Inspired by Packaging

The idea behind this card was inspired by packaging!  I've been trying to think of different ways to use the chair images from Hero Arts (HA) CL480 Wish You Were Here set and had the idea to do an outdoor patio/deck scene.  But I was stumped on how to make this particular chair image look like outdoor furniture until I looked at the stamp set's packaging.  The cardboard insert has the new Envelope Pattern (S5507) printed on it and I immediately thought wicker!  After stamping the envie pattern on a piece of white cs I embossed the chair image.  I embossed the chair a second time on some summery pp and paperpieced some "cushions" to my "wicker" chair.  Since the table image is a solid stamp I first inked up the envie pattern and then "kissed" it with the table before stamping on white cs.

After stamping a piece of kraft cs with HA S5208 Designer Woodgrain I cut it into strips and pieced them together to make a "deck".  I still thought it was missing something so I added "nails" by stamping the dots from HA CL342 Everyday Sayings.  The little flowers are from HA CL322 Artistic Borders, the sun from HA CL439 Kiss From the Sun and the birthday sentiment from HA CG275 Birthday (4).  The relax sentiment and wine glass are from a My Favorite Things set.  Phew - that's a lot of stamps!!
Other Materials Used:  Cloud die cuts from Anita (Thanks Anita!), Cricut Pagoda cart (umbrella), Stampin' Up cs and ink, Bo Bunny pp and source unknown of coordinating pp.

I'm getting a headstart on the 5 birthday cards I'll need for the month of June :)  Thanks for stopping by and for all your sweet comments!

Someone's Turning 90!

A question I get from a lot of people is "What the heck do you do with all those cards you make??!!"  Last year I happened to notice an article written in my church's newsletter by the parish nurse asking if folks would be interested in sending cards on a regular basis to some of the older members of the congregation who are shut-ins.  To a cardmaker this was a "no-brainer" and I immediately signed on to send cards to 5 people.  To my surprise (and delight!) some of them started sending me little notes back!!  A correspondence really flourished between Ed and me (I think if Ed hadn't been 90 my dh might have been a bit jealous!) until he passed away last year.  Shortly afterwards I received a letter from one of his daughters who lived out of state and had visited her dad every month.  She wanted to let me know how much my cards had meant to her dad and how much she herself had enjoyed my creations!  Her own church has a similar card ministry and she was going to let them know what a difference a card and a short note can make in a lonely person's life.

The card I'm sharing today is for Ann who turns 90 next month!  I thought the coordinating Stampin' Up patterned papers I chose would be perfect as they have a sweet vintage feel to them.  The cupcake is from Hero Arts (HA) LL247 Birthday Cupcakes.  I switched out the cherry on top for the pink resin flower embellie I found at Michael's.  The sentiment is from HA CL280 Elephants.  The cake stand was die cut using Cricut Summer in Paris cart and then embossed with Cuttlebug swiss dots embossing folder.  I had a light green paper doily in my stash so I added a piece of it to the stand.  The layered flower was die cut using Cricut Mother's Day Bouquet cart.  I can't wait to deliver this to Ann in person along with some homemade cupcakes :)
Other Materials Used:  Stampin' Up cs and ink, Nesties

Hope you have an enormously wonderful day and thanks for stopping by!

Time for the Bubbly!

Don't you just love when a card turns out exactly like you pictured it in your mind?!  The chairs and table are from Hero Arts (HA) CL480 Wish You Were Here set.  The wine bottle, glasses and bubbly sentiment are from a My Favorite Things clear set I've had forever.  I embossed the bottle and glasses on white cs and colored them with copics.  To make the wine label I stamped an old Stampin' Up french writing stamp on a piece of cocoa cs and paper pieced it on the bottle.  The birthday sentiment is from HA CG275 Birthday (4) - I'm getting much more use out of this cling set than I imagined.  The birthday present was die cut using Cricut Joys of the Season cart.  A fun card that one of our nieces who is turning 21 this year (and can finally drink legally!) will appreciate.

Other Materials Used:  Papertrey ink cs and pp, Stampin' Up cs and ink, Nesties, source of grid pp unknown

I've decided to enter this in the Birthday challenge at ABC DT !

Thanks for stopping by and for all your sweet comments!

2 Colors, Different Intensities

Unfortunately I needed a few more sympathy cards.  After creating these and looking at them side by side I was struck by the difference intensity of color makes!  Both cards use purple and green but the first card is so soft and sweet while the second one is more dramatic. 

The first card uses my favorite technique of color layering.  I have a tendency to be a perfectionist and I find it very freeing to just stamp away on a sheet of paper :)  The images are from Hero Arts (HA) CL428 Earth Flowers and the inks used are Tsukineko VersaMagic Tea Leaves, Pink Petunia and Pretty Petunia.  The sentiment is from HA CL342 Everyday Sayings.  I decided to cut the stamped panel into 2" x 2" squares before mounting it with foam tape on a 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" card base.  I've been noticing card designs that include just a peek of a die cut shape so I added a partial scalloped circle to the left side.  Let me know what you think - do you think it adds interest or does it look out of place?? 
Other Materials Used:  Stampin' Up cs and pp, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Queen & Co. rhinestones

For the second card I embossed a piece of orchid cs with a Stampin' Up embossing folder (Manhattan Flower) and added glitter to the embossed areas (difficult to see in the photo).  The sentiment from HA CL342 Everyday Sayings and the layered butterfly were both die cut.  It's not that no thought went into this design but for some reason I always feel less than satisfied with cards that include little stamping.......
Other Materials Used:  Stampin' Up cs, pp, ink and butterfly dies, Nesties, Queen & Co. pearls

As I write this snow is lightly falling - UGH!! 
Thanks for stopping by and for all your comments!

1 Embossing Folder, 2 Cards

The two cards I'm sharing today were created using the same Cuttlebug embossing folder (Leafy Branch) but are for two very different occasions.  For the sympathy card I embossed a piece of kraft cardstock and then decided to turn the image on its side.  The butterfly is from Hero Arts (HA) CL383 Antique Engravings and the flower is from HA CL322 Artistic Borders.  After stamping the sentiment from HA CL342 Everyday Sayings I die cut a Nestie ribbon tag.

Other Materials Used: Stampin' Up cs. pp and scalloped border punch, American Crafts buttons, Queen & Co. rhinestones, Michael's satin ribbon

 This is the last birthday card I need for this month.  I embossed a piece of Core'dinations paper then sanded the image - love the distressed effect!  The butterfly from HA CL383 Antique Engravings was colored with Ranger spiced marmalade and peeled paint distress inks.  The sentiment is from HA CG275 Birthday (4).  I didn't add gems/pearls to the butterfly and used the brown eyelet and hemp to give this more of a masculine feel.

Other Materials Used:  Stampin' Up cs and pp

Although my dh is 100% Polish and I have just a wee bit of Irish in me we still celebrated St. Patrick's Day last week!  I love corned beef and cabbage and managed to squeeze another meal of that in on Sunday (I have this great recipe where you bake the corned beef, cabbage, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing in a biscuit lined casserole - Yum!).  On Friday I made close to 200 Irish potato candies and some Irish whiskey cakes for an event at the winery where I work part-time - after working full-time in the social work field for several years I'm fortunate to have the opportunity to work less and see family more :)  The candy doesn't actually have any potatoes in it but you roll them in cinnamon to make them look like potatoes just dug from the ground!  So cute and they were a big hit!

Thanks for stopping by and for all your sweet comments!

Thinking Spring!

My favorite part of Spring besides not having to wear coats and boots is watching everything begin to green up.  That and the fact Spring = LOTS(!) of Mud was my inspiration for today's card:

Using a 2005 Hero Arts (HA) stamp G3664 Leaf with Stitching I "walked and wiggled" it through some Ranger wild honey, peeled paint and pine needles distress inks on my craft sheet, lightly misted it with water and stamped it three times on a piece of vanilla cs.  The sentiment is from 2011 HA CG275 Birthday.  The patterned paper on the base card is from a 2006 Stampin' Up collection called "Spring Showers" - I guess whoever designed it was also thinking about how Spring Showers bring not only flowers but mud too!

Other Materials Used:  Stampin' Up cs and butterfly die, Mark Richards pearls

Thanks for stopping by and for all your comments!

They Say It's Your Birthday!

When I first saw the Hero Arts (HA) 2011 Clear Set CL478 Going I was immediately drawn to the Volkswagen Beetle image.  Some of my fondest memories from high school revolve around escapades with my best friend Sarah and the reddish orange Beetle she drove :)  Her beloved Bug had seen better days and it makes me giggle when I think about how I would have to prop my feet up as part of the passenger side floor was missing or how the doors - without warning - would fly open as we whirled around a traffic circle!  One night we even managed to squish 8 girls in its cramped quarters to avoid paying for more than one carload at the drive-in movie theater! 

Keeping those happy memories in mind I did a little paperpiecing and created this simple, lighthearted birthday scene:

The sun is from HA CL439 Kiss From the Sun and the sentiment from HA CG275 Birthday.  The party hat is from MSE M103 Birthday.
Other Materials Used:  Stampin' Up cs and pp, Bo Bunny pp, Cuttlebug border embossing folder, Martha Stewart twine, Cricut George and Basic Shapes cart (balloon die cuts), Papertrey Ink Cloud die cuts were a gift from Anita :)

I hope everyone is having a Happy Monday!  Thanks for stopping by and for all your comments!

Wigglin' When You Walk

Today I experimented with creating a layered stamped background.  The Hero Arts blog has a great video taking you step-by-step through this really fun technique:
http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/2011/03/09/layered-stamped-backgrounds/

I started out by embossing Hero Arts(HA)  K5193 Flower Word in white on a piece of white watercolor paper. Then I inked an acrylic block with Ranger antique linen distress ink, spritzed with water and stamped on the embossed piece.  After letting it dry I overstamped HA S5216 Grid Pattern with Versafine toffee ink.  Then came the fun part!  I smooshed Ranger dusty concord, peeled paint and pine needles distress inks on my craft sheet and "walked and wiggled" one of the images from HA CG185 Elegant Weeds through the inks.  I did this several times always spritzing the stamp with water before stamping.  LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the watercolor effect:

I had this already embossed and colored butterfly from HA CL383 Antique Engravings in my stash and thought it looked perfect with these colors.  The embossed sentiment is from HA CL342 Everyday Sayings.
Other Materials Used:  Martha Stewart cs, Stampin' Up cs, Queen & Co. pearls, Uchida corner rounder

We've had lots of rain and warmer temps in the past few days that have washed a lot of the snow away.  Felt sooooo good to see the grass again and I thought the air even smelled a bit like Spring today.  Although I suppose it could have been wet worms!
Thanks for stopping by and for all your comments!

Eyesight and Mojo Simultaneously Return

I haven't posted in over a week as my mojo decided to take a mid-winter break.  Certainly hope it was somewhere warmer than I've been!  Had my biannual eye exam this morning and of course that involved dilation of my pupils.  As I was leaving the office I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and quickly decided running errands was out of the question as my pupils were the size of saucers!  The receptionist at the eye doctor's office might be used to that crazed look but I wasn't so sure about the folks at the vet or the post office......

Funny thing though as soon as my eyes went back to normal (and I could finally take off the sunglasses I was forced to wear in the house!) a fuzzy card idea I've had in my head suddenly became clear:

The background panel was stamped with Hero Arts S5316 Silhouette Grass in VersaMagic tea leaves chalk ink and with the dragonfly from HA CL383 Antique Engravings in Ranger tumbled glass distress ink.  The spotlighted circle was stamped with HA H5312 Silhouette Burst in VersaFine vintage sepia ink.   Since this is going to one of my brothers-in-law I used a scrap of striped pp and the sentiment from HA CG275 Birthday (4) to give it more of a masculine feel.  All edges were sponged with Ranger antique linen distress ink.
Other Materials Used:  Stampin' Up cs and scalloped border punch, Nesties, Queen & Co. rhinestone

TFL and for all your lovely comments!