Hoot Hoot!

One of N's little friends had her 2nd birthday today, which had me in the craft room this morning doing up this card.

I learned how to do the owl with punches from Heather's Punch class. You can see a bit of the tape on his feathers from my ATG Gun but that's what I get I guess for leaving this to the last minute and being in a rush. :P

Anywho, I think he turned out lovely! It's the first card I've made in months (or seems like it) and was every enjoyable to do. I need to get into my craft room more than I have lately.

I used Washington Apple DSP with coordinating colours - so safron, only orange, riding hood red and then added in Chocolate Chip and Close to Cocoa. The greeting comes from a new greeting stamp set in the new cattie, which I can't remember the name of, but it has a bazillion greetings/sayings in the set.

Bundle of Joy

This has been in my drafts folder since March! It was for a friend's shower, which she finally had a few weeks ago, so it's now safe to post the card w/o worrying about her seeing it before the shower. ;)

I've seen this layout in SCS galleries numerous times. I loved it from the first time I saw it and always wanted to try it. As luck would have it, last night while I was looking through a stamp gallery I came across the tutorial for it on Diane's blog. I did not think it would be too hard to do, but I always enjoy a good tutorial, so it was nice to find one and read just how easy it was to do this simple but cute card!

She created a cute thank you card, but like I said, I've got tons of friends due to have babies soon, so I grabbed my "Little bundle of Joy" stamp from "Punches Three" and made it into a cute Baby card. I saw a similiar idea on SCS (uses the same DSP and stamp), but to change mine up a bit I used Kraft as a base for the card and added some ribbon. I love Ribbon and try to add it to most of my cards as I do not get much opportunity to add it to my scrapbook pages.

I would have loved to have used some jumbo brads or medium brads for the ribbon to go through, but unfortunately both were too big and I did not like the look of the 1/8" ones (reg. size). I did so a little sponge around the edges with So Safron Ink and had some fun drawing on my stitches. :0) The only thing that would have been nice would have been having a 1 1/4" square punch. I made my 12 "blocks" using my paper trimmer (I seem to have every punch but the square ones) and there is a bit of room for error if you do not trim each one exact!

I love the colours on this card, it's perfect for a boy or a girl so if you do not know what the expectant mom is having, this makes a card with some lovely colours.

Two baby shower cards down, 2 more to go, as well as 2 kid birthday cards.

Recipe:
Paper: SAB DSP, Kraft, Bashful Blue, So Safron, Whisper White
Stamps: Punches Three
Ink: Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, So Safron
Accessories: So Safron Ribbon(SAB), Wide Oval Punch, Dots Embossing Folder, Big Shot, Close to Cocoa Marker
Inspiration: Diane's Tutorial, Arlene Mantle's card on SCS - It was not until I was browsing the Punches Three Gallery and saw her card that a) I knew what paper to use and b) found the link to Diane's tutorial. :)

Animal pile-up

I sadly missed my friend's celebration of her son turning 2 this past weekend due to work, but I still made a card and dropped it off the following day.

I gained inspiration for this card from several 'animal pile ups' that were on SCS. It's a the set "Wild about you" (I think!) and the leaves are from the set "Season of Friendship" and the balloons are from "In the Family". Of course after I gave it to her and her son I said "Whoa I should have totally use the scallop punch to make clouds!

I sort of cursed all the cutting out I had to do for the animals but I think in the end it made a great card and it really was not that bad with all the cutting.

I actually had fun piling them up and shading the animals as well as stamping out the leaves. The photo is pretty good in that you can tell that I used a lot of dimensionals!

Ingredients:
Stamps: Wild about you, Season of Friendship, All in the Family, Circle of Friendship. Paper: Certainly Celery, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White. Ink: Going Gray, Basic Gray, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Summer Sun, More Mustard, Buckaroo Blue, Bordering Blue, Certainly Celery (I think?), Old Olive. Accessories: Scallop Punch, 1.25", 1 3/8" circle Punch, my scissors! hah

Days in the making.

Ok, maybe I'm exagerating a teeny bit, but for some reason I've had the toughest time working out this card. I spent most of the afternoon on it. This is the 3rd or 4th card I made before I decided I liked the layout, the colours and the DSP.

The first card I did, I liked, but did not love and was going to settle on it, but then I messed up and bc I had "just" enough of one pattern of paper, I was not able to make enough to finish them.

Needless to say, I'm happy that I finally that I finally created this card. A loves it, so I just have to do 4 more now.

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before buy my friend who owns Clippopotamus asked me and another friend to do her some cards for a tradeshow she's going to in April. So designed 3 and did 25 total while another friend designed 3 and did another 25. That's why there is a space in the bottom right where I would normally put a greeting and a ribbon. Alexandria will be putting her clippos there. :0) Plus I did not have any Tempting T. ribbon, just Only Orange and when I put it on the card to see, it was waaayy too much orange. This works though. :0)

PS. Check out Clippopotamus they are awesome clippos!

Ingredients: Paper: Whisper White, Bali Breeze DSP (I've had this stuff kicking around for a while I think it's from 2 catties ago!), Only Orange, Watercolour Paper. Stamps: Sock Monkey & Sock Monkey Accessories. Accessories: Stampin' Up Markers.

Birthday Flowers

I made this card without anyone in particular in mind. I just know I have zero birthday cards done up for the upcoming birthdays in April and May so thought I'd do one up as a small break from making baby cards. :0)

Does this look familiar to anyone? It's cased off of this card, and she gained her inspiration from a girl's quilt at Pottery Barn Kids. :0) I guess it would be more familiar if you have kids and love PBK. :p

I changed it up a little bit by adding buttons to the center for the flowers and using some cloud paper from Sweet Slumber DSP. I think it turned out rather cute! It's the first card in a very long time that I've not used any stamps for. Well minus the greeting. :0)

Ingredients: Paper: So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Sweet Slumber DSP and I'm not sure fir the flowers..I used some paper from the 6x6 paper share I did with Heather and it's all mixed up now. :p Stamps: Not sure where I pulled that Happy Birthday from. hah. Accessories: Buttons!

Birthday Butterfly

For a week now I've been trying to come up with a cute birthday card for one of N's little friends. I had considered doing the Sesame Street crew using punches, but she is 1 and has no idea who they are, so I've spent a week trying to figure out something, and then in the process of creating a card for someone else, and getting inspiration from Flutterby AtomicButterfly's Gallery on SCS, more specifically this card, that gave me the idea for mine.

My card does not really look much like her card, but that's the card that inspired me to create this one. she has some awesome cards in her gallery and seems to have a knack for creating multiple layers seamlessly without them looking overly cluttered or too busy. I always have such a tough time with layers, so it's nice to go through her gallery and see how she's "stacked" things.

Hopefully this card will also suit my friend that needs some birthday cards for a tradeshow she's attending, then I can get to work making them. :0) My husband saw it when he got home from work today and said "Nice, it's very...pink". Hah I think because I've done so many baby boy cards in the past week that given the opportunity to do a girl card I went to the very 'girly' extreme.

Ingredients: Paper: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Bella Rose DSP. Stamps: Flight of the Butterfly, Circle of Friendship. Punches: 1/8"1"/1 1/4"/1 3/8" - circle punches, Scallop Edger Punch, Scallop Circle Punch. Accessories: Crystal Effects (butterfly wings), Pink Pirouette Ribbon.

I hope it's a boy!

I saw this sweet card over on Flutter by Atomicbutterfly and just had to case it for another expectant friend whose due at the end of this month. The only difference between her card and mine is I left off the button and the stitching. Love the paper (good thing I have 2 pkgs of it!), layout, stamps, everything! It's a super sweet card.

This is the 5th boy card I've made in the past week. I have 2 others I've completed but I have to wait to share them as the ppl they are for read this blog. :p

And with this card, I think it's my last baby card. I just have to finish up a birthday card for a little boy and have a girl card left to make. I have one done, but I'm not sure I want to use it.

Ingredients; Paper: Whisper White, Delicate Dots. Stamps: Nursery Necessities. Ink: Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Bashful Blue. Accessories: Scallop/Square Nestabilities, Certainly Celery ribbon, scallop edger punch.

Vanilla Ice Cream Sundaes and Summer Sun.

I decided to take a baby card making break and play with one of my stamps sets that I had not mounted yet, Goody Goody Gumdrops! It's a lvl 3 hostess set in the Stampin' Up Catalogue.

I got inspiration for this card from one Heather did a little while ago on her blog. I changed it up a little bit though to personalize it more to my style.

I even got to use my nessies for this one, the small scallop circle and regular circle. I've had them for probably 6m now and this is th first time I've even used them! I've played around with them but whenever I did, what I wanted to do never turned out th way I expected, so I never ended up using it on the card. I think if I do this card again I'll use an oval nessie instead. The circle works well, but even with some bashful blue shading, it's still a bit too much 'white space'.

I'm not sure who this card is for, but with numerous birthdays coming up this year I'm sure it will make it's way to someone's home. :0)

Ingredients: Paper - Kraft, Real Red, Old Olive, Summer Picnic DSP, watercolour paper. Ink: SU Markers, Basic Black. Stamps: Goody Goody Gumdrops. Accessories: Circle and Scallop Circle Nessies.

PS. I'm slowly getting images re-loaded on my entries!

Congratulations2

This card is for a friend that is having twins! What fun eh? She's also a bit of a science geek so I thought it was totally cute to use the congratulations² greeting. Plus I've been dying to use the cute little onsie from By Ones, By Twos forever!

You are all probably wondering just how many friends I have that are pregnant and due soon. The answer is Five. :p Crazy eh? It's all friends that live locally as well, so our playdates are about to get really crazy this summer.

I have to say that I LOVE DSP, it's called "Sweet Slumber" and unfortunately I only had a tiny bit of it! I did a paper share that Heather was hosting bc I could not decide on what DSP to get from the current cattie. I thought if I went in on the share it would help me decide what to get. This DSP is definitely only the list now! I also need to order some Boquet Buttons, as I wanted to put 3 small flower buttons under the congratulations greeting. :0)


Ingredients: Paper: Baja Breeze, Sweet Slumber DSP, So Safron. Stamps: By Ones & By Twos. Ink: StazOn Black. Accessories: Word Window Punch, SAB So Safron Ribbon. Inspiration: Niki E. (Although in the end, it did not end up anything like this card. heh but it's the card that got me to work on this one)

Babies, Babies and more Babies

First, there are a lot of dead links on my blog right now for images. I did a little re-arranging/house cleaning a week ago to clean up my Flickr account. I'm working on getting things back in order but it's going to take some time.

There are a slew of babies being born as well as well as a ton of birthday parties that N will be attending over the next few months so I thought it might be a good time to get some of my creative juice flowing and start making some of the required cards for the occasion. This one is for my friend S. I'll be attending her baby shower this weekend. Since I've been on a mini-break from crafting for a while I decided what better way to jump back in then to do a little casing to get back into the swing of things. The layout for this card I saw over on Heather's blog and I pretty much cased it right down to the stamp used. The only thing I changed was the ribbon (mine is from SAB) and one pc of patterned paper (again SAB).


Paper: Kraft, SAB & Summer Picnic, Certainly Celery
Stamps: Bundle of Joy
Accessories: SAB Ribbon, Paper peircing kit, SU Markers
Inspiration: Stamping with Heather

I think I'm all Christmas Card'd out..

For those keeping track, I did 20 cards at the card workshop, I created another 20 cards on top of that plus I've made about 8 others (which I ended up giving to my mom). Last week while I was addressing and stuffing I came up short 10 cards. I thought I had counted correctly but apparently my card list magically grew since last yr.

Since I'm a sucker for punishment, I decided to do a card that involved water colouring. Why I do this to myself when I have to mass produce a card is beyond me. I think it was because I'd just received my new stamp set Holiday Line up and my eyes were so glazed over by the cute little snowmen that I did not think through the idea that I would have to colour 10 of the stamped image. hah

My "colouring" skills are still a bit sub-par, but I would definitely say they are improving with time and practice. I did learn this time around though to do any lighter colouring first, then do the darker shades. If you accidentally get your aqua-painter into the darker shade that is next to the lighter shade you might as well start over, its extremely hard to 'paint out' the darker shade that is now in your lighter shade. Although I seem to be complaining a bit, I did have fun making these cards. I also got to use some of my Riding Hood Red ribbon which I just love. SU makes the best ribbon, even if it is pricey!



Recipe:
Stamps: Holiday Line Up, Snow Swirled
Paper: Baja Breeze, Riding Hood Red, Ski Slope DSP, Watercolour paper
Accessories: Riding Hood Red Ribbon, Paper Piercing, Stampin' Up markers, Aqua Painter

Gone Shopping.

While my mom was here I showed her the Christmas cards I made. She liked all of them and asked if she could have them. I figured I had enough made up between Morgans card workshop and the 20 I had done up for an exchange I'm in. As it turns out, I'm exactly 8 cards short, the exact number as it turns out of cards I gave my mom.

While mom was here I also made a visit to the local scrapbook store and bought this stamp by Penny Black. I stamped her on watercolour paper an dfor the first time in a while used my SU Wonder crayons to colour her. I forgot how fun and easy it is to use the crayons. I've left them out on my craft table so I don't "forget about them again.

Busy Busy Busy!

I've not spent much time crafting over the past week. My parents arrived on the 28th of Nov. and I spent as much time as possible with them. We also had a little party to celebrate Natasha turning two! I posted the treat boxes that I gave out. Today I sat down and made a thank you card for everyone that came. I did not think up this myself, I cased it from someone, who I unfortunately forget! It was definitely from a blog I read, not on SCS, although they may have posted it there.

I've had this set (Flight of the butterfly) for a while now due to my love of Butterflies, but I've not really done a lot of stamping with it. The funny thing is I never noticed before that the set included a thank you greeting with it. heh I think in my older age I'm going blind!

Anywho, I think they turned out well. :0)

Serene Spring

It certainly is not spring weather here! Natasha walked across the street with me before lunch to get the mail and then decided she was going to punish her poor mother by wanting to play outside. I will be the first to admit that as soon as we have that first snowfall and it turns cold, the last place I want to be is outside! But, being the good mother I am, I put something on my feet other then slippers and we played in the backyard for a bit before I decided it was time for lunch and just too darn cold to stay out there any longer.

I decided to take a quick break from my Christmas card making and do up this cute little card for a friend. She's been awesome over the past week. I also saw over on Beate's blog (I can't link it bc bloglines is down and I have no idea anyone's blog addys, I just read them through bloglines!) she had posted a Christmas card that has this layout for her Workshop and linked to a neat little tutorial on SCS. It shows you how to make a scallop square using your scallop edger punch if you do not own any nesstibilities. I own some, unfortunately my CB broke just as they arrived in the mail so I've not had a chance to use them! Anywho, it was super easy to make this scallop square.

The stamped image is on water colour paper. I used my SU Markers (Love em!) and my aquapainter. My water colouring skills are still sub-par but I keep trying at it. :0)

Recipe:
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Water Colour Paper, Bella Rose DSP
Stamps: Serene Spring (Hostess lvl 2), Swirly Jumbo Wheel
Ink: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Kiwi Kiss Satin Ribbon, Scallop Edger Punch, Aqua Painter, SU Makers

I don't think I've ever shared any photos of my daughter, here are a couple from this past week. Ignore my wall in the first one, I'm in the process of painting the upstairs hallway, bc you know, I do not have enough projects on the go. Its Benjamin Moore Sea Urchin in case you are curious ;-)

In the backyard today while I froze, she played!

She LOVES wearing hats and headbands. These ears are from Easter. A couple of days ago she decided she was going to wear them all day. She even napped in them! hehe

I also do not think I've ever mentioned on here that I work PT at GAP, hence why my daughter is so much more of a Fashionita then her mother. Between buying her clothes and my craft addiction, I do not see much of my pay cheque. :p

JOY

Ho Ho Ho! I just love my Deer Friends set! Like Heather loves Mr. Twigster and is using him a lot, I've been using my Ski Slope DSP (good thing I ordered another pkg!) and Deer Friends set a lot lately.

I know I have the 20 cards I did at Morgan's workshop but I'm trying to add a little variety to that by doing up some of my own. :0)

I had some ribbon under the scallop punch and the "JOY" but Owen thought it looked too 'busy' with the stripes in the background. It's some cute ribbon I bought on sale at Micheals over the weekend that says "Seasons Greetings" in Red and Green on white ribbon. I'm determined to use that or my Joy ribbon on a card so you'll probably see it soon enough!

I once again got out my Liquid Applique to puff up Santa's hat and beard. I love the stuff and will probably need to get another tube before Christmas is over!

Recipe:
Paper: Ski Slope DSP, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White. I'd love to share dimesions but I always just eye ball the sizes needed. heh
Stamps: Deer Friends (Hostess Lvl 2 '08), Perfect Presentation (Hostess Lvl 2 '07)
Accessories/Techniques: Heat Embossing (Santa's Beard/hat), Paper Piercing, Scallop punch, 1" circle punch, 1 1/4" circle Punch, 1 3/8" circle punch.

Simple Simple, Simple

I created this card yesterday. It started out with me partially casing another layout I saw over at SCS but it did not turn out as I wanted it to, so I ended up creating this card 100% from scratch.

I may have a lot of stamps but my christmas collection seems to be all snowflakes, not a snowman or Santa in the bunch! Luckily this week I'm receiving my SU order which has Mr. Twigster and Jolliest time of the Year in it. :0) Of course now I'm lusting after Season of Joy as well! It never ends.

I know I did all those cards at the workshop but I decided to still make a few different ones to throw into the card exchange I'm in.

Either way, if though this is not what I initially planned for this card, I'm really happy with how it turned out. :0)

Recipe:
Paper: Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Ski Slope DSP, Kiwi Kiss
Stamps: Perfect Presentation (Hostess lvl 2 '07)
Ink: Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Very Vanilla Ribbon

I'm still here.

I spent most of yesterday cleaning out my craft room and doing a massive re-organization. Of course, 24hrs later, it's stuffed full again. :p We set up my daughter's new twin bed today and had to move her crib into my craft room. This was only my room temporarily to begin with, but I was getting quite comfy in here. Things should be back to normal in here again after my husband and I re-assemble the crib (There will be more room with it assembled and less chance of dings/scratches etc. if we keep it apart. Plus we have no where to store it) and perhaps move the change table out and put in our room for now.

Anyhow, the mass re-org was spurred by the fact that I felt it was time to get back into my crafting. It's been months since I have crafted a single card/scrapbook page or anything for that matter. What better way to start off then by casing one of Heather's cards from Festive Fridays. :D I feel completely drained mentally and I love the "Deer Friends" set (which she used) and wanted to try her way of doing shaker cards so it seemed like a great idea.

The first issue I ran into was that I do not yet own the 1 3/4" circle punch, so I used my Coluzzle instead for the bigger circle. It worked great. Also, I learned that my tape runner tape is not strong enough, so ended up going out and getting stuff called "Tacky Tape" from the scrapbook store, which work great. My only other complaint is that Microbeads suck to work with. :p Next time I think I'll use chunky glitter.


Stamps: Snowburst (I think? I own too many snowflake stamp sets :P), Deer Friends (Hostess lvl 2), SnowFall (Happy Holiday words)
Ink: Riding Hood Red
Paper: Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Coluzzle (I think the circle I used on it is around 2"), 1 1/4" circle punch, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1" circle punch, scallop edger punch, crystal ball microbeads, Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon,

Spooky Nights.

As soon as I saw these two stamp sets in the mini occasions cattie I got this idea for a card. :0) Of course I've spent all working on it in between house work, playing with my daughter and running errands but I finished it! Originally I did not sponge the sky in because normally it's not something I'm that great at, but it looked way too stark to have a white background, even with the brown edging, so I just went for it.

My only disappointment is that the title is crooked. I just hate that when I stamp directly on the card and get it crooked. I should really use my Stamp-a-ma-jig to get it straight or get a better eye! :p


Recipe:

Stamps: Frightful Fence, Halloween Frights, Season of Friendship
Ink: Creamy Caramel, More Mustard, Really Rust, Basic Black, Navy, Chocolate Chip, Going Gray, So Safaron
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Autumn Vines DSP

Dreamer

Decided to play around with another of my Hostess sets today and the new In Colour Inks/Papers. This one is Happiness Always and I think it's a level 3? I can't remember right off.

The stamp along the top is one of my Jumbo wheels "It's Beautiful". I love my Jumbo Wheels! I have I think around 12 of them and find them perfect to add a bit of background to a card or a band of paper for scrapbooking. :0)

As always, looking at this card there are a few things I might change next time on another card but for now, this one works. Next time I will better space my flowers. :p

I actually was a bit too excited about the Demo sneak peak/pre-order to the SU F/W catalog and Hostess sets and ordered this one and regretted it later on. But now that I've used it, I think there are a lot of possibilities. :0)

Stamps: It's Beautiful Jumbo Wheel, Happiness Always (Lvl 3 hostess)
Inks: Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point, Riding Hood Red
Accessories: SU Buttons, Michael's Ribbon

Serene Spring

This card has been a month in the making. Around the time I feel into my funk, I had received the "Serene Spring" lvl 2 hostess set. I love the little bunny in this set and colouring him was soo much Fun! The problem was, once I finished colouring him, I was having trouble what card layout to use. I took a browse through the SCS gallery and still was stumped. So this little guy has sat on my craft table all coloured waiting to be made in to a card. I'm not sure what happened to the bird either, as I did not use purple colours they were blues.

My original idea was to use my oval nessability but my cuttlebug is broken and I've not replaced it yet so I ended up just cutting it out to be a square.

I'm not sure I'm 100% happy with the results, but in making this one I have fallen in love with the new "In Colours" which I was not 100% sold on them when I first saw images of them from the lucky demos that got to attend the Bermuda Cruise. In person though, they are very pretty! I'm still not loving Pacific Pointe but hey, it could grow on me.

Paper: Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Kiwi Kiss
Ink: I can't remember! oops! I coloured the bunny on watercolour paper with my SU markers
Stamps: Serene Spring & Sanded Background