I have sweet, wonderful, awesome, generous friends!

I have a great group of friends! We might not all live close-by each other but through email, Facebook and phones we keep in touch. Thank goodness for technology...makes moving away and keeping in touch so much easier!

My sweet friend Karie, who (or would that be whom?) is also very talented and crafty gave me a couple new stamps to add to my stash. Bella Stamps! I love Bella Stamps! They are just darling and so fun to color and paper piece their outfits. I guess they're my version of paper dolls. ;)

Again, loving my pebbles So Tweet Collection paper, I had to use more. The birds and colors worked so well with my Veggiebella image. The Birdies...I just love them and it was perfect as my background and corrdinated so well with the Chirp that I used to paper piece Bella's clothes and basket. Isn't she just darling?

elements:
cardstock: Papertrey Ink - kraft
patterned paper: Pebbles Inc - So Tweet Collection
ribbon: American Crafts
markers: COPIC
ink: Tsukineko Brilliance Graphite Black

Thank you, thank you...

A few more cards I made up using the layout inspiration by Ali Edwards. Again, other than the white base on these cards, they are made up from scraps donated to me from my wonderful friends Paula and Scheffie. Thanks ladies!

Thank you! Thank you!

I never have enough thank-you cards on hand, I always feel like I'm making them right at the last minute. This time I made a few to use and a few to put away for next time.

Using more paper scraps I created a set of six thank-you cards. The only freshly cut cardstock is the card bases. I kept the card layout the same just swapped out the patterned paper and embellishments to give each set of three a different look.

I finally broke into my Papertrey Ink Kraft cardstock to make the card bases. It's awesome paper and now I think my favorite cardstock...move over Bazzill! (I still love Bazzill for scrapbooking, just not card making.) It's a great weight for card bases and it folds so nicely...I could go on but I don't want to bore you ;)

I have a few more cards to make and the husband has class tonight, so I might find some time to get them made and posted...if not tonight, soon!

Time for the thank-you cards...

The Christmas tree is down, the garbage and recycle trucks have taken shredded wrapping paper and the ridiculous amounts of toy packaging away. Now it's time to write the thank-you notes! This is my favorite part because I get to make them before I write them.

I wasn't feeling it when I sat down to make the cards this afternoon. I grabbed my color wheel and used it as my color inspiration. It chose the light blues, yellows and pink for me. (not sure why my yellow paper is looking so goldish in the picture, its really much softer and closer to being pastel) I decided to continue with the penguin theme I started using with the gift tags to make the thank-you notes. Mr. Penguin is so cute and I just love paper piecing his scarf and hat to give it a little pop and texture. It also gives me a reason to use my liquid applique to make his hat poofy.

All that's left to do is wait for my picture order of GQ with his new gifts to toss in the cards. All our family is out of town, this gives them a chance to see GQ open their gift even though they weren't here with us.

Thanks a latte...

So I love to make cards...for everybody else it seems, because when I need a card for a birthday or thank you I never have one, I've given them all away as gifts. I decided I was going to sit down and make myself some thank-you notes; GQ must have known I needed some crafty time because after our afternoon at the pool he decided to nap for me! YAY! The Thanks a latte sentiment is so perfect for me, because if you really know me, you know that I loves me some coffee!

I found this card while blog surfing. I just loved it and had to CASE it! If you go look at that card you'll notice that it was actually a CASEd card from this one. Both cards are awesome...how could I not try to do the same? Thanks for the inspiration Beth and artystamper!!

I really love my final product. About 1/2 way through I was second guessing my colors, but they are some of my faves, how could I not like that? After it was all together I knew I made the right choice. I've been sticking to my crafty plan of not buying any more paper and using all my scraps up, which I did for this set of cards. It felt so good to almost deplete my yellow scraps and make a small dent in the green. Still have lots of scraps left, but I'm on my way to at least making the pile 1/2 it's original size.

Have a good one!

Monogram Thank-You Note

Knowing what sort of busy-ness a newborn can bring to a household as mom, dad & siblings get to know the new family member and the visitors line up at the front door to see the new bundle, I thought some thank-you notes for the my cousin might come in handy.

The design of the card came from Hero Arts Blog, there is a video showing how easily this design comes together. I decided to monogram the card specifically for Cole rather than having the thank-you sentiment on the outside of the card. The inside of the card leaves some room for a message along w/the words Thank You and a beaded safety pin. I hope they like!

Happy Leap Day!

And Happy Friday too! And since it's Friday, you know that it's Friday Sketch time again over at Memory Book Inspirations. This weeks sketch is so easy, click here if you'd like to see it and try it out for yourself.

I kept it simple this week. I had a thank-you card that I needed to make for a male. Since I have trouble with masculine cards it really had me stumped. I figured the recipient wouldn't appreciate all the cool girly colored papers and images I had, so I stuck w/something a little more subdued and simple. I like the end product, but wasn't sure how I'd manage to make a card and not even add Stickles :D

Enjoy your weekend everybody!

I was putting together some thank-you notes...

to send out for all the goodies we got for Christmas. I finally broke open the card kit that I have from CTMH. I didn't exactly follow their designs, but I created something fairly similar. Their colored cardstock is white core so you get sort of a neat effect when distressing the edges. I also decided to sand the pink cardstock to give it a bit more texture and look. Cutting out the flower and stem was little time consuming, but I sort of like it!

Here are a few cards that I've made...

Can you tell that green is my favorite color? I used it in just about every card I make :)

Thanks a latte!

Love the new stamp set that I bought! Here is a card I made during Gavin and Jason's nap time.

Black, White & Limeade!

A new favorite color combo of mine. I was feeling inspired by the color combo I used on some invitations I posted a week or two ago and I had to get a gift made, so I came up w/these two cards. Jason even commented on how he liked the colors and the design.

After I was home with my paper to make these babies I was browsing my regular websites and noticed at 1craftygal's blog that she put together a card w/a very similar color combo. Great minds think alike! :) Check out her blog if you have time, lots of very creative and cool card designs, it's one of my favorites! The link is listed in my favorite stops on the web. I'd add it right in the body of this post, but I don't know how to do it.