Cards, cards, cards!!

Eddy and I made it to AND from Illinois safely. We had a really wonderful time with family. They looooved Eddy. And Grandma was (*gasp*) on her best behavior. I even made it to Hobby Lobby which made me drool. Sure wish we had one of those out here in CA!! It was a fun trip and I git to see my sis, which was the bestest!! ♥ I miss her so much.

So we got back on a Tuesday or something and I had to get busy because Stamp Club was at MY house the following Sunday. Yikes! But we had a blast and made a super cute magazine-style card holder & Easter card. (no pics of those, though...oops!) I also had to make a birthday card for Eddy's sister, Gloria, and I wanted to make a "Thank You for your Hospitality"-type card for my Aunt & Uncle for everything they did for us while we were visiting.

Here's the pic for Eddy's sister's card:



Supplies: SU - Naturals White, Baja Breeze, Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss and Chocolate Chip cardstock, Chocolate Chip pigment ink, Loads of Love (flowers), Poppin' Pastels (assorted colors), Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon. Cuttlebug - Divine Swirl. Making Memories mini-brads. Designer Paper - Basic Grey, Urban Prairie Collection. Oh...sentiment is from SU's Crazy for Cupcakes. Spellbinders Nestabilities to cut & emboss the layers of the sentiment.

AND...the pic of the Hospitality card:



Supplies: SU - So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Perfect Plum cardstock; So Saffron grosgrain ribbon. Gina K Designs - Wreath of Wishes set (wreath & sentiment) and Pure Luxury base weight white cardstock. Spellbinders Nestabilities to cut & emboss the small circle for the sentiment. Purple ribbon - Michael's. Cuttlebug - Swiss Dots. Making Memories - mini-brads. Background stamp - Bold Flourish by Hero Arts.

I also mentioned making a card for my dear friend, Kristy, for her birthday but I didn't want her to see the card before she received it. Here's the pic of that one, too:



Supplies: SU - Certainly Celery, Pale Plum, Vellum Cardstock; black embossing powder; sentiment from SU Three Thoughts. Versamark by Tsukineko. Designer Paper (and brads) - Basic Grey, Eva Collection. Eyelets - Making Memories. Ribbon - Michael's. Vellum cardstock was cut & embossed using Spellbinders Nestabilities.

I'm working on more cards right now, too. For my aesthetician. There is a remote possibility that she may want to use some as "Thank you"'s for clients. So, I'm going to give her samples of what I can do and how I can personalize them for her. That'd be cool if it works, but everyone has different tastes...we'll see.

Gotta get back to work...

¡Ay Caramba!

Just made my very first card in Spanish. :) But, let me tell ya this card gave me grief. I have no Spanish-language stamps so I figured, no problem, I'll just use my Justrite block and letters and I'll make my own, right? HA! I don't have all the necessary squiggles, wavy lines and accents necessary to make it "right".

I did so much research trying to find the correct way to simply say "celebrate" in Spanish that my eyes were crossed. After about an hour I still didn't know how to say (or stamp) it correctly that I just texted my boyfriend and asked him. (I should've done that at the beginning!)

Here's the result... and please forgive my lopsided "¡" :



So, my supplies... Paper: SU! Chocolate Chip, So Saffron, Whisper White, & Windsor Knot DP. Ribbon: SU! Sage Shadow. Brads: Making Memories. Ink: SU! Chocolate Chip pigment ink and Tsukineko Versamark. Stamp: SU! Stitched Exotics. Embossing: Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes.

I didn't take a picture of the inside of this card (I hardly ever do), but I did manage to stamp "Feliz Cumpleaños" inside of it. I had to handwrite the tilde (~) but it looked okay. As long as Eddy's dad likes it...I'll be happy. :)

New pics!

So...I finally decided to upload some more pics of cards that I made. I don't know why it takes me so long. So sorry. I always want to...just seem to put it on the back burner, then I have so many to upload. Ugh.

The first one is of an Anniversary card I made for my folks. They'll be celebrating 46 years together on March 14th!! Isn't that awesome? I think so. The card is a bit feminine, hopefully my dad won't mind. :)



There's so many elements to this card, I don't know where to begin. All of the CS is Stampin' Up except for the pinky looking piece, which is from the Porcelain collection by Basic Grey. The rose is also from Basic Grey, Porcelain. The sentiment stamp is Inkadinkado and the ribbon is SU. Oh, yeah...brads are MM. Also used my Cuttlebug and did some sponging and used pink Stickles on the rose. (I also used Nestabilities Label 1 and Standard Circles for my shapes.)

Made this cute Hedgehog Thank You card last week for my dear friend, Heidi. She hasn't even seen it yet!!! I thought I'd be able to give it to her last week at our Stamp-A-Stack, but I didn't see her. Boo-hoo! So, I'm going to mail it, but she may see it here now 1st. ;)



Everything except the brads on this card is Stampin' Up!. The stamp set is Fun & Fast Notes, as is the wheel (on the Kraft paper). The ribbon (certainly celery) and the DP is from the SAB catalog. I colored in the little guy using my watercolor wonder crayons. Turned out cute!

And last, but not least is a birthday card I made for one of my dearest girlfriends. I really like the Crazy for Cupcakes set, but sometimes I wonder if it's "too" cute, you know? I tried to make it a little more sophisticated with toned down/richer paper.




I used some old SU paper that I had from last years in-colors and also some paper from the Bittersweet Collection by Basic Grey (it's just delicious paper!). I embossed the image using Versamark & black embossing powder then colored with the watercolor wonder crayons. The image is stamped onto SU Naturals White (one of my faves). Again, I sponged the edges of the paper and finished with some ribbon that I purchased from Michael's and a few Dew Drops. Voila! (The sentiment on the outside IS embossed and from another set, it just didn't turn out that great.)

I have more birthdays and other celebrations going on this month so I'll be busy, but I'll TRY to be better about posting those pics. :)

New Pics from Field Trip

I completely forgot to post the pics of the cards that I made from the card-making field trip that I went on. Figured better late than never so, I'm posting them today.

The first is a simple note-card/thank you:



I used So Saffron, Kraft, & Naturals White paper, Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon, Sweet Little Sentiments (inside & out), and the Botanical Blooms stamp set all by Stampin' Up!. I also used a piece of Denby Chiffon from the new Porcelain collection by Basic Grey and a few brads by Making Memories.

This next card is a card that could be used for anything. I left the inside blank. Basically, a "Thinking of You" kind of card. It's not one of my favorites, there are mistakes here & there, but I liked the layout a LOT!!, and I liked the basic color scheme:



So Saffron, Naturals White, Delicate Dots DP (SAB), Kraft paper from SU!, Certainly Celery 5/8" grosgrain ribbon (SAB) SU!, Making Memories brads, colored with SU! variety of markers (no idea which ones...I just colored :) ). And, I used Sahara Sand, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, and Certainly Celery inks to stamp the little flowers.

I made multiples of both cards. Just to have on hand. I never seem to have any cards on hand...I need to get better at that.

More card classes this week at Mary's. Yay!! Maybe it'll get my mind off the rain. The non...stop...rain. God, I miss the sun.

Maybe I need to make a sunny card? hahhaha!

The Queen of Slackers

I can't believe how time has passed since I blogged last. Just unbelievable. I meant to post my pictures of the notecards I made...and didn't. Ugh. So, I'll do that today. I also made 2 cute Valentine's Day cards. I'll post those pics, too.

First up, the notecards that I made:



I really liked, how they turned out and my sister loved them. I used Nestabilities by Spellbinders and JustRite Stampers for the monograms and a variety of papers, ribbons and other embellishments.

The Valentine's Day cards also turned out pretty good, but VERY different. The first one was for my parents:



I used the Loads of Love Stamp set (and Accessories) from Stampin' Up! and all the paper is also SU. I used Prismacolor watercolor pencils to color in the images and then used a SU blender pen to (duh!) blend the color out. I also used my Cuttlebug Distressed Branches embossing folder on the Real Red SU paper for some texture.

My other V-Day card was for my honey. I used paper from Basic Grey (Bittersweet) and a Valentine paper pack from My Mind's Eye, SU in chocolate chip and natural white. I also used Ranger Stickles in Pink and SU hemp twine and some MM copper brads. (I think those are all the supplies, but I'm probably missing something on this one!)



Hope you like them. :)

I also see that I have my FIRST follower to my blog. Sarah...I adore you! Can't wait to get busy on making your cards. xoxoxo

Wishing you all love this weekend...

Stamp Club...5 cards!

Stamp Club was great today!! I made 5 cards!! 2 were the ones that were planned and 3 others were after club and were for friends that I just wanted to make special cards for. Mary is always so awesome about that. The cards that we worked on today really provided me with some inspiration to do 2 special cards for the friends of my mom's who are struggling with illness right now. I sure hope they like them. The other (extra) card I made is for a friend who just lost her mom on Christmas Day. Ugh...can you imagine?

So, anyway, these are the cards that I made:

(The above is the inside of the second card)


The above was the Stamp Club inspiration for the two additional cards that I made. This set was made using Summer by the Sea, Warm Words and the Canvas background. (The Canvas background and Summer By the Sea are retiring as of the Jan.18th!!)



I should have asked what stamp set I used for this, but I didn't. I'm awful. I think it's retired, though. I used Warm Words on the outside, though.



The above card also uses 2 stamps which are now on Stampin' Up's retired list which are awesome, With Gratitude and Wonderful Words...both great sets. Don't forget, get them before Jan. 18th before it's too late.

So, I hope you like them. I had a great time making them and I can't wait to send them out.

Stamp Club Tomorrow...& updates...grrr...

I forgot to mention since I was caught up in posting my first picture that I'm so stoked to be attending Stamp Club tomorrow at my Stampin' Up demonstrators house. I can't wait!! After making all those cards for Christmas I got a bit burned out, but I'm ready to get motivated again.

I need to get some ideas for some pick-me-up cards for some dear friends of my moms. Both of whom are in poor health. So, I'm looking forward to the club for many reasons. To get me out of the house, get me re-motivated, and give me inspiration for some lovely women who need it. Looking forward to seeing Mary and the other Friday Stamp Club gals. YAY!

In other news today: I've been trying to update the layout/template of my blog all day today. Grrr. I wanted to change it, but apparently I can't. At least not right now. What a bummer. And I don't know anything about this kind of stuff. Hopefully soon.



Here's a plug for Mary: Mary's Stampin' Up! Website

Posting a Pic

Just thought I'd show a little sumthin'-sumthin' of what I attempt to do with my time. This was my Christmas card this year. I had a lot of fun designing it.









I used my Cuttlebug for the embossed background, to cut out the square, AND to emboss the snowman. (Love my Cuttlebug!) The paper is SU Real Red and the glitter on the snowflake is SU Dazzling Diamonds (the best glitter). The snowflake punch is one of Martha Stewart's (which I got at Michael's for 40% off). I also used Stickles by Ranger, SU Stampin' Pastels, and ribbon from Michaels to embellish.

Ceremonial First Post

Well. Here I am in the world of bloggers (Yay me, right?). Not sure that anyone will be interested in what I have to offer, but I do want a place to call "home" for the cards and other things that I have started to create.

I'm new at all this crafty stuff. Particularly at card-making. But I really dig it. I found that I was spending a small fortune at Hallmark and Papyrus to buy the kinds of cards I wanted for the people I cared about. I was just spending way, way too much moolah and thought to myself, "Self, you can probably do this! You have a crafty side!"

So once I moved to Californ-i-ay to be with my stud-muffin boyfriend (he's so gonna kill me when he reads that...ha! - OR he'll looove it!) I decided to look more into how to take on this crafty feat of making cards. I contacted one of my crafty friends back in my home state of Nevada and asked her, "Uhhh..hey...I wanna make cards. What do I do?" Of course she thought I was a bit silly, like, I should just know, y'know? But she gave me some great advice..."Have you looked into Stampin' Up?" I had no clue what or who they were...but my journey had just begun.

I'll be posting pics and stuff of some of my creations. This is fun for me...all this crafty crap. ;) I can't promise to post something everyday or anything like that. But I hope that this will spur on my creative-flow.

Now I just need to figure out how to work this place called the Blogosphere! Wish me luck...yikes!