More newbie cards

One of my first cards :)

The reason I take pictures of my cards is to track my progress... I love to look back at old pictures and see how far I've come. I made this card a few years ago, and that pink handmade paper was one of the first paper packs I ever bought. I believe the sticker is from K&Co, but I'm not sure where the mini envelope is from. The tiny card opens up to say "Happy Spring" (hand written, of course.. I don't think I had many stamps back then!). I'll try to dig up some more pictures of my early cards... sometimes it's fun to go back to the beginning for inspiration from myself as a newbie card maker! :) I hope you enjoy, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

New Cupcake Stamp...

Hi everyone! I bought those Inkadinkado cupcake stamps I mentioned in an earlier post, and today was the first time I got a chance to play with them. :) I made this card for my cousin's daughter who is turning 12 next month. I don't know her well, but I figured I couldn't go wrong with bright and cheery for a 12 year old girl! The paper I got at Michael's, and I still can't remember the brand, but they're from a 4x6 pad of birthday themed paper. The chipboard "smile" I got from a swap, as well as the orange button and purple glitter brads. I paper pieced the cupcake with scraps of paper (I LOVE using up my scraps!) and added a miscellaneous foam heart. I've noticed people taking close-up shots of elements on their cards that deserve some attention, so I've been doing that lately. Hopefully Meghan will like her card! Thanks for stopping by, I hope you like the card too!

-Suzanne :O )

Steven Tyler Video

***I can't figure this out by myself, hopefully the bf can help me out soon ;)***

Ok, let's see if I can post my very first video! I'm sorry the quality is terrible, but this was taken with my digital camera. This was at the Billy Joel concert last week, Steven Tyler came out and sang "Walk This Way". Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy the video!

-Suzanne :O )

PS: I apologize for the "woo"ing.. ahem. ;)

The Colbert Report

Yesterday, my mother and I were part of the VIP audience at The Colbert Report in NYC. An old co-worker of my brother's friend gave us tickets and we got to watch a taping. His guest was rapper, Nas. It was a lot of fun to be there.. Stephen was funny, of course, but the stage manager made us laugh REALLY loud every time we felt like chuckling (we were a small audience and it was hard for the mics to pick us up unless we laughed loud). I can't figure out how to post the video on my post, but here's a link to the episode. Thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Billy Joel: Last Play at Shea

This has nothing to do with cards, but I just have to post some pictures :D My boyfriend just bought me a new camera (Nikon Coolpix) for "my birthday"... which isn't for another 2 months! He always spoils me... I already had a digital camera, but this one is better and he thought I needed it for my cards and such :D

Anyway, last night, we went to Shea Stadium to see Billy Joel.. they're going to tear down the stadium pretty soon, hence the "Last Play at Shea". He was amazing, as expected, but a little more than halfway through the show, he started to play "We Didn't Start the Fire" and everyone got amped up... but a little TOO amped up, because the stadium started shaking. The people in front & next to us freaked out and made me and Chris move (we had aisle seats), so of course I started to panic too, thinking the overhang where we were seated was going to fall. I couldn't get rid of the panic, so we spent a good half hour or so "watching" (I put that in quotes because I couldn't see that well with so many people in the way) the concert from the doorway. Eventually, I got the confidence to go sit in our seats again, and then I was able to see again :) Other than that, it was an awesome show, I think there were 55,000 people there and the energy was just crazy.

Mr. Joel had quite a few surprise guests! Tony Bennett came out to sing "New York State of Mind", Garth Brooks sang "Shameless", Steven Tyler came out to do "Walk This Way", Roger Daltry of The Who sang "My Generation" and lastly, Paul McCartney did a few songs, including "Let it Be". The only one I really cared about was Steven Tyler, so I took a video of his performance with my camera.. the quality is terrible, but I thought my brother would like to see it because he loves Aerosmith :) If I can figure out how to post videos, I'll try to post that one, as well as "Piano Man" with yours truly singing along ;) (my sincerest apologies!)

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you like the pictures and videos!

-Suzanne :O )

Cupcake Cards!

Who doesn't love cupcakes??? I wish I had more cupcake images... so how perfect that AC Moore just got a whole load of clear stamps, and one is cupcakes -- you know that'll be in my cart! :D Here are a few cards I've made with the cupcake images I DO have (the smaller cupcake is a dollar stamp and the larger cupcake I got from an image swap on the PaperCrafts swap page). If you have any questions about the other supplies used, just ask. Thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Making Cards with Mackenzie

On Wednesday, my mom and I spent the day with her best friend's granddaughter, Mackenzie, who is 5 and a BUNDLE of energy! To start the day, we took her shopping for school clothes (she's going to start kindergarten this year and is SO excited). After shopping, we took her to the Chinese buffet (she loves to eat there!) for lunch. When we finished eating, she conned me into buying her some glitter glue at the dollar store nearby ;) I had told her that we were going back to my house to make some cards, so she wanted the glitter to help decorate the cards. When we got back to my house, I had everything set up and ready to go for her- buttons, some stamps, flowers, punches, ribbon, paper, adhesive, etc. I figured she wouldn't have the patience to wait while I got the supplies, so I had laid everything out before we went to pick her up, which I highly recommend to anyone crafting with kids. She did such a cute job on her cards, and she was even thoughtful enough to exclude buttons from her baby sister's card (because "she will eat the buttons!" LOL) When she was making the card for her mom, she kept saying, "Mommy's just going to LOVE the flowers!" She was so proud of herself! :) She REALLY loved using her glitter glue, but I had to watch her because she was piling the glitter on, and I knew it wouldn't dry if she put too much on. She made four cards in all, but we took breaks in between because she had a short attention span. During one of the breaks my mom and I took her out to play mini-golf and got ice cream. When she was done with the cards, I told her to draw a heart and sign her name so everyone would know who the card came from. First, she drew a small heart... then she grinned at me and drew a HUGE heart on the left side of the card because a small heart just wouldn't show how much she loves her family!! :D What a cute kid! I had her make a thank you card for her grandmother because she's been staying with her for the summer, and when Mackenzie gave her the card, I could tell that it REALLY meant a lot to her, so that made my craft project with Mackenzie totally worth it. :) We had her from 10am to 7:30pm, so needless to say I was exhausted after such a long day, but it was really awesome to hang out with her. I hope you'll enjoy looking at her creations!

-Suzanne :O )

Sailboat Thank You's

Alright, so here's my first picture post- yay! I made 21 of these bad boys for my dad to send to his students. He needed them in a hurry, so I wanted to keep everything simple. The stamp is from Stamps Happen (Designer Clears Summer Fun set), which I just LOVE. I bought them last week on my camping trip to Maine- there was this little stamp store 5 minutes from the campsite, so of course I dragged my boyfriend with me to check it out! ;) Anyway, so I stamped 21 images, then I matted each one with either red or blue paper (I used scraps- hooray!). I colored them in real quick with some markers (I can't remember the brand right now). After I glued the images down, I used a Hero Arts stamp to write "thank you" on the outside and then I was done! Well, after stamping that 21 times, of course. I was happy with the results, as was my dad, and sometimes it's nice to keep things simple. I hope you enjoy!

-Suzanne :O )

Figuring this all out....

Hello, hello! Welcome to my very first blog! I'm brand spankin' new to all of this, so please bear with me. :) My hope is to use this blog to share with any interested viewers my cards, layouts, gift ideas, challenges, etc. and maybe even videos some day. I have been inspired by so many and hope to return the favor. A little about the birth of my card-making craze... I've always been into stationary (there's a picture of me when I'm about 4 years old, writing on a notepad, and I look irritated, as if I couldn't be interrupted to take a picture when I'm busy writing a note!) and letter writing, so when I discovered a make-your-own card kit at Michael's a few years ago, I was hooked. I was even more floored when I realized you could make your own cards from scratch! Ever since, I've been collecting ribbons, buttons, patterned papers, brads, jewels, you name it. I really love having a creative outlet and being able to brighten someone's day with my cards. That said, I have to start posting pictures! ;) Thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )