Birthday card

Today I have a card for you that I made up last night for a friend. Her birthday was a couple weeks ago, but with my surgery and rehab etc. I didn't have anything ready for her. Tonight we have scrapbooking so I wanted to have her gift and card ready for her.

This card was inspired by Kristina Werner. Her blog is one of my favorites as she posts a video every Monday and Friday. I really love how it turned out, enough so that I made another one to keep on hand.

As usual, the papers were from my scraps. The sentiment and candles stamps are from a huge set that I got from a friend for Christmas one year. I have no idea what company they are from, just know that she bought them at A.C.Moore. I stamped the Happy Birthday with Versa Fine Smoky Gray ink. I love Versa Fine, as it gives a nice crisp impression. The candles were stamped with Versamark and then heat embossed with puffy white embossing powder, which I believe is a Craft Essentials from Joann's. I used a paper piercer to place the holes to the right and used 2 colors of embroidery floss, gray and pink, to stitch at the side and tied a bow near the bottom. I rounded the corners with my corner chomper and adhered it to the white card base with foam tape.

Thanks for stopping by! Leave me a comment and let me know what you think. Until next time, Happy Crafting!

Card for Monique

Quite a while ago I found this blog and I don't even know how I found it. But Monique makes some really wonderful layout kits. I happened to win a prize from her blog and to make a long story short, she ended up sending me my prize, but also some kits to be used in the Krop for Kids 2010 auction. I didn't even ask, she just offered to send them, what a sweet gal!!! And they were a big hit too.
A little while ago Monique found out that she has stage 3 breast cancer. I have been following her Caring Bridges blog and what an amazing woman she is!
My Pink Stamper, Robyn, posted Moniques address on her blog for anyone who wants to send her a card. Below is the card I made for her, thought I'd share it before I send it out.

I love this paper, again it was in my scraps and I don't know what company it is from. Sorry about that!

I love to do 'fussy cutting' and cut out the little flower and paisley for the front of the card.

Inside I will write a little personal note and send her some hugs. I hope she will enjoy this card and that it will bring her a little smile.

Thanks for stopping by, leave a comment, become a follower and come back soon.

Until then, happy crafting.

Another swapped image.

Here is another image that my cyber friend Lisa sent me. Took me a while, but I'm finally doing something with them.

This image is from The Angel Company (I think) I colored it with watercolor crayons. The sentiment is from a set I won at a crop held at My Happy Place and I believe it may be from Scrappy Cat. The card measures 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" I think the little "pearls" gave it just the right touch.

Thanks for stopping by, leave a comment if you would like to. Have a better than average day!

New paper collections from Ta Da Studios

Hey everybody! One of my favorite companies, Ta Da Creative Studios is just releasing 3 new collections. Check them out here, I'm sure you will like them as much as I do. My favorite of these 3 is the Bountiful Blooms with the Jolly Holly Days coming in a very close 2nd. But nothing can seem to beat out my all time favorite which is their Signature collection.

I met these gals through Krop for Kids and they are just lovely people. They are a couple friends who started their own company and have some wonderful scrapping/papercrafting products. I have many of their papers, stamps and other products. They are from the Toledo area and design their products and have them manufactured in the US. The quality of their products is great. I'm sure you will like their products too. Check out their blog for a chance to win some of their new collection.

3 cards, 3 different companies

Today I'm showing you 3 cards that I made in the last couple days.

This first card has a little story behind it. A few months ago my cyber-friend, Lisa, who I know from the Scrapbooking Message Board on iVillage, asked if any of us would like to do a kind of image swap. She would stamp some images and send them to us. Each of us would use the images in whatever way we wanted and then post them on the board. I signed up right away and was excited to see the different ways everyone used the images. WELL, the other night I found this bird image as well as the others, in the original envelope. I never had made the cards! Sorry Lisa! Hope you like what I did with the image.

I was going to use my Aqua crayons, but found that the ink she stamped with wasn't water resistant, so I colored it using ink pads and Q-tips. Then I couldn't figure out what to do with it and put it aside. When I found it the other night, it just sort of popped into my head to thread the ribbon on the one side and stamp the sentiment on the other. The sentiment is from a set I won at a crop at My Happy Place and I don't have a clue what company it is from.

I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I'm pretty sure the image is an The Angel Company stamp. As usual the paper and the ribbon are from my scraps and I have no idea where I got them.

This 2nd card is made with a stamp from Stampin' Up! that I have had for quite a while. I colored this with Aqua Crayons while I was in rehab for my hip. Again, scraps from my stash. Gotta use up those scraps, and I have a lot of them!

This last card is made with another of the stamps that I got when I won on the QKR Stampede blog hop a couple months ago. It is their Rose Label stamp and is very versatile. The sentiment is from TPC Studio from their Playful Expressions set. I'm not sure where I got them, but I believe it was my local Joann's ETC.

I 'fussy cut' the stamped image and layered it onto blue cardstock, then 'fussy cut' it again leaving just a bit of the blue. Once I had it adhered to the yellow card I just wasn't satified with it and ended up 'fussy cutting' the one side of the card. Now I'm happy with it.

I hope you have enjoyed what I have to show you today. As always, thanks for coming to check out my blog. Feel free to leave a comment and I'd love if you became a follower.

Until next time, happy crafting!

Wonderful QKR blog hop going on.

I just finished the July QKR blog hop. There are some fabulous projects and the theme is Frosty In July - Christmas. If you would like to get some great inspiration, follow this link and start the hop at the QKR Stampede blog, you won't be disappointed. AND you have a chance to win some wonderful stamps while you are at it. Have fun!

And by the way, this is the company that I won the stamps from. Look farther down on my blog for some of the cards I made with their stamps. I'm having a ball with them, there will be more to come soon. Until then, happy crafting!

You are my Sunshine

I finally got a little time to get into my crafting room and make some cards with a few of the images I colored with my Aqua Crayons while I was rehabing from my hip replacement.

This first card really reinforced what I am always telling people at scrapbooking: "There are no mistakes, just opportunities to be creative." I say that because I got the whole card put together and found that I had done it upside down, the card was opening at the top. Okay, what to do? I cut the front off the card and mounted it onto the brown cardstock. I can't tell you what company these papers are from as they were all scraps. The stamps are ones I won from QKR Stampede on one of their blog hops. I used Kaliedacolor Autumn colors inkpad for the sentiment.

My 2nd card, I used the same stamps Patchwork Sun and My Sunshine.

This time I stamped with Kaleidacolor Birthstone ink pad.

This last one is a tag that I intend to use on a scrapbook layout. I thought it would be really cute on a page with pictures of my kids. I used to sing You Are My Sunshine to them when they were little. This tag is one that I had cut a long time ago from some Mulberry paper and just had on hand. I used a PowderPuff Chalking Ink that I got at CKC Convention last year with a project I did at the Quick Quotes booth. It's a very nice soft brown, that I believe was discontinued.

Thanks for stopping by to see what's going on in my crafting life, and as always feel free to leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Until next time, happy crafting!

My Happy Place July Contest

First let me apologize for the terrible picture, I took this tonight in my office so I could get it posted for the MHP contest on Facebook. Since it is night time and I couldn't take it outside, I ended up with a skewed picture that I took from a bad angle above the layout. Anyway, this is my layout that I did for the July Contest. The challenge was to use song lyrics in a project.

This layout is about Halloween 1992. Kelsie was 2 1/2 and dressed as Pebbles Flintstone, her song is the Flintstone theme song and she is having a Yabba Dabba Do Time. Now some told me they aren't song lyrics, but I maintain that they are from the Theme song and they are song lyrics. Either way, she was such a cutie. I don't know if you can see it in the pictures, but I used a dog treat shaped like a bone for the bone in her hair. Oh man what we do to our unsuspecting little ones!!!

Jaryd was only 2 1/2 months old and was dressed as a clown. I'm not sure how he felt about the costume, but we thought he was just adorable. His tag says Send in the Clowns.

I'm not thinking this is one of my best layouts, but I sure had fun doing it and remembering the fun we had especially with Kelsie that Halloween.

As always, thanks for stopping by and having a look see. Leave a comment if you would like, I always love to see what y'all have to say.

Graduation/18th birthday invites

Jaryd graduated from Kenmore West High School in June and with me having had the hip replacement, we decided to wait until later in the summer to have his party. He will be turning 18 on August 15th, so we will be combining the 2 parties into one.

I wanted to make something really nice for the invitations and somewhere along the way I got the idea to make an easel card with senior pictures on them. Below you will see I have 3 different pictures that I have used for the invitations.

This first one I am using to send to a few of his buddies that he will be inviting to the "family" party. They are guys that he has played tennis with over his years in high school.

I think this is my favorite senior picture. I love that he looks like he is just ready to laugh. I think it shows a lot of his personality.

This is one of my other favorites. Is he just sooooo handsome or what? I love this one because it shows his tail. The photographer made sure she got some pics with his tail. He has had that tail since he was 3 years old. To me, it is just a part of him. He talked about cutting it off once he graduated, but he hasn't done it yet. Personally, I hope he keeps it, I don't think he is ready to get rid of it yet.

Here is a close up of the writing on the raised area infront of the picture. I used my Cri-kit gel pens with my SCAL2 program to write this using my Cricut Expressions. I used the silver metallic pen from the "Metallic Kit"

His school colors are blue and white, so I used plain white cardstock and a beautiful blue Core'dinations cardstock that I found at Joann's.

Here are all 3 invitations, sorry about the reflections on the pictures, I couldn't seem to get a decent shot without the reflections.

I haven't done the insides for the invitations yet, but I'm thinking it will probably be written with dark blue ink that will be pretty close to the blue cardstock in color.

My hope is that the people who receive the invitations will keep them as a remembrance.

Thanks for stopping by and as always, I'd be glad for you to become a follower and/or leave me a comment.

Until next time, happy crafting!

I'm Back!!!

Sorry I've been away for so long. The hip replacement went very well and the stay at the rehab center went by quickly. I came home a week ago Thursday and am doing very well. I'm getting around better than everyone expected, have been out to scrapbooking a couple times, but still can't get into my crafting room. Things are a little tight in there for the walker. I see the Doc again on the 13th and maybe then I will be able to walk with out the walker and able to get in there to do some crafting.

I have some pics of some of the things I worked on at the hospital and in rehab. I stamped a bunch of images and took them and my watercolor crayons and aqua brush along with me.

Let me apologize for the terrible quality of the pictures. I had to take them here at my desk as I can't really get outside very easily to take them right now.

As you can see, I need to practice a bit with my crayons and aqua pen. I haven't done much with them before and shading doesn't come naturally to me. I think with practice I will do a lot better.


I love large flower stamps and this rose is a favorite of mine. Until now I haven't had a chance to work with it much, but I think I will be using it quite a bit, once I get that shading down. I don't know where I even got this stamp, but I do love it.

This one is one from Stampin' Up! I saw it in a catalog the first time I saw one of their catalogs, but it was a hostess gift! Booo! Then I went to a party at my friend Jessica's and the lovely demo said she had one that she would sell me. I was so excited to have it. I got it and it has sat there in my stamp cabinet ever since. I finally got it out and painted it. I love it! Like the other one, I'd like to get better at some of the shading, but for a first try, I don't think it turned out too bad.

These are a few of the images I got when I won the QKR Blog Hop prize. I love them! I also got the "You are my Sunshine" stamp to go with that cute patchwork sun. I think they will make adorable cards.

The two rose border images are from QKR, I think these will be just great with a little sentiment stamped in the middle. So many uses for that border stamp! I'm not sure where I got these other images and I'm not in the craft room, so I can't check to see who made them.

I've been working on a few cards and layouts at My Happy Place but haven't finished them. The major thing is that I am working on invitations to Jaryd's graduation/18th birthday party. When I get them done, I'll be posting that for y'all to see.

Until then happy crafting.

As always, thanks for stopping by. I'd love for you to become a follower if you aren't already and leave me a comment if you like.