A card for my Grammy

My grandmother is one of the few people who regularly corresponds with me by snail mail & I "owe" her a letter. In fact, bad granddaughter that I am, I've owed her a letter for a while but wanted to send a handmade one rather than store-bought & it's taken me forever to get around to it. I know she'll appreciate the time spent on it so I'm pretty sure she'll forgive my flakiness! At least I hope so :)

The whole color scheme for this card started from the watering can/flower ribbon; it's not a color combo that I'd use all the time but I do like it. I wanted to make this card a little 3-D, so I popped the flower w/ some foamies. Now I'm wondering if I should've popped the whole image but it's glued down now - too late! Something to try next time I guess.

I've entered this card in a few challenges as well: I used the sketch from PaperPlay Challenges - by Mandy - for challenge #31. Cute Card Thursday had the theme 'Lazy Days' this week for a summer themed card. Nothing says summer like flowers & gardening! Stamptacular Sunday is a 3-D challenge; I know it's only a tiny bit of 3-D so I'm not sure if it qualifies, but I thought I'd try anyway. Finally, Crafty Cardmakers challenge for this week is Complimentary Colors - check out their color wheel lesson, it gave me some ideas for future combinations.

The orange cardstock is very lightly textured & I ran the 3 blue rectangles through my Cuttlebug in a flowered embossing folder. Image is stamped on white cardstock & colored with colored pencils. I cut out the flower & popped it with foamies for a 3-D effect. Haven't got up the nerve to try decorating the inside yet so it's completely blank.


Front


Trying to show the 3-D aspect




A close-up



Supplies used:

Papers from my stash
Stamp by Penny Black
Ribbon from the $1 bin at Michael's
Dew Drops from The Robin's Nest
...........................................................................................................
Some goodies!!!!!

Moni is celebrating the 1 yr anniversary of Everybody-Art-Challenge by giving away some stamped images, ribbons, & more. Closes Aug. 31.

Sassy Designs is giving away 100 stamped images to their followers - this is another challenge blog I just stumbled onto. Closes Sept. 27.

Carolyn has a massive assortment for her blog candy! Check out the inside of her cards - maybe she'll give me some ideas. Closes Sept. 22.

I just found Ingvild's blog the other day & had to become a follower right away - she has a romantic, victorian style that I just love. And her candy is fabulous! Closes Sept. 30.

Jo has new Basic Grey papers & more in her blog candy. Closes Sept. 5.

Maria's candy is a huge assortment of goodies including stamps, ribbons, & more. Closes Aug. 31.

Emma's celebrating her blogoversary with a beautiful array of images, embellishments, & more. Closes Aug. 31.

Erika is giving away some goodies from her stash. Check out her CHA pictures too - I'm jealous! Closes Aug. 29.

Vivi is celebrating 100 posts by giving away 100 Tilda images! I want to win this one! She does quilling - something I want to try........ Closes Aug. 30.

Happy together...........6 years & 5 challenges

As promised I'm back with the anniversary card I made for my sister & her husband - happy 6 years Jenny & Paul! Since I'm not giving them the card until tomorrow, when they come over for dinner, I told my sister she's not allowed to look at my blog before then. Is it sad that you're seeing the card before she is? Normally I would have waited until later but I used the sketch from Friday Sketchers this week & I figured I may as well post it.

I really like the turquoise/red combination and, although this isn't quite what I envisioned, I'm very happy with the way the card turned out. Besides Friday Sketchers #65, I've also entered this card in Stampin' for the weekend "Days Gone By" challenge, Color Throwdown #56 - my colors are a tiny bit off but I think they may be close enough, Crafty Cardmakers #1 - Blossoms, and Papertake Weekly Challenge #100 which is your choice of any of the 99 previous challenges - I chose My Favorite Things as I absolutely love all things victorian! That makes 5 challenges - not bad considering I didn't really plan for any of them except for Friday Sketchers!


Front




A few detail shots





Inside




The couple is stamped in brown ink & embossed with clear embossing powder. I thought about coloring the image in but thought this was really a case of less is more. The papers have a glossy/glittery aspect to them & I was afraid adding anything else would be too overwhelming. Hopefully Jenny & Paul will like it too :)


Supplies used:

Patterned papers from Jen Wilson's Laundry Line by My Minds Eye; plain paper from my stash
Sticky pearls from Martha Stewart Crafts
Flowers cut & red strip embossed with my Cuttlebug
Blue Darice ribbon
Stamps: Victorian couple from Inkadinkado, "Happy Anniversary" & "together" from Fiskars Romance clear set


One more thing.......Rach is at it again - she has another adorable Rachelle Anne Miller stamp up for grabs on her blog!

Ta-dah! The first card I've ever posted!!!

I finally figured out how to get pictures from my camera to the computer & it was actually pretty easy -- too bad I didn't take the time to figure it out sooner!

So....here's the first card I've ever posted on my blog. I followed the Mojo Monday sketch from a couple weeks ago; I really like a lot of their sketches although I haven't used many of them. Check out their blog if you haven't already! I've entered this card in Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge #63 - Floral Fantasy (flowers on the stamp & I know it's hard to see but the paper is floral patterned as well) & the Papertake Weekly Challenge - Four Seasons (mine represents spring to me) - hope it's not too late!

Front of the card


Close-up (you can kinda see the embossing & Stickles)



I kept the inside simple


I love this stamp that I used for the back - it's not as big as it looks - I just zoomed in.




I used those foam sticky pads to pop the circle up off the card. The image is embossed in black & colored in with colored pencils - it's a little hard to tell from the pictures here but the girl on the left is in pale pink, on the right in blue. I shaded the edge of the circle with light green - not sure if I like that element but I'm pleased with the rest of the card.


Supplies used:

Paper from Basic Grey 6x6 Sultry stack
Pink velvet Offray ribbon
Stickles in Pearl (I think - I can't find the bottle at the moment)
Marvy scalloped circle punch
Stamps: Little girls from See-D's "Flutter By Butterfly" set (image cropped to fit the circle); Thank you from Stampin' Up's "Best Blossoms" set; Handmade stamp from Inkadinkado
Colored pencils


And now for a little something sweet....Blog Candy!

Stephanie is giving a $150 gift certificate (to the store/site of your choice) away in appreciation of 25,000 hits & 100+ followers. Closes Aug. 28.

Carole has 2 - yes, two! - blog candy giveaways to celebrate joining the Sugar Nellie DT. Not sure when this one closes so you'd better hurry!

Bev has over 400,000 hits & 1000+ followers & is thanking everyone with some pretty fantabulous candy. Closes Aug. 17.

Bea is giving away the perfect assortment to make a Strawberry Tilda card. Closes Aug. 15.

Leanne is moving to Dubai & giving a set of Gorjuss Girls stamps as a going away present. Closes Sept. 1.

Rach is giving away a Tilda by Magnolia. Hurry - closes at 10 pm Aug. 11.

Claire is thanking her visitors with a variety of goodies. Closes Aug. 21.

Sarita is giving away a unique assortment to celebrate her blogoversary. Be sure you check out her craft room while you're there - talk about making me jealous!! Closes Aug. 15.

A first time for everything

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging! My awesome sister set me up with a domain name, so this will eventually be moving over there, but I couldn't figure out how to export my blog...yet.

Ever since I was a little girl, I've had this weird obsession with cool pens & pencils, not to mention new notebooks. I wasn't a fan of going back to school but all the new school supplies made it slightly easier to handle.

Now that I'm out of school, I no longer have an excuse to stockpile pens, pencils, etc., unless you count my new obsession....making cards. Unfortunately I now stockpile more expensive things too, things like rubber stamps, die cutting machines & dies, and oodles of embellishments.

I bought a Paper Creations magazine yesterday & I've spent most of the afternoon checking out some of the websites featured in it. Some of the sites I'll be visiting again:


www.invokearts.com/stamps

www.sandraevertson.blogspot.com

www.mftstamps.com

www.rubberstamptapestry.com


Unfortunately, I won't actually be buying anything from those sites anytime soon as I have to figure out a way to organize the stamps I already have before I add to my collection! At the moment, I risk buying the same stamp more than once since my stamps are kind of all over the place - that makes it hard to know which ones I've only admired & which ones I've actually purchased!

Someday I hope to have an awesome craft studio like these:

http://jennifermcguireink.typepad.com/photos/organization/index.html

http://nicholmagouirk.typepad.com/photos/my_studio/index.html

I'm so jealous!!!