A Few More Cards

Here are a couple of baby cards and a get well card that were recently sent (sorry for the wonkiness of my photography).

Thank You Cards, Birthdays, and Get Well.

My craft room has been in a state of disarray because I've been rearranging my desk to give me more work surface. It's finally finished and I was back to making cards. The first two are thank you cards with a summer beach theme. 

My sister's birthday was Tuesday and my oldest son's is tomorrow. I used some pieces I'd experimented on a while back in each.

Cutting this circle frame from a thick foam board was a bit tricky.

The inked paper I had on hand, so all I had to do was run it through my Big Shot using a birthday embossing folder.

A great friend from high school is having a birthday this week. The inspiration for her card was a sentiment stamp I'd been wanting to use. Although it's not really a birthday sentiment, I think it still works.

The faux leather frame was created using a new Spellbinders M-bossabilities reversible embossing folder. 

I'm going to use the same sentiment on a Halloween card for another high school friend.

Our niece had back surgery this week and is now recuperating at home. I spent a long time working on her card, then I forgot my idea for the sentiment I wanted to use! I ended up ditching that one and making this instead.

(cover)

(inside)

I'll take a picture of my new work area soon.

Bookmarks

A good friend at church came up with the idea of welcoming new babies in the congregation with a bag of goodies. One of my friends makes the cloth totes with adorable appliqués, our quilters group contributes beautiful baby quilts, another person makes burp cloths, and also included are assorted goodies plus devotionals for the new moms. I was asked to make bookmarks for the devotionals so I recently made a batch of laminated ones using the Bible verse, "Children are a gift of the LORD. They are a reward from Him." Psalm 127:3

Catching up on Cards

I can't believe it's been over a month since I've been on my blog. All those posts for that online watercolor class I took wore me out and put me off blogging for quite a while. Guess I should get into a better blog posting routine. Any how --- I have been busy crafting. I spent hours making decorations, favors, covered pretzels, cupcake pics, a banner and a centerpiece for a baby shower and then realized I never took any pics prior to the shower and now everything is pretty much gone! I do have one squished favor box and a stray cupcake pic so I may try to put a post together on it at some point.

There have been many cards to make in the past month and needless to say, I never got around to photographing some. Here are the ones I remembered to snap before sending. 

This summer my birthday took me by surprise - it was my big six-five (it doesn't look as bad written in words as it does in numerals).  I have a friend from high school who was a year behind me and is still a youthful 64. His wife decided to throw an un-birthday party for him before he hits 65 entitled, "When I'm 64." For his card I added his frosh h.s. pic scanned from the yearbook (it was taken in the fall of 1964) and added it to one of Beatles' pics I found. So the card read, "From '64" (and on the inside) "To 64. Birthday greetings bottle of wine!" from the song lyrics. The party was really fun!

My mom turned 91 in July (our birthdays are only two days apart) so I made a bunch of teeny tiny tissue pink paper roses for the front of her card. That's the last time I'll make any more of those!!! They took hours to make.

Here are a few more cards that I made for family members and remembered to take pictures of.

It's hard to see from the photo but I heat embossed script in white before adding the watercolor stamped flowers.

I cut squares out of alcohol inked glossy paper and then heat embossed stamped flowers in white.

I did a CASE card using a newish SU flower stamp and frame-lit set.

We also had a wedding to go to last month and fortunately I had made a wedding card a while back that I could use. 

It's a bit overdecorated but I was trying out several new techniques at once and just couldn't stop myself!

That's all for now. I'm SO SAD that summer is almost over because I H-A-T-E winter with a passion. At least I didn't have to go back to the classroom just about the time that summer temps decided to make their appearance! Thanks to a lifetime mostly spent in educational settings, I still get the urge to go out and stock up on school supplies :)

Father's Day

My Stampin' Up demonstrator (and new friend!) Laura showed us how to create a flip card at the workshop she did at my house at the beginning of June.  I had already exceeded my order budget with wonderful SU goodies so didn't buy the thinlit die, especially since I usually make 5x7 cards instead of the smaller A2 size.  

Previously I had watched several You Tube demos on how to make your own flip cards. I thought I'd give their method a try without using a special dedicated flip die. The cards looked really easy but in reality were nearly impossible to make even though I swear I followed their instructions to a T.  I finally did a partial flip card (easier to control the cut with my nestability die) which I used to make this Father's Day card for my son.

Here is the one I made for my husband. I've been into hexagons lately for some reason. I created my own die cut on my Cricut Mini. Then I used Tim Holtz pumice stone distress embossing powder on it for texture and glued the honeycomb to my card base. I found an alpha stamp set whose letters fit perfectly in the openings --- and fortunately I had the right amount of openings for symmetry. I made the openings the same size as the fun hexagonal stamps that I have.

Card Frenzy

We're delighted to have our 2 1/2 year old grandson staying with us for two weeks, but I now have little time to devote to crafting. However I had a lot of cards that needed making so I've been finding moments to squeeze them in.

My daughter-in-law is arriving tomorrow after finishing her 5 year radiation oncology residency in Boston. Before leaving for their new home in Seattle, she'll spend a week with us but will spend most of her time studying for the second part of her boards which she will take next month. I wanted to make her a congratulatory card to commemorate her long years spent in medical school and residency, and I wanted it to be really joyful. For her card I did a watercolor background topped with sparkly gems and stars.

I then gave my grandson some stickers to choose from and let him make his mom a card too. Inside he added his own "message" and signature!

Last night my husband, son, grandson, and I we went out to eat with my sister and brother-in-law to celebrate his birthday. I've always loved this "vintage" picture of him taken with his three oldest children - all in costume. I used it as the centerpiece for his CASE birthday card inspired by Kate Palmer. 

I've also been busy making Father's Day cards which I will post soon.

Anniversary Watercolor

Kristina Werner was one of the instructors for my online Watercolor class, and I've been following her blog ever since. Today she posted a really neat emboss resist watercolor card that I wanted to try. As it is my son and daughter-in-law's anniversary, I thought it would work perfectly. I didn't have a dahlia stamp so I had to improvise with daisy stamps and a watermark pen. Hope they  like it!