Birthday Carousel

As I mentioned in my previous post, I broke away from the holiday themed cards to create a couple of birthday cards. This is for my sweet grandaughter, who just turned 3. We took the grandkids to Disneyland recently and all she wanted to ride were the carousel horses. So I found this cute image and colored it, matted it with some black card embossed with swiss dots, cut out an oval for a frame and added a birthday tag.

If you look closely, you can see that she has 'pink hair' which explains the pink mane on the carousel horse!

Anyhow, sweet birthday card for a sweet birthday girl!

Thanks for looking!

Simon Says: 'B' is for?

Birthday Dude

I broke away from the holiday themed projects to make a couple of birthday cards. The first is for a special boy who is turning 13!  I was inspired to add sunglasses to the Tim Holtz Crazy Dogs image because of this recent picture of Corbin with his band mates. In retrospect I should have created the necktie in blue and white!

Anyhow, I cut out an oval to add 13 brand new one dollar bills to the inside of his card. What kid doesn't like to receive money?

The theme at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge is 'B' is for? Blue Birthday Boy Balloons.

Hope you like it! Thanks for looking!

Christmas Advent

I made this perpetual advent calendar for my 3 year old and 5 year old grandkids. My daughter-in-law was excited to see it, because the little boxes are large enough for a treat for both of them, and it doesn't have to be a piece of chocolate every day!

I really dug into my Christmas stash for this one! I used a combination of a retired 6 x 6 paper pack by Little Yellow Bicycle, a sheet of 12 x 12 DSP by BoBunny, several stamps by various vendors, some embellishments I've been hoarding for several years, some dies from various vendors and some vintage looking DSP for the sides and back.

I distressed the surrounding chipboard with ink and then applied the strips of dsp to the sides and back of the calendar base.

Anyhow, I was able to get it in the mail so they would have it for December 1st!

Frilly and Funkie-Tis the season for gift giving

Simon Says Stamp - Gift It

As always, thanks for looking!

Halloween Treats

My grandkids have gotten used to receiving treats with their cards, Halloween treats are a must! I created these little slider tags to be able to keep the card after the treats have been removed since my daughter in law likes to save them.

The trick is lining up the circles in each of the 3 layers.  Then I decorated the sliding tag, front and back.  I'll add a little note from 'Grandma Cutie' before I give it to them!

And here's a shot with the candy inside!

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge-Spooky

Hummingbird Watch

I have thoroughly enjoyed watching all the sweet hummingbirds this year, and when I thought about adding them to the grandkids' scrapbook, I thought of this image from Tim Holtz Crazy Birds set.

Doesn't he remind you of this little guy standing guard over this feeder?

Then one day I spotted a visitor, he must have been thinking of building a nest under the eaves.

At one point we counted as many as twelve hummingbirds between the two feeders. It's funny how some of them were very accommodating, and others were quite aggressive, chasing the others away.

The album for the grandkids is 8 x 8, and has pocket pages to fit 4 x 4 photos.

I was inspired by the challenge at Frilly and Funkie: All Creatures Great and Small. He's a tiny bit Funkie, don't you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 30th Birthday

A couple of challenges for this birthday card for my daughter-in-law.  Her birthday is October 1st and she enjoys Halloween themed cards.  The first challenge is Frilly and Funkie: All Creatures Great and Small.

I used the crow from Tim Holtz Mini Blueprints.

The second challenge is Simon Says: Use More Than One Stencil.

I used the stencil letter dies from Tim Holtz Gift Card Bag, love the hashtag die, and she will be 30 and uses Instagram!  The second stencil is from Tim Holtz Mini Stencil 3 for the brick, with Texture Paste and Distress Ink.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cattails and Fairies

I struggle at times to make a project Frilly or Funkie when I am mailing it to someone, like this one for my 82 year old aunt in California, but I was inspired by the challenge at Frilly and Funkie: Back to Nature.

 I purchased a stencil several years ago of this cattail image because I have always loved the look of cattails.  I thought I would use some texture paste, but alas, my jar of texture paste was all dried up when I opened it!  How does that happen? Then I thought I would emboss the image and use some glue and some brown flocking, but do you think I had any flocking in brown? No, only red, orange, pink, yellow, and purple!  I could have sworn I found some brown flocking specifically for this stencil! Anyhow, I ended up embossing the image on some kraft cardstock and inking through the stencil...not quite what I had in mind, but hey, the craft store is no longer right around the corner. I added a skeleton leaf on top of a real leaf I had collected a few years ago to give it some contrast, a fussy cut image of a fairy, and a couple of 'raindrops'.

I was also reminded of this beauty recently when I went to collect my mail, there is a huge field of cattails in one of the open areas of our neighborhood!  I had never seen it before this year!

Thanks for looking, I'm happy I was able to finally use my Cattail Stencil!

Celebrate

Here is another birthday card for this week's Wednesday challenge at Simon Says: Food and/or Drink

This time I remembered to photograph the inside BEFORE I signed it! I used another set from the 'out of business' company, Skipping Stones Design...too bad, they had some funny stamp sets! The rest of the sentiment says 'especially when the salt accompanies a drink and good friends!'

Thanks for looking!

Here's to you

I made this card for a fun cousin's birthday next Friday...got so excited to finish it that I signed the inside of it before I photographed it! The inside says 'Well behaved women seldom make history' along with the image of a lime, salt shaker, and shot glass.

Have you ever bought a sheet of DSP and then forgotten where you put it?  I bought this 'olive' paper  7 or 8 years ago to use with this Martini Set, and I finally found it to use on this card! The stamp set is from Skipping Stones Design, a company I was very disappointed to see, no longer exists! Several years ago I was a member of their Design Team to make cards to promote their fun stamps, and it was so much fun!

Anyhow, I almost made her a card about purses, 'Birthdays are like purses, the more you have, the harder it is to find your keys!' but I saw this fun challenge at Simon Says: Food and/or Drink.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dance Class

So, I couldn't send a kindergarten back to school card to my grandson without including a card for my 2 1/2 year old grandaughter also...she just started Dance Class at Preschool, so I changed the party hat on the panda to a pink bow and added some gathered ribbon for a tutu since her leotard is black.

Another entry for the Back to School challenge at Simon Says Stamp: Wednesday Challenge

 
Getting a little use from a couple of old Stampin' Up sets before I retire them from my stash!

Grade K

So, my grandson will be starting Kindergarten tomorrow so I made an encouraging card for him. He is used to getting cards with candy in them, so I'll have to send a treat along with this one.

The Wednesday Challenge this week is Simon Says Stamp: Back to School. 

 I like to enter simple cards for the grandkids in the Wednesday Challenge.

#MIKA

Last minute entry for this weeks challenge at Simon Says: Tape it Up. I don't typically use much Washi Tape, even though I like the look of it on other people's projects.  That doesn't mean I don't have any of it LOL! (But I do use a fair amount of mounting tape!) Anyhow, I wanted to make a baby card for our niece and thought the little hearts would work well.  Her colors were gray and yellow and this card started out as such, but the addition of the black tape and the black under the stencil letters gave it a darker feel.  Oh well, she will love that I spelled out the baby's name, and I got to play with my new Tim Holtz Sizzix Die Set, got to love the hashtag!


 

 

Augustus Rome

I really liked the current challenge at Frilly and Funkie: August to celebrate Augustus Caesar and his contribution to architecture, and to focus on marble, columns, and/or arches in your project.

We were lucky enough to take a cruise last year to Italy and Greece, and one of the things that really caught our attention were the beautiful doorways and arches. In fact, one of the friends we met on the cruise was laughing at my husband for taking so many pictures of doorways and flowers and such! So I debated on whether or not to make 12 x 12 layouts in my Travel album, or to create a mini album with this chipboard album cover. I decided to go with the mini album, but I still have to work on the insides of the album! I got a little sidetracked this year working on albums for the grandkids!

The little cards are from Graphic 45 retired DSP called Botanicabella, the 'poster' really reminded me of an ancient notice in Latin.

Here is a close up of the arched doorway on my cover.

The following photos are a few which will eventually be added to pages for this mini album:

Thanks for stopping by!

Wild Dragonfly

I made this Thursday and almost forgot to post it!  I made this card for my friend to mail to her grandaughter, she likes purple. I love this Dragonfly Vine stamp by Stampendous and haven't used it in a while, so I thought it would fit the challenge at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge 'Wild Things'. I used regular Versamark, but Tim Holtz Distress Embossing Powder which gives it more of a mat finish rather than the shiny white embossing powder. I dyed the Seam Binding Ribbon using some distress ink and crumpling it in a small plastic bag while it was drying.