Winter Silhouette Card

The silhouette image is from A Child's Year cartridge.  I embossed the background with a snowflake folder and added three different sized punched snowflakes using blue mica paper.  The bottom border was done with a Martha Stewart punch.

I decided it was too plain and added a red bird.  What do you think?  With or without the bird?

 

Fairy Card

The fairy is from A Child's Year cartridge, cut at 3.75 inches.  I added some bling onto the star and the fairy's wings using a gel pen, it's just not showing up in the photo.

Vellum Overlay Christmas Cards

A Facebook friend posted a Christmas card using this technique.  I like the silhouette underneath the vellum.

A Child's Year was used for the silhouette as well as the holly leaves.  I cut the leaves from white cardstock and colored them with Promarkers.

After doing three of these, I decided the background paper should be brighter and made this one using a snowflake from Accent Essentials.

The vellum square has an embossed line around the outer edge so it doesn't look completely flat on the card.
 

Fall Leaves Card

Another card with a fall theme that was inspired by one seen on Pinterest.

Three different cartridges were used to cut the leaves: Accent Essentials, A Child's Year and Mickey and Friends. They were embossed with my Cuttlebug.   The button was done with a Martha Stewart punch and accented with baker's twine.

Cameo Card

The embossed ovals were done with a Stampin' Up embossing folder that I got during the Sale-a-bration sale as my free item.

I don't have the matching die to cut the shape so I used Design Studio to cut an oval that fit their folder just perfectly!

The silhouettes are from A Child's Year.  I also used Design Studio to resize them to fit the ovals.

Mother's Day Card

A Child's Year was used for the silhouette and Hanna Montana for the doily.

The inside sentiment:

How many times will you use a stamp?

Since my craft room is getting so filled with supplies, I've begun to ask myself before I buy a new stamp set or tool, "How many times will I use this?" before making a purchase.  I do the same thing when I'm buying new clothes, especially if they're more expensive items or just for a special occasion.

At stamp club this month I saw a really cute set of stamps which included an image of a vintage typewriter and six sentiments that you could stamp onto the sheet of paper sticking out of the typewriter.  Immediately, I decided that I'd order them online.  By the time I got home and online I'd forgotten them!  LOL!

Today, I saw the stamp set again in the catalog and I decided it would be simple to duplicate with clip art. Using Google Image search I found a typewriter that I liked, saved it as a jpg. file and imported the file into my card making software.  It was a simple process to resize it and add the text onto the paper in the typewriter.

Now that I have it saved and set up, I can print it any size I choose and easily change the text too.  Not only did I save myself the cost of the stamp set, I now have a lot more options open to me using the images.

The paper I used on these is from a Paper Studio pack named All Seasons II.  It's one of the stacks my friend, Anita, gave me yesterday.

The top hat with the shamrock was cut using A Child's Year cartridge and Design Studio.

Cooper's Name Frame

Today I made this for my newest grandson, Cooper.  He's still way too little to even look at it, but it will be something his mom can put near his crib when he's ready for one.

Cartridges used:  Elegant Edges for the dark blue scallop
                          Printing 101 for the letters
                          A Child's Year for the image

The corners of the blue checked paper were shaped with a Fiskar's corner punch and I added some Signo pen doodling around the edge.

Butterflies and Buttons Card

This card was inspired by one I saw online and saved a jpg image of in my Ideas folder.  There's no watermark on the photo so the only credit I can give for the inspiration is for "cuttlebugstamps3"---I truly do not know where I saw the card!

Because I make a large quantity of cards, I try to shop for bargains for my supplies.  Some time ago, I found these sheets of wall stickers in our Dollar Tree store and picked up several sheets.  The colors were nice and I figured the butterfly images would work well on a variety of cards.  As you can see, I've used quite a few and hated to run out since they can't be replaced.

Sometimes I amaze myself!  DUH!  I have a color copier!  So I put the sticker sheet on the copy bed and just shot several pages of copies.  They were very simple to cut out with Cutterbee scissors.  Some were copied onto photo paper and some on white cardstock.  I think the colors show up better on the photo paper. 

I used A Child's Year to cut the scarlet colored rectangles and a Martha Stewart punch for the buttons.  The sentiment is from a Paper Studio stamp set and the dots were done with a SU marker.  The colors of cardstock I used were a deep ruby red and cream.  They didn't photograph well under my Ott light.  The ink I used for the sentiment matches the ruby cardstock and it looks pink in the photo!

This is the first card I've designed in over a week.  Generally, I work every day in my craft room but have just sort of lost my mojo these past few days.   Most of my time spent in my craft room has been playing A Garden of Time on Facebook!  So, I think my "garden" is going to have to be left unattended for a while so I can be certain I have the 150 cards finished that I pledged to Cards for Soldiers! 

Wishes Card

A Child's Year and Lacy Labels were used for the Cricut cuts on this card.  My "it's too dull now to even use anymore" Martha Stewart punch was used for the border pieces. 

I did ink the edges of the butterflies and then used a Paper Studio stamp for the sentiment.

Martha Stewart border punches are now off my shopping list.  The lever handles don't work nearly as well as the EK Success ones!  And, in my experience, using the MS punches on cardstock dulls them way too quickly when compared to the EK Success brand.

I ruined too much paper trying to get the edges punched cleanly and finally managed to get enough borders done for a few cards by using card stock instead.

Easel Birthday Card

A Child's Year has this sentiment on it.  I cut it out at  2 5/8" to fit onto an A2 sized card and added some dots onto the letters with some old Martha Stewart markers I ran across the other day when I was re-arranging some things.   I don't like these markers because they take longer to dry than Stickles! LOL!


The paper is from Paper Studio Birthday Extravaganza stack from Hobby Lobby and I think the brads I used were picked up at the Dollar Tree.  The sentiment stamp is from SU.

I've often wondered, when making an easel card, if the recipient will know how to display it.  There's a good printable diagram showing how it's supposed to work available online.  The link I found to it is on the Splitcoast Stampers website or you can access it here: 

http://cardsngreetings.blogspot.com/2009/11/easel-card-instructions_09.html
I printed the diagram out and am including one inside each of the cards.

Mother's Day Card

A Child's year was used to cut the sillouette.  The sentiment inside " Some days, the boy inside me still holds my mother's hand.  Happy Mother's Day.

Inside sentiment on this one "Loving me like no other...my caring, kind, and gentle mother.  Happy Mother's Day".

Easter Cards

Recently I purchased the cartridge A Child's Year.  Making cards geared towards children is difficult for me and I thought the silhouettes would be good for me to use.

These Easter themed cuts seemed to fit into our current CFS challenge.  I just added some Prima flowers, Liquid Pears and some flower brads I had on hand.  The sentiment is computer generated and punched with a SU punch.