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

Last weekend, my friends and I went on an adventure.. a Scrapbook Expo adventure! It started at 8am when Alice and I arrived at the convention center first and got ourselves a golden ticket to enter for a grand prize drawing. Teresa came shortly after and we dropped in our tickets for the raffle. By 9am, the shopping area opened. I'm not sure angels attend scrapbook conventions but I'm pretty sure I heard some singing off in the distance when I walked inside. There was so much to see and tons of people there for shopping and cropping. We set budgets (which only Alice adhered to) and were on a mission. See it all and shop on the 2nd round. We didn't really stick to our guns on that either. Especially since some stuff was just worth getting right away if we thought they'd run out. After a few hours, we were spent (and had spent plenty!) and I went in to the office to get some work done. It was a crazy day.





 One of the last booths we visited on our first round through was the bee creative shop where Alice was the first to spot these adorable stamps from Crafters Companion. Teresa and I might've gone a little crazy at this shop. But the images were SO CUTE!
The image below is from one of the stamp sets I bought from the Everyday Barkley line called Scent of Summer. Super cute! I colored it with my prismacolor pencils and gamsol.

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*.

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!

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 Pack,  Petite Petals
Microbeads: Martha Stewart - Kunzite/Amethyst, Tourmaline, Fire Opal
Stamp:  Papersmooches - Sentiment Sampler

Using Dawn Woleslagle's technique of stamping in distress ink then rolling the edges in a second color for blending worked great. Love how this one turned out.


Stamps: Mama Elephant - Waterblooms
Ink: Distress ink in Picked Raspberry, Ripe Persimmon, Crushed Olive, Peeled Paint, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean

This is my first time really trying to freehand watercolor an image. I was really inspired by Jennifer Rzasa freehand style and Dawn Woleslagle's colors and roses. Really gorgeous stuff! I started with 3 circular-ish blobs of water on the watercolor paper. Then I used some watercolor paints to start the base colorwash. They were really light and not blending as much as I'd wanted so I started to use my Derwent Inktense pencils. I touched my wet brush to the pencil lead and the color was certainly intese but it gave the images so much more depth. I kept trying to think of the way that Dawn had painted her roses. This was quite time consuming but it was a good experience. I think the hardest thing about watercolor painting in general.. is the waiting! If you don't wait for parts to dry, the rest of the picture can get muddled. Definitely had to be patient for this one.

I'm still not so good at using Gelatos. Maybe I don't wait enough for the water to loosen up the stick. And sometimes I get little flakes inside of the color mixing with water. Weird huh?
I haven't put this on a card yet, but I will soon.

Stamps: Hero Arts - Large Open Flower, Sweet Stamp Shop - Elegant Flowers
ink: Faber-Castell Gelatos in guava, bubble gum, red cherry, lavender, grape, lime, green tea