Monday, July 19, 2010

Back from vacation!


Hi all! I just got back from my vacation to Williamsburg for a friend's wedding.  It was like a mini high school reunion, but I had a blast with my friends- we all rented a suite instead of separate hotel rooms, and really enjoyed being together again.  I'll post again soon, just wanted to share one of my favorite pictures from the wedding.  


-Suzanne :O )
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Thursday, July 8, 2010

Baptisms, Christenings & Communions Galore!

Hi everyone!  I've been meaning to post these religious cards for a while, but I wanted to wait until they were all completed so I could just do one post. :)  I went to a stamp show back in April, and on my way out, I stumbled upon the Woodware USA booth.  I usually do one lap around at a show to see what everyone's got in general, and then on my second lap around, that's when I zero in and focus on what I really want to buy.  Well, at this particular show, I hadn't really noticed what Woodware was selling (maybe the name threw me off?), so I was actually just about on my way out (they were one of the last booths on my route) when I took a closer look and realized there weren't selling anything to do with wood- they were selling clear stamps!  I did a little "hooray!" after I scolded myself for being too hasty on my first round (heh heh) and took a closer look at their stamps.  They had tons of adorable sets, and I think they were offering a deal, like buy 3 sets, get $10 off or something, so of course I ended up with 6 sets!  The one that really caught my eye was the religious set, because I don't have anything like it.  I really appreciate that you can mix and match the outside sentiments, and that the inside sentiment is so appropriate for any religious occasion.  Here's what the set looks like:



Plus, I'm always relying on images to carry my cards, which are perfect for these special occasions! I have to mention that after I got done shopping at the stamp show, I showed my boyfriend this set, and he rolled his eyes and said "when are you ever going to use those??"  Naturally, a couple of weeks later, my friend commissioned me to make not one, but TWO communion cards (one for her to give, and one for her parents to give).  Yeah, Chris didn't have too much to say after I told him THAT.  Haha!  Anyway, here are those two cards:


On the first card, I used a pre-embossed (with a damask design) DCWV card, but I'm not sure you can see the embossing in this picture.  I stamped the chalice and sentiment on white cardstock, and matted it with gold vellum.  Pretty simple, but bold, I think! :)  The next card has more of the gold vellum, some K&Co swirly beige paper, and a bit of purple ribbon and metallic cardstock.  The cross was colored with some iridescent glitter.  I wanted to use a slightly different outside sentiment this time since both cards were going to the same girl.  :)  

A couple of weeks ago, my same friend asked me to make a baptism card.  So I pulled out my trusty stamp set, and used the baptismal font image for the main focus.  Again, I used more gold vellum, and added a bit of white ribbon.  I like to keep the rest of my religious cards pretty simple. :)  The sentiment was stamped to the right to balance the card. 



Finally, my parents and I were invited to a baptism the weekend before last, so I had to make a couple more baptism cards.  This time, I went all out on the one I made for my mom because she asked me to make a money holder.  

Of courrrrrrse I used more gold vellum paper, but I also wanted to use this gold polka dot ribbon that I had rescued from a note pad's packaging.  I wanted to add white flowers; I didn't have much of a selection, and I only had 6 of these little guys, but I figured I might as well find a way to use up all 6 on this card.  To the centers, I added these little gold pearls by Michaels' Recollections line.  I stamped the cross in gold ink.  I decorated the inside of the card with more of the same supplies, and my mom tucked the money inside the little pocket (I just cut some cardstock to size, glued the ends underneath the card front, and rounded the corner).


The card I made for me to give was pretty simple:



No gold vellum this time!  lol  You can see this card is very similar to the others, but I just wanted to show you all how much use I've gotten out of the stamp set Chris thought I would never use!  ;)  Hope you enjoy my cards, and thanks for listening to me ramble on and on!

-Suzanne :O )


Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Wrinkles



Hi again!  I made this card for my parents' friend who turned 65 last week.  When I reorganized my room, I came across this small-to-me card (it's a "regular" sized card though, 4 1/4" x 5 1/2") that I wanted to use up.  I pretty much only use 5" x 6 1/2" cards, so working with this small space felt like a challenge to me.  I started off with some kraft paper, and this vibrant Making Memories patterned paper.  I tend to feel weird not putting images on my cards, but since this paper was so bold, I figured just framing a quote would be enough.  The sentiment is by Fiskars, and seemed to fit the celebration well (I hope it didn't offend her though! lol!).  I stamped it in some Aquamarine chalk ink, and used my Nestabilities to frame and mat it.  I added a bit of sheer yellow ribbon, some teeny tiny flowers, and a Making Memories brad.  The ruffle treatment is sheer gold vellum paper, punched with a Martha Stewart border, and I played with the scalloped end to get it to raise up a bit.  


I don't think I could continue to make cards without images, but I do like how this one came out- the paper is so pretty and summery, and does most of the "work" on this card.  Hope you like it too, and are keeping cool- it's a whopping 100+ degrees in New York!!!


-Suzanne :O )  
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Monday, July 5, 2010

Winter Wishes



Hi friends! I just wanted to pop in to play along with Taylor's sketch this week. I used it for inspiration when making a pack of Christmas cards for my shop. Here's the sketch:



I rotated it so I could use these adorable Stampendous critters as my main image- aren't they cute?!  I love this set because each part of the body of separate, so you can mix and match outfits!  

I colored these little guys with my watercolor pencils, matted them with red cardstock, and layered the piece on DCWV patterned papers.  I added a little Stampin' Up! punched tab to house the sentiment.  This was a really fun layout, and aside from all the coloring (I made 8 of these cards) it came together pretty quickly.  I hope you enjoy, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

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Sunday, July 4, 2010

Fourth of July, 2010

Hi everyone!  I've been busy working on Fourth of July cards, along with some craft fairs and my new etsy shop.  That all means less time to spend blogging, but here are the cards I made for today.. enjoy!


Have a great holiday!


-Suzanne :O )

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Happy Graduation!


Hi everyone!  This is the card I made for my boyfriend's sister's college graduation.  The school's colors are white and hunter green so I went to town on the stamped piece by coloring darkly on the bottom and lightly on the top- fun, huh? I'm not really artistically talented, but this was surprisingly easy enough to do.  :)  The stamp is Rubber Stampede, by the way.  The graduation hat had been sitting in my "junk" drawer for ages- it came in a swap and I just hadn't had an occasion to use it for, so I'm glad I remembered I had it! The black polka dot paper is K&Co and the white paper I made myself with a Studio G stamp.  The ribbon came from Michaels, and the green DCWV cardstock was cut out with a Nestability.  


I know I haven't been posting much, but I've been making these gift card holders a lot lately- they're SO easy to do, and come out really cute!  I forgot to take a picture of the inside of this one, but I cased the idea off of Laurie Schmidlin and you can check out her tutorial here:  http://justgivemestamps.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/04/gift-card-holder-a-tutorial.html  




I used scraps from the card and another Studio G stamp.  It's just big enough to hold the gift card, but you can check out the proportions in this picture (my cards are almost always 5x6 1/2):






Here's a picture of Chris and me with Brittany:




Hope you all like my little gift set- it was a ton of fun to make, and Brittany really liked it (she's an art major- I have a feeling it wouldn't be too hard to get her hooked on card making!)  ;)  It's been super crazy busy at work, so hopefully soon I can catch my breath and have more crafting time.  I'm thinking about doing another craft fair IN A WEEK!  Yikes! I'll keep you posted!  

-Suzanne :O )


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Thursday, June 3, 2010

Happy "Bee" Day!


Hi friends!  Just wanted to share a super fun set of birthday cards I made for some of the special girls in my life!  I made 4 of these cards, but I gave one away before I remembered I wanted to take a picture of the set!  I started off with this week's Taylored Expressions sketch, and got to work with lots of yummy papers from the Flower Shower Spring Stack by DCWV.  I have to say that this is probably the first DCWV stack that I absolutely LOVE- the colors are right up my alley.  Anyway, I used a stamp by Stampendous, some yellow American Crafts cardstock, and ribbon/staples from my stash.  The brads are Target, and the bee is embellished with Doodlebug sugar coating and/or flocking.  I had a tough time with the flocking because I wanted to do yellow AND black flocking, but I did the yellow first, and then the black flocking was sticking to the yellow, so then I switched to black glitter, but that didn't work too much better.  Next time I'll have to remember to do the darker color first- oops!  The bee guy also has some Prisma glitter to jazz up his wings ;)  These cards were a ton of fun to make- I really miss mass producing.  I just went through all of my patterned papers and pulled out the older stuff so I can work on using it up!  No more buying paper just because it's on clearance- I only buy the stuff I absolutely LOVE now! :)  Hope you're all having a cool week- it's been pretty humid here in NY- man, I can't wait for fall to arrive!!!

-Suzanne :O )          

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