added a quarter inch extra to the long side to give me room to sandwich the two sides.  I added a perforated line at the standard 4 1/4 inch to fold the extra 1/4 inch part easily.  Then I duplicated it and horizontally flipped it so I would have two mirrored sides to sandwich together so it looked like this:

 

I cut that out of card stock and used my bone folder to fold over the small flaps so that they would be inside the card.  I then cut seven large and small butterflies with three of each size flipped horizontally so they could be sandwiched together. The larger cuts worked with the large butterfly in the Teresa Collins Spring Fling stamp set. Once they were stamped, I sandwiched the mirrored stamps with a clear acetate strip between them so they would "float" and set them aside to dry.  I skipped the stamping on the smaller butterflies and made just two sandwiches of those with the acetate.  I did a little more coloring on the larger butterflies.  Then, using really sticky tape, I taped the acetate holding the butterfly sandwiches to the flap of one card and then stuck the two halves of the card together.  I punched two pink border strips from the same pink paper and glued those to either side of the flaps to hide them.  I used the extra butterflies on the card base. The card is super cute, but a lot of work!    

Happy Birthday Love of My Life

Today is my hubby's birthday so I made him this card with stars on it to celebrate that he is the star of my life.  I found the original design on Julie Davidson's blog Julie's Stamping Spot.  I just loved that the design worked for something a little bit masculine since making cards for men is the hardest of all.  I used some scrap orange paper for the background and some lovely cream card stock for the base of the card and the elements.  The rest of the paper comes from the Simple Stories Awesome 6x6 paper pad.  I just love the masculine nature of the paper.  For the background, I used Versamark to stamp the stars from the Autumn Leaves set Scribbles Hearts and Stars.  Then I finished it off with the sentiment from Fiskar's Happy Birthday set stamped in Chocolate Chip from Stampin' Up.   I just love how the card turned out, but I love my dear hubby more.  Happy birthday!

Snow Many Thanks

I loved making this fun fold card I found on Julie Davidson's blog Julie's Stamping Spot.  She provided a link to the tutorial on Splitcoaststampers.  I have to agree that while folding the card, I was sure I'd made a mistake until it all came together.  The it was just the decorating.  I used the Sizzix Triad Leaves folder, a stamp from some set that I threw away the packaging on a long time ago, and circles and snowman parts cut from a pattern on my Silhouette Design Studio.  I think this is probably my favorite that I've made recently.

Another Take on the Sweet Little Square Card

I made another of the square cards inspired by Julie Davidson's blog, Julie's Stamping Spot, that used the Sizzix top note die with an extra cut into the square.  This time I just followed the card she posted.  I loved the color combination and the sweet little flowers.  I cut my flowers using a pattern from the Silhouette Design Studio.  The paper was all from my scrap bin, but I'm pretty certain that the orange flower is cut from leftovers from the My Mind's Eye collection Twinkle, Twinkle Little Boy.  It was also the perfect opportunity to use my new Happy Birthday stamp set from Fiskars. 

A Lovely Christmas Card

I saw this cute little card on Julie Davidson's blog, Julie's Stamping Spot.  I just loved that it took a die I already have and turned it into something else completely.  Although I loved her color choices, I knew immediately that I wanted to use this lovely little poinsetta I found in the Silhouette store.  It turned out to be a very simple little card to put together because it's really just two passes of the Sizzix top note die and some cuts on the Cameo.  I added a brad and some Stickles for a little sparkle.  It's really a lovely card in person.

A Little Bit of Rest

All my to-do's are done until Monday when I have to bake the pies, so I have a little time to rest.  It's a good thing too because Thursday night I sneezed hallmarking the start of a cold.  Fortunately, I was only planning to work a short day on Friday to make up for the extra hours lately.  I managed to get everything done just before I ran out of energy.  Then it was home to make a quick coffee cake and some cupcakes for last night's get together.  But I ran out of energy again and we had to come home early so I could get some sleep.

Today I had absolutely nothing to do but I also didn't want to sleep all day either.  So I headed into my craft room to play for a bit.  But I can tell I don't feel well because I wasn't making much progress on this card.  I found it on Julie Davidson's blog Julie's Stamping Spot.  I made the tree using my Cameo.  I had a tree pattern but it didn't quite fit the card.  So I cut the trunk apart and created my own leafy canopy.  I then used the rhinestone feature to create the cutouts and then, when layered, had a pretty decent substitute for the tree in Julie's card.  While all the plain paper is from my stash, the striped paper is from the Simple Stories Awesome 6x6 paper pad. 

Inspired by Julie Davidson...

I was looking for the original post for the thank you card with the leaves that I posted yesterday because the original pinner pinned the blog, not the post.  While I was cruising through various posts looking for just the right one, I found other cards that inspired me, including this simply elegant thank you card with a snowflake.  It was absolutely perfect for what I wanted.  I used a snowflake out of last week's freebies from Silhouette cut in glitter paper (thank you to Christy Anderson who invited me to the Scrapbook Expo a few years ago where we found entire packs of glitter paper for a steal - you cannot believe how far that glitter paper has stretched).  For the background, I just used some scrap paper from my stash with the corners cut using my Stampin' Up ticket punch.  I added a brad from my stash and the sentiment is stamped from the Inkadinkado set Garden Flowers.