Sunday, May 22, 2011

Quick thank-you card.

     I needed to make a quick thank-you card for a secretary at Church. I needed her to do something for me and waited until the last minute to ask >.< She was great, so I thought a thanks was in order. I was pressed for time and the stamping isn't great, though it's my 3rd or 4th try. Since it's late, I'm going with this one, knowing that she will be thrilled that someone said thank-you at all. So steal the idea if you like, just stamp neater ;- ) (Kind of embarrassed to post this actually.)  All the stamps are from Inkadinkado.


     I had better placement in other tries, but the Thank You stamp was on the block crooked or twisted in some way. Kind of weird. Sometimes getting a card to people is more important than, spending so much time on each card that you don't get some cards made at all. There are so many people that I would love to send thank-yous to or thinking about you, but I can barely keep up with birthdays and anniversaries. I've decided to try to make some quick and simple ones for these times and save the more labor intensive ones for the special occasions.

     I'm going to be out of town for awhile, so I won't have any posts until I get back. Then I'll have to kick things into gear, because I still have those graduations to do, plus June birthdays and such. Oh, yeah and a puppy to train soon after that ;- 0 Time marches on! Hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend and have a beautiful week ahead. Hugs.... debbie

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Cute and fuzzy!

    Just to keep you up to date. Here is a current photo of my puppy-to-be. He's had his first visit to the vet and got a shot. He's now 6 week's and we'll be getting him in about 2 1/2 more weeks. Just can't wait, but the house still needs more puppy-proofing ;- )



     He's not a card, but will someday make a cute scrapbook page ;- ) Enjoy your day!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Graduation season, too!

     Aaarragh! I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted.  It's been crazy. We've picked up my son from college. He survived his freshman year! Yahooo! I've been lunching and visiting with friends with whom I've needed to catch up. Had to work on photos for the bulletin board honoring the confirmands at our Church (after doing the board totally for Good Friday and then totally over again for Easter, it needed to be re-done with the items I made to honor them). I am responsible for the board with the help of my tall, long-armed husband.


     At the confirmation, (it was split into 2 ceremonies this year- long story) my husband takes the photos and then I am responsible for editing them. I then,  put them onto a disk and each family receives one. So, this has all kept me very busy.
     I started this graduation card and kept working on it in small bits. It's not very detailed, but I would decide what I would do and then get to that one thing the next day. It was so disjointed, but I really like this easel card. There is no sentiment yet, because I haven't decided which graduate is getting this one. I have 6 total to do and I think only 2 may look like this one.  The rose is from the Walk In My Garden cart, done in her school colors. The oval and scalloped oval were done with nesties and I can't remember which cart the graduation cap was from. It was left over from some favor boxes, I made for my son's graduation last year. If you are interested, just leave a note and I will check the file in Design Studio and see which cart it's from.  The paper is from Paper Studio's Graduation Paper pack.




     I used a Perfect medium pen and Perfect Pearls in, (I believe) Sunflower, to accent the rose. I did the same with green Perfect Pearls on the leaves and stem. (Click the photo to see a larger image.) I used a white opaque pen on the word "grad".
     What would I do differently? I've thought about it a lot, since this card was done so helter skelter. I considered outlining the word "grad" with black gel pen, but my hand is not that steady. You could use a different outline method on the flower, such as stickles. I like the clean and uncluttered look of this card though. What do you think?
     Thanks for stopping by and spending some of your precious time on my blog. Please leave a comment. It is very rewarding to me, to know that you were here. Have a Blessed week.

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Anniversary or Valentine ;- )


     Today's card is an anniversary card for a dear friend's oldest daughter. I used the same love bird stamp that I used on the wedding card I showed on the last post (by Inkadinkado), but I wanted this one to have a different look. I decided to use the heart from the Martha Stewart Seasonal Cake Cart. The pink cardstock in the back is Core'dinations Glitter cardstock. So, once I started in this direction, I found myself using pinks and reds. When the front was done, it looked like it could be a Valentine, but I basically decided that both celebrate the same thing... Love. So it's appropriate. The roses were ones I made with the Quilled Creations Quilled Roses quilling set, that I showed in this post here. I found this kit at Hobby Lobby. I frosted them with Martha Stewart fine glitter. The ribbon was on clearance at Michaels. I actually even remembered to round the corners this time. Woo Hoo!



     The inside was done digitally in Photoshop Elements. The font is LDWedding, for most of the writing,  LDJ Jilligraphy for the word "wonderful" and LDJ Revelry for the word "Romantic". All these fonts are from Lettering Delights. The heart flourish is from the brush set, Valentine-clip-art-3 from photoshopfreebrushes.com. The 3 red roses are from the brush set, inobscuro_roses. You can find it here. It says it works with Photoshop 7, but I use it with Elements 3, so if you like it try it. I used glitter pen around the hearts and on the rose details, but you can't tell in the photo.


  
     What would I do differently? I like how it turned out, maybe use purple to stamp the birds and in the ribbon, so it doesn't look so much like a Valentine, unless I was making a Valentine.

     Thanks for stopping by. Please leave a comment, I really appreciate hearing from you and knowing you were here. Have a Happy Mother's Day! Enjoy your families. 

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Wedding time of year.

     Today's card is a wedding card. Our friend's son is getting married. I used pattern paper that I had picked up at Hobby Lobby from Paper Studio. The stamps were Inkadinkado Spring mini assortment from JoAnn's (I think, either that or Michael's). The scalloped oval was made with nesties. I used a  Icy White Viva Decor Pearl Pen to make the embellishment from the birds to the heart.  I'm not sure why the embossing wasn't coming out very well. The embossing on the card, isn't the only ones I did. I made many attempts to get these. I re-package my embossing powder into different containers, so I'm not sure which gold metallic powder this is, because I couldn't locate the original container.


     On the inside, I used a stamp from Inkadinkado (Wedding/Anniversary set) and some stickers on my digital sentiment. The font is LDWedding from Lettering Delights.



     What would I do differently. Well, I meant to tip the sentiment on the front, but I should have tipped it more, because it just looks crooked. I wish the the embossing turned out better. What type of embossing powder do you like, for metallic embossing?

     While I was out in my yard today, I was greeted with this.


    Happy little volunteer flowers, peeking at me from near my patio. I only put potted flowers here, but some snuck out and have come up again ;- ) What a nice surprise!

     Oh, I want to add the Jacilyn Dashwood is having a  candy give-away on her blog. Click here to go there.

     Thanks for stopping by and looking at what I created today. Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think. It really means a lot to me, to know you were here. I hope your day will have a happy surprise in it as well. Have a great one!

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Bugaboo is having a sale, prizes and there will be a new store.

     The link to the new store link is http://bugaboostamps.3dcartstores.com/ 

Please note this will change back to the Bugaboo address in a few days they will alert you when this happens and remind you to change your links.  They apologize for this minor inconvenience but trust them with the new store it is worth it!
First off for the month of May everything is 50 % off! So now is a great time to stock up. With the grand re-opening of the store they are offering up some wonderful prize packages for their loyal followers! You could be the winner of a $10 Gift Certificate, a $20 Gift Certificate, or you could be the lucky winner who gets 7 free images every month for the rest of 2011! That means you could be one of the lucky 8 winners! 
To add to the excitement Jodie says, every order placed in May will have their name placed in the pot for a chance to win one of five $20 gift certificates that she will be giving away at the end of the month!
So go check it out!

Stamping and paper piecing.

     Today's card is for a male friend from Church, who was one of my son's teachers in 6th through 8th grade. In fact, he is one of my son's favorite teachers. Last week, during my fuzzy thinking period, I had picked out a different card idea for him, which I didn't remember today, so today, I created a new card idea ;- ) I used the Hero Arts stamp set Birthday Wishes, which is exclusive to Achiever's and the QuickKuts Nesting Circle Variety Cookie Cutter dies that were designed to go with them. I embossed the main image first with silver embossing powder, then paper pieced the plate and frosting from scraps I had. I believe the frosting is pearl paper from Crafters' Companion. The confetti is colored with metallic markers and the candles with glitter markers. (Yes, glitter on a guy card.) It's a birthday, celebrate!  I felt the gel maker colors were too vivid and the glitter ones looked better.  The background stamp is also from the set.


     The sentiment was done digitally using LDMarooned and LDDabble, both from Lettering Delights. The candle embellishment was a gift from a friend and the stars are from K&Company's Happy Birthday stickers.


     What would I do differently? I'm not sure. I think it works as a nice, general birthday card. I usually use these silver, metallic embellishments from JoAnn's that are cakes, hats and balloons, but I'm currently out of them.

     For those of you who love fonts, my DH, sent me an article he found on Macworld about a cool font that looks like embroidery. Well, that was what it was about for me. The article went on about the software used to design the font and a font designing competition (at least I think that's what it went on about (YAWN). If you'd like to find out about it, here is the link. If you just want to check out the FREE font and maybe get the FREE download, here is that link. It especially looks great on textured backgrounds. My name is Debbie and I'm addicted to fonts. It's been 28 hours since I downloaded my last font ;- )

Thanks for stopping by today. Please share your thoughts in the comments. I love hearing from you and it's great to know you were here. Have a very Blessed week.