Quick Thank You Notes

I recently had a birthday and received so many great gifts from my family.  I wanted to make a quick set of thank you notes to mail out to everyone.  I pulled out some red and cream card stock that has been sitting in my drawer for far too long and got to work stamping.

I knew I wanted to use my Blooming With Kindness flower from Stampin' Up that I just bought.  I love this stamp so much.  It's so gorgeous and makes simple cards like this a breeze.

I also wanted to share a very special birthday card that my eleven year old daughter made for me.  I just love it!  Isn't it sweet?

Have a wonderful weekend,



 
Stamps:   Thanks All Ways (PTI), Blooming With Kindness (SU!)
Paper:   red, cream (unknown)
Ink:  Cherry Red (memories), black (memento)

For Your Inspiration #41

Happy Thursday!  It's hard to believe that's it already time for our next challenge at For Your Inspiration.  Time sure is flying by.  Here's my card:

The colors of the photo inspiration for this week were perfect for a masculine card, so I stuck with browns, golds and oranges.  It just so happens that I needed to make my brother-in-law his birthday card since tomorrow is his birthday.  I'm also entering this into the Addicted to CAS - Masculine challenge.  Perfect timing!

I started with a piece of glossy card stock and some alcohol inks -- butterscotch, slate and gold mixative.  Once I pounced those on the glossy paper I added two tiny drops of currant ink to my applicator and pounced that over the panel.  Then I slowly put a few drops of the blending solution on the panel to make the inks bleed a bit.

It honestly looked like a muddled mess to me, but I walked away for a bit and let it dry before tossing it out:)
I came back and stamped it with a vintage map stamp that I picked up at Hobby Lobby and I instantly fell in love with it.  So strange how that map image just transformed the panel for me.  I may not give up on alcohol inks after all.  LOL!!

I hope that you join us for this challenge over on the FYI blog.  You have two weeks to play along and submit a project based on the photo above.  Please take a moment to see what the rest of the FYI DT created.  You'll love their work.  Links are on my sidebar.





 
Stamps:   Vintage Map (Stampabilities), Stylish Sentiments:Birthday (PTI)
Paper:  Kraft, Black (PTI), glossy cs
Ink:   Black (memento), Alcohol Inks

Birthday Balloons & Show Choir

I'm taking advantage of our snow day today to get a card and some photos of our weekend posted.  We spent a fun, busy weekend in Ohio to wrap up my daughter Michal's show choir competition season.  We were blessed to stay with Lynn and her family.  Since her son Ryan is also in show choir we got to see his group compete. They were amazing!

I just need to say that Lynn and Pat are raising four wonderful young men.  It was so great to meet all the boys and spend time laughing and playing games together.  Her little Marcel is hilarious and adorable.  Lynn could create a whole new blog all about the clever things he says and never run out of material.  He had us in tears a few times.

Here are a few shots from the competition.  Lynn has some great pictures of our time together on her blog post HERE.

I also wanted to share a card that I made for my nephew's 2nd birthday.  He's all about colors and the alphabet so I made this fun card for him.  He loved the background and started naming all the letters.  This boy already knows all the upper and lowercase letters of the alphabet.  This card was inspired by Gayatri's awesome card HERE.

Well, I'm off to go shovel the driveway.  I'm so ready for Summer.  At this point I can skip through Spring and head straight to a HOT summer day.






All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:  Up, Up & Away, 2012 Birthday Tags
Paper:  Vintage Cream, White, Pure Poppy, orange & turquoise scraps
Ink:   black (memento)
Other:  By the number dies, Up, Up & Away dies, Bookprint IP

Masked Butterfly

I saw this gorgeous card on Pinterest and wanted to try my hand at creating something similar.

• I began by die-cutting a butterfly on a post-it note and then used the negative of the die to do the sponging with distress inks.  
• With the mask still in place I stamped two silhouette images in London Fog ink.  
• Instead of turning that into a one layer card I die cut the sponged butterfly. 
• Stamped a Soft Stone card base with silhouette images in London Fog and mounted the butterfly on there.

With all the muted colors I decided that it should be a sympathy card, thus the beautiful sentiment from PTI's Beautiful Butterflies.  I'm definitely going to make a few one layer cards using this butterfly mask and silhouette images.

I'm entering this into the Simon Says Challenge:  Anything Goes

Hope you have a fantastic weekend!

 
Stamps:   Beautiful Butterflies (PTI), Silhouettes (Inque Boutique)
Paper:   Soft Stone (PTI)
Ink:   Broken China, Victorian Velvet (distress inks), Dandelion, London Fog, black (memento)
Other:  Beautiful Butterflies die (PTI)

For Your Inspiration #40

Welcome back to the next For Your Inspiration challenge!  This week we have a stunning photo with one dominant color.  Isn't it gorgeous?

I used Papertrey's Giga Guidelines set to make two simple cards based on the picture.  I added some embossing to both main panels to dress them up a bit.

Please join in on this challenge.  You have until Wed, March 6 to link up your project on the FYI blog.

 Hope you have a wonderful day!

Love Birds

Just a quick card that I whipped up for my parent's 48th wedding anniversary later this month.  After all these years they are still love birds.  It's really sweet to see.  What an inspiration for me and my siblings.

The two little birds and sentiment are from Paired Up by Clearly Besotted.  I stamped them on Spring Rain card stock and trimmed them out by hand.

I'm entering this in the Crafty Creations Challenge -- Love and /or Hearts 
and into Papertrey's anniversary challenge (inspired by Jess Witty's use of a neutral background and two pops of color HERE)





 
Stamps:  Paired Up (Clearly Besotted)
Paper:  White, Spring Rain (PTI)
Ink:   Dutch Blue (CTMH)
Other:  Tree With Leaves embossing folder (Darice)

Grateful for You

Here's another card to play along with Papertrey's anniversary festivities.  I was inspired by Betsy's word art card HERE.

I used the Get to the Point arrow dies and the Counting My Blessing die to create this fun masculine thank you card.  After adhering everything to the base I sponged some white ink around the edges.

Quick and easy!





 
 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:  Counting My Blessings
Paper:  Kraft, white, Kaiser Kraft pp
Ink:  Dark Chocolate, Fresh Snow
Other:  Get to the Point dies, Counting My Blessings die

For Your Inspiration #39

Happy Thursday!  I have a fun card for you today based on an amazing photo.

When I saw the photo for this week I knew I wanted to create a graphic, clean card.  I thought of Shapes By Design from Papertrey right away.  After looking at the photo again I noticed that the lights look like stars, voila I added stars.  After stamping the block image in blue I cut along the left side of the blocks.  I thought it would look better when I layered it over the yellow panel.

The smaller stars and sentiment are from a new stamp company based in the UK called Clearly Besotted.  You must check them out!  These stamps are wonderful.  They stamp great and are high quality.  I was blessed enough to win FOUR sets from a giveaway on Stephanie Wincott's blog.  Jackpot!


Here's the photo:

I hope you'll join us at For Your Inspiration for this challenge.  You have until Wednesday, February 13 to create a project based on the photo above.

The layout from this card was inspired by Dawn McVey's card HERE.  I'm submitting this for Papertrey's anniversary contest.





 

Stamps:  Shapes By Design and Star Prints (PTI), Full of Surprise (Clearly Besotted)
Paper:   white, harvest gold (PTI)
Ink:   Dutch Blue, Buttercup, Sunflower (CTMH)
Other:  star die (PTI), blue glitter gel pen

Paired Up Times Two

A few weeks ago I was the lucky winner of four stamp sets from a brand new company called Clearly Besotted!  I'm sure that many of you have seen owner Stephanie Wincott's amazing blog.  I was a follower before she started her company.  I just love her clean, crisp style of card making.

Here are two cards that I made using Paired Up.  LOVE this set.  I just know that I will get so much use out of these stamps.  By the way, the stamp quality is wonderful too.  I'm just thrilled with my new stamps.

I decided to make the large circle image into a moon.  I used the rock-n-roll technique to ink up the stamp.  First in a light yellow and then rolled the edges in a light orange.

I added some score lines above the embossing to bring the design together.  I really enjoyed making these quick and simple cards.  Just my style.

I'm entering these into the current Simon Says challenge which is Anything Goes.


Blessings,



 

PINK card:
Stamps:  Paired Up (Clearly Besotted)

Paper:  White, Raspberry Fizz (PTI)
Ink:  Dark Chocolate (PTI), Buttercup, Sunflower (CTMH), Rosebud, black (memento)
Other:  Scor-Pal, Juli's Garden embossing strip (cuttlebug)



RED card:
Stamps:  Paired Up (Clearly Besotted)
Paper:  White, Pure Poppy (PTI)
Ink:  Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy (PTI), Buttercup, Sunflower (CTMH), black (memento)
Other:  Scor-Pal, Juli's Garden embossing strip (cuttlebug)

5 minute card

Two posts in one day?  These days it's rare if I posts two cards in one month.  Okay it's not that bad, but it's close.

I needed a quick card today and turned to retro sketches for help.  This card took about 5 minutes to put together.

My husband asked me to make a card for a woman at his work who is retiring.  I just need to make it big enough for everyone to sign and keep it simple.  No problem.

I made the card base 5x7 and used my new 5x7 Polka Dot cuttlebug folder.  I love that they make bigger folders now.  The flowers are stickers that I've had in my stash for about six years now.  How sad is that?  I don't even use stickers so why do I have these?  Oh well, it helped to make a really quick card:)

Have a wonderful weekend,




Stamps:  Enjoy the Ride (PTI)
Paper:   Groovy Guava (SU), Vintage Cream (PTI)
Ink:  Blue Breeze (Kaleidacolor pad)
Other:  3-d stickers (Marcella K), gold gel pen, polka dots CB folder

Papertrey January Blog Hop

I absolutely love cards that are made using black!  It just makes colors pop.  Black backgrounds are no exception, so I just had to play along with PTI this month.

I heat embossed images from Dot Spot in white and then added some sparkle with red rhinestones.  For the birthday banner, I lightly colored the die cut with my C1 Copic marker while still in the die.

Happy Hopping!






 All supplies from Papertrey Ink unless stated.

Stamps:  Dot Spot, Birthday Basics
Paper:  White, Black, Basic Gray (SU)
Ink:  Versamark, Pure Poppy
Other:  Spellbinders Ribbon Banners die, red rhinestones, Copic marker

For Your Inspiration #38

Welcome back to our latest challenge on the For Your Inspiration challenge blog!  Steph has a wonderful photo for us this week.  Just feast your eyes on this.  I just love that gorgeous orange glow.

I decided to create a one layer card using Flourishes Country Road and a few Stampscape images combined with lots of sponging.

I really just love the simplicity of this card.  It's so relaxing and calm.  Don't you love the sentiment too?

I hope you'll join us at FYI for the photo inspiration challenge.  You have until Wednesday, January 30th to link up your project based on the photo above.




 
Stamps:   Country Road (flourishes), Oak Branch, grass texture (stampscapes)
Paper:   white
Ink:   Summer Sunrise, Garden Green (CTMH), Orange Zest, Pure Poppy, New Leaf (PTI), black

For Your Inspiration is back!

Happy New Year!!!  I haven't posted in so long.  The holidays and my girls' birthday just keep me hopping from Thanksgiving through the new year -- no time for blogging.

I'm so excited that the team at For Your Inspiration is back from our break.  We have some new team members too.  You can read about them HERE.  I can't wait to get to know these ladies better.

Let's get to the photo inspiration:

Here is my take on it:

I really didn't do justice to the beautiful photograph.  I was inspired by the colors in the picture and created a masculine birthday card using some Stampscape stamps and a woodgrain impression plate from Papertrey.

I hope you'll join us for this challenge.  You have until Wednesday, January 16th to post your creation based on the photo inspiration above.  Link up your card on the FYI blog.


Blessings,




Stamps:  Meadow (stampscapes), Movers & Shakers Sentiments (PTI)
Paper:  White, Black, Spring Rain
Ink:  Ripe Avocado (PTI), Summer Sky (memento)
Other:  colored pencils, copics, Mat Stack 5 die (PTI), Woodgrain IP (PTI)