Straight up, I'm not so great about making baby cards. Last year I attended quite a few baby showers which was great fun minus rooms full of screaming children (lovely...). I am not in any way against children and I do love them I can't just be around a whole bunch of them for hours on end. lol. That being said, I love being an auntie! I have 8 nieces and nephews by blood and many more whom despite not being blood related, I'm close to and they still feel like family.

After I saw the release of Lawn Fawn's Hello Baby - I had to have it! I didn't care if I made cards for babies or for any other reason. I just LOVED the little animals!~ Google results have tons of adorable cards using this set.

Stamp: Lawn Fawn - Hello Baby
Dies: Lawn Fawn - Hello Baby lawn cuts, Impression Obsession - Spiral Flowers dies

As part of the card/gift, the recipient would be getting 2 gift cards. I created 2 gift card pockets out of fiber paper and die cut some extra sakura blossoms to decorate with. My friend requested that the recipient's name was on the card so I stamped "Charlene" using Milo's ABCs from Lawn Fawn and the  "Congratulations" stamp is from Avery Elle.


On the back, went with a humorous stamp from Sweet Stamp Shop. And of course I signed it in lime green to match the polka dot paper on the front.


I went one step further and made a coordinating sushi themed envelope. I stamped it in Memento Dew Drop ink Pear Tart.


Stamps: Lawn Fawn - Let's Roll, Avery Elle - Oh Happy Day, Lawn Fawn - Milo's ABCs, Sweet Stamp Shop - Made By #2
Ink: Memento Dew Drops - Pear Tart & Angel Pink, Hero Arts Dye - Black, Hero Arts Shadow - Bubble Gum

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*.

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!

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

I used WPlus9 Fresh Cut Florals stamp for this one. The technique was a mix of Jennifer Rzasa's from Day 3 and a technique by Dawn Woleslagle where she rolled the edges of the stamp in a secondary color to assist with blending. I'm pretty sure it was Dawn but now I'm questioning it myself since I can't seem to find the class video that references the technique.

Stamps: WPlus9 - Fresh Cut Florals, Lawn Fawn - Sophie's Sentiments
Ink: Distress Ink in Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon, Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint, Mustard Seed, Wild Honey

I've been playing with watercolor backgrounds since I saw Jennifer McGuire and Kristina Werner do it. I LOVE the variety of ways to do it and how it turns out after it's dry. This one I used a technique mentioned by Jennifer using rubber cement to protect the stamp images so I could watercolor the background.
Stamps: Sweet Stamp Shop - Balloons, Lawn Fawn - Sophie's Sentiments Ink: Distress Ink in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, Mustard Seed

Couldn't resist this adorable little cactus! This set is called Stuck on You from Sweet Stamp Shop.

Favorite food in the whole world? SUSHI!!!
My sister and I have talked about this before.. If we were stranded on an island and could only eat 1 thing forever, it would be.. sushi. hands down. Now of course, this is a pretty ridiculous scenario because what are the chances we have a rice cooker, nori, soy sauce, and an awesome sushi chef all on a desert island. A girl can dream!

 This adorable stamp set is from Lawn Fawn called "Let's Roll". Hooray for sushi! I realized after taking this photo, that it looks like the soy sauce bottle is somehow floating right next to the sushi plate. I'm pretty sure I set the bottle slightly behind the sushi. I colored the images with colored pencils blended with gamsol and cut an extra stamped soy sauce bottle from transparency film to glue over the original image so it looks like glass! I'll be mailing this to my sister soon probably. She'll get a kick out of it.

A bag of crafting goodies (instead of candy) for my friend's daughter for Valentine's day.


Wrapping paper: Daiso Lace Cellophane
Stamp: Simon Says Stamp - You
Dies: Lawn Fawn - Hearts, Stitched Journal

 http://operationwritehome.org/sketch-challenge-210/

This is my first time attempting to follow a card sketch of any type. This is sketch challenge #210. It was harder for me than I'd anticipated. I've been hesitant to make/send OWH cards because I'm scared they're not of the director's style preference. I've seen the videos/rants and heard about the "sneeze" cards. I don't think my cards are sneeze-like but my card style preference doesn't seem like some of the OWH samples I've come across. Anyway... I attempted to follow the sketch but still use some card making tehniques I've learned from my favorite card makers. I'm actually quite pleased with the outcome.

Julie Ebersole used this technique in the stencil class. I'm impressed (pun intended)! slipping the stencil in a plate sandwich including some embossing pads (I used the Spellbinders ones) made a really neat soft impression.

Ok, I admit it, I just spent the last 15 minutes digging through my favorite blogs and can't seem to remember who gave me the idea for doing my washi tape like this. I got this adorable washi tape from my friend Trisha I friended through Instagram. She's from Singapore and has access to some of the cutest washi tape! She mails some to me in care packages. LOVE IT! This one is from CottonON's Typo. You can't really tell from this photo but I cut the "thanks" die out of aqua colored paper to layer under the pink "thanks". I should probably throw some sequins on this baby. hah~