Happy Birthday for a real party animal!

I've been in a birthday-card-making mood lately, so here is another one! I used that fun elephant and balloons from Tremendous Treats: Birthday, colored with copics. Background Basics: Birthday Fun stamped on the Summer Sunrise striped background, and a Super Star die-cut border complete the theme.

Thanks for stopping by!

quick happy birthday card

I love the new birthday sets that PTI released in March! For this card I used Background Basics: Birthday Fun, Wonderful Words: Birthday for the sentiment (and die, for the word "birthday"), and Birthday Style for those FUN balloons! This was a super easy card to pull together, and could be done in lots of color schemes, for boys or girls!

Thanks for stopping by!

Alleluia, He is risen! Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Easter is one of those holidays where, if you ask me in January or February or so, I have grand plans of making and sending out lots of Easter card. Then it just doesn't happen! But I did whip one together quickly last night to take with us over to my mother-in-law's today, so at least this year wasn't a total loss. :)

I used PTI's anniversary set, Birds & Blooms again - I'm loving this set more and more, and can't wait to get the dies! The sentiment is from Verve Everlasting Life, and is on a Half & Half die-cut.

My color combo is Simply Chartreuse, Summer Sunrise, Spring Rain and Hibiscus Burst - I think it's just perfect for a bright, fun, spring card!

I colored the three little Kaisercraft gems with a Copic marker to match, and added them for a finishing touch.

Thanks for stopping by, and may you have a peaceful, happy and blessed Easter!

Blue & Gold invitations

Just a quick post to share the invitations I made to this year's Cub Scout Blue & Gold banquet for our special guests from the church that charters our Pack! I kept these really simple, using Enchanted Evening and Harvest Gold, which I impressed with the Herringbone Impression Plate. The border is the Spellbinders Fleur De Lis Doily Accents. The sentiment is from Fillable Frames Sentiments.

The panel is popped up on the white card base, and I added the blue brad to the pennant sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by!

a Birds & Blooms "Hello There"

I'm way behind on updates here! I wanted to share this card I made with the new PTI Anniversary set,  Birds & Blooms. This is the special set that can only be purchased with rewards points, but don't worry - you have until February of 2014 to accumulate the needed points and purchase it!

After playing around with it some, I found that the best way to do the wreath was to use the individual "single" stamps to fill in the flowers, rather than the "grouped" stamps, which I could never quite get lined up to my satisfaction. But the wreath is SO pretty with the ability to incorporate several different colors! My color scheme here is New Leaf, Summer Sunrise, Hawaiian Shores and Raspberry Fizz.

I added a bird from Tweet Talk, colored with Copic markers and popped up in the middle of the wreath. The sentiment is from Framed Out #2. I used Spellbinders dies for the circle and border, and popped it all up on the card base.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a blessed Easter!

Paper Crafts Feature!!! and a bright & fun birthday card

Wow, it's been a while since I've updated and it's REALLY been a while since I have had a project picked up for publication! But recently I had a fun little Halloween decor project requested by Paper Crafts for their special issue, Handmade Home Decor, and the issue is now out! On top of that, I am one of the new designers featured on the Paper Crafts Connection blog today! HOW FUN IS THAT!??!

I received my issue a few days ago, and there I am, right on page 69!!

OK, now on to a new card! This card was for a special family friend who just celebrated her 14th birthday! I remember when this sweet young lady was born... it's so hard to believe that she is going to be in high school next year! I wanted to make the card bright and colorful, so my basic color scheme was Hawaiian Shores and Raspberry Fizz.

I die-cut the Fabulous Frames frame from Aqua Mist and stamped with Hawaiian Shores, and backed it with white, with the sentiment stamped from Stylish Sentiments: Birthday.

I stamped and hand-cut the little "flag" from Birthday Tags 2012, and added some bakers twine and a Hawaiian Shores button.

The whole frame panel is popped up on foam tape and adhered to the base, over a piece of Echo Park patterned paper and a Raspberry Fizz mat.

Thanks for stopping by!

a colorful Quilled Elegance card set

Just a quick post since I am procrastinating grading quizzes, lol! I made these cards with the PTI Quilled Elegance set a few weeks ago, but am just getting around to posting them. I was eager to play with the stamps, so I used my Cameo to make a cut file so that I could pop up the focal point and then just played around with coloring in different color combos. I added sentiments from Simple Sentiments to make a nice little cards set - they fit just perfectly between the lines!

 

OK, back to those quizzes! I'm pretty sure they aren't going to grade themselves (but I keep hoping!). Thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink January Blog Hop: Black Backgrounds

This month's blog hop challenge from Papertrey Ink is to work with a black background. This is definitely NOT a go-to color for me, so well out of my comfort zone... but I am pleased with the results! Yay for challenges to get you to try something new!

I used a black card base with Orange Zest and Hawaiian Shores - a favorite color combo of mine, and I thought the colors would pop nicely against the black. I used a Smokey Shadow panel, stamped in black with Background Basics: Inspiration, for a subtle tone-on-tone background effect.

Also used: Fancy Flourishes and dies (I cut one swirl off the large flourish so that I could position it differently under the tag); Celebrations and die; and the "Sending a Big Thank You" that was a limited time gift from PTI last year. I added the "sweet friend" from Heart-2-Heart #4.

The sentiment panel and one of the flourishes is popped up on foam tape (yes, it was tedious to cut little bits of that tape to go under the skinny flourish, but worth it for the effect... lol!). The last touch is the little row of gems, which are from Kaisercraft and then colored with a Copic marker to match the Orange Zest.

Thanks for the challenge, Nichole! It's good to get out of one's comfort zone now and then! And thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday to my epicly awesome kiddo!

This post is overdue - the birthday was a couple of weeks ago - but I wanted to share the card I made for my son's birthday this year. I knew I wanted to use PTI's Game On set, especially the "epic year" sentiment, since "epic" is one of his favorite words, it seems! lol But I also love the whole postage theme, so I incorporated MFT's First Class Friend set and dies, and also PTI's Postmarks, for a video-game-postage kinda thing! :) The colors are Blueberry Sky, Canyon Clay and Spring Moss. I love this color combo for a masculine card that still has some pizazz and contrast, color-wise!

The focal point postage label image is popped up on foam adhesive. I stamped the simple background using A Little Argyle, added a strip of Blueberry Sky stripes and the 3 little brads to finish it off.

Check out the little stamp I made from the "rated GR8KID" stamp! I stamped it on the MFT stamp die cut, and added a border with some masking and PTI's Label Basics set. (See this post for a detailed description of this.)

Part of the birthday boy's gift was a monetary gift this year, since he has been saving up for a high-ticket item. So I wanted to make a nice coordinating money holder, using the same color schedule as the card. I used a Silhouette envelope file that I modified to be sized for dollar bills, and added a simple "belly band" style closure, with a tag from PTI's 2012 Birthday Tags set.

Just slide off the band and the envelope opens right up. He enjoyed finding some green in there!

Thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Ink + Mama Elephant = Awesomesauce!

I know, it's a bit late for Christmas cards but just consider it Christmas in January here! I still have Christmas sets out on my table so I played with them a bit. I love the snow globe in Mama Elephant's Believe in Magic set! The little skylines that come with the set are beautiful, but for this card I wanted it to have more of a "cutesy" theme, so I pulled out PTI's Tremendous Treats: Christmas and found that sweet little penguin. He's a tight fit, but he works! I hand-cut a mask for him and then stamped the little stars/snow from the ME set throughout the globe, and then colored him with Copics.

I cut the Polaroid style frame from Fabulous Frames from PTI's Blueberry Sky striped patterned paper and layered a piece of patterned paper from My Minds Eye Winter Wonderland 6x6 pad underneath. The globe is popped up over the frame, and the frame is popped up over a mat of Pure Poppy that's stamped with Snowflake Medley in Fresh Snow ink.

The sentiment, also from the Believe in Magic, is stamped on a banner die-cut that is also popped up on foam adhesive.

Thanks for stopping by, and Merry Christmas! ;)

Make it Monday Happy Birthday Card

It's been too long since I played along with a Make It Monday challenge! This week's challenge was "repeats and rainbows" - use a repeated image in one of the fun rainbow-esque color schemes offered. I choose the 3rd color combo: Pure Poppy, Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Ripe Avocado and Ocean Tides. I thought that the game remotes from Game On would be fun to stamp in the rainbow pattern:

I added a strip from the Summer Sunrise patterned paper pack, and a pinking shear border in Ocean Tides. It turned out that the sentiment fit perfectly on the label basics die cut, which I trimmed off on one end to line it up with the side of the orange zest cardstock.

Thanks for stopping by, and thanks Nichole for the fun color combos!

My Top 10 of 2012

As is the tradition, I've picked out ten of my favorite projects from my blog over the past year to share with you. Clicking the post titles will take you to the original blog post. Thanks for checking out my blog now, and over the course of the last year (and hopefully 2013 as well!) :)

Make it Monday: Ghost Masking

 

Happy Birthday to my sweet boy!

 

Hopping for Janelle + Make it Monday: Graduated Backgrounds

ColourQ Challenge #134 - Happy Birthday

 

One more Easter card: Little Bitty Bird rejoices!

 

Two Father's Day cards for Two Special Dads!

 

 Sending Birthday Wishes - CR84FN #61

 

a Thank You from a Choir of Tweet Little Bitty Birds! 

 

Music themed card set

 

Mama Elephant Color Challenge

 

Mama Elephant Color Challenge

Have you checked out Mama Elephant stamps? If you haven't - you should! I only have a couple of sets so far but can't wait to expand my collection. :) I decided to play along in their brand new challenge, which was to use a color combo of red, aqua, white... and glitter! Ack! Glitter? ME? LOL.... it's not usually my thing, but luckily, I happened to have some glitter cardstock on hand, so I decided that would do the trick!

I used the sweet snowglobe set, Believe in Magic. I created a Silhouette Cameo file to cut the snowglobe, and then stamped the image and colored the outside of the globe with Copics. The top border is an MFT die, and the bottom bracket edge and the red pattern are PTI dies.

One more quick Mama Elephant project to share, this time with the adorable No Peeking set. I cut out this fold-up "card" on the Cameo, and hid a little riddle inside for my husband, to lead him to one of his Christmas presents. It worked perfectly! He would have guessed the gift for sure if I had put it under the tree, due to the give-away size of the box. This was quick and easy to whip up!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

Music themed card set

OK, let's just not talk about how bad I have been about updating! ;) Today I am going to share a card set that I made for my son's trumpet teacher. Since she teaches all sorts of musical instruments and also is a school music teacher, I knew I wanted the set to have a musical theme.

It all started with that fun Gina K music frame, which coordinates with the Spellbinders Bracket Edge Label die. I love it so much! From there, I pulled from several different sets that have a music and bird theme to create the different cards (see stamps listed below), and colored the images with Copics.

The pattern paper is from the Papertrey Ink patterned paper packs in Rasperry Fizz, Blueberry Sky and Summer Sunrise.

I carried the theme over to make a band for a PTI clear card box, as a holder in which to give the set.

Thanks for stopping by!

STAMPS: Papertrey Ink (Little Bitty Bird: branch; Little Bitty Bird Additions: birdbath, music notes; Tweet Talk: bird, sentiments); Gina K Designs (Lovely Labels 2: music label, ornamental scroll); Waltzingmouse Stamps (Say It With Style: Just for you); My Favorite things (You’re So Tweet: girl)