Regal Purple Damask Thank You Card

A thank you card for a dear friend who surprised me with a gift and whose favorite color is purple. This damask stamp is a favorite of mine and I thought the Anna Griffin phrase was a nice complement, as well as the large decorative paper clip which I picked up at Target recently in an 8-pack for $1! Love a good bargain!!!

Paper: SU Elegant Eggplant cardstock; DeNami Design Lavendar Metallic
Stamp: JudiKins Regal Damask
Embellishments: BMuse Very Fine Detail Amethyst Embossing Powder; Large Paper Clip; Ribbon
Tool: Marvy Uchida Oval Punch

Sympathy Card

This card took me days to complete, partly because I had to soften the clock graphic (a Microsoft downloadable jpg) and lining up the phrase at the bottom, but mainly because these for me are such difficult cards to do. I CASed this Time Heals card by Jennifer Miller as closely as possible, again because they're so hard and this one appealed so much to me, from PaperCrafts Magazine's online projects. Because of the solemn theme, I didn't add any embellishments.

Paper: Deja Views Fresh Print: Blue Raspberry Collage & Blocks; Paisley Border from 8 x 8 Paper & Punch-Out Tablet

Sisterhood of the Blogging Stampers-8

Greetings to all my "sisters"! I can't wait to visit your blogs and see all your wonderful work!
I'm a resident of Arizona, currently not working outside our home. I particularly enjoy cardmaking and I'm slowly moving towards scrapbooking, but feel I need to learn a lot more about photography to succeed. I've done crafts my entire life and would truly be lost without something to work on. I'm enjoying the challenges of blogging & looking forward to this new adventure with all of you!

My husband is retired and we have two grown children, a son & daughter. He also has two grown children, a daughter & son, and a grown grandson and granddaughter. Yes, he's a bit older than I am, so I always tease him that I'm too young to be a Grandma!!! ;-) I have no sisters in real life, but I think sometimes that makes my friends even more precious!!!

Lovely Flowers

Our DD brought us this gorgeous flower centerpiece she designed for the holidays. It's so exciting to see her creations and how she's growing and evolving in her career!

Retro Peace Christmas Card

My daughter needed a Christmas card for a dear friend and she knew this 70's look would be perfect for the occasion. It always amazes me to see how our minds perceive completely diverse ways to use embellishments! She used the Making Memories large grommets, but didn't mount them into the card, instead leaving the unset "ornaments" hanging at the ends of the fibers. I think this card turned out to be one of the best she's ever designed and her designer's eye has definitely come up with some very unique cards over the years! She always amazes me!!!

Paper: DMD's Adhesive Mats "Carefree Autumn"; Cream Linen
Stamp: Penny Black
Embellishments: Making Memories Color Grommets; WeRMemoryKeepers Large Eyelets; Trimtex Picture Perfect Fibers; Koss Pastels; Ribbon
Tools: WeRMemoryKeepers Crop-A-Dile; Martha Stewart 1" Round Punch

Handmade Christmas Cards

I received two handmade cards from dear friends this week. Ilene's poinsettia card was created with embossed snowflakes on vellum & finished off with the greeting and a poinsettia cut from Wishblade, then matted all around in black -- very lovely!
My Stampin'Up demo, Kimberly, sent the simple & adorable tree card with corrugated red strip on a green card. Simple and yet, simply adorable! Love the way she tied her ribbon! Thanks so much ladies for sharing your creativity!

Happy Birthday, Gwen!!!

Tomorrow is my friend Gwen's birthday, so here's the card I made for her. I felt it still needed something else, but couldn't quite figure out what, so had to just get it mailed! I don't know why, but cards for those I'm closest to are the hardest cards to make, even if the recipient isn't a papercrafter, tho Gwen is a fabulous papercrafter, as well as being THE BIRTHDAY GIRL! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GWEN!!!

Paper: Neenah Paper's Classic Columns Solar White Cover; brown scrap & pink metallic scrap

Embellishments: Creative Imaginations Epoxy Flowers; Making Memories Curling Tags

Tools: Making Memories Tag Curler; Crop-a-dile; Stampin'Up's Slit Punch

Another Christmas Treat Box/Basket

Because the holiday is fast approaching, I made this basket a bit simpler by just folding my paper squares in half inside & out, rather than cutting them in half diagonally. I only used a second paper on the inside & it looks fine! I added mixed nuts in the shell, candy canes & various chocolates, wrapped it with cellophane, added a red bow, cute snowman tag & it's ready for delivery!

Paper: Provo Craft Holiday Slab V
Stamp & Punch: Stampin'Up's Terrific Tags Punch Box

Ink: Ranger's Distress Ink - Peeled Paint; Tsukineko's VersaColor - Cardinal

Glitter: PSX's Sparkles - Diamond

A Beautiful Surprise! (Santa Christmas Card)

What a wonderful surprise we received in our mail today -- this gorgeous handmade card from my friend, Gwen, who encouraged me to start this blog & is truly a crafting genius, in my humble opinion! Isn't it just beautiful in every way?!!! The inside is equally beautiful, with the scallop repeated in a pale pink metallic paper on which she stamped Merry Christmas and added two metallic snowflakes with the same sparkly dots in the center! A masterpiece to behold! Her blog, MyCraftyDaysOff is linked here on my site, so check it out! You won't be disappointed!!!

Figgy Pudding's Christmas Holly Card

After struggling to find my creativity these past few days, I've finally created a card that for me is more than "simple/easy", which I enjoy making. I've always made 40-50 of the same card & this year (partly because of the need to post here), I'd decided to make more cards & less of each, but I struggled to find any that "grabbed me". This card does that for me! Hope you like it too!

Paper: Basic Grey's Figgy Pudding - Toasty; Cream Linen; Red Speckle
Stamps: DeNami Design - both
Embossing Powder: DeNami Design Gold
Stickles: Xmas Red, Lime Green, Gold
Finished Card Size: 5" x 7"

Simple/Easy Christmas Cards & Stickles!!!

Some simple & easy cards for the holiday! All you need besides what comes in the paper stack is a little Stickles for excitement (thanks Ilene & Deva, the Stickles' Queens)!!! For other Stickles' Queens out there, I've discovered that once I get even my old bottles (you don't want to know how old, trust me) to flow easily ALWAYS, insert a "short" straight pin in the neck before you screw the cap back on. I believe I found the pins @ Joanns, but they're like straight sewing pins, except shorter & they have a smaller, flatter head, which allows you to put the cap back on & your Stickles will always be ready to use -- easy & very time-saving!!! Also, my original reason for purchasing them, obviously, was to secure the ends of ribbon & they work great for that too, assuming your eyesight is good enough to find them once you drop them, that is!

Paper: DCWV Christmas Scrapbook in a Stack (includes textured cardstock, tiny brads, alpha stickers & velllum quotes

Stamp: Merry Christmas - DeNami Design

Embelllishment: Stickles by Ranger Industries - Lime Green, Xmas Red, Green

Brrr! Snowflake Card

I thought it would be fun to use my Shrinky Dink for a snowflake to go with this fun glittery paper.

Paper: DCWV 12" x 12" Glitter Christmas Stack; G-Rated Rubber Stamps Textured Glossy White Cardstock

Stamp: Snowflake Rosette from Hero Arts

Embellishments: Shrinky Dinks Shrink Plastic; Epoxy Sticker; Silver cord

Finished Size: 5 1/2" x 4 1/4"

Christmas Treat Box/Basket

The tutorial for this box, another wonderful creation by Beate, is available @: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/treat_box/. I've shown it both empty and with mixed nuts and candy in it, but it needed some candy canes for added pizazz! It's more time-consuming than the ones we made for Halloween & takes a lot of gluing, but it's such a great size for many fillers. One

solution would be to use a double-sided card stock to make it quicker and it would require less paper cutting, piecing and gluing. You could line it with cellophane, then add cookies, candy, caramel corn, or potpourri; or simply add bath products for the ladies or golf balls/tees for the guys -- I think it has infinite possibilities! The ribbon can be tied tightly or loosely to suit your needs on this project, depending on what treats you wish to add inside.

Paper: Provo Craft Holiday Slab V; solid 12" cardstock

Embellishments: Eyelets: 8; Ribbon: 24" inches

Joy to the World Christmas Tree Card

I made this card after finding these little tree lights and jewels at my local dollar store. The lights are actually a necklace, which I cut apart.

Paper: Stripe - Provo Craft Holiday Slab V; Solids - scraps

Embellishments: Fastenater Decorative Staples - Making Memories; Epoxy Sticker - Dollar Bin @ Michaels

Tools: Fiskars Star Punch; Making Memories Fastenater Stapler

Merry Ribboned Card

This is my interpretation of Janelle Clark's Merry Ribbon card on page 42 in Stacy and Friends: 40 Techniques for Making Cards, a 2006 Paper Crafts Publication. Her card is just so fun and fresh! I rediscovered it while looking for some inspiration for my own cards.

Paper: Provo Craft Holiday Slab V
Stamps: Evergreen by Rubber Stampede; Whimsey Upper Case letters by Stampendous, Inc.

Ink: Stampin'Up! Certainly Celery, Real Red; Mocha Tombow Marker for tree trunk

Tools: Crop-a-dile (We R Memory Keepers)

Embellishments: red and green ribbons

Flowery CTMH Happy Birthday

Time to get my husband's daughter's birthday card mailed, so I gave him numerous choices from many I'd made recently. He chose this pretty card from CTMH's line which I made at a party at my friend Ilene's. The paper line is Let's Get Together and the flower and border are from their clear acrylic stamp set, Delight in Everything. I believe the Happy Birthday stamp is from a set which contains several birthday greetings and the ink and brad are Cranberry. A bright, sunny card which I hope brings her a smile on her special day!

Snow Day Vellum Card

This is a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card I came up with, again trying to use the pale green, blue & silver/gray ribbon and stickers I bought in the dollar bin @ Michaels! I had some scraps of snowflake vellum left from a Christmas card I'd sent a few years ago. Love that vellum & hope it shows up in my photo (which I'll take in the daylight tomorrow). Anyway, I combined it with pale green speckled cardstock (which doesn't really show at all under the vellum, except for a couple of speckles) and some gray jewel metallic text-weight paper I bought this summer on vacation in St. Paul, MN. I think it works okay, with the snowflake and Snow Day sticker, though it's certainly not your typical Christmas colors!

Most Wonderful Time of the Year Square Card

Another simple Christmas card using the Provo Craft Slab V tree and striped papers. The textured green cardstock is actually some of the long paper I'd purchased from XpedX for the decorative strip and card itself, which matched the green background of the paper better than anything else I had. Those papers are usually about 5-6" wide x 25-30" long and are leftovers after being cut from "parent sheets" for customers special orders. Nice that the "waste" on one customer's project becomes unique card supplies for us crafters! Also included is one of my stickers from Michaels' dollar bin which reads, "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year". My friend Gwen will be happy to see that this will work for some of those stickers, as she and I both bought them and matching ribbon, unbeknownst to the other. This card is actually 5 3/4" square, which I mention because if you're making square cards for mailing, you must remember to add 17 cents additional postage. It is not fun to have a card returned after you've spent the time and effort to make it and get it mailed!