Doodlebug Cherries

Hi friends!  Just popping in real quick to share a set of cards I made for my Etsy shop!  I really like how these cuties turned out!  The inspiration came to me when I was straightening out some of the embellishments in my stash yesterday, and I came across these cherry brads from Doodlebug.  This morning, I saw the Clean and Simple sketch, and the cherry brads popped right back into my brain and I knew I had to make a set of cards based off the sketch:

I went through my 6x6 pads and pulled out some papers from different Lime Twist collections by My Mind's Eye.  I combined some sentiments from Paper Smooches stamps and die-cut the banner with a Clear and Simple Stamps die.  I think the pink cardstock is from Michaels but the brown is Dark Chocolate from Papertrey Ink.

That about sums up this set... it's still available for sale if you're interested!  :)  Hope you enjoy it, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Fall Thank You Notes

Hi friends!  Just wanted to do another catch-up day with some thank you notes I made for my birthday, back in September.  I used lots of scraps here and the Do Me a Favor stamp set from Papertrey Ink.  I'm not sure what I was thinking on the yellow card, but the others make me happy.  I hope you enjoy, thanks so much for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Boxed Cards

Good morning, friends!  I mentioned yesterday that my co-workers and I exchange small gifts with each other for Christmas.  I work with so many delightful people, and they all help me do my job in different ways, so I like to give them something from the heart as a way to show my appreciation.  I made 18 sets of cards this year and packaged them in clear boxes so they could see right away what was inside.  I get my boxes from Denami Designs whenever I go to scrapbook shows.  (The cards are 4" x 5.5".)

I used lots of stamps from Paper Smooches and on the sympathy card, a two-step flower from Basic Grey and a sentiment from Impression Obsession.  That card and the birthday card use papers from DCWV and the other two cards feature patterned papers from My Mind's Eye.  All of the cardstock is Papertrey Ink.

I kept the cards simple (because I was in a time-crunch, of course); the only notable technique is the one I used on the birthday card- I stamped the butterflies in a dark ink and then flipped the stamp over and used a lighter ink to color the images.

I tried to keep the colors limited to blues, greens and yellows to give the set a somewhat cohesive look and I'm pretty happy with the results, considering I made 72 cards in two days!  My co-workers really loved the cards, too, and I think they enjoy getting something practical to use!  :)

I hope you enjoy my card sets too, and have a great Saturday!  Thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Christmas Thank You Notes

Happy Friday, friends!  I'm back tonight to share the thank you notes I made for all of my co-workers.  I get a lot of small gifts that most people probably wouldn't send thank you notes for, but I *love* having an excuse to make lots of cards!  I usually try to attack my Christmas scrap pile each year when it comes time to make my thank you notes, and this year was no different.  I even had some old DCWV cards to finish up, which you can see in the picture above.  Because they're so glittery, I decide to keep the design simple- just some strips of cardstock and die-cuts from K & Co popped up on foam tape.  You can see a close up here:

For the next twelve cards, I cut panels of white cardstock at 3.75" x 5.25".  Then I gathered all the strips of paper from my scrap pile and tried to group similar-looking papers.  I ran some glue around the edge of the cardstock piece and adhered all of the paper strips at a diagonal (for interest).  I rounded the corners to soften the look of all those stripes and kept my layout the same as the other 5 cards.  This set of cards below uses gift embellishments by Jolee's:

Here's a close up (and my favorite card- love the pink and purple!):

The last two sets of cards use rub-ons from my stash and a sticker ("my absolute favorite!") from K & Co.  The "thank you" sentiment is Clear and Simple Stamps.  I seem to use their stamp set (various thank you greetings) for this project every year!  Love it!

I really used up a good chunk of scraps this way, and I think it gives my cards a fun, colorful vibe.  Perhaps this will inspire you to attack your scrap piles, too!  :)  Thanks for stopping by, friends.  I'll be back tomorrow to share the gifts I gave to my co-workers... stay tuned!

-Suzanne :O )

Vintage Thank Yous

 

Hi there!  I hope you're having a nice weekend.  :)  I just wanted to pop in and share some cards I made a while back that I never got around to posting.  I remember that these cards were made for my aunt and uncle, but I can't remember what for.  Apparently I decided to go with a vintage theme, which is not my typical style.  I think these cards are soft and pretty, though!  :)


For the top card, I used patterned paper by K&Co and some old pages from a book.  I think the flowers came to me in a swap already layered, and I thought the cream color would look nice on a shabby card.  The stamp is Melissa Frances, stamped in chocolate ink.


The second card uses more (brown) paper by K&Co, and the blue paper was from Me & My Big Ideas. The argyle scrap is DCWV, and I think I cut the kraft cardstock out with my Nestabilities when they were new to me, that's how old this card is!  :)  The sentiment is Hero Arts and the brads are from Michaels- perfect for a masculine vintage card.


I have this thing about not deleting cards off my camera until they're safely posted on blogger.  Irrational as that may be, I can now clear these off my camera card!  :)


Hope you have a great Sunday, thanks for stopping by!
-Suzanne :O ) 

New Items in my Etsy Shop!

Hi there!  I posted some new card packs in my Etsy shop this weekend, so head on over and check them out for more details!  


The Card Garden

Hope you're having a great week!


-Suzanne :O )

Woodware Thank You Set

Hi everyone!  I'm taking a break from my craft fair projects to share the set of Christmas thank you cards I made for the Woodware sketch challenge.  I used up some lovely DCVW papers I had been hoarding and die cut some circles with my Nestabilities.  I combined the penguin from Snow Globe Magic and the sentiment from Wedding Words and colored the penguin with my Copics.  I made a set of 12 cards in probably less than an hour- love those quick but fruitful projects!  :)  Here's a close up of one of the cards:

Hope you enjoyed my project!  If you want to join the sketch challenge, link up through the Woodware UK blog here:


Woodware UK


Thanks for stopping by!
-Suzanne :O )

Thank You/Sticker Resist

Hi friends!  This week's Woodware challenge is to use a new (to you) technique.  I thought it would be fun to use some of my peel off stickers for a resist technique.  It's not often that I get my hands messy, but for this card I did and I love the results!  This card was SO easy to make since it was only one layer.  First, I laid the sticker down where I wanted it and made sure each detail was stuck down.  Then I pulled out my Colorbox inks and gently swirled them around in rainbow order, blending colors as I went along.  To my surprise, I found this rainbow ric rac in my stash, and the colors aligned almost perfectly with my card, so I stuck that down on top and stamped the sentiment from Wedding Words.  To complete my card, I pulled off the sticker and voila!  A perfectly white chain of daisies!  :D


I hope that you'll have a chance to play with us this week- I always love learning about new techniques, even if I don't have time to try them!  :)


Woodware USA Challenge #40


Thanks for stopping by!
-Suzanne :O )

You are too kind

Hi everyone!  I hope you're all having a great weekend!  The weather has been sunny and mid-80's- just really summery the past couple of days!  Yesterday I chaperoned a class trip for the freshmen and sophomores to Six Flags Great Adventure and we had a really fun time!  It was so nice to walk around the park, go on a couple of (water) rides, hang out with the other chaperones and eat lots of junk food!  :)  Today starts the first day I'm cat-sitting for my friend (I brought Napoleon back to my house) and he has been such a hoot!  He's a very entertaining little guy, so I'm sure I'll enjoy having him here this week.  Needless to say it's been a busy weekend, but I wanted to share this card with you before my family and I take my dad out for Father's Day dinner!  


Clear and Simple Stamps is hosting a challenge this month based on this collage:

I was inspired by the color combination in the bottom middle photo, so I pulled out various inks and my C&SS "Best Bunnies" set and got down to stamping.  I used the sketch from last week's Clean and Simple blog:

I used my Fiskars border punch, some red and kraft cardstock and a few gems to finish off my card.  There's a white border around the kraft, but it's hard to tell in the photo.  This card was so much fun to make- I don't usually stamp my own patterned paper, but I love the clean and bold look of this card.  I hope you do too, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Thank you "micey" much

Happy Monday, friends!  Time for another Woodware challenge, this time it's "anything goes," so feel free to enter any card you like!  I just bought a Grand Calibur and some Grand Nestabilities, so I was itching to try my hand at making a shaped card.  I used the biggest size from both the grand scalloped and grand ovals sets to cut out off-white and pink cardstock.  I ran the pink cardstock through my Cuttlebug for some texture.  To create the little sentiment tab, I die-cut two Labels 4 shapes and cut off just enough to tuck under that juicy lemon gingham ribbon from Hobby Lobby.  To finish off my card, I stamped, cut out and colored my mouse friend and popped him up with some extra thick foam tape.  I haven't tried to put this card in an envelope yet, but I hope it fits!  The Grand Nestabilities make it so easy to create shaped cards, but I did find that the layout was a bit of a challenge for me- I'm used to rectangular cards.  I hope you enjoy my card and hope you'll take some time to enter yours:

Woodware USA challenge #22

Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a great day!

-Suzanne :O )

Thank you from the bottom of my glittery heart

Hi there!  Another oldie to share with you today!  This one features polka dot paper by DCWV, floral paper and (both) brown papers by K&Co and a stamped image from Stampin' Up! that had been sitting in my my miscellaneous drawer waiting to be used.  I added some ribbon by American Crafts and a glittery chipboard heart by K&Co.  This layout came about after a lot of playing around, and I like the different levels of interest.  There's a lot for your eye to look at.  My only regret is that I wish I had fixed the ribbon before I took a picture, but I always have to remind myself that handmade means not perfect!  :)  Hope you like my pre-Nestabilities card!  ;)  Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Floral thanks

Hi friends!  The fabulous and talented Rae Barthel sent me a TON of SRM stickers when I won her blog candy, so I dove right in and used one of the stickers to make her thank you card.  The piece of glittery floral paper is actually a scrap I cut out from some packaging (it was a pack of double sided stickers and little tubes of glitter.. the packaging showed you how the flowers could look).  It was so pretty that I had to cut out a salvageable piece and then it was sitting on my desk forever.  Apparently I had planned to use it once before but didn't because I had that blue die-cut sitting right with it.  :)  I wanted to use green cardstock to pick up the green in the flowers, and that's not a color I use very often, so it just felt right.  lol  I embossed it to make it less boring, and added a bit of yellow cardstock behind the teal scalloped square so it wouldn't blend into the green cardstock.  I added the sentiment sticker to a scrap of pink cardstock and cut it into the flag shape.  I used orange, dark pink and light pink floss to wrap around the card and tied the strings into a bow.  A matching yellow button was added to the center.  I hope you can tell that I left a bit of a white border around the perimeter of the card, but it might be hard to see with the white background of my lightbox.   Anyway, I hope you enjoy my colorful card and hope it inspires you to save packaging for your cards!


-Suzanne :O )

Simple thank you

Hi friends!  Just a quick post today.  My uncle (an accountant) does my family's taxes every year, so my mom asked me to make this thank you card for him.  I tried to keep the card simple and masculine, so I used this deep turquoise (I guess it didn't photograph as turquoise, this looks blue to me!) card base I had in my stash.  I embossed some cream cardstock and added a scrap of K&Co patterned paper behind the sentiment embellishment.  I matted cream cardstock with a similar toned scrap of deep turquoise cardstock and stamped the Fiskars sentiment with brown chalk ink.  It was a pretty quick card to assemble.  I like how simple it was, but I think the touches like the embossing and die-cut shapes make the card feel thoughtful.  I hope you enjoy it, thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

TCP Tuesday 145

Good morning, friends!  I believe the is the first post of a card shot in my lightbox!  I sure was frustrated the other day, but I realized that there is no perfect picture, so I still have to edit the photos on my computer.  I don't have to use my flash anymore though, and I really like having the clean white background.  I'm feeling much better about my lightbox now.  :)


For this card, I used this week's sweet sunday sketch:

The challenge for TCP this week was to get inspiration from the following photos:

Of course the color combo was the first thing to grab my attention, but I was also diggin' the stacked buttons. To start off, I grabbed some kraft cardstock and used my brand spankin-new Stampendous Jumbo Cling rubber stamp set that I just won on their blog, and inked it up with some turquoise ink by Autumn Leaves.  LOVE how easy it was to get such a big design element on my card.  :)  The delicious brown glittery paper is DCWV (At Home collection) and the turquoise cardstock was a scrap that I embossed with polka dots.  I stamped Miss Sprinkles on an oval stamp to create the ice, then colored her with my copics.  I added a little Martha Stewart glitter to jazz up her outfit. ;)  The buttons were my favorite part- I took out some turquoise buttons by Denami Design and some browns from my stash, and layered them up with some twine.  I think they look so yummy that way! :D  To finish off my card, I took the "thanks." part of the "Give thanks." sentiment on the Gobble it Up set and matted it with more turquoise cardstock.  

I'm sending this card to a co-worker of my mom's who is a Stampin' Up! demo.  I rarely ever buy their stamps because they're so darn expensive (and hello, when are they going to make CLEAR stamps?!), but Cathie always runs this amazing super bowl special, so I got 2 free sets, one set at 50% off, and another at 31% off (that was the score for the Packers).  I really got some great deals, so I thought I'd make a cute little thank you card to show her my appreciation.  

I hope you all have a great Thursday!  Thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

thanks

Hi everyone!  I'm sure many of you already know Kim Hughes' work- she's been published like crazy and was an illustrator for Cornish Heritage Farms.  I've always loved her drawings, but since I don't usually order online and the CHF stamps were rubber, I never bought any.  Kim just announced that she's starting her own stamp company, Paper Smooches (cute name, huh?!), so because the stamps are clear this time, I jumped right in!  She's releasing 3 new stamp sets a month, and they're just so darned cute I had to scoop them all up:

I also signed up for her 12 month subscription, where you get a 10% discount, the 3 stamp sets mailed out to you a little earlier than the release, and free card templates.  I figured since I love her work so much, I might as well save 10%! :)  Anyway, she also has some free digital images, so I made a cute little card for this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch:

I flipped the sketch and used only scraps for this card.  I ran the cardstock pieces through my Cuttlebug, and used pink patterned paper by DCWV and green patterned paper by K&Co.  The bird is colored with my Copics and I finished off the card with some Making Memories twine.  I'm really loving the twine trend right now, but I don't have much.  I've been eyeing twine by The Twinery for some time now... I might have to break down and order some.  Anyway, I hope you like my card, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )    

Sparkly Butterfly

Hi friends!  Here's a card I made for the CARDS challenge to use butterflies.  I've had this sparkly chipboard piece in my miscellaneous drawer for a while, so now was as good a time to use it as ever! :)  I used a script background stamp by Glitz and some magenta ink to create the oval behind the butterfly.  I ran a piece of blue cardstock through my Cuttlebug, added some patterned paper by K&Co and stamped the Clear and Simple Stamps sentiment to finish up the card.  I'm trying really hard to clean out that drawer, and it's paying off!  I think this card is different than my typical style, but I really like how it turned out, especially that script background! :)  Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Picture Parade: Christmas thank yous

Good morning, friends!  I stayed home from work yesterday with my yucky cold, but I'm feeling a bit better now.  Fortunately for me, today school is closed because of the 3-4 inches of snow we're supposed to get!  I didn't feel sick enough to stay home again, but I'm SO glad I get to stay in my pjs and rest a little more today.  :)

Today I have my Christmas thank you cards to share.  I'm making it a tradition for myself to only use scraps on my thank you cards, and it's a pretty good way to keep my scrap pile down.  I used lots of random embellishments from my stash that I wanted to use up, and a stamp set from Clear and Simple Stamps that was a life saver!  I got it for free at a show because I spent a ton of money at their booth, so I'm not sure you can buy it, but I'm really happy I have it.  It's all different sizes, fonts, and ways to say "thank you".  I LOVE this set, especially when I'm working on a project like this- it was so easy to pick the right sentiment from this one stamp set rather than going through all of my stamps to get a sentiment that matched the card style and the physical space I needed to fill on the card.  Okay, enough rambling, on to the cards!  Thanks for stopping by today, hope you all stay cozy and warm!  I'm off to start working on Valentine's Day cards...

-Suzanne :O )