My Recent Cardmaking Results

Hi again! It's hard to believe that it's been a week since I last posted! The time sure does go by fast! Where've I been and what have I been up to? Well, we're still busy planting stuff here, trying to get the rest of our big vegetable garden in and back in shape. We have 14 beds, most 4 ft x 16 ft, in the garden, plus perennial borders all the way around it and odd bits of open area outside the beds, all of which need a great deal of work. I have 5 of the beds planted so far and another is given over to strawberries, so a third of the beds are done. There's still SO much more to do, though. I also have all sorts of container plantings outside our main garden, in my "outdoor living room" and my "garden room." So between rains and other things that have demanded my attention, I've been trying to get my gardening done. But not forgetting my cardmaking...

I'll show you my latest cards but am not going to go into detail about what I used to make them this time. If you have a question about something, I'll be happy to answer it however.

So picking up where I left off last time, here's the purple birthday card I made for my daughter Lois...




Next in line was a Thinking of You card for an online friend...




Then I redid the Purple Birthday card which I made for Valerie...I just didn't like that smudged sentiment and taking the advice of the ladies in the Crazy Card Makers group, I decided to restamp the sentiment, incorporating it in an overlay. I think the re-do looks MUCH better now...





Then I made another Thinking of You card for an online friend....




Then it was this simple birthday card for our stepgrandson Connor who turns 3 on Friday...




Next up is a birthday card I made for my friend Connie. I really like this one; the colors are my favorites.




And last but by no means least is this encouragement card I made for a young woman named Elisabeth, daughter of my online friend Kathy...




And there you have it...Next up will be my sweetheart's Father's Day card which is still laying on the cutting table, so til then, Happy Cardmaking!

Floral Card for Friend

This lovely floral card was made for a friend and went out in today's mail. To make this card, I started with a base of Medium Spring Green ColorMates cardstock from World Win, topped with a layer of Dark Spring Green Colormates cardstock. The printed layer is a pattern that I got in a 12" x 12" scrapbooking pack at Dollar Tree a while back,; I only have a small piece of it left now. Then I used the Dark Spring Green cardstock to matte the floral motifs. Those are from another giftwrap paper that I've had for a really long time. Under each of the floral squares, I ran a strip of ribbon and then attached bronze butterfly brads on each ribbon strip. The card measures 4" x 6 7/8", not my usual size, but I had some envelopes this size so decided to do something a little different. This is one of those cards I was tempted to keep because I liked it so much.

And there you have it....

Thinking of You card for Friend

Yesterday was a busy cardmaking day. I got 4 cards finished! This is the first one.

To make this card, I started with a 12" x 6 5/8" strip of light blue textured cardstock from Colorbok, purchased at WalMart. This is a tri-fold card, with the right flap being folded at 4" and the left flap being folded at 3", leaving a card width of 5". I cut half of an oval out of the left flap, to make a "frame" for the oval motif I put on the right flap. The solid blue on both flaps is cardstock from one of those value paks you can buy at Michaels or Jo-Anns. The colored stripe is another bit of the sheet from DCWV; there's not much left of it now. The floral design with the bluebirds is from giftwrap paper that I've had in my stash for over 20 years. To complete the look, I added three floral eyelets on the left flap. Unfortunately, the paint chipped off on the purple one, which I tried to fill in with a Sharpie marker, but it didn't quite cover.

And there you have it....

Wedding Congratulations Card for Nephew

My nephew Everett, my brother's youngest, is getting married to Tasha on Saturday. Their wedding colors are black & white, so I challenged myself to make a black & white card for them. I'd found the silvery striped paper at Amy's Cheese Emporium in Stanley, WI and thought it would be perfect so picked that up awhile ago. Then it was a matter of pulling together all the other bits and pieces.

To make their card, I started with a 12" x 12" sheet of textured cardstock from a Colorbok pack I picked up at WalMart. I cut the cardstock 12" x 6 5/8", then made three folds in it, so that I had a card 5" x 6 5/8", with a 2" flap on the inside in which to tuck the money gift we are giving them. To complete the inside of the card, I used Microsoft Word to type up my sentiment and then printed it out on a mottled black/white sheet of paper, which I hand-tore to size and adhered to the inside. I then used a sparkly silver gel pen to sign the card.

On the front of the card, I added a layer of gray cardstock which I corner-punched with my Fiskars Heritage corner punch. The next layer is a lovely white vinyl wallpaper sample with the corners rounded off. The "ribbon" strip is cut from a piece of wallpaper border and threaded through a sentiment tag which I picked up in an embellishment pack at Dollar Tree. On the left side of the card, the black triangular piece is cut from a divider page from one of my wallpaper sample books. It was just too elegant to resist! To that, I added a piece of that silvery striped paper I'd picked up some time ago, Wedding Stripes by www.pebblesinc.com. Along the top edge of the silvery paper, I attached white silk flowers (cut off a flower pik I found somewhere) and attached with silver mini-brads. To complete the card, I stuck two "diamond" gems on the right-side corners.

I'm quite pleased with this card. I like the elegant look of it. I did have to use a little Gorilla Glue to make sure the black triangular piece stayed stuck down to the white vinyl wallpaper, though. That black piece is glossy cardstock on both sides and the double-sided carpet tape just wasn't holding like I wanted it to. It's stuck tight now, though. And there you have it....

One More Birthday Card From Last Week

I made this card for a gal in one of the online groups I belong to whose favorite color is purple and favorite flowers are roses of any color. Unfortunately, she hasn't received this card because I couldn't confirm her mailing address, so I still have it and will send it to someone else.

I started with a speckled white cardstock for this card, one of those sheets that I got at Office Depot's store closing clearance sale. I added a layer of purple scrapbooking paper, designer unknown. Then I made a rectangle from a scrap of the same digital purple crimped paper I used on Paige's card, topped with a rectangle of that lovely floral giftwrap paper that I used on my 2nd hinged card. I tied a piece of raffia ribbon around this. The ribbon had arrived on a giftbag at some time and ended up in my stash of stuff. To complete, I stamped Happy Birthday along the side, using a clear stamp from the Happy Birthday set made by So Close To My Heart. Sentiment stamps are a great value! Unfortunately, I didn't do the greatest job of stamping and got too much ink on the B in Birthday, but it'll pass. It's a good thing I've learned to live with imperfection.

And there you have it....

Purple Birthday Card For Stepdaughter Paige

My stepdaughter Paige loves the color purple. So does my daughter Lois. It's always a challenge to make purple-themed cards for them. I liked the way this one turned out and hope Paige liked it at well. Her birthday is today.

To make Paige's card, I started with a purple cardstock base, just a generic piece of cardstock. Then I added a layer of digital paper from ScrapbookScrapbook.com (kind of like that crimped look a lot). The rectangular focal point has three different scrapbooking papers on it. The light lavendar floral is Forget-Me-Not Daisies from Doodlebug Designs. I only have scraps left of the other two prints, the paisley and the stripe, so I can't tell you whose designs they are. I added a bit of dotted ribbon to the lower portion of the rectangle, trimmed the corners with a corner punch, added two purple silk flowers with a white brad center, and stamped Happy Birthday along the edge of the card with white ink. I had to go over it with a silver gel pen, though, as the ink didn't show up as nice as I wanted it to.

And there you have it...

A Bright Birthday Card

I made this birthday card for a gal in one of the online groups I belong to. Her favorite colors are bright green, orange and bright pink. I enjoy challenges like that!

To make her card, I started with a base of orange cardstock, just a generic sheet. I attached a piece of Citrus Squeeze paper from Doodlebug Designs. Then I cut out circles from bright cardstock sheets that I had, all generic. I punched the middle circles using my new Marvy punch. I added bright green brads to the centers of two of the circle groups and an orange brad to the third. Then I stamped "Celebrate" on the front, using a clear stamp from the Happy Birthday set from So Close To My Heart.

And there you have it...

My Trip Today to JoAnn's

Today I got to take my 3 yr old granddaughter Kaylina shopping with me. Our first stop was JoAnn's Fabrics & Crafts. In an email from them, I knew that they had all of their punches on sale this week at 30% off, as well as sales on papers and lots of other papercrafting fun stuff. I got an unemployment check yesterday, my first one, so had a little extra money and decided to GO FOR IT. I picked up three Fiskars punches, their circle Vine & Dandy punch, their Heritage 3-in-1 corner punch, and their 2" scalloped square squeeze punch. The only thing that I've come to realize about square punches is that no one measures them from side to side, like I think a square should be measured. They basically measure them from corner to corner, as they fit inside of a circle. I was quite disappointed on my last shopping trip to find out that the Martha Stewart 1" scalloped square punch I bought results in a square that is only 7/8" from side to side. Today I measured the die on the punch to make sure of what I was getting, regardless of how the manufacturer measures the square opening. I don't know about you, but when I was learning math in school, circles were always measured in diameter, but squares were measured by the length of the sides. Just one of those little annoyances that I guess I have to live with. Sort of like the way they measure the size of your television or computer screen, from corner to corner; it doesn't make any sense to me at all to do it that way when you're talking about squares or rectangles. Enough about that, huh?

Besides the punches, I picked up a Fun In The Sun Summer Stack of 180 sheets of 12" x 12" cardstock for $9.99; what a deal! I got some single 12" x 12" sheets of scrapbooking paper, two packs of the 8 1/2" x 11" colored value packs of cardstock (50 sheets for $3.99), a black pigment ink pad (hope this one is nice & juicy), and a bunch of stuff out of their $1 bins: glitter pens, ribbons, chalks, and pigment ink pads.

Later, after my sweetheart and I dropped off our granddaughter at her home, we stopped at a little cheese emporium near her home where there's a corner of scrapbooking stuff. I got three new packs of brads and a 12" x 12" sheet of scrapbooking paper there.

All in all, it was a profitable day where adding to my cardmaking supplies go. It's probably a good thing, though, that I can't afford to do this frequently. And now to get back to cardmaking...

Birthday Card for Friend Kim

This bright and cheerful card went to a dear sister in the LORD, Kim, for her birthday. I hope she liked it. I know it made me feel good when I looked at it.

I started with a basically white cardstock. I got it on clearance at the Office Depot store in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, when they were supposed to be closing that store. Since then, they've changed their minds about closing the store entirely and have it open as an outlet store. This cardstock has little flecks of colors in it, which I love. I haven't seen it anywhere else, though, and have used most of it up, as I used it for the digital Passover cards I made this year.

Anyway, on top of the white, I adhered a piece of this great blue patterned cardstock. This came in one of those co-ordinated cardstock packs for scrapbooking. I think I bought the pack at Big Lots for $7; it's a big pack and will take me awhile to use up the cardstock that came in it. I have 4 different patterned packs like this. Then there's another strip of that striped scrapbooking paper that I used on the hinged cards. Under the edges I added border punched white cardstock; I used a Fiskars border punch for this border. The focal design consists of a bright pink circle of cardstock, topped by another circle of orange patterned cardstock (from the same pack as the blue) which I cut into "petal" edges, with a pretty circular sticker from a K & Company embellishment pack in the very center.

And there you have it....

Another Hinged Card

This is my second hinged card. I made this for the birthday of one of the gals in the cardmaking group I belong to, Crazy Card Makers. Red isn't one of my favorite colors, but I wanted to use the floral paper on the bottom so it seemed to come together that way; actually, it's more of a deep red orange than a true red. I wanted the card to be bright, bold, and cheerful; I think I succeeded.

I started with a white cardstock base. The paper on the bottom section is giftwrap paper that I bought at a local discount store; you might be able to find this design at Dollar Tree, too, I can't remember. I know I paid no more than $1.49 for a whole big roll of this paper, so it'll probably show up on a lot more cards. Unfortunately, it isn't a very heavy-weight paper so it needs to be backed with something to give it "body." On the top edge of this paper, I attached a strip of white cardstock that I border punched with my Martha Stewart lattice punch. I ran a strip of 1/4" silk ribbon across this white strip. The top section uses the same striped scrapbooking paper that I used on my first hinged card. It's a DCWV design. I don't have much of the original 12" x 12" sheet left now, so hope I run across it again. I didn't see it at JoAnn's Fabrics & Crafts when I was there today (more about that in another post). I may have picked it up at Michael's or at the florist shop in the town near us that has a small scrapbooking department. I like the colors in that striped design so will definitely want to get more of it. For my focal point on the top, I cut a circle from Deep Graceful Geranium ColorMates cardstock from World Win. To that, I adhered a stamped and heat-embossed scalloped circle; the stamp comes from Inkadinkado's Round Frames clear stamp set. I colored in the center of the design with a Crayola pencil color. The flower is a stamped design from the Autumn Leaves clear stamp set Mindy's Flowers by Mindy Terasawa. I colored it with Crayola pencil colors and attached it with foam tape to the center of the stamped circle. I added a red silk ribbon bow to the front and used a silver brad. On the inside, I used a stamp from the Stampendous clear set, Two You, again colored in with Crayola pencil colors.

And there you have it...Now to make another--and another--and another...I like this design!

My First Hinged Card

In the cardmaking group that I belong to, Crazy Card Makers (see link section), a couple of the ladies have been making these cool hinged cards. I thought it was a neat idea so had to try my hand at it. I know there are directions out there, but on dial-up I don't watch online videos because it's just too slow and takes too long, so I figured it out on my own. I may not be doing it exactly the same way that the originators of the technique are, but it works and I liked the final results.

I started with a base of white cardstock. On the top section, I used a scrap of background paper I had made using a digital background tile from Everyday Icons. The bottom striped paper is cut from a purchased piece of 12" x 12" scrapbooking paper. I also used some light blue cardstock and an olive green cardstock. The floral stamped image on the front is colored with Sharpie markers and Crayola pencil colors, then inked with light blue and a green, and jazzed up with Stickles Waterfall glitter glue. The image is from the Autumn Leaves Flowers (by Rhonna Farrer) clear stamp set. The Happy Birthday stamped image on the inside is from the Stampendous clear stamp set, Two You. The punched lattice border is made using a Martha Stewart border punch. The striped paper was cut using a scalloped-edge scissors. The light blue cardstock was a scrap generic cardstock. The green was World Win's Colormates Dark Spring Green.

And there you have it...I have a couple more cards made in the past few days that I will be posting as soon as I have time. Gardening tasks are claiming most of my time and attention right now. Tomorrow I'll be enjoying some quality time with my 3 yr old granddaughter, Kaylina, and then Saturday is Shabbat which will be a quiet, restful day here at home this week. I'll be back with more of my cards as soon as I can, though, you can count on it!

Birthday Card for Son-in-Law Brent

This card went to my son-in-law Brent, married to my oldest daughter, Venetta. He's a committed Christian, a very hard-working man, a good provider and a good husband.

To make his card, I started with a white cardstock base, then covered the front with Dark Creamy Cocoa ColorMates cardstock from World Win. The circle pattern background paper is from ScrapbookScrapbook.com. The rectangular feature on the left is a stamped scripture, done on white cardstock, then sponged with distress ink, and layered with Dark Creamy Cocoa and Deep Creamy Cocoa ColorMates cardstock. To the right, I stamped two flourishes using a stamp from the Autumn Leaves Flourishes v2 clear acrylic stamp set. I used a sparkly gel pen to go over the stamped flourishes. To complete the card, I added three dark brown eyelets in the top right corner.