Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Happy Birthday ... to ME!

Well, today is my birthday. It's almost over but I thought I would share my birthday cards with you:)

This first picture is all of the cards that I got. I know at least a couple more are coming.
This second picture shows the hand-made cards I received. The first one is from my granddaughter - how sweet!

Thanks so much to everyone who sent me a card or birthday wishes. I had a wonderful day!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Sunday, December 25, 2016

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!! I wish you all wonderful times with friends and family, and safe travels!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Thanks for the Cards!

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone! And Happy Hanukkah, too!

I thought I would post pictures of the wonderful hand-made cards we have received this year. We appreciate them all SO much! We also appreciate all of the non-hand-made cards, too!!! But, since this is a blog for hand-made cards, that's what I am sharing:)

This first one is from Georgia. I will post the names under the other cards, with links to blogs if there is one.

In no particular order, here we go!






Nancy


Annie

Donna

Bea

Gloria (But I think it was made by Karen.)

Kris


Terri

Pam

Donna

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Celebrate

Kind of a boring card, but it was really nice to have a few minutes in my stamping room and use some new stuff. A few weeks ago, I got some new Gina K stamps, patterned paper and cardstock.

I used one of the new stamps and some of the patterned paper. I matted the image and the background paper with olive cardstock. I mounted the image panel on foam squares. I colored the image with Copics to match the paper and also added a bit of sparkle with my Wink of Stella pen.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Sunday, December 18, 2016

Happy Birthday, Sheri!


Today is my friend Sheri's birthday. This is her birthday card, even though it doesn't say "birthday" on the front:)

The stamps are all from a Tim Holtz set, and the bird is cut out with a die that came with the stamps. I colored the bird with Copics and mounted him on foam squares. I matted that panel with matching cardstock.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Happy Birthday, Owen!

Here is the card I made for one of our grandsons for his birthday, which is today. He is now six already!

He loves Legos, and especially Star Wars Legos. A friend of ours lent us his Lego Death Star for Owen to play with. So, I thought I would put a picture of it on his birthday card. I cut it out with a circle Nestability and mounted it on a square piece of black cardstock. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Happy Hanukkah!


Here is my Hanukkah card for the year. I used my Cameo Silhouette to cut out the "Happy Hanukkah" from "holographic" paper. (The paper/cardstock was from Crayola. I bought it MANY years ago from a dollar store. I THINK that this is the same stuff, from Amazon.) I added the cut-out to an almost navy cardstock, then matted with shimmery silver paper and mounted on foam squares. The background - with shiny silver snowflakes - is from a large matstack from several years ago from Recollections. I matted it with the almost-navy cardstock.


Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Friday, December 2, 2016

Christmas Blessings

The last of my Christmas cards for the year. I made a total of twelve of these cards - with various embossed backgrounds and orientations and slight design variations.

The sentiment and the image are from the same Stampin' Up! set. I used detail gold embossing powder for them. I cut the image and the sentiment with stitched rectangle dies. I mounted the sentiment panel on foam squares. I matted each embossed background with shimmery gold paper.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Thursday, December 1, 2016

December Calendar Page

And my last calendar page for the year. :) Next year's pages are done already, thank goodness. It's so nice to (mostly!) get them done in the corresponding month - doing next year's January page in January of this year, etc.

My December page is almost always embossing on white. This year is no exception. However, I usually use silver embossing powder and this year I went with gold. The embossing folder I used is from Darice. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things. I matted with shimmery gold paper.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

More Holly Leaves

The last of the cards from my Recollections matstack - a total of twenty-one all together. (Some were duplicates - if I had two sheets of the same pattern - and some had multiple cards made with the same sheet.)

The green piece on the left is from the matstack. The holly leaves were stamped with a Stampin' Up! stamp. I colored with Copics. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

I had so much fun using up this matstack! I am so looking forward to purging and using more supplies starting after the holidays. :)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Joy

The next-to-the-last card using my Recollections matstack cardstock. The green background has Christmas words on it. The "JOY" panel is matted with patterned cardstock and mounted on foam squares. The sentiment is from Inkadinkado. I colored with Copics and added Wink of Stella shimmer to the bell. I added a few score lines with my Scor-Pal.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Monday, November 28, 2016

Tin Soldier Christmas

Another card using my Recollections patterned cardstock. I trimmed down the tin soldiers and mounted that piece on foam squares. The bottom, fairly solidly colored piece is also from that matstack. I embossed it with a Sizzix folder and lightly sanded. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. The cardbase is ivory.
Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Sunday, November 27, 2016

"Cheater" Cards #3

 Three more simple designs using patterned cardstock. For this first one, I matted the patterned piece with shimmery gold paper. The mostly-solid piece on the left is from the same matstack. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and is embossed with gold detail embossing powder. The card bases are all ivory.
 I matted this image, and the sentiment, with dark green cardstock. The sentiment again is from Papertrey. I mounted the sentiment panel on foam squares.
Matted sentiment with shimmery gold and mounted on foam squares.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Saturday, November 26, 2016

Color Swap - Brown and Silver

The colors for this month's color swap in my stamping group are brown and silver.

I used one of my favorite browns - Soft Suede from Stampin' Up! I also used shimmery silver paper for the matting. The background was stamped with a Stampin' Up! stamp using Versamark and then embossed with silver detail embossing powder. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and is also embossed with silver. The sentiment panel is mounted on foam squares. The cardbase is ivory. I liked this card so much, I made another one for our son-in-law, whose birthday is on the 30th.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Friday, November 25, 2016

Happy Birthday, Harriet!

Happy Birthday to my good friend, Harriet! Hope you had a great day yesterday!

The base of this card is ivory. The bottom layer (brown) is Soft Suede from Stampin' Up! I love that color! The butterfly paper is from Gina K. I cut the butterfly paper in two pieces and stamped the sentiment (from Papertrey Ink) directly on the bottom layer of Soft Suede. I stamped it with Versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder. I added a couple very thin strips of ivory. I also cut out two of the little butterflies from the patterned paper and added them by mounting them on foam squares.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate! I wish you all safe travels and happy eating. Give thanks for your blessings.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

"Cheater" Cards #2

 A few more of my "cheater" cards. For all of these cards, I simply used the patterned paper from my Recollections matstack, matted it with coordinating paper/cardstock, and added a sentiment. The sentiments for all of these cards are from Papertrey Ink. For this first card, I used shimmery gold paper for matting and embossed the sentiment with gold embossing powder. The card bases are all ivory.


 I guess no matting on this one:) Just gold embossing powder for the sentiment.

No matting on this one, either!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

"Cheater" Cards #1

A few years ago, I bought a pad of Recollections Christmas-patterned cardstock. I had used a few sheets of it over the years, but I still had most of it left. I did a "mini-purge" with the matstack. I separated the sheets into sheets I knew I would not use, those that could be used for non-Christmas cards, and sheets that I could cut down to use for my this-year's Christmas cards. I had a friend over on Thursday, and while she worked on sorting through her photographs, I made twenty-one cards. Oh, how good that felt. On Friday morning, I used the sheets that I knew I would never use! I flipped them over and used the blank side to stamp images and sentiments for twelve more cards. I will share them later. So, as of Saturday night, I have my Christmas cards finished for the year! I still have to stamp the insides, but at least the outsides of 72 cards are done.

I will start with the three very simplest designs. All I did with these was to trim down the design and then stamp a sentiment. The card bases are all ivory. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Monday, November 21, 2016

Peace on Earth

Another card using a scrap - this panel with the hole cut out of it was in with my white scraps. The holly leaves and berries were stamped with Technique Tuesday stamps. I colored the leaves with a Copic marker. I stamped the sentiment on textured red cardstock. I mounted the holly panel on foam squares and added it over the red layer.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Holly Christmas #2

The holly leaves and berries on this card were cut with a Sizzix die. The embossing was done with a Sizzix folder. I mounted this panel on foam squares. The sentiment is from Papertrey. How's that for short and to the point? :)

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Holly Christmas

While digging through my white "scraps" I found several pieces with circles and ovals cut out of them. I don't like "wasting" and so I keep the "negative" parts. Time to use some:)

The holly stamp is from Stampin' Up! I colored it with markers. The sentiment is from Papertrey. I scored a line above and below it. The sentiment panel is mounted on foam squares.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Friday, November 18, 2016

Little Shepherd

This card uses a pre-cut window card base. It's actually a triple fold card. The stamped image and the sentiment are both from Repeat Impressions. I did the coloring with my Copic markers.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Embossed Christmas Tree

I finished up my calendars for next year on Monday. Yippee!! Now, on to my Christmas cards. I was pleasantly surprised to find out I had 35 cards tucked away from during the year so far. Add to that the two that I made on Monday and Tuesday, and the three that I made yesterday, brings me up to 40! Only about 40 more to go:) I think some mass production is in my future.

I embossed this Christmas tree using a small Sizzix embossing folder. I matted it with shimmery gold and mounted it on foam squares. The sentiment is from Technique Tuesday and is embossed with detail gold embossing powder.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Friday, November 11, 2016

Monster Birthday

This card happened, unbelievably, on my way to making a card for our monthly color swap whose color's are brown and silver! It's a long story, and I'm not going to get into it:) 

I found some scraps of paper in a matstack of patterned paper by Recollections. I felt they needed to be used, so I started cutting out the big monster. Oh my gosh - does he ever have a lot of bumps and teeth and claws!! LOL! I also cut out the smaller monster. He's got tiny little legs, a tail and some sort of antenna. What I have to say is - I better actually USE this card some day, for how long it took me to make it. :) The sentiment bubble is from the same paper, as is the stripes in the background. The sentiment is from a Hero Arts set. Both monsters and the sentiment bubble are popped up on foam squares.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Tuesday, November 1, 2016

November Calendar Page

My November calendar page. Both the sentiment and the image are from Inkadinkado. I stamped the image with a Kaleidacolor Creole Spice ink pad. I stamped the sentiment on vellum and placed it over the image. The panel is matted with black.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!