Thanks! ... And, I'm Back!

Well, we have returned to the frozen tundra, as my husband would say:) We went on a road trip, leaving on December 26. We spent three weeks in Tucson, and then another five days in other parts of Arizona. We left there on the 23 of January and arrived back home on Sunday. We got our mail yesterday and I'm finally posting the birthday cards that I received! Thank you to everyone who sent me birthday greetings - I appreciate them so much. Here are the hand-made cards that I received. I'm showing those first.

And, here is a picture of all the cards that I got. I love them all!!

We had a wonderful time while we were gone. We did manage to bring snow all the way down to Mexico! And blizzard warnings to Albuquerque. And rain to Tucson in January. And now we're back just in time for school closings due to the extremely cold weather. But, it's all good:) I hope to be able to spend some time in my stamping room soon - I have some news items to play with.

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

Today Belongs to You

A friend came over the other day, and I made this card while she was here. She had a friend she could send it to, so I gave it to her. The stamps are all from a new-to-me stamp set from Inkadinkado. The frame was cut with an unbranded die. The whole panel is mounted on foam squares. I colored the images with Copics and added some sparkle with Wink of Stella. I also added a couple gems to the flower centers.

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

Happy New Year!!! And January Calendar Page

Wow - 2019! Amazing. I wish you all a wonderful New Year.

For this page, I used a Recollections stamp and die. I used Wink of Stella on the white areas of the hat. The sentiment is from an Inkadinkado set.

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

Happy 99th Birthday!

I was asked to make a card for a mother-in-law for her 99th birthday. This is what I made. The stamps and dies are from Gina K. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink and the numbers were cut with a Cuttlebug die. I added lots of Wink of Stella to the flowers. If you are interested in seeing other stair-step cards I have posted, just click on the link at the bottom of this post.

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

Now - Really One Last Christmas Card!!

I know - I promised no more Christmas cards for a while. But, I got a couple new dies and had to try this one out. I cut the trees out of shimmery copper paper. I glued them to dark green cardstock. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. I embossed it with glittery copper embossing powder and mounted it on foam squares.

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

Merry, Merry Christmas to All!

And - my last Christmas card to share for the year. I now have 26 done for next year. To everyone who celebrates Christmas - I wish you all a wonderful one!!

This is another card using die-cuts from last summer at our Group Gathering. I was determined to use them up! I colored the part with holes in with a blue Copic marker and put it back in place. The holes look darker, but that's actually a shadow - the piece is mounted on white. I mounted it on foam squares. The sentiment is from Recollections.

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

Holiday Greetings

On Thanksgiving Day, I went to Michael's to take advantage of some of their specials. I bought this set from Recollections, consisting of two embossing folders and four stamps. I think it was $2.50:) I made both of these cards using items from the set. I also added a few red gems.

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

Holly Sprig Christmas

Luckily, I had saved both the negative and positive pieces after using the holly sprig die. I colored the cut-out piece using Copics and then placed it back into the white cardstock it was cut out of. The sentiment is from a new-to-me Recollections set.

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

Blue Holly

Another card using the same holly die I used on a couple other cards. For this one, I matted with slightly patterned cardstock from Recollections. The sentiment is actually die cut with a Memory Box die using a sheet from the same matstack.

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

Striped Merry Christmas

More die cuts:) I still have three more before I'm finished posting them! I matted with patterned paper from a The Paper Studio matstack. I used the same cardstock to cut the sentiment with an unbranded die.

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

Christmas Moose

Another previously-cut piece. I had saved the moose pieces,  colored them with Copics and put them back into the holes they came out of. I matted the cut-out section with red. The sentiment is a rub-on.

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

Blue and Snowflakes

The white layer is cut from a die, as is the sentiment. The patterned paper is from a matstack I bought at Michael's a few years ago. I cut the sentiment out of the same patterned cardstock as the bottom layer.

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

More Holly

I really did well using up my die cuts from our Group Gathering last summer. For this card, I used the holly die-cut from silver. I matted with dark blue. I added red gems for the berries. (I actually used up something! Now I have no red gems left. :( ) The sentiment was embossed with silver and is from Recollections. It is mounted on foam squares.

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

Holly Season's Greetings

I used another die-cut from last summer for this card. I matted it with dark green cardstock. I added red/gold Stickles for the berries. The sentiment is from Recollections. I first stamped it with dark green, but I didn't like how hard I had pressed. So, I stamped over it lightly with black.

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

Sparkly Ornament Christmas

This card started with the ornament die-cut - which I did in June. I added a couple layers of sparkly embossing powder on it, and then two layers of ultra-thick embossing powder. I matted the ornament with blue and mounted it on foam squares. The bottom layer of matting is from a matstack from Recollections. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. Hard to see in the picture, but the curlicue lines on the matting are silver.

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

Happy Birthday, Owen!

Our middle grandson just turned eight on Thursday. He was having a video game party for his birthday party, and they were using the original Nintendo Entertainment System as one of the gaming systems, so this is the card I made for him. I printed the image using an on-line photo, and I used photo paper for it. I cut out a few of the buttons and raised them up. For the control on the left, I made sure to not pop up the middle, since they are toggle switches.

You can see a bit more of the dimension in this photo on the left.

And this is what it said on the inside.

Hope you had a fun party, Owen!

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

Silver Ornament

Another die cut from June from our Group Gathering. I cut this one out of silver metallic cardstock. I mounted it on foam squares. The patterned cardstock is from a stack by The Paper Studio. The sentiment is from Recollections and is embossed with silver embossing powder.

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

Blue Bird Christmas

I cut this bird with snowflakes out while at our Group Gathering in June. The outline of the bird and the snowflakes are separate from the background. I colored the thin lines with a Copic marker and placed it back into the outline of the bird. The patterned cardstock is from a matstack by Recollections. The sentiment is also from Recollections.

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

Left-Over Foil - Part 2

This card was made from the left-over foil piece from this card. It's rose gold foil. I used double-sided sticky paper for it. I placed the foil right onto the sticky paper, which was stuck to white cardstock. However, it was really hard to remove the foil from the snowflakes areas. I used ultra-fine glitter over the entire piece - to add sparkle to the snowflakes and to also cover the sticky. The sentiment (from Papertrey Ink) was stamped with Versamark on vellum and embossed with "Winter Wonderland" embossing powder - a white powder with glitter in it.

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

Left-Over Foil - Part 1

After making this card and yesterday's card, I was left with the "negative" foil pieces. I tried a couple things that sounded like really good ideas in my "being awake at 4:00 a.m. but laying in bed" state. Neither of them worked very well, but I thought I would use them anyway.

For this first card, I placed Scor-Tape on white cardstock. The foil stuck nicely to the tape, but where the foil was missing from the foil sheet, the backing sheet was hard to remove from the tape. The snowflakes were sticky and I added ultra-fine glitter to them. (The foil is pewter.) The sentiment is stamped in black and is from a new-to-me set from Recollections.

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