Make a Card Monday # 6

This card was inspired by Bonnie's baby shower, where we tried to stick to mostly lavenders and blues because we knew that she loves those colors and is incorporating them into Diamond's nursery. In case it is too hard to read, the stamp says "Sweet One... Dimples, giggles, cuddles divine, all come together, sweetness combined." It is from a new Stampin Up! set called So Many Scallops, which is part of Sale-A-Bration.

Every year in February and March Stampin Up! has SAB (Sale-A-Bration), which means that when you buy $50 in products, you get to pick a free stamp set out of their special SAB catalog. I ordered some punches at our last group meeting, and got to pick out a free set. Well, since one of the punches I had ordered was the Scallop Circle Punch, I got this SAB set (So Many Scallops) to go along with it! Yay!! I just love coordinated products.

The colors I used in the card are Bashful Blue for the card and lavender (from Archivers) for the strip on the front. I used white grosgrain ribbon, and the stamp is also in bashful blue. Pretty simple card, but I like to keep baby cards simple and clean. Just like babies. Well, most of the time.

MACM (Wednesday) # 5

Okay, so I forgot to take pictures of the ever-so-fabulous gift I gave to Bonnie, but I may be able to have her take a picture of it and send it to me so that I can post it here. Instead, I am posting a picture of a card I made (a pack of ten cards, actually) for my Grandma for her 80th birthday. Her birthday was actually on February 4th, but she came here to visit so that she could be at a jazz concert my brother Wesley was playing in.

We had a fun visit, and I got to spend some time with her and Mom as we went to look for a piece of jewelry -- also for her birthday, from my mom -- and went to Einstein Brothers for lunch, and visited a super-fun little shop called "Something Else" that was just chock-full of those crafty kinds of things that we could so easily make ourselves but never (make?) time to actually do.

Then we got to spend time with Aunt Susan and Uncle John, my cousin Alison and also Christy's family, eating dinner and hanging out before we all went to the concert and were totally wowed by all of the amazing musicians displaying their talents. I was wiping away tears more than once. Especially when Wesley stood there all by himself and played an amazing solo on his trumpet, so clear and beautiful, even though he was using a mute of some kind... it actually reminded me of Mardi Gras music, but the song was called Meetin' Time, and was reminiscent of a black church service down south. A baby in the audience even cried once while they were playing the song, how appropriate!

Anyway, back to the card. I used some textured lavender cardstock from Archiver's as the base of the card, and layered it with Wild Wasabi, Eggplant Envy (retired) and Whisper White, which are all from Stampin Up!... the ribbon is some lavender I picked up from Wal-Mart. I used Watercolor Wonder Crayons to watercolor the design after stamping it in Stazon ink. The stamp is from the "Long-Time Friend" set.

I love the way the colors all came together, and the card reminds me of spring and summer and all of the warmth and beauty that comes when the sun shines and warms up the earth... boy, I think I need some coffee. Or hot tea. And some warm fuzzy socks. Something to warm up my cold fingers and toes.

I'm going upstairs to do that, and I'll curl up and read a good book while I'm at it (the boys and the girl I'm babysitting are all asleep! yay!).

MACM # 4 -- Happy Valentine's Day!!

I'm really going to have to change it to "Make a Card Tuesday" if I keep this up. Mondays have just not been working out for me. But here are a few cards, anyway. The one on top is the card we made at the Stampin' Up! club meeting last night -- we have meetings once a month, and I wouldn't miss it! SO much fun, and a real stress reliever for me. Our demonstrator, Kim DePugh, helped us make these cards using the "emboss resist" technique, where we embossed the white hearts onto white cardstock and then rubbed pink ink all over the cardstock. Where the embossed hearts are, no ink shows up. Cool, huh? I love the effect.

And here are the ones I have made myself over the past few weeks. Yes, technically I did not make them on Monday, but I can still show them off. :-)

Make A Card Monday # 3

I knew as soon as I saw the uber-cute line of baby boy clothing at Janie and Jack that I would just HAVE to make a card with those colors. So here it is. And if you want to see the clothes, go to www.janieandjack.com and click on "boy"... but check out the girl clothes there too, because man, oh man, are they adorable!!!

Make a Card Monday # 2

I know, I know, it isn't Monday anymore... hasn't been Monday all day. But I'm posting it now, so at least I didn't forget completely. And I'm not going to take pictures of the entire process anymore like I did last time; that took WAY too long to upload all of the pictures here, so you're getting one picture, with an explanation of how I did it.

Okay, so I used the same stamp set as I did last week, but what can I say? I just love Doodle This from SU! The cardstock colors are Blue Bayou, Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky and Whisper White. I used Purely Pomegranate ink and also Staz-On ink in Jet Black (you should always use Staz-On when watercoloring, or your ink will bleed). To watercolor the image, I used Watercolor Wonder Crayons (from SU!) in Rose Red, Always Artichoke, Not Quite Navy and Cameo Coral. I used the water brush to watercolor it, not sure what the technical term is for it. It holds the water in the handle. I cut out the white circle with a circle punch, and then layered the Purely Pomegranate under it with a layering tool. It was a pretty easy card to make. The hardest part was cutting out the stamped images, and even that was fairly simple.

Make A Card Monday # 1

So in the scrapping and card-making world, today is Make A Card Monday, and I thought I would join in the craze. Every Monday (it is actually just really late on Sunday night) I will make a card and take pictures of the process and post them here. Some people even post video of their card-making, but until I have video capability, you will just have to put up with my shaky-hand photography skills. Here goes!

picked out some colors and a patterned paper

cut out the Soft Sky paper into 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", then folded it into half, making it 5 1/2" x 4 1/4"


picked out my stamps

inked up my background stamp

the card after being stamped with the background stamp "Stitched"

cut my papers into strips 1" x 4 1/4" -- you can see I had changed my mind on the patterned paper, and I also decided not to use some of the cardstock I had picked out, just to keep it simple

chose ink colors for my stamps and decided on placement of papers on the card front

inked up the flower stem

cleaned off the stamp on my stamp cleaner pad (wow, I took pictures of everything)

put my ink away... okay, I just wanted to show you a piece of my world... this is a corner of my scrapping table, where you will find me most days during the boys' naptime/bedtime :-)

inked up my flower head

stamped the flower head on the Soft Sky paper

stamped the greeting (sentiment?) on a piece of the cardstock

picked out my scissors

cut out the flower stem

began to adhere the layers together

turned the flower head around until I liked the placement

got out my big glue dots

divided one glue dot into 3 pieces and stuck them to the back of the flower head

the finished product -- it says "Be Yourself -- Nobody is better qualified!"

And here is a list of what I used:

YCardstock - Soft Sky, Elegant Eggplant and Wild Wasabi (Stampin' Up!)

YPatterned Paper - Oh, Baby! (Basic Grey)

YStamp Sets - Doodle This, Smarty Pants and Stitched (Stampin Up!)

YInk - Elegant Eggplant and Wild Wasabi (Stampin' Up!)