Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas Cards

I'm completely disillusioned with the whole christmas card thing.  I have been making cards for so many years, I put a lot of time and effort into them, and I rarely get any back in return.  The excuses are usually "I have no time".  Because You know it takes  alot of effort for people to sign a name to a premade card they bought at some cheap dollar store, stick a stamp on it, write an address and walk to a mail box.  But people always say "I love getting your cards".  So I guess its okay for me to spend hours making cards cause I have the time.

 

Anyway so since that is the response I usually get  I decided not to make cards this year for most people.  I've made cards for the people my kids and I want to thank, like their teachers.  I will make the odd card here and there for friends, but not even close to as many as I normally make.

 

 

The first three cards below are cards my two kids made for their cousins.  I especially love the reindeer card.  The others are the thank you christmas cards for teachers.

 

 

 

 

Birthday Wishes for my Oldest and Dearest Friend

When I was 10 a whirlwind showed up in my life. My Mom had met a family that had just moved to our city from England. In the family was a little girl, she was a year older than me, but she still needed someone to pal around with. My Mom suggested that we get together and see if we got along. We did. We got along famously. She was a firecracker, loads of energy, lots of imagination and boy was she bold. She was the ying to my yang. Turned out this little girl and I would be inseperable for the next three years. We were the best of friends, we did everything together.

3 years after we met, my best friend moved to Ottawa. She moved across the country from where I was. Despite the distance, we wrote letters, we even travelled to visit each other. Of course over the years distance has an affect on friendship. And while we are not as close as we were when we were 10 and 11 years old, we are still great friends. We have shared our lives.

My friend is turning 40 years old tomorrow. I can't believe it has been 3 decades since I first met her, and she is still the firecracker that she was the day I met her. So for this birthday I knew that I would have to make a pretty special card. I think I did. I think this is one of the best cards I've ever made.


I needed it to be eloquent, sort of fancy, fitting the occassion for such a good friend. I think it fits the bill. I hope that my dear friend appreciates and has the best 40th birthday ever.

Cards, I don't have no stinkin' cards

I have been distracted the last little while.  I have found a new crafty thing that I love to make, Wreaths.  I think I posted a few months ago a couple of wreaths that I have made, well I made two more. 

The first one is a lima bean wreath that I made for my Grandma for her 93rd birthday

This one is a burlap bubble wreath (idea stolen from some random sole on pinterest) for my front door.

Next up, spooky halloween wreaths

Love Is In the Air

A few weeks ago we attended a wedding for one of my husband's oldest friends.  We were very excited for this wedding to take place.   No one ever expected this individual to get married.   But he found a wonderful girl, who is perfect for him. 

 

For their wedding they asked for some pretty interesting gifts on their registry.  There wasn't much on there but the last item was "homemade or gifts that were  interesting".  We didn't have the time to go the homemade route, so we went interesting.  When we were on vacation this summer in Maine, we found a shop in Wells that made awesomely awesome copper weather vanes.  This was in fact the perfect gift for the engaged couple, a copper dragon weather vane.  They are a mix of eclectic, and well a little crazy.

 

So to go with this perfect gift I had to come up with a great card and since they said they liked homemade I thought I will make a great homemade card.  I didn't want to continue on with the dragon theme (that would have been a little much for the card), so I decided to go with the colours the bride chose for the wedding.  Her colours were white and a deep rich red.  So perfect.

 

I used this Sweet Sunday Sketch  as my inspiration to make the card.  I knew I wanted it to be mostly about the paper.   I also didn't want to have to do any colouring so my stamped images were just going to be simple hearts.

 

I think the card turned out really great.

 

 

 

 

I thought I was very clever with what we decided to write on the inside fo the card considering our gift...."may your marriage always be pointed in the right direction."  :)

Doing the Birthday Polka

So I'm so lazy when it comes to taking pictures and posting about my cards.   I have made so many since my last post, but have taken pictures of none of them, and of course they have all been divyed out to various people so no chance of taking pictures now.

Except today I actually got off my butt because I had 30 seconds.   I had to make a card for my husband's birthday.  I left it to the last minute.  Today is his birthday.   I didn't feel like hauling out stamps and ink and all that jazz so I decided it was all going to be about the paper.   When I found that I didn't really have that many coordinating solids with my "masculine" none girly patterned paper, I had to come up with something that would be pretty simple and festive.  So here's what I came up with.

It kind of looks like a happy birthday card for a six year old, but that's the best I could do today with the limited time that I had before my 2 psycho crazies invaded my crafty space.   My husband will love it no matter what because he always does.

Hanging with my Gnomies

I had a very strange thing happen to me this week.  Someone that I only know through an online community saw some of the cards that I had posted pictures of in a craft section of the community.  She sent me a not telling me how much she loved the cards and was wondering if I would make her a gnome card and she would pay for it.  "SAY WHAT?  You want to pay for one of my cards" was my reaction.  

After I got over my initial shock I offered to just make her the cards because I enjoy doing it, and knowing that it would be doing her a huge favour (her friends birthday is coming up and apparently her friend is nutso for gnome's) is all that I needed to know.

So I embarked on my task of making her a gnome card, with bright colours that had a birthday theme.  Not an easy task.  The bright colours, the gnomes were the easy part.  The birthday theme not so easy.

The gnome themed stamps that I have are from There She Goes, and all the silly gnomes are already holding something, or don't look to celebratory.  So trying to use the stamps but ditch shovels, and flowers, and potted plants that were a part of the stamp was challenging.

In this first card, the gnome is originally holding a shovel.  With some creative inking I managed to not get the shovel at all in my stamp and make it so the gnome looks like he is holding a bouquet of mushroom balloons.  I think I did a swell job on this one.

My second attempt I'm not so happy with.  The gnome was originally holding a potted plant.  I used another TSG stamp set, Make a Wish, and got rid of the plant and added in the cupcake.  My stamping and inking wasn't as successful, but still pretty decent.  I think I'm not as happy with this one as I don't like the layout or the colours I chose as much as the first.

So off I go to send my online buddy a few pictures.  Hopefully she likes either one of these, or its back to the drawing board (which is alright, its gotten the old creative juices flowing a bit)

I clearly am neglectful in posting pictures of my cards, so these are the cards I've made over the last couple of months. Some are birthday invites, some are birthday cards, most are thank you cards for dance teachers, preschool teachers, anyone who has spoken to my kid (just kidding)

Rainbow Connection

So my OCD with rainbows has continued. My daughter was invited to a birthday party for two girls in her class that are sisters. So I wanted to come up with two simple cards, that were both rainbow themed. This is what I came up with.

Of course, as per usual, I am not even close to being creative enough to come up with these on my own, but I adapted them from things I've seen in magazines, on pinterest and on splitcoast.

I'm kind of off of stampin at this point in time and I'm enjoying just using paper to craft the cards. Who knows how long this will continue. I have a few cards I need to make in the next little while, and I might have to turn back to stamps to make them.

Pom Poms coming out my ying yang

This has nothing to do with paper, stamps or ink ha ha


I had some time recently to sit down and do something other than cleaning my house, thanks to the glorious thing known as spring break daycamps. Both my kids were in them so I got to make a few crafty things. I made two wreaths that have been all over pinterest (my new obsession). The first one I made (and promptly forgot to take a picture of) was one of those balloon wreaths where there are a couple of hundred balloons pinned in. The second one I did was a pom pom wreath full of easter colours. Still hundreds of little things to put on the wreath form, but much easier and faster as a hot glue gun was involved. I think it turned out pretty good.

I'm now slightly obsessed with wreaths, which makes me feel like a 90 year old lady that lives in the country and has chickens all over her kitchen, but they are fun, and I was bored. I'm thinking of making one out of flip flops for the summer.

My daughter had her fourth birthday last week and for her party I had to do some more crafty type stuff. We had a cookie decorating party. Instead of loot bags (which I absolutely hate, its just junk that clutters up my house), I decided to make aprons for each of the girls that were attending the party. I had purchased a lot of Hawaiian print fabric on our last trip to Oahu so I decided to use that. I did each one double sides just for a little variety.

Realize the picture isn't the best and doesn't really show them, but they were a hit with the kids and the moms so at least it was time well spent making them

Taste the Rainbow

I had a bunch of birthday cards to make in the last little while, between my kid, her friends and my friends, and my sister.  Only problem I forgot to take a picture of most of them.  Only took pictures of three. 

I got my hands on a Paper Crafts magazine last month, and it seemed ot be all about the rainbow, and since I had so many cards to make I basically ripped off the designs in the magazine, with a few modifications here and there.

Anyway I think they turned out pretty good.  Super easy to make, minimal stamping involved, minimal cutting and measuring involved and well who doesn't smile when they see a rainbow

Well not really

You Dig Me - SSSC 150 take 2

After yesterday I decided to do another take on the Sweet Sunday Sketch that I posted about. I had forgotten one element, so I decided for my other daughter's Valentine card I would go back and do a Take 2 on it, making sure to use all of th elements in the sketch.

I stuck with my original colour scheme for this years Valentine's of Red, white and Teal. I also decided to forgo my usual rectangular card and do a square one. I had ordered a whole load of square envelopes for my christmas card, ordered the wrong size. So I need to make square cards to use them up.

I decided to use my new There She Goes My Little Friend Gnome stamps. I know that my 5 year old is not going to get the pun at all, but I still think its cute. She'll likely be disappointed I didn't go with a mermaid like she asked, or even that it doesn't have a girl gnome on it, but she'll have to deal with it ;P

Valentine Mad Science - SSSC 150

I have neglected my blog once again for a long long time. I didn't post anything about the gazillion christmas cards I made, or any of the ones I received. So I start anew, with a new year.

We are going away for three weeks starting on Sunday. We don't arrive home until two days before Valentine's day, which gives me no time at all to sit down and make cards for my husband and my girls. So I have had to get myself in gear and get down to work before we leave. I just ordered a whole load of new stamps from Taylored Expressions and from There She Goes, and just got them in the mail on Friday, so perfect timing.

To start my off I decided to go back to the trusty old Sweet Sunday Sketch for inspiration.

A while ago I had seen a card made with Red and a teal blue and I loved the colour combo, so I decided that was going to be my theme this year for my Valentine's cards. With two girls I have enough pink in my life, so I didn't want to do a bunch of pink Valentine's.

The first card I made was for my youngest daughter who is almost 4 years old. She's into all kinds of crazy things right now, and loves telling me stories about Monsters here and there and everywhere so of course I had to use Taylored Expressions Love Monsters. I kept the monsters in line with my colour theme.

I finished up the card, thought it was fantastic, only to realize that I had put it together and totally forgot one element of the sketch, the little banner. But I didn't have time to fix it, especially since I hadn't realized my mistake until it was too late to take it apart and add the element. So here it is sans one element. I think it turned out really cute, banner or not

The second card I managed to get done was the one for my husband. I've said it before and I'll say it again I have such a hard time making cards for men. I am so girl oriented that I'm always stumped for ideas.

Last summer my oldest daughter had a science themed birthday party and I had totally forgotten about the There She Goes Chemistry stamps I had used for her invites. But luckily found them for this little project and I think it worked out perfectly

So I have two down and one to go. My oldest daughter said she wanted a mermaid card, but I really would like to use my new There She Goes My Little Friend gnome stamps. I'll have to see if I'm in a gnome or mermaid mood tomorrow.