Another Card File

Previously I had made a Dates to Remember card file here.  The idea was originally featured over at Scrappin Cats blog.  I decided my girlfriend also needed one of these handy files for the other part of her birthday gift.  It was fun creating it...I used a K&Company Susan Winget Meadow paper pack.  It is a beautiful garden variety pack of papers I picked up at Michael's on clearance and it has made some wonderful cards and other projects.  I had saved the template I'd previously made for the individual months of dates and once all of the envelopes were covered with the Meadow paper I printed the date lists, inked around the edges and fixed those on each page.  I printed the months of the year on white card stock, used a punch to punch them out and after inking them, affixed them to the flap of each envelope.  I added a little bit of bling, both jewels and pearls under each of the month names.

For the back of the card file I used two cereal boxes cut to 6 x 9" the same size as the envelopes and covered it with white card stock and then matched the rest of the paper in the pack.  I put a two hole punch in the top and put two rings into the card file.  I covered the rings with a variety of yellow and green ribbons from my stash.

For the front of the file I printed the word Celebrations on card stock and then used a star punch to punch the edges of the paper.  I centered the piece in the middle of the front cover.

To complete her gift I added a small supply of hand made cards I had in my stash.

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Wedding Collage

Hi there...it's been awhile since I've posted.  Holidays, moving right after the holidays, and then wedding helper!  My oldest son was married in March in San Diego, California.  We instantly gained a beautiful daughter-in-law and another handsome grandson!  The weather was beautiful, the venue was lovely, a local park in La Jolla that overlooked the ocean and the reception was on Coronado Naval Air Station in a reception room looking out at the beach and ocean.  Before the photographer left San Diego I talked her into leaving a few of the wedding photos on my laptop.

Prior to the wedding I had picked up this heart shaped collage frame at Michael's.  I figured I would do a gift for the newlyweds with some of the pics from the wedding. As you can see the frame is divided into four sections with fixed dividers. Since the wedding was at the ocean I wanted to commemorate that fact in the background.  So these are the supplies I started with, the collage frame, some beach scrapbook paper, jewels, mini envelopes, flowers, and other accents.  When I first picked up the frame I knew I would have to cut the paper to fit each section.  I had precut a blank paper pattern to play with the sizing of the sections.  When I finally got the patterns to fit nicely in each section I had to decide how to cut the paper.  I wanted the word beach to be somewhat visible on the frame.  The word beach is at the bottom of the page and obviously that wouldn't fit around the curved bottom of the heart frame.  I took the patterns from the top of the heart and used them on the bottom of the scrapbook paper.  The word BEACH was divided and even though the divider falls in the middle of the word, I still feel it looks very connected.  I then took the patterns for the bottom of the heart and cut those sections from the top of the paper with the waves on them. I'll be honest, I bought extra pieces of the paper because it took a couple of times of cutting the shapes to get them nicely fitted in each section.

Once I had the paper glued in to the frame I started playing with all of the accent pieces to see how I wanted to lay out the design.  One of the examples I saw for this frame was to put the couple's wedding vows in envelopes in the design.  I found these cute little scalloped edged envelopes in the Martha Stewart section of Michael's and decided to ink them up to reflect the colors of the wedding which were brown's and roses.  I used Tim Holtz Vintage Photo ink and inked the envelope and the card insert.  I printed their vows on the computer with a small font.  In order for it to fit and still be readable I had to use both sides of the card.  I had these beautiful pink scroll letters and added their initials to each envelope.  I added pearls and brown gemstone schwoopies above and below the envelopes, lovely brown flowers with jewels in the center, and a pair of doves in the lower right corner.

Latrel Smith took a beautiful picture of Kyle and Dana praying together and I wanted to highlight that picture. I put it up in the upper right corner of the heart and added a small brass cross over the picture and a set of doves from Jolee's and a pretty jeweled heart with schwoopies next to it.  In the bottom left of the frame was one of my favorite pics of the kids.  They are facing the camera with Kyle's arms draped around Dana.  It is a beautiful shot of them and they look so very happy.  I added some more of the pretty brown and rose colored jeweled flowers and more schwoopies to finish it off.  All in all I think it turned out beautifully.

The finished result is shown below.  The kids were very excited when they received it.  I sent it to them with a couple of other items in the box.  This was on top and the first thing they came to...they didn't finish going through the box, they called me right away!  I think it was a hit!

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Fall Decorations

So I have been perusing Pinterest as I know many of you do.  I found this cute little idea for a Christmas decoration, but because I have so many Christmas decorations I decided to use the idea with a Thanksgiving or Fall theme.  The original post was found here.  I decided to do the word Thanks.  I found these cute wood letters on sale at Jo Ann's and picked them up along with a bottle of Folk Art metallic bronze paint.  I painted the entire set of letters front and back with the bronze color.  I think I did about 3 coats to make sure it was covered well.

In the original idea the letters are painted white and hung with green ribbon.  Because I have a brown china hutch and this is where I wanted to hang the letters I decided the letters needed a little more "punch" so they would be seen against the brown hutch.  I found in my craft stash some pumpkin colored glitter.  It was the perfect color match for the letters so I glittered each of the letters up and sealed them with Mod Podge.  I then found some glittery fall ribbon at Michael's (on sale of course!) and picked that up to hang each letter from.  Since I wanted the letters to drape down from the top of the hutch I needed a piece of wood to hang them from, something that was sturdy enough to hold the ribbons and weighty enough to stay on the top of the hutch but would remain hidden.  So off to Jo Ann's I went again and found a 1/4'  by 3" by 24" piece of craft wood to use as my mounting board to hang the letters from.  I spaced the letters evenly but staggered them slightly so they were not all at the same level.  And here is the finished product!  I'm still thinking I might add some more accents to the top of the letters, maybe some small colored fall leaves or pieces of pine cones, maybe some buttons?  We'll see!

Go on, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Mother's Day

I have a new Tim Holtz Alterations die, Hanging Sign.  As you can see from the picture, it looks like a quaint country sign at a cute little bed and breakfast inn surrounded by a field of flowers.  There was born my idea for my Mother's Day card. 

I chose to use white card stock for the card base, actually I used the 6 1/2 x 5" pre-made card base in the packets you can get from Michaels.  I decided to make it a landscape orientation card and chose one of the flower papers from the K&Company, Susan Winget Botanical paper packet.  It has a lot of lavenders, blues and other pastels in the color scheme.  I utilized that for my main background and then cut the sign post from brown card stock.  For the sign itself I chose an off-white paper with a lightly speckled background.  I printed Happy Mother's Day on it using Word and cut it out with the die.  I inked around the edges with Tim Holtz' vintage photo ink pad, added some lavender bling under the sentiment and had some butterfly and floral embellishments that went with the papers and used them on the sign. 

I wanted the sign to be free swinging, like a true sign would be, so I grabbed some jump rings I had and used those to hook the sign to the sign post.  Around the top edge of the card I put a pretty lavender ribbon around and tied in a square not.  Inside the card I stamped the sentiment "How dear to the Heart is a Mother like you..." and added one more butterfly to accent the inside. 

That's a wrap...more fun cards to come...wedding showers, baby showers...more projects!  Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Retirement Cards

There are a number of my co-workers who are retiring in the next month or so...I needed to make some retirement cards.  I had a number of scraps of different travel papers I had used for a couple of different projects awhile ago so decided to use them up for the retirement cards.  These were inspired by cards shown here and here.  The first one I used a stamp that says Bon Voyage, but it is a little difficult to read.  After that I found a clearer stamp with the same words.  This first one I layered three different pieces of travel paper and added a shimmery ribbon at the top.  I then stamped the the Bon Voyage on an embossed tag from a Cuttlebug die.  I inked it up with some Tim Holtz distress ink and added three little bling on the top schwoopie!

On these next two shots I ended up using one of edge punches and gave them either a scalloped edge or a diamond edge on each of the three different patterned papers.  I still added some glittery ribbon below the sentiment and then inked and added the other Bon Voyage sentiment which was a little more readable.  I also added a little bling on the edges and on the bottom one I added pearl accents to the outsides of the sentiment tag.  The single picture shows the detail of the punched edges.  Ribbon is all from sales at Michael's and Jo Ann's Fabrics.

On these final shots I found a Good Luck stamp and utilized the smaller scraps and the idea referenced above from Pinterest.  I had seen this idea previously with bigger squares as a background or base for a larger sentiment but hadn't thought about using it for smaller scraps of paper.  I also added paper flowers I cut using my Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die cut.  I love this die...it is so versatile!  I added some pearl bling and decorative brads.  I only added ribbon to one because the other ones I felt had enough embellishment with the flowers or the sentiment tag in the middle.  These sentiment tags are actually Sizzliet dies their Decorative Label Set #4.

Imagine, Create, Enjoy!

Anniversary Cards

Needed some anniversary cards this month.  I had some papers from Valentine's Day so set about making a card for my BFF.  Becky and Ed celebrate their 35th anniversary this year.  I had picked up a Martha Stewart butterfly border punch and had not yet tried it out.  I started playing with it and decided that the border turned out so well that I wanted to use it on the anniversary card.  I used some pearly white card stock by Gemstones and cut it to a 6 x 9 size, scored at 4.5 inches and folded in half.  I cut the patterned paper from Little Yellow Bicycle called Love Story to fit on the 6 x 4.5 front of the card stock.  The paper had come out around Valentine's Day.  I punched the beautiful butterfly border using a pearly pink from the Gemstones paper.  I cut the tag from the Spellbinder's Nestabilities die and used my little stamp about true love stories...I added pink pearls at the top and bottom of the sentiment.  I mounted the sentiment using pop dots then cut more pop dots to mount on the butterfly border to make it stand up over the edge of the sentiment block.  To finish it off I stamped Happy Anniversary in the inside of the card and added a pretty matching pink bow with some satin edged organza ribbon from the dollar bin at Michael's.

Next up I worked on an anniversary card for my sweetie.  I used embossed craft paper from my Recollections Love Letters pad previously mentioned in my blog. I cut another 6 x 9 inch size card scored at 4.5 inches and folded in half.  I then cut one of the embossed papers from the collection to fit inside the 6 x 4.5 front of the card.  I used the Spellbinder's Nestabilities die mentioned above and stamped in horizontally with another one of my love stamps.  Since I was working with red embossing on the craft paper, I stamped the sentiment in red and then inked around the edges of the sentiment tag; at the top of the sentiment I added light grey pearls.  I used a pearly grey Gemstones paper and cut a butterfly border for the bottom of the sentiment.  I used pop dots to lift it over the bottom edge of the sentiment.  To finish it off, I added a sparkly red ribbon bow to the front and stamped Happy Anniversary inside the card.  Happy 30th Anniversary dear!

I think they both turned out very nicely.  Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Romantic Kraft Cards

A few weekends ago I was browsing Michael's aisles and found this wonderful kraft card paper pad from Michael's Recollections line of supplies.  It is called Love Letters.  It has some beautifully embossed papers that are wonderful for making Valentine's cards or love notes for your spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, well you get the idea.  I decided to make this as a gift for someone so will only share a couple of them here.  I'll share the rest once I've sent them off...so stay tuned.  This paper for the first card was patterned with writing and flowers, music, etc.  Additionally it had these two pretty birds perched on the front and they were overlaid with a burnished copper embossing.  I found the beautiful matching ribbon in the Thanksgiving decorations at Michaels on sale and knew it was a perfect match.  The other nice thing about the paper pad is it had two page of tags/embellishments in it.  The tag across the bottom is one of them.  It is kind of hard to see, but it is raised with foam stickies, it says For My Love in the same burnished copper and I stamped a love sentiment next to it in copper.

For the second card, I chose to highlight the perfect block on the left side of the page and use it as my sentiment location.  In the lower left corner there are two flowers that are embossed with a glittery red as is the word Love and the No. 206.  I used my Martha Stewart embossed heart punch and punched a small red glitter embossed heart for the upper right corner of the box and used the Butterflies Sizzlet from SU! to add a butterfly in the lower right corner.  Then to finish it off, I stamped the love sentiment you see in the box in red and added a glittery red ribbon from my Christmas ribbon stash.

I can't say enough about this paper pack.  It is really wonderful and has some beautiful patterns and embossing on it.  Check it out the next time you're in Michael's!  Great for making Love Notes for your sweetie!

See you next time.  Imagine, Create, Enjoy.

Christmas Mini Clipboard

While in the Dollar Store over the weekend I was wandering around, after picking up what I'd gone in for, and happened upon these little 6" x 8" clipboards.  I thought it would make a really cute gift idea...didn't know what exactly but picked it up to give it a try.  Today I took a vacation day to extend the long weekend just to play and craft, and so decided to work on the clipboard.  I pulled out different paper pads, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with it.  Well with Christmas approaching, my mind is on what to do for Christmas gifts.  So...I marched over to my paper stash and grabbed my Christmas paper pads from last year and started leafing through them.  I found this cute paper in my DCWV Winter Wonder paper pad and got started.  I chose the patterned paper with the polar bear because I thought it was cute and appropriate for the person I'm thinking of gifting this to.  I cut it down to size for the front of the board and on the back side I used one of the other silver and white sparkly snowflake papers from the same package cut down to size.  After adhering the paper to the front and back, I took 1/8" wide blue ribbon edge with silver that I picked up last Christmas from Michael's and adhered it all the way around the edge of the board.  When I had picked up the Winter Wonder paper at Jo Ann's, I had also found a package of matching stickers and embellishments to go with the paper.  I pulled some of those from the package and added to the back of the board.  I also added some Jolee's snowflake embellishments with bling and added some additional blue bling I had in my stash. At the top of the board on the clamp, I added two pieces of silver ribbon on each side of clamp.  To finish it up I added a small pad of plain card stock stamped with Christmas words in the lower right corner.  On top of that I tied a small framed Christmas sentiment "May the magic of Christmas be yours this season."  I cut the frame using my Cuttlebug fancy tags die and threaded it with 1/8" white with silver edges ribbon and tied it around the clamp, centering it over the small notes. 

Since I had leftover paper from the front and back of the clipboard, I used the other side of the polar bear paper to create a small matching photo book.  It it is very simple, I had two good corners of the original paper left with snowflakes, so cut those down to a 5 3/4" x 4" front and back cover.  For the inside pages of the book I used some matte silver card stock which I cut down to 5 1/2" x 3 1/2" wide.  I didn't add embellishments to the pages as I didn't want to limit what the recipient could do with the book.  On the outside I added the Let It Snow sticker and a Jolee's snowflake with some bling.  I punched two holes in the left side of the book and used snowflake brads for the holes.  I then added a couple of rings through the brads and covered them with ribbon in blue and silver.  To make the book a little more sturdy, I used my EKSuccess corner punch to punch some corner reinforcements from the silver snowflake paper used on the back of the board.  I then used them on all of the corners, front and back, inside and outside.  Once pictures are added to the book I'm sure it will stand up nicely.

Finally, the finished product with the plain stamped card stock in the middle of the clipboard under the framed sentiment.  All in all, I'm satisfied with the finished product and will probably pick up a few more of these dollar gems to do up some more Christmas gifts.

Until next time, Imagine, Create, Enjoy!