Monday, May 26, 2008

Memorial Day prayer

Please, remember to lift up all our military personnel in prayer today. Their courage and sacrifice are what keeps our country free! Remember also, their families and friends who support them.

Friendship Postage

Just a quick post today. This card uses the Stamp of the Month set offered by CTMH last month - Express Postage. It's a fun set! For this card I used the Caprice paper pack, Crystal Blue cardstock, Colonial White cardstock, Chocolate and Honey ink, Chocolate grosgrain ribbon, a giant scallop circle punch and a small Chocolate paper flower.

All supplies, except the punch, are from Close To My Heart.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Celebrate Friendship


This is a fun card to make! The pocket starts as a standard card made of Twilight cs. I cut an inch off the top flap along the long side. Then I wrapped a 10" strip of B&T paper around the card. The paper flower and brad were added before I actually wrapped and glued the B&T strip. (This strip is what is holding the pocket closed. I didn't add any glue to the inside of the card at all.) I adhered a 3/4" x 5-1/4" strip of a coordinating B&T to the "inside" edge of the lower part of the card.

With a circle punch, I punched a half circle along the top flap of the pocket (you can see this better in the lower picture.) And actually, this is much easier to do before you wrap the pocket!!!





The inside card is a simple panel cut a little smaller than the pocket - if I remember right, it was 4" x 5". I stamped a small sentiment and flowers in the top corner. Using the Express Postage stamp set, I stamped the circle and the words "celebrate friendship" on a piece of Bamboo cardstock. That was cut out and layered on a piece of Hollyhock cs, and cut out again.

Then, I put the card inside the pocket and in the cut-out half-circle I attached two small pieces of foam tape to the card. After peeling the covering off the top of the foam tape, I attached the friendship circle on top. The card then slides out of the pocket, and when you put it back in the circle on the foam holds it in the proper place.

Sure hope that made some kind of sense!!! Have a great day!

All products are Close To My Heart.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Simply Pretty Flower

I love the simple quality of this card. It's pretty, easy and quick.

This is a standard size, top-fold card of White Daisy Cardstock. I cut a panel of Buttercup B&T from the Let's Get Together paper pack to 1/4" smaller than the front of the card. Then a strip of the flowered paper from the same pack. The flower is stamped with Cranberry, Butter cup, and Garden Green Exclusive Inks. The flower outline and stem are one image (from the Thoughts of You set) - so I inked the top half with the Cranberry pad, and then the stem half with the Garden Green pad. The leaves are separate stamps that you can place on the stem anywhere you like. The solid part of the flower was actually stamped twice to fill it in a bit more.

After stamping, I layered the flower panel on a piece of Cranberry cardstock and tied a piece of Buttercup organdy around the bottom edge. Then just attached the whole thing to the card front.

Hope you have a lovely Sunday!

All Supplies are from Close To My Heart

Friday, May 16, 2008

Dressing Up



I fell in love with this dress! The pattern came out recently in Paper Crafts Magazine and I've seen so many lovely creations using this dress! I finally had to make some myself.

This first one uses paper from the Good Times paper pack, Sweet Leaf textured cardstock, Chocolate cardstock, Chocolate grosgrain ribbon, and copper brads. (All from CTMH.)

I folded the skirt so that there are two pleats that pop out from the card - really fun!





For this card, I changed the layout a bit after being inspired by fellow CTMH consultants. This card uses paper from the Caprice paper pack, Chocolate and Crystal Blue cardstock, Chocolate Grosgrain ribbon, Crystal Blue Exclusive Inks, a clear self-adhesive Sparkle, and the Card Commentary stamp set.

For this card, I reversed some of the folds so that the skirt folds completely flat.


All supplies are from Close To My Heart.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Happy Mother's Day!


Happy Mother's Day to all you Mom's out there. I hope you have an extra-special, very blessed day!


This was such a fun card to make. It didn't really turn out at all like the initial picture I had in my head, but I really like it!! I used the set Playful Petals from CTMH. The colors are Blush, Chocolate and White Daisy.

Starting with the White Daisy panel, I used the Corner Rounder punch carried by CTMH with the plastic guide taken off to make the scalloped edge. Then I went back with a 1/8" punch and punched the circles in each scallop. (My tip here: I noticed on the back side of the cardstock that there was the slightest indentation from the Corner punch right in the center of each scallop - I used that to determine where to punch the holes.)

Then I started with the center of the flower stamped in second-generation Blush ink. I followed that with the dotted circle stamped in Chocolate. Starting at the top left edge, I decided on the spacing I wanted for my petals and stamped the first petal with first-generation ink. Without reinking the stamp, I stamped the second petal second-gen, and continued like that until I had all the petals I wanted. Then I stamped the dotted outline petal on the second-generation petals with Chocolate ink. The final touch was the layered petal - dotted outline stamped on a scrap piece of white cs, then the word Happy stamped in blush. Cut that out, layered it on Chocolate cs and again cut that out. I originally was going to have the word along the bottom edge in the right corner but didn't really like it there. So I placed the layered petal over one of the second-gen petals and it just seemed like the perfect spot!!

I layered the flower panel on a panel of Chocolate cs and the whole thing went onto the card base of Blush cs.

Enjoy and have a great Sunday!!

All supplies are Close To My Heart!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Thank yous

Definitely not the best photos - I even played with them trying to edit them a bit.....not too successfully.

Anyway, I needed some thank you notes for the people who helped with our Alleluia Fair at church. I used Thoughts of You and the great leaf stamps for those cards. I was hoping they looked a bit like palm leaves.... The color is Citrus Leaf Green and I found a great almost-matching organdy ribbon to use with it. The sentiment stamp comes from the For Every Occasion set.


I needed a few other thank you notes, so using the same layout design, I switched from leaves to pink flowers (Bubblegum and Citrus Leaf for this card.)









This picture shows both cards. I love how you can use the same layout and similar or different colors or stamps and come up with cards with a totally different feel.

Have a fabulous day!

All supplies, except the ribbon, are from Close To My Heart.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Pocket and tag - For You

This pretty little tag set was made using the stamp set "Thoughts of You" from Close to My Heart. Cardstock colors are
Hollyhock, Chocolate, and White Daisy (all CTMH.) Ink pads are the same colors as the cardstock, and I also used an Olive marker to color in the leaves.




The band around the pocket is paper from the Sonata (CTMH) scrapbooking kit. I cut out just the rose bud and layered it on Chocolate cardstock and attached it with a piece of foam tape to the band.

The edges of the pocket were cut with scalloped scissors. I also cut the top edge of the tag with those scissors to coordinate.