Friday, May 30, 2008

Father's Day Card

Here's a Father's Day card I made for a friend to use. The images are from SU!'s Classic Convertibles set (retired), and were stamped for me in Night of Navy by a kind soul in one of my Yahoo! groups since I don't own the set myself. The print paper is from my stash (no company name on it), the card base is Night of Navy, and the layers are Ruby Red. There's a total of nine (9!) silver brads, an all-time record for me, I think. (I had to add the brads to fill the testosterone requirement -- you know, men and their metal stuff!)






My friend is going to do something special for the inside sentiment, but for now here is how the inside looks:




Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Lavendar Lace Day

These are cards made from cardstock cut for workshops back in 2001. Might as well use the stuff, right? Seems back then Lavendar Lace was my favorite color, so here's a slew of purple cards.



I used the set Carte Postale on this first card. The center layer is Lovely Lilac, as is the ink. The bird and the "Bonjour" are layered on metallic silver cardstock. I made two of these cards.






Here's a simple card using the sets Sidekick Sayings and Doodle That. (Doodle That is used on the inside and the envelope.) The background paper is, I think, from PSX. Gold eyelets are from SU! I used blender pens to add color to the central image. I have four of these cards.






Sassy Stems is the set featured on this next card, along with So Many Sayings. The flowers are colored with blender pen. "From me to you" is cut out using the Word Window punch. Three clear crystal gems highlight the center of the flowers. I ended up making two of these cards, even though the plan was for three.






This last card is the result of bad planning. I had trimmed my designer paper so that I'd have a rectangle left to use, but when I went to assemble this card, I realized I had used the rectangle to create accent strips on the inside of the cards! (Oops.) So, I dug around in a pile of papers I had sitting nearby and came up with this white fabric mesh stuff. The only other difference between this one and the card above is that I used violet gems of varying sizes in the flower centers. This card is a one-of-a-kind.





Sunday, May 25, 2008

A Bit of Sophisticaton

I've been cleaning house, going through piles of scrap papers and cardstock, stamped images and embellishments that never made it to cards, loose ribbons, and all kinds of surprises.



One of the things I found were cards that I designed for make-and-takes back when I was out doing Stampin' Up! workshops. All the pieces of the cards are cut, but the images need to be stamped and the cards then need to be assembled. I had flashbacks to how much time I spent cutting and packaging in preparation for workshops, and I just couldn't throw out the cards just waiting to be born.



I had the makings for six of this card. Cardstock is Night of Navy and Very Vanilla. I used Gold Encore ink to stamp the French Script background and then the single flower from Long-Stemmed for the top panel. I wrapped the background panel with some wide Gold Organdy ribbon (retired, as are the stamps), and then attached the flower panel with Stampin' Dimensionals.



I put a panel of the Very Vanilla on the inside (since it's hard to write on Night of Navy unless you have a special pen), and then stamped just the top of the flower in Gold Encore to add some interest. I also stamped the flower on the front of matching Very Vanilla envelopes. All-in-all, this project turned out looking pretty classy. Yay!





Saturday, May 17, 2008

Special Birthday Card

Here's a card I custom-made for a friend to give to her SIL whose birthday is June 1st and whose name is June. (How cool is that?)



SU! sets: Flower Garden, Happy Birthday Frame

Cardstock: Gable Green, Bashful Blue, Whisper White

Designer Series Paper: Blush Blossom

Other Fun Stuff: Punches, Pearlescent Chalks, non-SU! ribbon

"June" is computer printed.





Sunday, May 11, 2008

Glass Vases on Regal Rose

While I had the Hero Arts Glass Vases stamp out on my desk, I just had to made a few more cards with it.



The card base is Regal Rose, and the images are layered on Lavendar Lace. I used the SU! Canvas stamp as a background. Images are colored with markers and blender pens, and there's a bit of bling on the flower at the far right. Pretty simple, but I like it.





Thursday, May 8, 2008

Another Hero Arts Card

No sooner did I address my Hero Arts Card Exchange cards for May than I remembered that I signed up for a "May Flowers" exchange as well. Good thing I can't sleep tonight!



I pulled out one of my all-time favorite Hero Arts stamps for this card, H2548 Glass Vases. The hardest thing about using this stamp is deciding how to color the image: watercolors? chalks? blender pens? colored pencils? I finally decided to pull out my markers and use them with blender pens to achieve a bit of a shaded effect (which, of course, doesn't show very well in the photo). The George O'Keefe quotation is an Uptown Rubber Stamps/Dawn Houser stamp. The clear rhinestones jumped into the centers of the flowers I punched out using SU!s Three For You punch box kit. Card base is Ballet Blue, and the images are layered on Real Red.





Quick Hero Arts Card

It's time again for the Hero Arts Card Exchange! Bad planning left me with only one card made with Hero Arts stamps ready to go, so I had to quickly whip up another one. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out.



The Hero Arts stamps used are the Nature's Silhouette set, LL607. Also used was SU!'s Watercolor Joy standard wheel; and the sentiment is from the SU! Always set. Colors are Lavendar Lace, Ballet Blue, Regal Rose, and Green Galore.





Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Mothers Day Card

I made this Mothers Day card for a remarkable woman who has adopted me into her family as a daughter and who has also become a dear friend. Rather than snail mail the card to her, I decided to present it to her when we got together for lunch today. I do love seeing people's eyes light up when they get a hand-made and personalized card from me!






Saturday, May 3, 2008

More Clowning Around

I've been playing around all week with the Clowning Around SU! set using the Flowers for You designer series papers with the colors Tempting Turquoise, Regal Rose, Lovely Lilac, and Certainly Celery; and here's what I came up with:












I especially like the way this "gate fold" card turned out. I knew that *someday* I would use a velcro dot on a card, and this was the day!