Celebrating After the Fact

Last week I got the surprise news that a friend and co-worker was getting married (yes, two in one week) when I asked her to set up some equipment for my staff meeting.  She's been very quiet about her engagement and even quieter about the fact that she and her fiancé were planning to have a simple wedding at a local cottage and then take a quick honeymoon to the beach last week.  While others expressed surprise at such a quick wedding, I really wasn't in a position to say anything since Matt and I went from engaged with no concrete wedding plans to married in the space of about a week.  Since it will be ten years next month, I guess that plan worked just fine for us and I hope that she's as happy ten years from now as Matt and I are.

The occasion called for a special card.  I'm still enjoying the Monster Mash set from Lawn Fawn.  I love these cute little monsters.  I colored them with copics, cut them out added the cute bow ties and then had to stop to think about the rest of the card.  I pulled out my box of 6x6 paper pads and was immediately drawn to the Day Dreamer pad from Dear Lizzy and American Crafts.  I found the pretty heart paper, cut it out with the stitched frame from Mama Elephant's Basic Cuts set and then cut some vellum using the scalloped frame die from that set.  I layered them up on my card base.  It still needed something so I pulled out the Home Sweet Home set from Lawn Fawn for the cute little banner in it.

Where's the Mojo?

I've been home the last two days and yet really haven't had the mojo to get some serious crafting done.  Yesterday, I chalked it up to being tired from the whirlwind trip to Seattle.  I did some playing, but not a whole lot.  I expected today to be a marathon day in the craft room and, yet, I didn't really get much done.  I finished up a card and then decided I needed to clean my craft room a bit.  Hubby was home today so I mentioned a shelf I would like built for my craft room and we talked through a bit of a move around.  Well that, of course, meant a trip to Lowe's.  While there, I got the call that my intern died over the weekend.  I was shocked.  He had the flu last week and I sent him home to rest (and keep the rest of us from being exposed).  We emailed every day but it didn't seem like it was anything out of the usual for a flu and now he's just gone.  It seems a bit unreal.

So needless to say, I'm not feeling very crafty right now.  I've finished cleaning my craft room and I think that's all that's going to get done today.  But at least I have this card I finished up to share with you.  I posted the background I was working on it back on Instagram on Sunday.  It's a background stamp I bought at Impress while I was there for Sandy's copic class.  I stamped it with Versamark ink and heat embossed it with some clear embossing powder. I sponged on three colors of Distress Ink in overlapping stripes (I just love those new mini round applicators - I get much nicer results).  Then I added some watered down Distress Ink over the flourishes but then toweled it off after a minute or so.

I cut the completed panel down with the smallest frame from Mama Elephant's Femme Frames.  I practiced my copic coloring on images from Lawn Fawn's Home Sweet Home set then cut them out (fussy cutting for the birds and leaves and dies for the branch, banner and house).  I stamped the banner in Smoke ink from Simon Says Stamp, but the rest were the standard Memento Tuxedo Black ink.   Once it was all cut out, it was just a manner of gluing them in place and adding some pop dots on the sentiment. Then because I'm obsessed with Wink of Stella and Glossy Accents lately, I added Wink of Stella to the banner and Glossy Accents to the bird, the leaves and the heart on the bird house.

Many Thanks Card

My dear cousin sent me the cutest pillow cases so I, naturally, needed to send her a thank you card.  After cleaning my craft room, which was a horrible mess, I pulled out my new Simon Says Stamp die called All Seasons Tree and my favorite Lawn Fawn sets, Critters in the 'Burbs and Home Sweet Home to make this sweet thank you card.  I used some scrap DCWV paper for the grass and inked the sky with Distress Ink, then cut and colored the cute kitty with my Spectrum Noir markers.  I stamped and die cut the sentiment banner.  Then it was just the simple matter of building the card on a DCWV card base. 

Shine Brightly Card

A co-worker has been tempted away from the fold and I wanted to give her a card to wish her well in her new job.  I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do, but I pulled out my Lawn Fawn stamps since they are in fact my current favorite.  I saw the Lunar Lights set and realized I hadn't used it yet.  So I did a Google Image search and found an adorable card on the My Paper Journey blog that used both the Lunar Lights and the Good Fortune set (a two-fer).  I knew it immediately it was the perfect choice for this situation.  It was a pretty simple card to make even though it was a bit time consuming.  I stamped and colored the little lanterns, the bird from Home Sweet Home that I decided to for a little something more and then fortune cookies using a mask to stack the stamping.  I had a little bleeding even though I used paper specially designed for alcohol markers and Momento ink.  I'm thinking that maybe I didn't let the ink dry quite enough.  Then I hand cut them all out.  I had stamped a fourth cookie as a stand alone one, colored it with my Spectrum Noir markers and was able to run that one through the die to cut it out super fast and easy. I also die cut the fortune papers and stamped them with Versafine ink.  Then I stamped the sentiment with Versamark and heat-embossed it with white Zing embossing powder.   Then it was just a matter of putting it all together.  I cut this cute starry red paper from the Homemade 6 Bean Soup 6x6 paper pad from Jillibean Soup down to fit on a card base from the Neutrals set from DCWV.  I then stamped my string for the lanterns and stamped the outline of the lanterns and the bird on the string.  Then I glued my cut out colored ones on top.  I added a touch of glitter with my Wink of Stella pen.  I then adhered my sentiment and the cookies.

For the inside, I added a small strip of the printed paper from the front and then layered my cookie with the full fortune.  It was so fun to make.

Off to Denver - Card One

Well I know I've been away from the blog for a bit again.  It's been a rough time at work.  As I mentioned before, one the management team I'm on passed away.  He was a heck of a nice guy and I have to walk by his office is the one next to mine so I'm reminded of the loss every day.  Then I'm short staffed but also need to get my staff out for vacations before the end of year craziness begins so we are REALLY short staffed.  By the time I get home every night, I'm just completely wiped out mentally.  It was even worse this last week when there were a few days were there were only two of us managers for several weeks and the big boss (great guy that I have worked with for more than a decade) asked me to be the go-to manager for any issues.  Fortunately there were few issues, but it was a long, tiring week.  Now I'm off for a different type of long tiring week - it's time for one of the annual conferences I attend.  This time I'm in Denver, but I started at 2:30 a.m. today and I suspect it will be 11:30 p.m. or so before I finally call it a day.  Since I never sleep well on these trips and I find myself spending all day at the conference, a few hours socializing with my cohorts and a few hours trying to keep up with the work back home, it's likely to be a week of a bunch of 16 to 18 hour days of go-go-go all away from the hubster.

So, like I've been doing for many trips now, I have made a series of cards to leave behind to remind him how much I love him even when I'm away.

For today's card, I found inspiration on Stampin' Pretty in the form of a card done by Tracy Casil that you can find here.  It was super fund and easy to do.  Of course, I didn't have the stamp that she used, so I created my own word art in Word then printed it out.  I used my score board to emboss a border.  I found a heart shape in my Silhouette library of downloads.  I cut it out in various colors of scraps from the never ending scrap bin.  For texture, I used the Candy Cane Stripes embossing folder from Cuttlebug.  One I had the card put together, I thought the sentiment and hearts still needed something.  So I used the cute little heart from the Lawn Fawn Home Sweet Home set filled in with some Glossy Accents on the sentiment and some Stickles on the cut out hearts to add a little something something.

Farewell Sweet Mythbusters Kittens

Tonight was the last night of the Mythbusters Kittens on Foster Dad John's Livestream feed. Tomorrow they are all (hopefully including Mom Kari) off to their new furr-ever homes. While I was watching, I was inspired to do a little playing with my new Lawn Fawn set, Critters in the Burbs.  So I fussy cut four of the cat stamps and colored each of them with Spectrum Noir markers to resemble one of the kittens (too bad I didn't have a bigger cat for Kari).  For the card base, I stamped the tree and tire swing, fussy cut a mask for each piece and then free hand cut masks for the skyline.  After masking off the areas I didn't want color, I sponged the sky with Distress Ink and then covered the sky to sponge the grass.  I colored the tree and tire with the Spectrum Noir markers and then added the sweet little kittens.  For the sentiment, I used the one that came with that set, but added the banner background from the Home Sweet Home set, also from Lawn Fawn.  I knew I wanted some hearts, but I didn't have a punch that small, so I found a cut file in my Silhouette library.  I cut bunches of the little hearts that I attached with Glossy Accents for just that right finishing touch.

I simply can't believe how cute the card turned out and it was the perfect way to spend the last night watching these cute little rascals.  I wish them all the best in their new homes.  As a foster failure (tried to foster just once but could not let the kittens go, except one to my sister), I'm constantly in awe of his ability to love each litter with all his heart then let them go off to their furr-ever homes.  He gives them such a great start in life and for that, he truly is the cat's meow.