• 2 of my sisters, my parents, and I all have 2 cats per family. Meaning in my immediate family, we have 8 cats!

    Oliver and Emma are my dad and mom's pride and joy these days. Aren't they sweet?

    I wanted to make card for my dad that he'd want to keep and smile at which basically means it can't just be a generic card with regular dude stuff. Sweet Stamp Shop Stamps to the rescue!


    Stamps: Sweet Stamp Shop - Kitty Cat
  • I was on a roll this weekend since I got my Too Hip stamp set from Sweet Stamp Shop. Isn't it TOO cute!? Looking especially hip in his party hat. I spotted this tube of square colorful confetti at Michaels on the non-scrapbooking side of the store. I thought they'd be perfect for shaker cards! Aren't they fun? Love the colors and the variety of sizes. Go hippo, it's your birthday.. *doing the cabbage patch*.

    Stamps: Sweet Stamp Shop - Too Hip, Lawn Fawn - Birthday Tags
    Die: Lawn Fawn - #Awesome 



  • My nephew Andrew just celebrated his 15th birthday! Here he is with his big sister Hailey. Love these kids <3
    This is the masculine-est/hippest/coolest/gamer-est/coolest card I could come up with for a young teen boy. Contents: CASH! So what better thing to make for him than a money envelope with money inside for a kid whose obsession with socks might be finally waning and he might want something besides Nike Elite Dri-fit socks in every color available for his birthday or Christmas. It's literally just an envelope pocket with money inside. Full of win, basically.

    I used my score board to score a 7x7 piece of paper to make the inner flap (to hold the money) + the outer flap (to cover the money). I didn't take a picture of the inside, but the inner flap is about an inch wide. Then I die cut the outer flap with the curved edge die from Simon Says Stamp. I trimmed up a piece of chalkboard art paper from my 6x6 Boys Rule paper pad from Crate Paper to add to the envelope which (by some miracle) fit this whole thing perfectly. I cut a small khaki piece of paper for the tag and used a curve edge punch on the top. Used 2 different sized hole punches to make the hole reinforcer. Stamped and cut the Happy Birthday label using Alpha Tabs from Sweet Stamp Shop. Then for some interest, cut some cassettes from a printed sheet in the Boys Rule pad. and glued them on the tag. Tied it all up with bakers twine. Masculine and NOT boring! WOOHOOO!! I feel pretty confident that this is my best masculine card so far. And it isn't really a card, I know. But still... I dig it ^_-

    Stamps: Sweet Stamp Shop - Alpha Tabs
    Paper: Crate Paper - Boys Rule
  • BAM! Featuring 3 cards using Fresh Cut Florals and more fresh cuts from WPlus9 to give to my sister! This first one is following the design I saw on the WPlus9 website. My sister asked for wedding cards so this really fit the bill. And then all the ones after this I was flower happy so I guess they're all good for wedding cards!

    For this one, I followed the idea from the WPlus9 blog on the fresh cut wreath stamp set release. I didn't use that stamp set because I don't own it (yet). I'd seen Jennifer McGuire do this before, draw in a shape with pencil then fill it with stamps. Worked great! This one was easy and fun.

    I bought all of these square cards from Michaels for $1.50 for 10 cards. This particular shape was interesting to me but I realized afterwards, I almost wish the back was cut with the same curves as the front. Oh well. Went a bit stamp happy with this one!

    Stamps: WPlus9 - Fresh Cut Florals, More Fresh Cuts / Lawn Fawn - Sophie's Sentiments

  • One of my major challenges in card making is masculine cards! I dunno what it is, but flowers and butterflies are way easy for me. Masculine cards probably shouldn't have sparkly pretty things at all, ya know? *sigh* Anyhoo! I forged ahead when I realized I should be making more masculine cards I went for simple but with a soft look. That should work, right? RIGHT??? In any case, that's what I did.

    Blue and black.. those are pretty masculine colors, right? (even if the blue is dainty and light!)
     

    Stamps: Sweet Stamp Shop - Too Hip, Happy Birthday, Lawn Fawn - Teeny Tiny Backdrops
  • My sister has requested another bundle of cards for her to use so I've done this once before where I made a bunch. They're mostly prototype-ish to try out new techniques and styles and oftentimes they're one offs. It's a great chance for me to play with designs then decide if I want to repeat making the design or if a particular design was just a one time deal. Maybe the design is too complicated or just plain ugly (this has happened a few times -_-)

    This is one of the cards that I started with after seeing another card-maker (can't recall who) using punches to make cutouts - essentially using the negative space instead of the positive for the card. I went one step further and made it into a shaker card. I put a circle of adhesive foam around each of the flowers I punched and added different colored microbeads to each flower punch.

    I love how fun this card turned out and I'd probably do it again. I'm in love with these microbeads! I've only used microbeads on my fingernails for nail art so when I started seeing them released as craft supplies, I didn't know what to do with them. But I think they're great for shaker cards! I think my sister will be happy with this one. She mentioned that she used some of the congrats cards I gave her before for birthdays also. "Let's Celebrate" is great for all occasions!
       

    Punches: Stampin Up - Itty Bitty Punch PackPetite Petals
    Microbeads: Martha Stewart - Kunzite/Amethyst, Tourmaline, Fire Opal
    Stamp:  Papersmooches - Sentiment Sampler

  • My dear friend Gina LOVES green. So of course I had to make her a whimsical card with green butterflies for her birthday! I picked up this die from my LSS (Scrapbook Island) when there was a sale. Completely and utterly in love with this die. So pretty and can be used for all occasions!

    For this card, I cut the die out twice and then cut the butterflies out of one of the papers. I used that paper as an overlay to only expose the butterflies so I could color them with distress inks. Then I added Perfect Pearls in mint and turquoise. Then to soften up the plain white background, I splattered some of my green pencils from my derwent inktense set.



    Die: Memory Box - Peaceful Butterfly Wings
    Ink: Distress Inks - Evergreen Bough, Pine Needles, Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint, Crushed Olive, Bundled Sage, Pumice Stone
    Stamp: Lawn Fawn - Birthday Tags