November/December

I finished the year-long card series for 2013 for my grandmother-in-law just in time!  Not that I couldn't have actually waited until next year to complete it, but I wanted to finish before baby girl arrives.  So here are the cards for November and December 2013:

The pumpkin is done in watercolor crayons.  I don't have an individual pumpkin stamp, just one that's part of a montage of fall items.  It just wasn't going to work for this concept.

And to conclude the year...a December angel.  This is one of my new stamps and I absolutely love the way it cascades into snowflakes at the bottom!  Add a scrap of red to frame her and it's done!

Random Cards

Yesterday was my due date, but still no baby.  People didn't believe me when I said there was no way she would be on time!  I'm treating myself to a pedicure this afternoon though, and maybe the massage around the ankles will trigger something.  Hahaha. 

On to the cards...most of these are from the scraps in my scrap drawer.  Which is still on the verge of overflowing.  It's amazing considering that I've made 20 plus cards from scraps alone. 

October and Others...

October

Halloween - possibly one of my favorite holidays!  I love the dressing up and being something other than yourself for a night.  I am not so into the gory/gross stuff that tends to come along with it now.

This is a very simple card (as are most of the cards I make), just a cauldron of some green goo bubbling up.  Reminds me of Shakespeare's Macbeth.  Everything was cut freehand.  The goo is two separate pieces of green paper - the bottom part is actually a scrap from cutting the shape of the top part of the goo!









And now miscellaneous cards...all of which will be going to the Operation Write Home box.  Their no glitter rule kills me (oh, how I love glitter!), but it is for the protection of the soldiers and I completely understand!

First up, a Christmas card.  Santa's belly to be exact.  I used black ribbon and a piece from the SU hodgepodge hardware set to make the belt.  The fluff at the bottom is a bit of cotton ball.

Next up, You're So Sweet.  The background is from the Sweet stack by DCVW.  Every other page is glittered and I decided that I would make a card with every non-glittered page for the OWH box.  I bordered it with a baby blue and printed the sentiment with my printer, added a couple brads, and used dimensionals to make it pop.  Everything is outlined in brown - either SU close to cocoa or chocolate chip.

And from that same piece of paper, a second card.  I like the concept of bubbles, so I picked up my trusty circle cutter and had at it.  The green, brown, and pink papers are scraps that were sitting in my scrap drawer.  They picked up colors from the circle nicely.  I edged each with a slightly darker ink for contrast.  The white background was too boring, so I used a bit of blue and  sponged until I was happy.  :)

August

August

The August card is simple red and black.  Now, I don't edit my photos.  I just take them with my iPhone and upload as is.  Basically, if I don't like it I take another.   I point this out because  the red in the picture is MUCH brighter than what is actually on the card.  Oh well.

I liked the "tag" concept and made my own - cut rectangles, and the use a corner rounder for the top.  My crop-a-dile punched the perfect holes to attach my string.  The string is glued down to the card; it doesn't really go anywhere.  Little tiny bling stickers accented the sentiment "Think of You" and the date.

September

This was inspired by a pin on Pinterest.  I liked the color scheme and swirls. 

For the card center, I traced an ink box and cut the shape out.  A plain rectangle was just too boring.  The stamp on the center and the border is from the Stampin' Up!  baroque motifs set...possibly my favorite stamp ever.  I hand cut the petals for the flower, drew the stem, attached and accented with a little bling.  There you go, a card for September!

Random Cards

These are just a couple of random cards that I have made in the past 24 hours.  I decided to focus on the color red, just because I could.  They will go in the Operation Write Home box for soldiers deployed overseas.

This is a simple thank you card.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up!  Add a little ribbon and an accent flower and you are done.

I thought the snail idea was really cute.  You can't tell from the photo, but his shell actually has a very pretty pattern.  It's stamped slightly darker than the background.  I promise it looks good in person.  You'll just have to believe me.  The snail's body was cut free-handed.

This is my elegant card for the day.  The red and white papers have a slight shimmer to them.  The stamp is from Michael's, I just stamped it from a couple different angles.

Variations on a Design

Last night I found myself wanting cupcakes.  Seeing as I already have ice cream at the house, I didn't run out and get a cupcake or cupcake mix.  So I settled on making cupcake cards.  The blue one will be sent to OWH, but the pink one will have to go to a friend...because I couldn't resist using a glitter background.  There is a bar of pink at the top, too, but my scanner refused to pick it up.  I rescanned several times, but it is just being stubborn!

Enjoy!

Red, White, and Black

It's Saturday!  And I spent the majority of my morning cleaning just because I had the itch to do so.  Afternoon called for craftiness though, so I came up with this card to go in my OWH box.

The background is simple, white cardstock.  Red ribbon creates a pop (the ribbon came from a bag of remnants I bought at JoAnn Fabric).  The black background is 3-3/4"x3" and the white is 3-1/2"x2-3/4".  I inked the white edge with a little bit of "real red" ink for additional contrast.  The sentiment is actually two stamps from the same Stampin Up! set.  I have no idea the name of the set :(  The roses in the upper left are ribbon roses I picked up at Michael's yesterday from the dollar bin.  There were a dozen roses in the set!

This next picture has nothing to do with cards, just thought it was cute.  While I was working my tail off cleaning this morning, my dog decided it was a great time to nap at the back door...

Happy Crafting!

It's a 2 Card Day!

Yup, that's right TWO whole cards!  The first is inspired by my friend, M, who likes Hello Kitty.  And how can I blame her?  Hello Kitty is rather cute.  I love her black, white, and pink color scheme.

The background card stock is pink.  I cut the polka dot paper with my cutterpede wavy blade.  Before I attached it, I folded down one corner and put a brad in.  The stamp is from the "Greeting for All Reasons" Stampin' Up! set.  I stamped the bright pink heart first and then slightly offset the white version.  The white is hard to see from the picture, but it looks really good in person.

The second card for today came from just playing around with the sponging technique.  It took me a while to learn a few things about sponging.

1) Be patient and don't press too hard!
2) You have to overlap your colors to get it to look cool
3) The darker color doesn't always have to be the edge.  It can bring attention to the center, too.
4) Lay your colors out before you start and do a test run on spare paper.  The colors may look okay together on their labels and pads, but can turn out differently when you start sponging!

I hadn't done anything in the purple realm before so I thought I would give it a try.  I think it looks cool.  The rose stamp is one I picked up randomly from Michael's because it was on sale at the time.  It is colored with watercolor crayons.  The varied tones of each color (SU! colors Elegant Eggplant for the flower, Always Artichoke for the stem and leaves) were a result of how much water was in my blending pen at that moment.  The background is a combination of Orchid Opulence, Lovely Lilac, Elegant Eggplant, Perfect Plum, and Regal Rose.  I used a corner rounder on the edges to give it a softer appearance.