Look Who's Turning 1!

Hi friends!  Remember the 100 baby shower invitations I made last year?  Well Gracie is turning 1 on Wednesday, so they had her birthday party yesterday.  It's amazing how fast time passes by!  I wanted to make a special card for her, so I started off by using the Taylored Expressions sketch as my base:

I went through all of my cardstock to see what kind of color combo to go with... I didn't want to do pink, because that's so in-your-face-girlie, and she's not a baby anymore, anyway, she's a mature 1, thank you very much! lol  I've always liked yellow and purple together, and when I saw the deep aqua green, I thought that would be a nice contrasting color, along with the lighter aqua green.  The yellow polka dot paper is Creative Memories, but I'm not sure who made all the cardstocks, as my friend picked up a huge stack of it for me at a yard sale (she's a GOOD friend! hehe).   I wanted to use my never-before-inked Crafty Secrets clear stamp set, and I really went to town with it.  I'm not usually one for making my own patterned paper, but when I got the pieces cut down, it seemed like the light aqua paper needed a little jazzing up, so I thought I'd do some subtle tone-on-tone stamping with ColorBox chalk ink.  I think it looks festive, but not too distracting. ;)   The girl and the balloon are two separate stamps, and when I realized they wouldn't both fit inside the circle, I thought it looked better anyway, and decided to paper piecing the balloon.  I think this girl is adorable, by the way!  I've been trying to focus more on my coloring lately, but I know I still have a long way to go.  I tried to make her look like Gracie with the dark hair. :)  For the finishing touches, I layered some circles to make the "1" stand out, and added a bit of yellow Offray ribbon to repeat my color combo.  I realize my final card doesn't match the TE sketch exactly, but I'm really pleased with how the card turned out.  When Jenn and Gracie opened her presents, Jenn yelled over to  me "I have one guess who made the card!!!" so I'm sure she appreciated my handmade efforts. ;)  We had fun at the party- lots of little ones running around, kind of makes me want to be a mom, but not juuuuust yet.  :) :) :)  Hope you're all having a great weekend- the weather here is turning cooler, can't WAIT for fall to get here!! :D


-Suzanne :O ) 

TREE-mendous

  Hi everyone!  I fiiiiinally inked up my Starving Artistamps stamps last month.  I've had them since, I dunno, APRIL!? and I've been itching to use them, so I finally pulled them out to use for my dad's birthday.  I think we can all agree that masculine cards are tough, but my dad is into nature, so I thought this pun would work well for him.  I paper pieced each of the trees with scraps of green patterned papers and cut them out.  Some shapes are really tough and time consuming to cut out, but these were a breeze- I'll probably always paper piece these guys in the future! :)  I cut out/embossed some cardstock with my Nestabilities and stamped the sentiment (I know, it's crooked.  Darn those non-clear stamps! lol) below the trees.  I added a bit of DCWV patterned paper to some kraft cardstock and  finished the card off with some brads by Recollections.  My dad got a laugh out of it, and I hope you will too!  Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )


PS-  I have another Starving Artistamps card to share soon!

Halloween Thanks

Hi friends!  Just a quick post this lovely Sunday afternoon.  I participated in a Halloween tags swap and wanted to make a thank you card for the hostess.  My co-worker gave me a pack of bright and bold cards that she picked up a yard sale, so I grabbed this orange card for my base.  I used another 3x3 piece from a swap, but altered it a little bit.  Originally, it was just the 2 pieces of green paper, the green flower, a green brad, and the thank you sentiment.  I wanted it to be more Halloween-y, so I switched the green brad for a black one, added the orange and purple flowers, and outlined the first patterned paper with a black Sharpie marker.  To finish off the card, I added the bits of black polka dot ribbon.  This was kind of a simple card for me, as I usually use patterned paper on my card bases, but I really like how this turned out.  Thanks for stopping by! :D


-Suzanne :O )

How much love

Hi everyone... just a quick post today so I can participate in the ISC sketch challenge.  A while back I had participated in a 3x3 thank you swap; the yellow piece is from that swap.  I matted the piece with white cardstock, layered that onto some patterned paper and white and pink cardstock, and added a bit of blue scalloped printer paper and some pink polka dot ribbon.  This color scheme was a bit of a challenge for me, but I wanted to tie the yellow and purple together and found this patterned paper in my scrap stash, so I just went with it.  I hope you like it, thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Custom-Made Address Labels!

Hi friends!  I've been away longer than I realized, but I wanted to share a fun project I did recently, that I felt I should make a "tutorial" for, even though it's pretty self-explanatory and totally unnecessary to "spell out" with pictures! :D  I ran out of address labels, so I thought I'd make my own.  I used some cutie pie stamps by Woodware USA and blank Avery labels.  You can see my process in the photos below:

Step 1:  Stamp adorable envelopes to left-hand side of labels.  Forget to pre-print your address.

Step 2:  Finish stamping envelopes on all 30 labels.

Step 3.  Gather a rainbow of markers.

Step 4:  Color each heart on the envelope in rainbow order, starting with pink.

Step 5:  Realize that you forgot to pre-print the address and painstakingly hand write each one.  

Step 6:  Enjoy your new, custom-made address labels, and make each card recipient green with envy of your craftabilities!

I showed these to Chris, and of course he wanted his own set of labels.  He chose a Hero Arts mouse (who's wearing a shirt with plaid shorts, thank you very much.)  This time I remembered to print his address first, and it went SO much faster! LOL  Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoyed my silly step-by-step tutorial!

-Suzanne :O )

Best Wishes

Hi there!  My friend asked me to make a card for her sister's wedding, so I started off with some aqua-ish KI Memories paper that matched the color of the bridesmaid dresses.  I pulled out some Making Memories Black Tie paper to add a bit of elegance. :)  I layered some black paper and used my Nestabilities to make the focal piece (I don't remember which company made it!) stand out.  I stamped a Melissa Frances sentiment and add some pearls by Michaels' Recollections line.  I think pearls and patterned paper really "fancied up" this card- I really like how it turned out! Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Martha Stewart/Cosmo Cricket Wedding Cards

Hi everyone!  I've been diving in head first to all of the ISC challenges, especially to help me make more craft fair items!  Michele posted a sketch for this challenge, and I knew I was going to use it for a set of wedding cards.  At my last show, a lady wanted a wedding card literally MINUTES after I had just sold the last pack to a friend of mine.  Go figure, right?!  I could have made my friend a wedding card any old time, but that's life, I guess! lol  Anyway, I told that lady I would be back doing the same show in August, and she said "good, make some variety packs!  I always need cards!"  I don't know if she'll actually come back in August, but she made me laugh, and I figured she was right.  I've been thinking about making a variety pack of all occasion cards since I started doing craft fairs, but I've never actually made an ALL occasion pack.  So anyway, that was my long-winded way of explaining why I just made 8 wedding cards!  :)

I knew I wanted to use up my Cosmo Cricket Everafter paper, because frankly, I don't love it.  It came in a double pack with the Girl Friday collection, which I DO love.  I tried to pick out the nicest papers for these cards.  If you're not familiar with the collection, it comes with a couple of like, burnt orange papers... not my first choice for WEDDING cards, but whatev. ;)  Anyway, I went to town with the patterned papers, and paired some lovely little Martha Stewart embellishments to finish off the cards.  My coworker gave me a pack of 20 of the wedding cake stickers, and 2 packs of the wedding seals (40 seals total) so I wanted to put a dent in both of those, as well.  I also added a bit of grayish-bluish ribbon (which I got for 99 cents at Joann's, and I kid you not, it's a giant spool of 100 YARDS.  Wooo!)  

Tomorrow I'm off to CKC Valley Forge to shop shop shop!  Hopefully I'm come back with some fun card making goodies, but won't put TOO much stress on my credit card!  hehe!  Okay, enough rambling for one evening.  Hope you all have a great weekend!

-Suzanne :O )