A Teacup of Flowers

I received my latest order from Ellen Hutson the other day and had a chance to play with two of the three stamps that came in that order.
I found this image just so charming and it fits perfectly in the oval cut out on this card that I picked up from the Paper Cut ( I love this company they have the greatest pre-made cards).
So I stamped and colored this image (I know it's suppose to be African Violets but I was feeling orangey, so sue me.)  I taped some white card stock to the inside of the card and stamped through the window.  Coloring with Copics was easy.
I just added the sentiment to the front and was done.
A fast easy card to make and it looks so much more complicated than it is, something a card maker loves.
Hope you like it and thanks for stopping by.

Recycling Christmas

We crafters are the original recyclers I believe.  We will use what ever we can to make cards.  These two cards are an example.  According to the post office whatever is delivered by mail, unsolicited, belongs to us to use as we want.  These two cards use the front of some sample cards sent out hoping that you will order sets of cards from that company.  The cards were gorgeous but huge.  I cut down the front of those cards and made 14 new cards.  The front of my cards used about 2/3rds of the original card.  Originally I had only intended to make this top card, all I did was attach it to a red card base and was done.  Well then I took a look at what was left and couldn't throw out the leftovers.  What to do, oh what to do?

  

Well I pulled out my black Papertrey Ink card stock and went looking for some gold card stock and found some Gina K Pure Luxury Good as Gold card stock.  Now normally I would center the focal point on the gold card stock and then center that onto the card base, however when I picked up the stack of papers it was all offset like you see it here and I liked the look.  I took some of the gold card stock and embossed the sentiment with black detail embossing powder and cut it out with a Nestabilities label and mounted it with some black brads.  So there you have it my adventure in recycling, gotta love it!  Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

A Trio of Angels

When I saw this Love Lives Here: Holiday set from Papertrey Ink, I knew I had to have it.  My sister Ann collects angels and I wanted to make some cards using this set for her to send out at Christmas.
I have been watching the various blogs and web sites and I'm really loving the trend away from the traditional Christmas colors.  So for these cards I decided to go outside of my comfort zone and picked out some pretty wild DP's.  Unfortunately I can't remember for the life of me where this DP is from (and of course I can't find the paper pad to give you a name ).  The sentiment is from Stampendpous.  I used the co-ordinating die to cut out the angels and then stamped them, the little heart ornament is also from this set that I stamped and cut out by hand.
Hope you like these cards and thanks for stopping by.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm running late posting these cards since we've been so busy.  I've actually been making cards (along with a million other things I have going on) and just have not had time to photo them and get them posted.  I made a 20 of these cards using Papertrey Ink's Gobble Gobble set and their Fall Prints and Patterns DP.  I decided to go with the idea of a camouflage turkey for my cards.  After all what turkey wouldn't want to blend into the background when it comes to this time of year.  I used the Gobble Gobble dies to cut out my turkeys from the DP's from the paper set and also for the layering on the card.  All in all they turned out to be quite colorful.
Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

Leftovers from Fall Cards

The one thing I love about crafters is that we never (or almost never) throw anything out.  These cards are and example.  After making cards for a few hours I started to clean up and put things away and came across these scraps of DP from Papertrey Ink's Fall Prints and Patterns.  The leaves were there also so all I had to do was make a couple of card bases and hey presto two more cards.  Rounding the corners and rubbing Papertrey Ink's Fresh snow along the edge finished them off (after stamping the sentiment).
Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

Krafty Birthdays

The card ministry group that I belong to at my church held a creative retreat this past Saturday.
The idea was to teach how to make cards using basic items that you might have around the house.
These are two of the cards I designed as samples of what you can do with tissue paper and double sided sticky tape.  First of all I used kraft card stock for the bases then for both cards I took bubble wrap and created the background just by stamping with Memento Rich Cocoa.  The card on the left I ran glue stick all over the card base and after crumpling up the tissue paper I spread it over the glue, pressing down firmly, then I bubble wrap stamped it.  I put another layer of kraft and stamped again with bubble wrap.  Finally I tore some tissue and glued it down and stamped the sentiment.
The card on the right was easier to do with just two layers.  After I stamped the bubble wrap over the card base I layered some more kraft card stock and stamped the sentiment.  I ran a layer of double sided tape and carefully sprinkled green and copper glitter on it and pressed it down with my finger.
The leaves are some that I have had laying around for years so I just positioned three of them and added a green gem to the center.
We had a lot of fun at the retreat and none of the cards made turned out looking anything like mine but all were fabulous.  My cards were intended to be a jumping off point and the ladies took them and ran with great results.
Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

A Crafty Halloween

We went a bought our pumpkins a week ago but they've been sitting out in the garage waiting to be cleaned up and decorated.  So the day before yesterday I finally felt well enough to tackle the job.  Cleaning them up was no problem but decorating????  That was a whole other story.  I'm really not a Halloween person and cutting up pumpkins is way to messy so I look for other ways to do the job.  I bought 5 pumpkins (is that crazy or what) and now had to come up with a way to decorate them.  So I grabbed my Sharpies and decided to doodle some faces.  The odd shape of the larger pumpkin was easy so that was done first, then I took a close look at the small round one and all the lines went in first and then I doodled eyes and bats, kind of like looking through prison bars, right?  So I had two done and had to come up with ideas for the other three.  I turned to my card making supplies for ideas and came up with Memories Mists in Whipped Cream and Black.  Perfect!  I took all the pumpkins out front and started spraying them, I did one of the small ones in white and one in black and the large one in both.   After I had them all done I coated them all with an acrylic spray.
We had a lot of Trick or Treaters last night (close to 300) and my pumpkins were a hit.
Hope you like them and thanks for stopping by.

Thank You Trees

This is another of the thank you cards I made a week or so ago.  I used Papertrey's Fall Prints and Patterns for this card also and the image and sentiment from their Masculine Motifs set.  When I made this card I originally intended to use the stamp on DP idea.  I had it all finished and ready to go and took a second look at it and decided that it was all wrong.  The DP was too dark and you really had to look hard to see the trees and the sentiment.  Nobody should have to work hard to read a card.  Luckily there was enough room for me to stamp the image and sentiment onto a piece of Cryogen white card stock and mount it over my mistake.  In the end I think it looks great, what do you think?   Thanks for stopping by.