Fathers Day Card

Here is my Father's Day Card that I made for my dad this year. I hate to admit to this, but I was very behind on making things lately because so far this summer has been very busy! I made it in the car on the way to my folks house. I even had to borrow a tape runner from my mother because I forgot one on the way out the door. Well I like it anyway!

I hope you had a great Father's Day! We had a lovely day outside on the lake, I even took a nap on a blanket in the grass.

Mother's Day Card

Here is the card I made for my mother for Mother's Day.

I found this paper and really thought it was nice and didn't need too much stamping. My mother's kitchen has the soffits painted a spice color and this reminded me of that.

I have this sentiment stamp from a new to me stamp set by Stampin Up that I keep using on lots of things and it says "to thine own self be kind". I think that is something that we ladies often forget when we are taking care of everyone else's needs around us.

I fussy-cut out another flower, stem and leaf from the rest of the paper and popped it up on top of the other ones. I also had to glitter-ize the edges to make them super sparkly.

close up shot.

More Silent Auction Items

These are the other sets of cards and necklaces that I donated to the school's silent auction.

The carnival was last Friday night, we went and had A LOT of fun! Our PTO asked parents to donate newer/slightly used toys and books to use as prizes, which is great because you get to clean out the items you don't use anymore and then get "new" ones to play with.

The book walk was the best! I didn't even know about it before last weekend, but just like the cake walk(but not as busy) the kids stopped on a number when the music stopped. Then a winning number was drawn and the kids could pick a book from the huge assortment of books. The best part was that they kept drawing until everyone won a book! We came home with 4 different Magic Tree House books to read. How fun

Home is Where your Mom is.

Our elementary school is having their annual carnival and silent auction this week. Back when I was selling my Scrabble Tile Necklaces for the Haiti Relief Fundraiser one of the mom's in charge of the silent auction bought one and thought that they might be a nice addition for the auction.

She wanted three different necklaces for three separate auctions and then I told her that I also made cards and I could whip up a few matching sets.

The first one I geared towards Mothers Day.

I recently saw this stamp and for some reason I connected with it and decided I would make my cards with this one this year. I also made the floral background with some two step stamps by Stampin Up.

I matched up the (Martha Stewart)blue gingham in the necklace to the gingham on the left side of the card. It's really hard to tell in this picture but they do match! and the little glittery circles on the right side are actually a matching purple to the ink color in the flowers.

Sympathy Card

Unfortunately I had to make another sympathy card this week.

I made a similar one for my cousins fundraiser a couple of weeks ago and I now I really like this layout/paper for a sympathy card because it could be for a man or a woman. maybe I will have make up some more for my stash o' cards ")

Birthday Bear Card

We made this card for the other sweet little boy turning 2 this weekend.

Just a simple and cute little bear floating away on balloons.

Robot Birthday Card

We have a double birthday party on Saturday. Two brothers born two weeks apart sharing one party.

We made them two different cards and here is the one we made for the sweetie turning 5. I'm not sure why it is, but I think little boys need a robot birthday card these days. His theme is a super hero one, but I don't have any super hero stamps so hopefully a good robot with suffice.

I printed this groovy graph paper on my home ink jet printer from a free printable I found online(I will have to find out who it is and add a link). There were six cut-outs to a page and I just cut out the one I wanted and stamped my little robot in the middle. I colored him in with Prisma Colored Pencils and then I went over it with a little Gamsol to smooth it out a bit.

I cut out the outer blue square thing with my new Spellbinders Nestabilities and then I added the shiny star sticker and the dark blue Rhinestones to the peaks.

I stamped the "Blast Off" on the front and then drew on the sewn-look border, I stamped a happy birthday message in the inside. I also stamped a "shooter" on the envelope and colored it to match and drew a "bullet path" dotted line.

Raffle Basket Cards

Our school had their annual Bingo Night last week. They also do raffle baskets that you can buy tickets for a drawing. There were some really great baskets to try to win!

Our Kindergarten class made up a Tea themed basket, but I thought we needed some handmade cards to add to the loot :)

I made up a dozen assorted cards & here they are:

Some of them are similar to the ones I made for my cousin's Silent Auction for their Catholic School. They were fun and easy to reproduce.

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I am also working on some other crafty projects that hopefully I can post soon!

School Fundraiser

My cousin, who is my good buddy, asked me to help her with her project for her daughter's school fundraiser again this year. Each grade puts together a basket for the silent auction, her theme for this year is a "Stay in Touch basket".

Each child will bring something like stamps, a fancy pen, gift card for gas, dinner or groceries, basically things that will keep you in touch with other people.

She also thought they needed lots of cards and wanted the second grade class to help. I did a "One Sheet Wonder" thingy last year at her house, which turned out fine, but not my best work. This year I did it at home, using all of my supplies when I needed them.

I decided to make it as easy as possible for them as I could, so I found stamps that the kids could color and them matched them up with co-ordinating paper. I made a totally different layout for most of them. My cousin wasn't sure that she would know how to lay them out, so I made a little diagram that they could use when taping them together.

Here are most of the card "fronts" that I made up for them:

We wanted to have a variety of cards for all occasions.

I bagged them all up separately with their little diagram I added later.

My cousin said it went really well! All of the kids really enjoyed it and a lot of them had never made a card before. I am glad I could help to introduce these young minds to the world of card-making!! I just hope that it will help to raise some money for the school.

Sketch Challenge TESC105

I made this card for my quilting sister-in-laws' ( Alysons Petals) birthday. We had a small gathering at my parents house last weekend.

Sometimes it is easier to get started when you have a card layout to start from.

I found this one over at Taylored Expressions and thought it would be a fun one to use! I just bought my first Nestibilities Dies and finally tried them out. I think I need more practice to get a good emboss too...

This is some more of the fun paper I bought at Crafts Direct when I was there. I had to use a bird stamp on it because Alyson really seems to be into birds lately! She even posted something on Facebook about being old because she likes birds :) I colored them in with Prisma Colored Pencils.

I also worked really hard to make a yummy cake from scratch. It was good, but very rich! It took me all day to make the filling, the frosting and the cake, but well worth it.

Chocolate cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting and raspberry/whip cream filling. yum.

18th Birthday

My niece's 18th birthday was Saturday! I tried to post this then, but Blogger flipped my photos and I can't figure out how to fix them so please bear with me. I still don't know how to fix them, so I am just going with it.

She loves the color Teal, Zebra print and Bows!

This is what I came up with for her birthday card. It's a tri-fold card, but I didn't add an actual closure because I didn't have anything that would have worked and not ruined the ribbon look.

I glued this sentiment on the inside to keep it simple and sweet.

Just imagine this turned the right way, how cute huh?

The only sad part about all of these birthday cards is that I mailed them Priority last week and no one has received them yet! I also added some money and other fun things into the box - I just hope no one took it for themselves...

Birthday Cassette Card

My Nephew turns 15 on Monday - it's his golden birthday! I tried to make him a cool card to celebrate the big day

I found this sketch over at Jacksonbelle Embellishments as one of their Tuesday Sketch Challenges, you can find it here

The "Cassette Tape" is actually an iron on patch, so he can iron it on something later :) I love it when you can get 2 uses out of something.

Hopefully he even knows what a cassette tape is. he he

I didn't love how the ends were coming loose so I added these matching star brads on the ends to help hold them in place.

The sentiment is stamped in white & them embossed to make it stand out more. I lightly colored around the words with a Spica glitter pen for a subtle glittery effect

Celebrate Card

Here is another of the Birthday cards that I made to send to the family in Omaha.

Just cute, quick & simple ! I also bought this paper at Crafts Direct when I was there the other day. The stamp is from the $ section at Michael's. I colored it in with colored pencils. The other paper was scraps on my desk, along with the Rhinestones from my stash.

Make a Wish

I made some birthday cards to send down to my husbands family in Omaha.

We are a little late for two of them, but better late than never, right? Since I was sending a package down there we just thought we would include them all at once :)

I found this new paper at Crafts Direct in St. Cloud the other day and thought it would make for a super cute birthday card. The stamp is from a set by Stampin Up. The green ribbon I had in my stash and the fuchsia is American Crafts.

Bee Mine Tea Holder

I saw this cute tea bag holder on Lollychops blog and thought it might be fun to make these with my daughter. I found this stamp in the $ section at Michael's and thought it would be easy for my daughter to color for her valentines for her kindergarten class.

Lollychops version had a lot more detail, but I wanted to keep it simple so we could repeat it 25 times.

You can find the pattern and directions over at Lollychops

Blast Off

I recently purchased this awesome Space/Rocket stamp set at Michael's and I think it's by Recollections. The paper is some co-ordinating stuff that they have out right now too.

I stamped some of the stars on the envelope to add a little more fun to it all.
I frayed the edges of the burgundy and the cream colored papers by using my X-Acto knife on the edges.

I stamped the Happy Birthday(I think they are K.I. clear stamps) and then colored it in with colored pencils. I stamped some random stars around on the card for balance and colored them also.

I stamped the rocket and then colored it with colored pencils and added Diamond Glaze to the window and the very tip to make them shine.

Here is the weekend sketch challenge that I based my card upon. It is a pretty literal version of the layout, but I think it will work good for a fun boys birthday card.

Birthday Gift Card Holder

My husband's sister turned 40 this week. They live out of state so we sent her a gift card to buy herself a nice dinner. I saw this gift card holder on a blog and thought it would be fun to make.
You can find the one I saw and the video tutorial by Dawn over at Dawns Stamping Thougthts. The cupcake stamp was one that we bought in the $ section at Michael's. I colored it in with my Prisma Colored Pencils and added glitter Stickles on the swirly parts for some sparkle. I added the big Rhinestone as the cherry on top!

It opens into a flap card so I stamped the message into the middle section. The gift card is supposed to go in the slot/hole on the bottom flap. I didn't have the same punch that they used in the video, so I just tried to use my small square punch instead. As you can see it didn't really go far enough up from the bottom to slide the gift card in, plus I taped it too close to the edge to slide the card in. So instead I used double stick tape and just centered it over the hole(hopefully she will never know- until she removes the gift card I guess).

The top kind of tucks behind the stamped image & holds it together when you close it all up.I really like this sentiment and it can apply to so many things, but works great for a birthday. I thought it was something different and turned out pretty cute! Who doesn't love to get a gift card in the mail no matter how it arrives?

Sketch Challenge

I had some time to work on a card the other day & I finally finished it. It is based off of a sketch by Jen over at iheart2stamp. She does awesome stuff and has new layouts all of the time. I think this one was from July.
The cardstock is some brown stuff from Archiver's, the cream is slightly textured cardstock I had in my stash, the blue was a scrap, the ribbon is velvet from a swap I did. The funky blue & green paper is by We R Memory Keepers. The coffee stamp is by Heart Art Studios, Inc. and the "Seriously" stamp is by BC Dzyns.

Because I seriously need coffee!

Here is the sketch that I went off of. It is a pretty literal version of it, but I was just happy to find time to make a card again.

Wedding Thank You cards

My sister and I made these thank you cards to give to my cousin who I made the Wedding Invitations for back in June. See them here. Originally we made 170 invitations, but we decided to make 100 thank you cards as a gift. Hopefully she will be happy with how they turned out!

We used plain cream card stock, stamped the same branch but in the lower left corner, hand colored them in with Prisma Colored Pencils and them stamped "Thank You" on the right middle side. We also used a Bone Folder and scored the bottom and both sides at 1/4".