No Gift Required.

Every birthday Tash has been invited to, the invite always says "No gift required". I always hate to go empty handed so usually I like to buy a book because I know most parents welcome books and it's not another piece of plastic to clutter up the house.

This time, when Owen received the invite (he and Sammy's dad geek out every other Saturday) he was pretty adamant about no gifts. He told us she had enough plastic crap and did not need anymore 'junk'. He did make a list though of things she liked if "your wives" just can't come without bringing something. Owen never ended up forwarding me the email, only told me that R said no gifts, so I had no idea what Sammy liked or needed. I debated for a while getting her a gap gift card, but figured not everyone is crazy about kids clothes as I am, so in the end I took an idea from Julie's blog and made Sammy an Animal Catcher. I had done one before for Maya's 2nd birthday and figured Sammy would also enjoy it. Plus I was not breaking Rob's rules of "no plastic crap". It's a fun little card game that either Rob or Vicky can play with Sammy. :0)

I think they turned out really well! Although now that I've posted a photo I see I forgot to add the leaves to the Bird's branch so I'll have to do that before the party this afternoon. hehe Julie also wrote at the top of each one "Huggable Henry", "Manny the Lion", etc. but my writing is atrocious so I'd rather not ruin the cards by adding wording to them.

I could not find the band-aid tins locally, but was able to find an online store based in Edmonton, so when I planned to do this the first time, I ordered some extras knowing I'd probably give this as a gift to several of N's little friends.

Something I did not do or that I think Julie did was laminate them. I was considering doing that with my Xyron 5", but I did not have any of the laminate cartridges on hand. I think by laminating them it would really help with the wear and tear that a toddler will put them through. Also if she's like Natasha, she's probably going to start to eat them too after a time.

Recipe: Paper: Whisper White (2.5x3.25), Pretty in Pink (2.75x3.5) (I **think** those are the measurements!), Flowers for you DSP, Stamps: C.C. Designs, Ink: Various SU Markers, Accessories: Band-aid Tins, 1 3/8" circle punch, Scallop Punch.

Tomorrow I will hopefully have some cards to share for a Swap. Heather invited everyone in her downline to participate in the SU annual Convention Swap. You make up the front of a card (has to be with all SU Product, no retired sets!) and then receive back as many as you make. I'm not attending the convention, but she is and she's going to take all our cards, as well as hers when she goes at the end of July and then bring us back the swaps. I'm excited! It will be so neat to get so many diff. styles of cards!

Newly Discovered

ooo I made the newly discovered list over at Stampin When I Can!

Another Birthday

It seems like at least once a month we are receiving a birthday invite from one of Natasha's little friends. I did not really realize how many 'friends' she has, but since about March we've been to 4 parties. I enjoy attending them and it gives me a yet another reason to make a card. :0) This one is not too 'kiddish" (her little friend is turning 2), but I just bought this stamp yesterday and wanted to use it. I'm also not so sure how S feels about cats, I'm hoping she likes them, bc then she'll love the card. :0)

I went over to SCS Challenge forums and went through past colour challenge threads to come up with the colour combination. I've tried before to come up with my own, but I can not seem to coordinate the colours correctly.

The one thing I wish I could have done with this card was use Nestabilities. I had never heard of them before Ms. Crafty posted about them on a forum I'm on, and was a bit hesistant to be honest to invest in them. I have my Cricut, a Cuttlebug and tons of punches, plus the rumours that SU is coming out with a Scallop maker punch... so why would I need Nestabilities? I did a little looking around the 'net and discovered that these are a super cool tool to have, and next thing I knew, some had "accidently" fallen into my cart. I ended up buying the Circles, Squares and Ovals as well as the Scalloped version of each. I can't wait for them to arrive, but really wish I'd had my Square set now to use on this card.

Recipe: Stamps: Stampendous (not sure the name!), SU Short and Sweet Sayings, Paper: Pretty in Pink, Lovely Lilac, Tempting Tourquoise, Certianly Celery, Flowers for you DSP, Water Colour Paper, Tools: Big & Small Oval Punch, Cuttlebug, Aqua Pen Accessories: Dots, Spots, Checks Ribbon, Spots and Dots CB Embossing Folder, Various SU Markers.

Kristina's Colour Inspiration Challenge #13

I've been a fan of KwernerDesign for a while and always look forward to her Make a Card Mondays (MACM) and her Colour Inspiration Challenges. I have always liked her colour inspirations, but until today have never participated in one before. When I took a peek at Kristina's blog this morning and saw her colour choices I knew I had to give it a go. Regal Rose, River Rock, Purely Pomergranante and Wild Wasabi are some of my favourite colours in the SU Colour family so I figure I could get inspired to create something.

This is what I came up with:
I created it while keeping in mind that I wanted to try using a double row of ribbon that I've seen Fat Cat Stamper use on some of her cards. I've recently acquired a love for adding ribbon to my cards and paper peircing which I will admit has been heavily influenced lately by FCS and my friend Morgan whose loves ribbon even more than I do! I looked for a spot to peirce on this card (I was thinking just a bit in the bottom left hand corner) but decided to take a break from peircing. :p

Recipe: Stamps: Priceless, Lots of Thoughts, Paper: Wild Wasabi, Purely Pomergranante, Regal Rose, River Rock, Ink: Wild Wasabi, Purley Pomergranante, River Rock, Accessories: Wild Wasabi Dbl Stitched Ribbon, Tab Punch

SCS Colour Challenge CC172

This one was a bit of a mixed bag. I was not really lov'n the colours - Wild Wasabi, Taken with Teal and Whisper White. With other colours I like all three, but those three together seemed a bit weird. After I put the kiddo to bed tonight, I gave it a go and this is what I came up with;

I really did enjoy making the card. I got to use my mat pack (my current favourite tool) to pierce and finally got to use brads as the centre of flowers, something I've been wanting to try for a while. I also did a bit of "thumping".

Recipe:

Stamps: Lots of Thoughts, Cause for Celebration, Pretty Petals
Ink: Basic Black, Wild Wasabi, Taken with Teal
Paper: Wild Wasabi, Taken with Teal, Whisper White
Accessories: SU Markers, Jumbo Pewter Brads
Tools: Mat Pack, Word Window Punch, Crop-o-dile

Another Birthday!

I found inspiration for this Birthday card by just browsing through Fat Cat Stamper's gallery on SCS (slound). I love her colour combination's and the layouts she does. Nothing fancy, very simple but oh so lovely! I also love her paper peircing. My mat pack is probably my favourite tool right now so I've been looking for different ways to peirce other then just a square. Until I saw her cards it never occured to me to peirce in so many different ways! Oh and she uses background stamps a lot, which I also like. In a nutshell her blog gives me tons of ideas and is very close to my personal style when it comes to card making. She just has the vision to execute it much better then I do. :p

This card is a combination of a bunch diff. things she's used on various cards I've seen. So it's not a case persay but the layout is a mix of a couple of hers I liked. I do sort of wish now that it's done that I would have did peircing around the PiP and CC mats as well. I was also undecided on what ribbon to use (surprisingly since I have so much after that $1/spool sale at Michaels) so I just left it off.


Recipe:

Paper: Pretty in Pink, Regal Rose, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White
Ink: SU Markers - Pretty in Pink, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Barely Banana, Pink Passion
Stamps: Cause for Celebration, Doodle Jumbo Wheel
Tools: Mat Pack, Corner Rounder Punch (I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my slit punch for better scallops!)

Camping

Tomorrow Owen and I have 2 BBQ's to attend - one is a going away BBQ and the other is a birthday party for one of our friends. I've not done a card for the Bon Voyage BBQ (she's transferring to Paris for 3 yrs) but I did do up a Birthday card. This is my first ever masculine card.

I started out trying to do the Origami shirt (inspired by B's Father's day card) and use that on a card, but after I had mastered the folding part I just could not come up with anything I liked, so then I did a search on SCS for "male cards" which led me to use my Happy Camper stamp set.

When I signed up as an SU Demo their "special" was to receive the Define the Moment set or any other Stamp set that was a $60.95 value. I liked DtF but was not sold on it, and since we do a ton of Camping in the Summertime and hiking, I chose the Happy Camper set instead and bought the co-ordinating wheel. I never thought I'd use it for cards, but figured it would get some use as an embellishment for a scrapbook page or two.

My inspiration for this card was this one by Leisa on SCS. You can't tell from the photo but I used Dimensionals on the camper, signs and some of the trees. I actually had a lot of fun making this card, I hope he likes it! Like us, they enjoy camping and are outdoorsy type people. He also enjoys cycling, but I did not think the Bicycle stamp with the basket of flowers would be up his alley. :p I'll probably make this card again when my dad's birthday comes around if I do not cave and buy one of the SU Fisherman stamp sets.


Recipe:

Paper: Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Not Quite Navy
Ink: Real Red, Old Olive, Always Artichoke, Close to Cocoa, Going Gray
Stamps: Happy Camper + Nature Hike Jumbo Wheel (grass and the Signs)
Accessories: Dimensionals, Pewter Mini Circle Brads

Colour Challenge CC 171

It's been a while since I got my crafty on, so I decided to go visit SCS Challenge forums and see if there was anything interesting posted that might inspire me to make a card. I ended up doing Emily's Kraft Skies Challenge that was using the colours - Basic Black, Soft Sky and Kraft.

Of course after I finished it and had it all stuck to the card, I realized I probably would have liked it better if I'd used my background stamp Pretty Petals on the Kraft paper but at that point I would have had to pretty much redo the Kraft paper part of the card and I was not really up for that, so I decided to like it as is.


Recipe:

Paper: Basic Black, Soft Sky, Kraft
Ink: Soft Sky, Basic Black
Stamps: Priceless, Warm Words
Embellishments: Dots, Checks, Spots Ribbon,
Tools: Big & Small Oval Punch, Mat Pack (love my mat pack!)

A New Project. :0)

This past weekend a friend asked if I'd be interested in doing some cards for her website. She's adding a new section asked for some Birthday Cards to put her clippos in and sell them as a 'set'. While I was excited that she loved my card style, I was nervous too about coming up with something she would like. It's pretty easy when I'm just doing them to give to ppl I know with their gifts, but to do a card that others would be buying made me super nervous.

I came up with four different designs using the stamp set Pun Fun and Wild about You, and then this morning I did a 5th even though we'll probably go with 2-3 styles. I shared the cards with her this morning and she loved my two personal favourites out of the four I did. The fifth one was an after thought that I put together this morning after deciding if we go with 3 different styles I wanted the third to coordinate with the two she loved the most.

I'm not quite ready to share them yet, she's going to be adding the section to her site the end of July, so once they are up on her site, I'll post a link to them then.

Here are the two though that we probably won't be using;