Birthday's to Mother's Day

It was a REALLY Happy Mother's Day. Though my sweet sons and dear DIL were not with us,

we had a FUN time. The picture below is of my daughter and her two sweet daughters. The older one is Holly. Holly is our miracle grand-daughter. She had bacterial menningitis 1 1/2 years ago and we nearly lost her. As you can see from this picture, she is doing super!! And you will see her handiwork (with Mom's help) in this blog. Here she is ready to race with her Dad.

Holly enjoying a strawberry from the fruit bouquet.
The beautiful crepe paper flowers Holly gave Mimi.
This is the BEAUTIFUL card Holly made. I just LOVE it! Holly is a great card maker - we are going to have LOTS of fun in the years to come!!!
Don't you just love these questions? (Her Mom was a junior high history teacher before she became a SAHM.) This is the card I made for my MOM! It was inspired by the new BoBunny Jazmyne collection. I love it! Several of the cards to follow are from that collection. I used several die cuts; Spellbinders - Fancy Tags and Decorative Flowers

MS Pop-up Lily punch, both large and small.

Letters are from two Quickutz sets

Background paper - Paper Source; bought it YEARS ago.
Word stamps -SU- Stem Sayings and PSX - Happy Mother's Day

Flower- Inkadinkadoo.

Leaves punch - Punch Bunch.
This is the BEAUTIFUL card my dear DIL made for Mother's Day! Isn't it gorgeous?

Following are a number of cards made from the BoBunny Jasmine collection.
The first picture is the inside of a birthday card. I cannot seem to get it moved down on the page!! Stamps used are:

Flower - SU A Beautiful Thing Set

Happy Birthday - Hero Arts Thoughtful Messages

Happy Day - Stampendous

I just love the Happy Day stamp. I have a thank you that looks similar, but this one is much more versatile.

The cards below have the following stamp:

Thinking of you - Just for Fun

Flowers were made with die cuts as follows:

Spellbinders - Flower Creations

Just for Fun Stamp

Leaves- old SU set of hydrangeas, uncertain of name

DP - Green at Heart - Seedling Purchased at Archievers

Stickles

The large flower here is a Quickutz 4x4 called "Flower." I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby!!
I go to a great quilt sale every year with my Mom and sister in Hutchinson Kansas. It is a mission fund raiser for the Mennonite church. The quilts are made and donated by the different churches and individuals in the churches. They are then auctioned. I have purchased "several" over the years. They are FABULOUS! I have been going to the sale for about 30 years. For about the last 10 years, I have made pins for the women in our family to wear at the sale. Here are this years pins. I used the new Justrite, Stitched with Love set and colored them with copics.
This was my favorite one. Even my granddaughters wore them!! Really missed my DIL!
The 2 cards below were Copics practice cards.

Stamp- Trunk by Rubber Cottage

Flowers - Prima, Sweet N Sassy Suzie from Archievers

Swirl - piece of Sizzix diecut - Decorative Swirls w/Berries and Holly
Inside of first trunk card.

Justrite, Stitched with Love


I just love this card. It is one I will send my son who is a dentist in the Navy. I have found the House Mouse stamps have lots of teeth motifs!!

Stamps - House Mouse, Bunny Lift

Words - SU Stem Sayings

Heart Punch - Paper Source
Spellbinders - Large Scallops

Stamp - Hero Arts - Letter Messages

House Mouse - Amanda
I thought I had put this card on my blog previously, but could not find it when I wanted to replicate it yesterday. This is probably my favorite sympathy card. Cannot remember where I got the idea... I know it was "scraplifted."

Stamps - SU Baroque

PSX - With Deepest Sympathy

Die Cuts - Spellbinders ovals and Scalloped ovals

This was Holly's Birthday card.

I used several of the Justrite Stamps for the words, inside and out.

Stamps - SU - Crazy for Cupcakes

Markers - Copics

DP - Unknown - from my stash
Really long today. I will try and update sooner next time!!

The Louise Valentine

This is my Mom's valentine. I made it with a piece of fancy braiding from the "antique" box described in my last blog. This braid is from the dress she wore to my wedding. Yes, she sewed the dress, as well as mine and all my bridesmaids. She's a VERY special lady!!

I really love this card, even though the pix is not that great. I love all the borders. I used the MS heart punches both for the hearts and the borders. The stamp is an old one I have from PSX (I think.) I love it.

This is a modified version of the last one. It is for my granddaughters. They are spending the day with me today!! While the youngest one (soon to be one) was napping, HRU, the 4 year old and I made her Mommy and Daddy their valentine cards. Wish I had taken pictures. They were great!! I look forward to lots of stamping with both of them!!!
Happy Valentine's Day to each of you!

A Few More Valentines

Valentines are probably one of the most fun types of cards to make, in my opinion. Maybe it's because I have so much valentine stuff! LOL! This card is one I made when I was frustrated. I had a bunch of pieces for a card laying around - extras from the very first card I put on my blog. Hope one of my friends will enjoy it!
I love the rose embossing folder from SU. The next two cards are made with it with VERY different looks. Just added a stamp and a little ribbon for this one.
I got into my box of "antique" card making materials. Actually, this is a box of ribbon and buttons, etc. I "saved" from my parents house when we cleaned it out. One day I went through all my parents 50th anniversary cards and cut off stuff I thought I might use. (Not sure when I had time to do that, but glad I did!) This card has the embossed rose from SU and everything else but the "Be Mine" stamp and pearls are from the antique stash.

This is anther antique stash card. It is hard to tell from this picture, but it is a very light pink.
I cannot tell you how long this card took me. I just could not get it to look right until I put the Spellbinders frame on it. Now it is one of my favorite cards!
This one is for my DH!! He is an expresso fanatic. His old Krups expresso machine bit the dust in December, so he has been trying to find a new one that was not TOO expensive. We have looked at and tried expresso makers ALL month long ranging in price from $180 to $3000. Needless to say, I am exhausted with all of it, but the latte's keep me awake. LOL! He finally got one (on a super sale) below the $180 range. It was WAY more than that originally. So, when I came across the Fiskar's coffee mug punch on the clearance rack at JoAnn's last week, I was SO excited!! (Amazing how little it takes for me to be excited...) I had never seen this punch before. So this is the card I made. I think he will love it a latte...
A little too much glare on the first photo, but shows the brown glitter paper.
Inside is nothing spectacular. Just need to write in it and it it DONE!!
I have a REALLY special antique stash card to show you, but it will have to wait till after the 14th, because it is for one of my most faithful readers - my MOM! See you next time!

Paper Bears

Hard to imagine posting two days in a row! But, I realized I had forgotten something important in my post. I did make some very important bears - were going to be for Christmas, but ended up being a celebration gift for the one year anniversary of my granddaughter's bacterial meningitis. It was life's most difficult time - November 11, 2008 - my GD was diagnosed with BM. Nothing worse than watching your grandchild on death's bed and observing your child handling all of this. By God's grace, we have a healthy GD, with only a left sided hearing loss. So, to celebrate this, I made her a set of paper bears. When she was born, her aunt and uncle purchased a KU build-a-bear for her. This bear went through the 2 week hospitalization for BM. So, I knew it was near to her heart.

When I saw SU come out with the build-a-bear dies, I knew I wanted them.

So here is KU bear - as close to her original as I could make. I used velcro strips to attach the clothes, so she could change them at will. This photo is another bear with some more clothes. I made several bears - you know we have to have friends!!
And the pink and brown outfit...
And, finally her Christmas clothes. Since my GD's name is Holly, I loved this outfit.
I did make them sturdy by cutting out the bears in heavy cardboard, then with the color of CS I wanted to make the bear. Using my xyron, I glued the two pieces together for more play-ability!!

Birthdays, Christmas, Valentines, Oh My!!

It's been a very long time since I posted anything. Soon you will see and read why!!

Currently I am working on Valentine's Day cards and am having a hard time. I have spent so much time with these two cards, I'm a little weary.

I decided to gather all my Valentine's card making "stuff" into one place so I could see what was available - maybe too much. I'm sure some unnamed people in my house might think that is true...

But, that's NEVER true, right?

My favorite stamps are valentines and roses, so I have plenty to choose from!

I got a Big Shot to replace my old Zip e Mate and WOW, I love it. Cuts through about anything and has a wider bed and replacement parts!!

Stamps - SU Hearts background, Quickutz heart border, Spellbinders hearts die and an old Fiskars heart border punch.
I am really disappointed in the color of the second picture - the pink is really a coral pink. (But as you can see on the first picture, one of the inside white hearts is showing in the heart cutout, and there is a lot of glare. The colors are more true in it.) The coral is a little unusual for me, but it is a great glitter paper.

I spent WAY too much time on this card... I started with the BIGZ XL that I purchased in a promotion from SU. It has the changeable dies. I thought this would make great valentines if I put it together with a beautiful stamp from Inkadinkado that I purchased from Archievers. Well, the stamp was too big. So I decided to make a bigger card, but then cutting the heart window became complicated. SO, like I said I spent WAY too much time on this one.

Stamps - heart from Inkakinkado, With Love - Denami, Happy Valentine's Day - PSX.

Dies - Sizzlets, Spellbinders

Border Die - Fiskars
Inside of valentine card.
Now, this may seem like an odd picture, but it is important!! My daughter-in-law is an incredible card maker, gift wrapper, etc. This is a picture of one of the beautiful gifts she gave me before I opened it. (Yes, it had stamping stuff in it!!)
Here is a picture of some of the beautiful packages she placed under our tree. She used the Basic Grey wrapping paper, so...
When I made her thank you card, I used leftover pieces of the wrapping paper and ribbon for the card. I also received a Letterpress machine for Christmas, which I liked, but the template construction leaves a LOT to be desired... I did add a Letterpress piece on the front.
The tree is a chipboard piece from an old Lisa Bearnson set covered in, you guessed it, Basic Grey wrapping paper!! The "Love You" is part of a Quickutz die set I purchased for $3.66; original price $24.99. It is true that good things come to those who wait... Wish I was always patient!!
This thank you was for my son. I forgot to take a picture before I wrote on it. But, I love the reindeer!! The stamp and paper are from Paper Source. In the picture you cannot tell the paper is shiny; it is beautiful. Color is Shimmer Chocolate. I just added different colors of Stickles for the ornaments, and it was done.
This was a quick thank you (after the Letterpress was done.) I love the colors!!

Paper - old SU

Metal gift - Making Memories
This is not a great picture of the card, but I loved the die cut.

Die cut - Lattice BIGZ from SU

Border punch - Martha Stewart

Ornament punch - SU

Stamps - SU, MorningStar
Now, I will explain why it has been so long since I have posted. Above is a pix of my oldest granddaughter. We are making sugar cookies for my son, her uncle. In December we have 4 birthdays, besides Jesus' birthday, and 3 anniversaries. All are before Christmas, except one birthday. SO, we are always busy in December!! On top of all of that...
We got our new puppy the day after Thanksgiving! Now, I know you are all saying, "Why would anyone get a puppy in the winter? Well, I did not want a new puppy in the winter either, but we had to put our 12 year old lab to sleep in April. For a while we were not sure we wanted another dog. But, after a little incident in our neighborhood in August, we decided we WERE getting a new puppy. After lots of searching by my DH, we found a breeder and their next litter was due in October. So, our new pup was ready to be adopted the day after Thanksgiving!! On the day we got her, she weighed 14 lbs. Yesterday, she weighed in at 24!! This picture is of my youngest son with her a few days after we got her. What follows is his birthday card.
At some point in October or early November, we got a bulk mailing from American Express. I looked at the boxes and thought, "Wow, these would make great cards!" As you will see this was my second attempt, far better than the first. The picture above is of the outer covering. I covered it in some great wrapping paper from Hobby Lobby. I stamped the Happy Birthday to You stamp several times on white paper and cut them out. I then stamped the inside of the circles, added Thickers for his name and a little ribbon.
On the "card" I used the SU signs set. I stamped them and cut them out, put them through the xyron and attached them to the out side of the window panel.

I had this birthday DP - not sure of company. I also had a great "son" stamp from My Sentiments Exactly.
Then I put a ribbon on that part to open up to an area to write the greeting. FUN, huh? It's so fun to try something new with a found object!!
This card was made from the 2nd American Express box - glad both my hubby and I got that junk mail!! This was my first attempt. This card was for my daughter-in-law. I used some old Basic Grey papers to cover the outside envelope.
I put the Happy Birthday letters on the outside of the window, as well as the "From our house."

My daughter-in-law had just completed new curtains for their house, so I tried to make the inside look like curtains.

For this I used a new MS punch. And as you can see the SU birthday stamp set.This is my son-in-law's card. He is a NASCAR fan, so I am always trying to come up with something about racing. I had just learned how to make the slider cards, so I thought this would be fun. Besides, my little granddaughter would be amazed at the moving parts!!

Stamps - SU, Morningstar

Embossing folder - Cuttlebug
This is the left pullout panel.
And the right.
Finally some stickers on the inside.

So, even though I have not had time to post since October, I have done some stamping!!

See you soon!