Feel Better

Right off I should let you know I wasn't going to use this card. I had something different in mind when I started (don't I always?) and this happened.  And I liked it.  But then that thing happened where I stopped liking it as much.  So I was gonna make another one.  But I still had another birthday card to get done that absolutely had to go out.  So I put off the second get well card for a bit.  I finally finished the birthday card and then...it happened.  I started to get sick.  No worries, it's just allergies.  But it hit so hard and so fast that I couldn't breathe, think or stop sneezing & blowing my nose. It was bad. Shawn was convinced it was the swine flu. It's going around, maybe you've heard.  *sigh*  Yeah, well, I only sneeze with allergies.  So I gave up trying to make another card, took some okay photos of the ones I finished, got them ready to mail, went to bed and here we are.  This card is for my step mom, who had some crazy reverse bionic woman like surgery.  Not kidding. She had a battery pack removed from her back cuz it wasn't working right.  So now we just wind her up with the giant key in her back...ba dum bum.  Thank you, I'll be here all week.  Yes, sadly that is the kind of sick humor our family uses. But no seriously, there was a battery pack that was doing nothing for her chronic pain, so they removed it.  It's not fun (when is surgery fun, tho?) and I hope she makes a full recovery soon.  So we sent off this card and some pictures of the girls to make her feel better.  Tia actually made her own card and mailed it, but I forgot to take a picture of it while in my allergy induced stupor.  Sorry.

Stamps: Fancy Flourishes & Tea for Two (PTI), Ink: Pretty in Pink (SU!), Versafine Onyx Black, Paper: Pink Pirouette (SU!), Vintage Cream (PTI), Accessories: EK success punch, Darien's lovely signature on the inside =)

Trick or Treat!

I know what you're thinking. Purple again? Or, more Bella? Let me assure you, it's purely coincidence, on both points.  It's a funny story.  See, what happened was, I was stalling.  Gee, I guess it's not really all that funny after all.  I've got all these November birthdays coming up, the first one on Sunday, and I wasn't sure which direction to go for that first one.  And since I had this digital  image already printed out, I thought I'd get some coloring done to get me inspired.  Well, I was totally inspired...to make a Halloween card.  Unfortunately, that's not what I need to get done.  Oh well, I'm sure it'll come to me.  As far as the 'dreaded purple' is concerned, that was actually the last thing I colored.  I had already done all the black and didn't want the whole thing to be black, so I ended up with purple.  I couldn't get it out of my mind, what with all the Halloween decorations being purple & green lately.  When did that happen?  I swear Halloween was all about the orange & black when I was little, er, younger...ugh, not that long ago!

Stamps: Sentiment (Inkadinkado), Image: Mo's Digital Pencil, Ink: Smokey Shadow (PTI), Paper: white (PTI), Elegant Eggplant (SU!), Accessories: Copics

Yaayyyy Purple!

There it is. That color that's so hard for me to work with.  I love it, but struggle to use it.  Well, it happened today because that's what color dress Bella lucked out with.  You would laugh if you could watch me sit & agonize over which colors to use.  I just sit & stare at my Copic chart wondering which colors to use for my main images.  I stare at it like a color will become obvious & magically appear on the page yelling, "Use me! Use me!"  I think to myself, 'If I color her skin this color, will a yellow dress wash her out?  Don't use pink, you always use pink.  Would the blue be too dark?'  So, as you can see, the purple won this round.  Crazy, I know.  Also, I should mention that this is again, a digital image.  This is another of Mo's images, but this one is a freebie.  If you join her group at Paper Craft Planet or SNR Card Universe, you can download it for free. And as you can see, Bella is just tickled purple about it.

Stamps: Smells Like Cake (The Cat's Pajamas), Image: 500 (Mo's Digital Pencil), Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Lavender Moon (PTI), Paper: white & Plum Pudding (PTI), Accessories: Nestabilities, Lavender Moon satin ribbon (PTI), Uniball Signo white pen, Copics:

Thank You, Scarlet

So now I suppose you're thinking that, while making my Christmas cards, I got stuck on these colors.  Well, yeah, I do love them. But trust me when I say that this is probably the 5th (at least!) color combination I used trying to make this card.  I saw the Giga Guide Lines set by Papertrey and thought, "Ooh! I cannot wait to get my hands on those stamps!"  And then I actually got my hands on them and couldn't get anything to come out how I wanted.  I knew I would love them in Scarlet Jewel, so I tried that with kraft and on my second try with those colors, I got this.  The first card is similar, but...off.  So I did some tinkering.  Phew. And the picture is not the best, cuz it took me so long to get the card right I had to take the picture at night.  Boy, the things I do so you people have something new to look at!  Really, one day (are ya tired of hearing this yet?) I'm going to figure out how to take better pictures of my cards. Maybe I can get my brother to come by & help me some time, since he's the expert {Kaleb, are you out there?}.

Stamps: Giga Guide Lines & Background Basics: Text Style (PTI), Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Scarlet Jewel (PTI), Paper: kraft & Scarlet Jewel (PTI)

Christmas Boxes

Boxes. I love making boxes.  They're fun and easy and people love getting them.  Especially when you fill them with chocolate.  The last 2 years, I've done the tins (here and here) at Christmas, because I love those too.  They just make a great presentation. The wrapped chocolates (again, who doesn't love that?) and some cute way to cover the tin itself...just fun!  But this year, I'm going to do something different.  Once I saw the Tucked Away template from Lauren Meader, I knew I had to have it.  But after I made a couple of them, I decided to use those instead of tins for Christmas.  Now, I feel I have to say that this is what I say now.  But I estimated that I'll be making roughly 20-25 of them, so we'll see how well I'm doing once I've cut out, umm, say 11 of them.  It's really not that bad, so I don't think I'll have a problem. But I do have some leftover tins, just in case.  I just made 8 of the bigger version of the box for a teacher at school.  I gave her one for her birthday and she liked it so much, she asked me to make her some for her Christmas table at church.  So of course, I said sure!

Since they are for church, I made them totally traditional (well, for me anyway).  None of my funky personal touches. Most of the time, I make stuff specifically to go with who it's for.  Well, I try.  So she's already got them and she was really happy with them (phew! don't want my kid flunkin' 5th grade. hahaha).  And I was just glad I could do it for her.  This is one of those things she stresses about every year (don't we all have at least one million of those?) and was so thrilled to find a solution.  I did 2 of each design, cuz I had to save some ideas for my own boxes.  Yeah, not really. What you see is what you're most likely gettin', people.

So that's one more Christmas project down and one more to go.  I gotta get started on my own boxes and figure out how to use this patterned paper and make it work with kraft, since that's what all my finished Christmas cards have. Emphasis on the finished (yay me!).

Stamps: Ornamental Christmas (Verve), Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Ripe Avocado (SU!), Antique Linen distress (Ranger), Paper: Garden Green, Old Olive, Merry Moments DSP (SU!), white, Pure Poppy & Vintage Cream (PTI), Accessories: Tucked Away template, Ripe Avocado, Vintage Cream & Pure Poppy ribbons (PTI), oval & scalloped punches, Wild Wasabi ribbon (SU!), eyelets

Kraft Christmas Card Collection

Ok, here we are.  The finished products. I finished all 50ish cards and they're all the same, but different.  Got that?  Lemme explain. You know how for the last couple of years, I've made about the same amount of Christmas cards, but there were different looks.  Last year, I did this and this.  And then there were some color variations, but it was a year ago, so I don't remember what exactly.  So this year, I went with one look.  But of course I wasn't gonna do them all the same.  That would be crazy talk!  So, using the same stamp set, I switched it up a little. Very little. But enough to make it not quite so boorrrring.

The first one is probably the most like the one you saw as my rough draft.  It uses the bigger set of stockings and has the green cardstock.  Of course, in the rough draft, I didn't realize I had Ripe Avocado paper, so that one used Always Artichoke.  Hmm, maybe I should check my supplies once & a while.  So this one has the stockings stamped on kraft instead of Vintage Cream cardstock, my pretty, pretty swirl (get used to looking at these!) and the sentiment stamped in Ripe Avocado ink instead of black.  I also edged the kraft with Fresh Snow ink.

For this card, the smaller stockings are stamped on Vintage Cream.  I sponged the edges with Antique Linen distress ink and then mounted the image onto Enchanted Evening cardstock. Love this look.  I also used Enchanted Evening ink for the sentiment.  This time the swirls were done in Vintage Cream ink for a bit of a softer look.

And for the last look, it's back to the kraft paper.  I mounted it on Scarlet Jewel cardstock, and I think this look is my favorite of the bunch.  I love how the Scarlet Jewel looks with kraft paper.  The little swirl in the stocking matches the swirl in the background.  Aaahhh. Just came together so nicely. So, if you get a Christmas card from me, all the mystery you have this year is big stockings or little stockings? Kraft or Cream?  Golly gee. You're probably on the edge of your seats with anticipation!

Oh, and a little aside note for my mom & anyone else who thinks my font has gone crazy. I noticed that the normal font (this is normal size!) with my new page is tiny. So I tried the large size (just one size bigger) with this post.  If it's too big, like it's yelling at you, let me know & I'll put it back. Or you can adjust the size yourself by hitting ctrl and then moving the wheel on your mouse until you get somewhere you like.  If you do that and your computer explodes, um, my bad. But it seems to work for me.  Have a great day!

Stamps: Stocking Prints & Fancy Flourishes (PTI), Ink: Bashful Blue (SU!), Antique Linen (Ranger), Fresh Snow, Vintage Cream, Enchanted Evening, Scarlet Jewel, Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado & Smokey Shadow (PTI), Paper: Kraft, Vintage Cream, Enchanted Evening, Ripe Avocado & Scarlet Jewel (all PTI)

For the Love Birds

Simple + Classic colors + Elegant swirls = A happy, happy me!  I was asked once again to make a card for someone for their anniversary and luckily I was in a high mojo moment.  I agreed right away and when I started the card, I took out my anniversary sets and came up with this.  I think it's very sweet and love how it came out. 

I also think it was very lucky that I could focus on anything else besides what I was working on.  I was in the midst of finishing up my Christmas cards when I was asked. Yup, I'm done! Crazy, right?  Took me a little over a week from concept to finishing around 50 cards.  Last year, I think it took me about 2 months to get it all done.  There really is something to be said for simple.  So now I'm just finishing up getting the Christmas cards together, photographing them and you'll get to see them soon.

Oh, and for those concerned...Tia has made a full recovery.  She came to me yesterday when she woke up and told me, "I feel all the way better. Nothing hurts."  Aaaah.  Music to my ears!

Stamps: Anniversary Birds & Hearts on Fire (Verve), Damask Designs (PTI), Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Paper: black & white (PTI), Accessories: R29 copic (had to sneak 1 in there!)

Rough Draft

Ok, first things first. I know, where the heck have I been?  Well, I've had this "rough draft" of my Christmas cards done for a while, but all 3 girls got the flu at the same time and it has been just madness around here.  Darien is the only one who's been to school all week.  Well, Krista did give it the ol' college try on Tuesday, only to realize her mistake around 2nd period, when she called me from the office to come & pick her up.  She is improving, she just didn't allow for that recovery time.  Tiara is not doing as well.  She's way behind her sisters and I am just amazed at how long it's taking her to feel better.  I guess it's the standard amount of time for the flu, but in comparison to her sisters, it's an eternity. Poor baby.

Alrighty, on to the card.  I just want to warn you.  This is my first version, which I did last week some time.  I have maybe, 3 other "new & improved" versions of pretty much the same card that I'll have to show you when I get them put together and can get a good (well...good for me) picture.  But none of the other ones look just like this.  This is a one of a kind. Not really crazy about it. Once I took the time to think about how to make it better, and me happy, the card just kinda took off.  So I'll get those up as soon as they're ready.

Stamps: Stocking Prints (PTI), Ink: Ocean Tides, Enchanted Evening, Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado, Smokey Shadow & Scarlet Jewel (PTI), Versafine Onyx Black, Paper: Kraft & Vintage Cream (PTI), Always Artichoke (SU!), Accessories: Fiskars border punch

The Happy Couple

Sorry.  I've been sitting on this card for almost 2 weeks.  I've been crazy busy and haven't had the time to post anything.  And when I have had the time, I just couldn't think of anything to write.  So, no, I still don't have anything earth shattering to write about, but I'm putting up something new for you to look at.  I know how frustrating coming to a blog that you love can be (oh, how I flatter myself!) and there's the same picture you've been looking at for forever!  One of my favorite blogs sat untouched for, like, 4 months.  But I kept coming backing, hoping she'd make another masterpiece.  And she did.  Totally worth the wait.  And then you come to mine and you get this.  It's a wedding card (duh!) for Shawn's cousin.  She got married last month and this is my "Congratulations on your nuptials, sorry we had to miss it cuz of Shawn" card.  We got the invitation for this wedding months ago.  So all summer I would tell him to call his cousin and let her know that we weren't not RSVPing to be rude, but we weren't sure about the date.  I was just positive that Darien was going to have a volleyball tournament the day of the wedding, but we wouldn't know until school started.  Well, then right before school started (in the middle of tryouts, actually) she decided not to play this year.  So by the time we figured this out, the date to RSVP had passed.  And I still told him to call her and he never did.  Lesson learned: don't let Shawn be in charge of anything. Ever.  Oh, and the team did have a tournament out of town that weekend.  Fabulous.  And I just want to point out something on the card. It was really hard to get a good picture, but the background is embossed with flourishes, just to make it fancy.  Hopefully if you click on it, you can see the detail. Thanks for not giving up on me & stopping by! 

Stamps: Fairy Tales (Verve), Fancy Flourishes & Vintage Labels (PTI), Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Versamark, Paper: white & black (PTI), Accessories: Nestabilities, clear embossing powder & Mike's ribbon