For a friend

A friend asked me to make some cards for her. Here are a few of the ones I made for her.
These are called Lollipop flowers. Aren't they cute!?!
This one is so fun and summery
A nice masculine card with one of my favorite stamp sets.
Another masculine card, I stamped that argyle print at the bottom.
Oh, shoot, this picture is on it's side. I just now realized it. The sentiment says "from the heart"
I love this card. It was quick and I love the colors together.

Trendy Trees Case

So my second exciting announcement is that I finally decided to become a Stampin' Up demonstrator. I've wanted to do it for years, but it was never the right time, but finally it felt right and so I signed up. So I'm having an open house in July and I need samples to show. So I've been looking for projects to copy. I found this one here.
Coming up with an idea is the longest part of the creative process for me and I need stuff fast, so I've been copying a lot. I'll throw in a few originals now and then. This is one of my favorite sets, Trendy Trees. It's so versatile. For the card, I changed the colors and left off the stitching. I didn't have any brown brads, so I punched out three circles and covered them in Crystal Effects to make them shiny. I used a stamp-a-ma-jig to stamp the sentiment and I still got it crooked. Oh, well.

Stamp: Trendy Trees
Ink: Apricot Appeal, Garden Green, Glorious Green
Paper: SU! Designer series pack

Butterfly from a sketch

So this card has kind of a funny story. There is a challenge called the Sweet Sunday Sketch that I always want to play along with, but never have time. Well, a couple of weeks ago I found time to play with this sketch.
I picked a stamp set, got my paper and edge punch and had most of it ready to go, but it seemed to be missing something, so I went back and looked at some of the links and found this card. It was almost identical to what I was doing. I liked her ribbon and the extra square of design paper and our cards ended up looking awfully similar, but I didn't intend for it to be that way. However, I liked it so much that I made two more from some scraps I had. Those two can be seen in the post down below.

Stamps: Flight of the Butterfly
Paper: SU! retired DSP
Ink: Bashful Blue
Accessories: MS Butterfly punch, ribbon from stash, word window punch

New and Exciting Announcement...

...at least for me. I have decided to try and make some money at this crafting hobby. It all started in November when my Grandpa's cousin asked if she could by 30 of my cards for Christmas gifts. I had never really considered it, but the cards were just sitting in a box, so why not. That got the wheels turning and I wondered if others would want to buy them. Now, I'm not trying to make my millions, just enough to support my habit.

So, I'll be working on several outlets to sell my creations but while I get everything set up, if you see something on my blog that you want, just leave a comment or e-mail me. I'll take requests for colors, sentiments, anything you want. Cards will be around 2.50-3.00. Plus 1.45 for shipping if I can't hand deliver it. Project costs will vary.

And just so you have something to look at today.
I'll be back with more info about the cards later.

On my mind at night

So this is my card for this Stamping 411 sketch challenge 154. I tried to get the picture of the sketch, but I couldn't. This is one of my favorite stamp sets and I've always wanted to try a scene with it so I decided this was my chance. So first I embossed the image with black embossing powder. Then I punched a circle for the moon. I really wanted to brayer the blues, but I didn't have full sized ink pads in the colors I wanted, so I had to sponge on the ink from my stampin' spots. I used 4 different blues. I'm not completely happy with it, but it's not bad for my first try. I'll definitely be trying this again for both night time, dusk/dawn and daytime scenes.

The cardstock colors were inspired by an outfit my littlest boy has. It's navy, a slightly lighter blue, and then has a dinosaur embroidered in orange. I generally hate the color orange, but I love his outfit and really wanted to try it on a card. I really like it. I might try it again.

All in all, this isn't my favorite card, but it has a new technique and a color combo way out of my comfort range, so I'm happy about that.

Retirement

My husbands grandpa retired this month so I made him this card. I didn't mean for it to turn out so purple. I meant for the green to be the primary color, but I started putting it together and this is how it turned out. I added Crystal Effects to the words I colored in so they are shiny and raised.
The inside of the card says RELAX! and it's all shiny too. This stamp came as part of a set that I use often for masculine cards, but I wasn't sure I'd ever use this one. I'm so glad I got a chance to use it.

Graduation Card

This is a graduation card I made for my cousin. I found the idea here but I had no idea how to make a tassel. It turns out, if you Google 'how to make a tassel' you can find all sorts of instructions and videos.
If you do make your own tassel, only wrap it around about 10 times and only make it about 2 inches long.