You (my dear sweet husband) Are the Best!

I saved this card for today because the sentiment is perfect.  Today is my 10th wedding anniversary to the most fabulous man on the planet (not counting my dad).

I can't believe it's been ten years since I said I do to Matt on the ice in between periods of the hockey game.  Tonight, we'll celebrate back (sort of) at the scene of the crime.  In the same jerseys we wore in all our wedding pictures.  Those jerseys have gotten a lot of wear and still mean the world to me.

It's hard to believe it's been ten years already.  It seems like just yesterday, but it also feels like we've been married for so much longer than 10 years.  He tells me the same thing.  I guess it was really meant to be.  I'm not saying it's been easy.  We've been through a lot of really difficult times in the past ten years, but I wouldn't trade a minute of it.  I really feel blessed to be his wife

So this card was perfect for today because he really is the best.  It also came together so easily with those Simon Says Stamp Stamptember Tim Holtz Blueprints stamps.  I used the large Postage Stamp die from Simon Says Stamp to cut out the image.  I found several sheets of paper in the Echo Park Paper 6x6 Note to Self pad that I liked.  I cut the blue polka dot to 4 by 5.25 to leave a frame of white.  I added a strip of the striped paper and smaller strip of the blue ledger for a little interest.  I then adhered my die cut piece to finish it off.

So that's it for today.  I'm off to celebrate ten years with the best.

 

Time to Celebrate with Mojo Monday

So, as I mentioned before, I stamped out all of the Tim Holtz Simon Says Stamp Stamptember exclusive blueprints stamps and watercolored them all with Distress Ink.  So then I just had to finish putting the cards together.  Easy peasy, right?  Well, no.  I needed some inspiration for the layout.  Thankfully, there are couple of fabulous weekly sketch blogs.  Today, Mojo Monday, sketch #364 came to my rescue.  Go check it out here. 

This card came together quickly after I saw the sketch.  I used the polka dot paper from the Echo Park 6x6 paper pad Note to Self cut to the same size as the card base.  I found a coordinating pattern that I liked.  I used the postage stamp dies from Simon Says Stamp to cut out both my stamped image and a square from the paper.  For my stamped image, though, I didn't have the right size frame in the die pack.  No problem.  I made my first cut lining up where I wanted the bottom to be with the bottom of the stamp.  I then moved my piece to line up were I wanted the top to be and cut again, getting a smaller rectangle by making two cuts than the die would normally produce.

I fished a button out of my stash and finished it off with some crochet thread.  It seems a little busy to me.  I'm not really sure I like it, but it's good enough as a reminder that today is a big day to celebrate.  My parents are celebrating their 51st wedding anniversary today.  Love you Mom and Dad!

Sending You Monster Hugs

I was so excited to pick up the new Monster Mash set from Lawn Fawn.  These monsters are so cute!  I stamped them all out and just started coloring for fun.  Since I now have a bunch of pre-colored monsters in my stash, I pulled them out and made a clean and simple card with some of them.  I just used some green grass cut using the Lawn Fawn Grassy Border Die with some green paper from the Echo Park 6x6 Paper pad For the Record 2, a few of my pre-colored monsters and one of the cute sentiments from the stamp set to make a card in record time.  To finish it off, I chomped the corners with my Corner Chomper.

On a Baby Card Roll Using Wild Child from Newton's Nook

I'm on a roll replenishing my baby card stash thanks to the Wild Child set from Newton's Nook. 
The stamps are just so cute.  For today's card, I played along with the sketch challenge over at Newton's Nook for their Inky Paws Challenge #13.  If you haven't checked out their stamps or played along in their challenge, you are missing out.  Don't wait any longer and go check it out.  They have such cute designs.

For today's card, I used the super cute kitty image colored with copic markers.  I looked at several paper pads for the card, but finally settled on the Echo Park For the Record 2 6x6 paper pad selecting some gender neutral green and yellow for the card.  I followed the sketch and added a button with some baker's twine (sorry I don't know the brand, it was used to tie up a Citrus Twist kit from last December) from my stash.

Inspired by Mojo Monday and Featuring Newton's Nook

Okay, so I'm not really a fan of a skinny card, but I liked the sketch and I thought it was the perfect way to combine one of my newest dies from Simon Says Stamp with a Newton's Nook image I colored a week ago.

I gave away my last baby card the other day, so this seemed like the perfect way to start to replenish my supply.  I used the Echo Park 6x6 paper pad from the Everyday Eclectic line, which has some adorable prints that were perfect for a paper card.  I colored the cute little penguins from the Newton's Nook Wild Child set then cut them out with a die from the Frames set from Simon Says Stamp.  I added the sentiment from the stamp set to a banner cut with the die from American Crafts/Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Styleboard dies.  I found a button in my stash and added some baker's twine from Hemptique to finish it off. 

 

Wishing You Were Here Card Three Featuring Newton's Nook

Today is the last card with the images I stamped from the Newton's Summer Vacation set from Newton's Nook.  Because this card has a beach theme, it fits the current challenge over at Newton's Nook to make a beached themed card.  If you haven't played along yet, go check it out on their blog here.  There's still time to play along and, if you've already played along, why not do another?

I kept this card pretty simple because I absolutely loved the sunburst pattern paper from the A Perfect Summer 6x6 pad from Echo Park. After cutting that slightly smaller than my card base, I adhered it to the card.  After coloring my image, I die cut it with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card die and added it with some pop dots to the card base.  I added some Doodlebug sequins to the corners.  I brushed the umbrella and towel with Wink of Stella and topped the sun glasses with some Glossy Accents to finish of the card. 

Wish You Were Here Card Two Featuring Newton's Nook

I really had a great time with this stamp set and since it's a beach themed card, it fits the Newton's Nook challenge to make a beach themed card.  There's still time to play so head over to their blog and check it out.  You can find it here.    The cards just seemed to make themselves and I loved coloring all the kitties.  I've colored them to look like the furballs, Tigger, Cha-Ching and for today's card, I decided to try my hand an orinch one (yes I know that's not the correct spelling).  After coloring my panel, I ran it through my Sizzix with the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card.  I cut some sand paper from the Summer Stack from DCWV to a slightly larger size and chomped the corners with my We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper.  I messed up my sentiment (missed that I had a piece of lint on it), so I stamped it again on a scrap of the sand paper.  I then used the banner from the Lawn Fawn dies to cut out the banner and then ran it through again with the stitched journaling die to get the stitched look on the end.  For the background, I used a couple sheets of paper from that Echo Park 6x6 paper pad A Perfect Summer.  I added some Peppermint Lawn Trimmings at the join of the two papers.  I added my panel with pop dots and then finished it off with some Doodlebug sequins. 

Enjoy Your Day Card Two Featuring Newton's Nook

Today's card is another image from the delightful Newton's Summer Vacation set from Newton's Nook.  I actually fussy cut this image after coloring it with my copics.  I hate fussy cutting, but it was the perfect thing for this card.  I used two sheets of paper from the Echo Park 6x6 pad A Perfect Summer.  I love that paper pad and it seemed the perfect one to go with this stamp set.  I die cut the wave paper using the largest die from the Avery Elle Pinked die set.  I then stamped my sentiment on a scrap piece of white paper and cut it out with the banner die from the Avery Elle set.  I then ran it through again with the large die to pink the other end to match the background.  I cut the polka dot/pie chart paper to cover the entire card base.  I adhered my wave paper and then tied it with some Martha Stewart baker's twine, adhered it my card base and then added a few Doodlebug sequins to finish it off.  It was cute, but still needed something.  So I covered the floatie with some Glossy Accents and called it good.

Enjoy Your Day Featuring Newton's Nook

Since I had my new stamp sets on my desk, I thought I would stamp out the images and play with them.  So the next few cards all come from one of Newton's Nook's newest sets called Newton's Summer Vacation.  For this card, I colored it all with copics the cut the panel out with the smallest banner from Lawn Fawn's Stitched Party Banners.  I ran some Lawn Fawn Sky Lawn Trimming through the banner piece.  I cut a piece of paper from the Echo Park 6x6 pad A Perfect Summer pad using the scalloped, largest die from Mama Elephant's Femme Frames and then adhered it to a orange card base.  I used pop dots for the banner and finished it off with some Glossy Accents on the mask and bubbles.

Happy Bird-day Featuring Newton's Nook

I had so much fun playing with my Newton's Nook stamps, that I thought I would keep going.  For today's card, I wanted to play with the Landscape Trio dies from Mama Elephant.  It took me forever to get these dies.  They were always sold out; I mean everywhere!  I've always thought that the scalloped one would work well for surf too so I cut it out a couple of times, inked it up with some Distress Inks and used one of the sloped dies to cut out some more of the DCWV paper for the beach.  On the background panel, I stamped the double bird stamp and colored with copics.  I covered it with a mask and used the negative from the die cuts for the surf to sponge in some background clouds in the sky.  I added a few birds to the background.  I had to cheat for these. I had pulled the bird stamp off the Flirty Flamingos set, but when it came time to stamp I could not find them anywhere!  I'm sure they will turn up when I clean off my craft desk (it's embarrassing to admit this, but this happens all the time).  So I used the birds from Lawn Fawn's Life Is Good set.  I layered everything together and then ran it through my die cut machine using the stitched frame from Mama Elephant's Femme Frames, which I also finally find this week after stalking the various websites for a long time to try to find a place where it, too, wasn't sold out (Ellen Hudson had it in the Basics set).  I then used some cute yellow paper from the Echo Park 6x6 paper pad A Perfect Summer to cut out the larger frame.  I tied some raffia around the beach and then used pop dots to place the panel on the yellow paper and adhered that to the card base.  I added Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents to the flamingos.  I added white Wink of Stella to the "surf" and some clear sequins to finish it off.  Because it's a beach themed card, it fits the challenge over at Newton's Nook to create a beach themed card.  You can find lots of inspiration on their post here.  The challenge is open until August 8th, so go check it out and play along!

Easter Treats

Today was the birthday party for my youngest niece so I wanted to take both nieces a little Easter treat to the party.  I had seen some adorable things made with Lawn Fawn's Happy Easter set, so thought I would start there.  I used a couple of pages from the Echo Park Perfect Summer 6x6 pad from last year.  I used the Lawn Fawn Grassy Border die with some scraps of green paper from the pad, plus cut the background from some blue paper from the pad with the dies from Winter Gifts set.  I stamped the bunny and eggs form the Happy Easter set.  I added their names with the Jessie's ABC's set just to finish them off.  The cute little pillow boxes were made from the Celebration stack from DCWV using design ID 1184 on my Cameo.  Super quick and fun.  Then I tied the tags on with some Lawn Fawn Silver Sparkle Lawn Cuts.  I'm sure the part they liked the best was the chocolate inside!

Variation on birthday card...

I find it interesting how much color and style can change up a card.  Here I made another variation of the birthday card I previously posted.  This card, however, features clear colors of Spectrum Noir markers to match the background paper from the Echo Park A Perfect Summer 6x6 paper pad rather than the muddier, more distressed colors of the previous card.  I actually like this variation better because the crisp, clean colors look happier to me and more fit the sentiment of the card.   

Go Fore It - Inspired by Snippets by Design

My brother-in-law's birthday was back in June, but his party was cancelled by an unplanned hospital visit.  Thankfully he's fine, but we never did get around to celebrating his birthday.  So when his wife, who is my best friend as well as sister-in-law, celebrated another birthday on October 1st, it seemed like perhaps it was long past due for giving him his gift and card.  I knew he was getting golf clubs for his birthday, so I wanted to keep with the theme. My quest for a golf themed card began with a Google search (yes, a good Google search often is the solution to my inspiration needs) that took me to Snippets by Design where I found an adorable golf card. 

I began by cutting a piece of white card stock down to 4 by 5.25.  I then cut a mask from a piece of scratch paper in the shape of a hill using a French curve (because we all know I cannot draw a straight or a curved line).  I used the top piece to mask off the "sky" and used Mowed Lawn Distress Ink to add the darker hill in the background.  Then I masked off the hill and removed the sky mask.  I colored in the sky with Broken China Distress Ink.  I die cut a couple of clouds from some spare white card stock using the dies from Lawn Fawn's Sunny Skies set.  For the rest, I decided to use the A Perfect Summer 6x6 pad from Echo Park.  I cut one of the green papers down to 4 inches wide then cut in the curve using a French curve.  Once I adhered it to the background, I finished trimming it to size.  Then I drew an oval in my Silhouette software in my Cameo and cut it out of another piece of paper from that pad.  I also hand cut the flag from another sheet from that paper pad. For the hole, I punched a hole from some scrap black paper using (believe it or not) my Cropodile big bite on the largest hole punch setting.  For the golf ball, I used the smaller setting on some scrap white paper.  I cut a long, thin strip from the black scrap paper and cut it down to a height that worked for the card.  Then it was just a matter of taping it all together, cutting off any excess and then mounting it to the background.

For the sentiment, I used the Happy Birthday from a Fiskars set called How Many Candles stamped with Versafine Ink.  For the inside, which I completely forgot to take a picture, I stamped the sentiment "Go fore it!" using Lawn Fawn's Harold's ABCs.  I love that I can customize the sentiment with those stamps and I love how this card turned out.  Too cute and just perfect for the occasion. 

Happy Birthday Card - Inspired by I Create and Freshly Made Sketches

A friend at work is celebrated acknowledged her birthday this week so I needed a card to celebrate acknowledge it.  I turned to my lovely card layout board on Pinterest where I pin all the cards that I find in the blogs I read that I think I'll want to try my hand out or will inspire me.   This wonderful card from Jen of I Create for the Freshly Made Sketches sketch #89 caught my attention.  You can see the card here. 

For my version, I changed it up from a square card to a A2 size.  I stamped my rectangle of white linen card stock with some stamps from the Chocolate Chalet set from Cloud 9 Designs using Stampin' Up So Saffron ink.  I then topped that with a sentiment from the Fiskars Happy Birthday set using Versafine Onyx Black ink.  I cut little banners from some Jillibean Soup paper (yellow stripe) from the Southern Dumpling 6x6 pad and some Echo Park (yellow chevron) from the A Perfect Summer 6x6 pad. 

I then layered the stamped paper on some black card stock, added the banners and then adhered it all to the kraft paper. I added the Hemptique baker's twine and cute white button from my stash.  Then I was ready to at it to my A2 card base and call it cute!

Sympathy Card

Well, well the day I knew was coming finally arrived.  My colleague passed away.  I know that it's for the best because he was not doing well, but it's never easy.  I needed a card for his family so I went back to my Pinterest board for some inspiration, which, as happens a lot, I found in a card by Rita of Rita's Creations.  This was one posted for challenge #91 on Freshly Made Sketches.  I really do love her style. 

Lately, I've really been drawn to pink.  I don't know why because I'm not really a girly girl and pink has never really been a color I've favored.  But I really like how it looks with the black.  For the sentiment, I pulled out the Sympathy4you set by The Stamps of Life for the sentiment.  I stamped it with some Versafine ink on some white linen card stock, then cut the edges into banner.  I secured it under the butterflies I created on the Silhouette using an Echo Park cut and the pink Authentique paper from the Lively 6x6 pad I used in a card I made a few days ago.  By using the two sides of the paper, I was able to the right look for the card.  I cut the front of the card about .375 of an inch shorter than the back and added a scalloped border punched with my Stampin' Up border punch.  I then finished it off with some scattered rhinestones added with my Irock.

For the inside, I stamped another sentiment from that same set with the Versafine.  I thought it still needed something, so I inked up the butterfly from the Teresa Collins Spring Fling set, but decided to stamp it off one so it wouldn't be so stark on the inside.  With that, I called the card done. 

Get Well Soon Card Featuring Blue Skies by Lawn Fawn

The second card I made for the hubster was a get well soon card for the employee involved in the accident last weekend.  (Sadly enough, the corner where the accident occurred is a pretty bad one.  A long time ago when I used to work down in that area, there was a colleague in my industry that was killed in an accident at that same corner).  I flipped through my card board on Pinterest and found a card using the Blue Skies stamp set by Lawn Fawn.  Lawn Fawn has quickly become my favorite brand of stamps because they are so stinking cute!  The card that inspired me was made by fifi100479 and featured on the Friday Flickr post on the Lawn Fawn blog.  It was so cute the way it was, I didn't make any changes at all.  I stamped the large balloon and cut it out, then colored it with my Spectrum Noir pens.  I had previously cut and stamped the banner.  I had stored it in the bag with the stamps when I didn't use in my previous playing with paper.  I cut a couple of the balloons and found some red glittery paper (I think from DCWV) in my stash to make the banner.  For the paper in the background, I found this perfect balloon paper in the A Perfect Summer 6x6 paper pad from Echo Park Paper.  Then all that was left was stamp my sentiment from that same set in some Versafine ink and round the corners using my new Fiskars corner rounder. 

Butterfly Card

There is one thing about Pinterest that really frustrates me:  when people pin things such that I cannot find the original source.  Sometimes this is because the person making the pin doesn't understand how Pinterest works.  The person is reading a blog and sees something she likes.  She pins it not realizing that you have to pin from the specific entry, otherwise Pinterest will simply take me back to the most recent post of the blog.  Then I have to sort through all the entries to find the one that is really for the item that caught my attention.  Sometimes, however, I cannot access the original source because I simply don't have access.  The Stampin' Connection is a good example.  I cannot log in to see the sources, but I can see the pictures on Pinterest.  Sometimes the artist is smart and leaves me a breadcrumb in the form of a watermark that at least lets me know who I can give credit to for the inspiration.  That's the case here.  I loved this butterfly card I saw on Pinterest.  Of course, it was a Stampin' Connection link so I could see where it had been pinned from.  But the watermark is from Carrie Gaskin, the Artistic Avenger.  She stopped blogging in October last year and some of the pictures on her blog simply would not load for me, so I couldn't find if she had posted on her blog about it.  It was really kind of a shame too because from the few pictures I did get to load, I can tell I would have found even more inspiration.

The only paper on here that wasn't from my scraps bin is the green pattern paper peeking in the background.  It's from the 6x6 pad called For the Record 2 by Echo Park and designed by Lori Whitlock.  The butterflies were cut on my Cameo using the Echo Park butterfly design.  I cut out only the base and then inked them with various shades of Distress Ink.  I used a french curve to draw the butterfly path and then poked the holes with my stylus and my Stampin' Up paper piercer template to make sure the path remained reasonably evenly spaced.  I finished it off with Hemptique baker's twine instead of ribbon and some glossy accents down the middle of each butterfly. 

I've left off the sentiment on this one because I'm not quite sure what I want to use it for.  I think it could do well as a birthday card, a sympathy card or even just a thinking of you card.  So for now, I'll leave those possibilities open.   

 

Thinking of you card

When I saw all the amazing cards with the Swallowtail stamp from Stampin' Up, I just had to buy that stamp.  I broke it out tonight and started playing with it.  I found a cute card on Pinterest and traced back to the source at the Flowerbug blog.  I skipped the heat embossing and went just with Chocolate Chip ink on cardstock.  I love that.  The whole card actually came together very quickly, but used four different stamp sets!  Of course, there was the Swallowtail stamp from Stampin' Up.  For the sentiment, I used an Inkadinkado stamp set called Expressions and Frames.  The small butterfly is from the Teresa Collins Spring Fling Stamps set.  Finally, the floral stamp is from the Heidi Grace Designs set called Paradise.  I cut a vellum butterfly on my Cameo using an Echo Park design purchased in the Silhouette store. I added some ribbon from my stash and called it good. 

And sometimes it doesn't look like the inspiration at all...

Still on my quest to re-fill my stash, or at least keep it from being depleted any further, I found another pin on Pinterest for a "thinking of you" type card.  It was from one of my favorite card blogs I'm in Haven.  I love her clean cards and this one was no exception.  I started off casing using some pages from that Stella and Rose 6x6 paper pad from My Mind's Eye that I love so much.  I cannot believe how many things I have made from that pad already and I still have lots of paper left. 

When I was looking for something to do the branch and birdies, I found I didn't have something spot on, but I had something pretty close in a branch design and a cute bird from Echo Park.  Then it all went a bit of different direction with the decision to mat the card with a bit of a twist by using my ticket edge Stampin' Up punch that's been in my stash for a long time.  I finished it off with the perfect sentiment from the Fiskars' All Year Greetings set using the Night of Navy ink from Stampin' Up that my friend Nancy gave me.

Altogether it was another very easy card to put together in that all the pieces just seemed to fall in place.  But this one turned out very different than the piece that inspired it. 

Fun with Pens

I bought the pen holder for my Silhouette Cameo.  Unfortunately, it really only holds standard pens.  But I didn't let that stop me.  I basically pulled apart the pen I wanted to use and rigged the pen holder to hold one of my Sakura gelly roll pens.  I love these pens but I rarely ever use them.  But I knew it was the perfect pen to try to with a great card I found on The Card Grotto.  I swapped out the flower pattern for a cute Echo Park butterfly design I purchased in the Silhouette store.  I used a sentiment from the Fiskars All Year Greetings set, which I stamped on vellum (I love that technique).  It was a simple and fun card and I love getting to try out something new.  I just wish it photographed as cute as it is in person (and that I didn't get a stray strand of my hair in the shot).