Challeng card for Expressively Me

This is my card for Jen's challenge on her blog expressivelyme.blogspot.com. (I really need to learn how to hyperlink websites) I really like her website. She has really great tutorials and lots of card designs.

I made the card with acrylic paint and foam stamps from Michaels. I wrote the sentiment with a brush pen used for writing kanji.

The card was another contender for my co-worker's babies 1st birthday. I was going for the three basic colors, but the blue was too light. And the white behind the lamb didn't show up well. If I repeat this card I'll use a darker blue behind the seal and red behind the lamb.

I ended up liking this card the best, so it's the one she got.

Birthday Cards

My co-worker's twins will be one year old tomorrow. Here are some cards I made for them. All cards were made with acrylic paint. The animal stamps are $1 foam stamps from Michaels. The circus tent is from a stencil set also from Michaels. The Oh Happy Day is from a Fiskars set.

The ribbon is a $1 roll from Michaels. It's a little retro, and I really need to find more uses for it.

A Trio of Butterflies for Caardvarks Challenge

Here is a trio of butterfly cards for the sewing challenge.

The butterflies are made of velveteen ribbon (found in the floral and craft section). They were tied with coordinating ribbon on sale at Michaels this week 5 spools for $1. What a deal! The butterfly trails were stitched using 2-ply DMC embroidery thread. I tried a few different trails, and I don't know which one I like best. Maybe tomorrow I'll try a double trail with 2 butterflies.

There Thanks was hand written using a black brush pen. The For You sentiment is a $1 stamp from Michaels. And the last card has no sentiment yet. This will go in my any occasion file.

Basket full of flowers

This is for the caardvarks challenge to use stitching. I can't take any credit for this card - I case'd it from a Martha Stewart card idea booklet. Worse yet, I didn't even buy the book. How bad is that? At least I gave her credit.

If I do this again, I will use a darker color green, and a heavier weight thread (or even yarn). Though it's not shown, Thank You is stamped on the inside.

The basket was stitched freehand using light weight crochet thread. The flowers are EK Success paper punches.

Card for WSC27 Challenge

Here's my card for Beate's weekend challenge. I thought I'd do several cards - I really like this layout. But the weekend's been way too busy. So this is my first card. I'll probably post several more cards this week, just to get the ideas out of my head. The flowers are EK success paper punches. The saying is from a Fiskars stamp set (I think it's called paisley). The paper is from Provo Crafts slab.

A few more birthday cards

I made these birthday cards for a few co-workers. The first one is just like my previous post. The card and the pink border paper are cardstock. The flower paper and the silver paper are origami paper. The flower boquet is by Cuttlebug. The ribbon is by Trim it Up from Michaels. This is going to a very nice lady at work. She's great to work with, and much to my dismay, she was just transferred to another group. But I can still eat lunch with her.

The flower boquet is pretty significant because we both like gardening and flowering plants. We regularly exchange plant cuttings and seedlings.




This birthday card is for a male coworker. I ususally have a hard time making the cards neutral or masculine. I hope this fits. The star and streaks were cut out free hand. It's hard to see, but the streaks say "MAKE A WISH".

Way to Go Card for Captain Crafter's Challenge

The flower paper and the silver paper are origami paper. This is a great value for card makers. I paid $1.50 for 150 silver 2.5inch square paper, and $1.25 for 200 patterned origami paper. The paper is thin, but when used like this it almost doesn't matter. The sentiment is by Cuttlebug. I added the same size card stock to the back after embossing. Otherwise, the silver paper would bend when put in the envelope. The ribbon is Trim It Up from Michaels.

Some Old Cards

These are some old cards I made a few years ago. The originals were given away, and these are copies made so I wouldn't forget. Well, it's a good thing I made the extras, because I forgot! I found them tucked away in a drawer tonight.


The Thank You is a gate folder card with a flower boquet stamped in the middle, and thank you underneath. It's been so long, I don't know who made the stamps, though I still have them.



The Thinking of You was created using the masking technique. Again, I don't remember the stamp set. At that time, I wasn't keeping the boxes or labeling items well. It was fun to make, and really colorful. These two are the same design, just different colors.



Missing You card created with Disney stamps. I love classic Winnie the Pooh. These stamps are really old. They were bought from the Disney store at least 15 years ago.


The inside of the card. Promise you'll never forget me...

How to make a shaker card pt. 2

Continued from part 1.

Step 7: This is the tricky part. Outline the foamie cut-out with adhesive. I used Terrifically Tacky Tape so you could see, but any strong adhesive will work. This needs to be all around the window. If there are any gaps, the confetti will fall out. Wow, I should not have picked such an elaborate design for the example! This took me at least 10 minutes. Normally, the card is super fast to put together.
I also added adhesive around the edge of the foamie to adhere the DS.

Step 8: Add confetti, glitter, whatever to the design window. Remove the backing to the tape. Carefully position the DS on the foamie, aligning the window. Press to seal all around. Give it a shake to make sure there are no gaps.

Step 9: Continue to embellish the card. I added curling ribbon and triangles to look more balloon like. If this was a snowball, I would have added an base. I've also used this technique to make mini-shadow box cards, so a frame would go around the window.

Finished!!! If you make this card, please let me know!!

How to make a shaker card pt. 1

I like making my own shaker cards, rather than using the CD holder because my cards are not the same size as the CD holder. I rarely make square cards. Most of the time they are 4.25 x 5.5 inches (or half of a 8.5 x 11 inch paper). I use this size because I have envelopes that fit. Or I use the precut cards with matching envelope sets.

This is an easy method to make any shaker card. Most of the time I stick with circles, squares, and rectanges. For the demonstration, I'm going fancy with a bunch of balloons. It's for my co-worker's 36th anniversary at work. That's a heck of a tenure, and she deserves a celebration! So my card will have festive balloons.

Step 1: cut a piece of sticky foamie the same size as the card front. I'm using a 5 x 6.5 inch card. Next trace your cut-out on the foamie. I like to use stencils to make the designs. The balloons are from Fiskars.

Step 2: Cut out the design.

Step 3: Trace the design on the DS paper which will cover the foamie. If the design is not symmetrical, make sure you line up the back of the DS paper with the front of the foamie. If you don't, your DS will have a mirror image of the design.

Step 4: Cut the design out of the DS paper. Then turn over the paper and match up the DS paper to the foamie. If the foamie shows through, make the cut out in the foamie just a bit bigger.

Step 5: For this card, I added the Dots DS paper to the card. Or you can add a photo to the card, whatever you want to show through the window. Remove the backing from the foamie and stick to the card. Make sure the corners match perfectly.

Step 6: Cut out a piece of acetate (transparency film) and attach to wrong side of DS paper.

Christmas card for Captain Crafter's challenge

This Christmas card was made for Captain Crafter's challenge (http://captain-crafter.blogspot.com/). The Challenge was to make a Christmas card without Christmas stamps. Really tough! All my stamps are Christmas, Halloween, flowers, or animals.
This was my only idea. I made several different types of trees (using different flowers) and I tried to make a mistletoe, but the flourishes didn't look right.
I hope this card fits the Challenge. The flourish kinda looks like a bird, but I added the eye and beak with a pen.

The paper is Provo Craft, the stamps are Mini Make a Flower and Family/Scroll by Autumn Leaves. Sentiment is hand written.

PS: Autumn Leaves are $1.99 clear stamps from Target. What a deal!

Acetate Card

Here's an acetate card I made a few months ago for a coworker. I don't remember who made the stamp, sentiment is a Cuttlebug emboss folder. I really like these colors together.

Get Well Card

Here's a get well card I made for my supervisor. His dog had hip surgery and needs 6 weeks of limited movement to recover. Since my supervisor is a man, I tried not to make the card too girly. The paper is from ProvoCraft. The paper flowers are from Making Memories. The brads are from JoAnn's. The flower stamp is by Fiskars. Ribbon is JoAnn's. The sentiment is hand written.

I need to practice making more masculine cards. All my stamps and embellishments are girly. I don't really want to invest in more stamps...my objective this year is to use what I have in more creative ways.

Another Shaker card

Here's another shaker card. I stamped the polar bear stamp twice - once on green, and again on white. The trees were cut out of the green, and the bear cut out of white, then they were layered. I used foamie to make the shaker globe. I hope this picture is clear.

Thanks Card

For my birthday, a friend gave me a Sixxix die cut that makes a card with a square window. I really love it, except it doesn't fit!! Argh! I have the classic Sixxix, and the die is too wide. This thing was so expensive 3 years ago. Should I trade it in for the Big Kick?

So I made this card. The window isn't straight, but I think it came out OK.

Shaker card

Here's a shaker card I made using foamies. I've made shakers using CD holders, but they're too big for my envelopes. I tried making my own window envelope, but the paper would cling and the confetti wouldn't shake nicely. So I decided to use foamies to keep the paper separated. This is my first try, and I think it looks pretty good! Though next time I'll make the circles bigger.

The picture doesn't really show the shaker part. I'll try taking a close up later.

Fall Cards

I've always been into making cards. Recently, my interest has really revved up! It might be related to a scrapbook I'm making for my dad's 70th birthday. I've been using my stamps, paper, and die-cuts almost every night!

Here are a few of the fall-themed cards I've made. The instructions for making the 3-D pumpkins are found on the Paper Source website, under how-to. I didn't have any circle stickers, so I just cut out circles and used adhesive. The instructions are here:


http://www.paper-source.com/cgi-bin/paper/howto/ideas/3d_pumpkins.html