A Special Birthday Card....

Hi Friends,
Here to share a very special birthday card for my sister Natalie who will be the big "50" on January 12th.

Happy Birthday Natalie!!!!

We are going to a special birthday dinner for her tonight.  For two whole days she will be 2 years older than me!  I like to tease her about being my "much older" sister for those two days!  Just kidding!  We missed being Irish Twins by just 48 hours!  Growing up everyone thought we were twins anyway which was a lot of fun!

My sister Natalie is one of the most positive people I know.  She has gumption, fortitude, and walks closely with the Lord in good times and bad.  I am so blessed to call her my sister and to have her as my best friend too!  She reminds me so much of my Grandma Joyce who is no longer with us.  So in the shaker part of this card I used some of my Grandma Joyce's sequins and seed pearls that I received after she passed on.  I thought it was appropriate for Natalie's special day!  The "Happy" sentiment is from Paper Sweeties. The tiny tag and numbers are from Papertrey Ink.

Here is a picture that I have shared before of the two of us at my sister Beth's wedding shower last year....

Thanks for taking a look!
Hugs,
Jill

Happy Birthday Jeanne!!!!!

Hello Friends,
Today we are sending very special Happy Birthday wishes to our dear friend Jeanne!

Happy Birthday Jeanne!!!!

 Jeanne blogs at "A Kept Life" and is a paper artist extraordinaire!!!!  I always enjoy my visits to her blog and come away inspired and ready to create!  She has a way with color and combining elements to create incredible cards and tags and other paper crafted items!   I hope you will pay her lovely blog a visit and enjoy some of the beauty within its many gorgeous entries!  And while you are there leave her some birthday wishes too!

Jeanne I wish for you many blessings throughout the year and a day filled with much happiness surrounded by everyone that loves you!  Thanks for your friendship here in blog land and sharing your many talents and lovely comments with me and so many others!  You are such a sweetheart!!!

I want to send a big thank you to our friend Joyce who so kindly organized this lovely blog hop for Jeanne.  She is our party planner extraordinaire!  Here is a list of links to everyone that is hopping in honor of Jeanne today:
Joyce (our blog hop cruise director!)
Cathy
Christina

Darnell
Jill (You Are Here)
Kara (Go Here Next)
Kim
Marybeth
Tracey 
Vickie

Crafty Hugs Everyone!!!!
Jill

Supplies:
Cardstock:  blush, rustic cream: PTI; 80lb base weight pink - Michael's
Stamps:  Friendship Jar - PTI; The craft spot - tiny tags 2
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa
Dies:  Cupcake: PTI; label: PTI; Doily - Cheery Lynn Designs
Other:  Flowers; twine, streamer paper; crocheted doily - Paper Bag Lady on ETSY

Happy Birthday Wishes for Christina!

Hello Crafty Friends,
Here with some sweet and very special birthday wishes for the lovely and talented Christina of Seaglass Papercrafts.  You may be familiar with Christina's gorgeous creations from The 12 Kits of Occasions blog  which is where I came to admire her cardmaking prowess even more!!!!  ( If you are not familiar with this lovely and talented group of women and the cards and projects they make each month you are missing out!  I love hopping around each month to each of their blogs to see all of the beauty they create!) 

I love Christina's card making style.  It is elegant and classy with just the right embellishments to finish each card!  I tried very hard to channel her lovely style on the card that I made to wish her a Happy Birthday:




I decided to use my "Lovely Layers" stamp set from Papertrey Ink and paired it with some stamps from the "Wreath for all Seasons" stamp set too.  I drew inspiration from a card that Dawn McVey made when this set was released.  You can see it HERE.

Christina I hope your day is filled with happy moments and lots of joy surrounded by the people you love!  May your year be full of blessings, health, and lots of happiness!  Thanks for sharing your love of crafting with all of us here in blog land!  You are a true inspiration!


Here is a list of links of everyone that is hopping along to send Christina "Happy Birthday" wishes today:
Joyce
Cathy

Darnell

Jeanne

Jill   - you are here

Kara - go here next

Kim
Lynn

Marybeth

Renee
Sharron

Tracey 

I am sending you onto the lovely Kara's blog at KandRdesigns.
Hugs,
Jill

Happy Birthday Big Brother!!!!

Hello Friends,
Today is my oldest brother Tony's  50th Birthday!  Wow!  The big 50!!!!!

  Happy Birthday Tony!!!  

You are truly the best big brother a girl could ask for!!!!  An all-around GREAT GUY!!!  And this card is for you!  :

I am also entering it into the Serendipity Stamps Challenge Blog SSCB#23:  Use up those scraps! 
Now if I just use this technique about twenty or thirty more times I may put a dent in all the scraps I have on hand!  It is a fun technique and I love the colorful cards it creates!!!  By the way I did not have any birthday sentiments from Serendipity to use on my card so I improvised by using the "Happy Holidays" sentiment from the "Old Time Christmas" stamp set item: 934QCL.  I masked off the word "Holidays" and just used the "Happy" to create my card.  I definitely need to order some sentiment stamps from Serendipity during this weeks sale!  Shipping is free for all orders over $10.00 until 11-12-13! 


Thanks for taking a look at my card!  And I also want to send a thank you to the Serendipity Stamps Challenge Team for choosing my card from last week as the favorite card for challenge #22. You made my week!!!!
:) Jill

Waltzing Mouse Flower Show - card #2 for Meredith MacRitchie

Hi everyone,
I just had to CASE (copy and steal everything) another card today for the Waltzing Mouse Flower Show.

I specifically wanted to work with the cards posted by Meredith MacRitchie on her blog "A Delightful Waste of Time".  I loved the stamping, coloring, and embossing techniques that she did on her cards using the Camellia set.  I knew I would need a block of time to make the card and today I decided to try it after speeding around and getting a bunch of other things out of the way to free up some time after lunch.

Here are the two cards Meredith made - they are both so GORGEOUS!!!

 I was especially intrigued by the water color stamping with the embossing - the card on the left.  But I definitely drew inspiration from them both for my card.

I wanted to try adding water to my images prior to stamping them but did not have a spray bottle so I tried something I will call "finger-paint" stamping.  Here are some pictures:

 First I mounted 3 different camellia stamps on blocks.  Then I would ink them all up with both Raspberry Fizz and Berry Sorbet ink with the rock and roll technique. 

After stamping the three flowers I dipped my finger in a small cup of water and rubbed the water over the flower in a circular motion making sure to go outside of the bloom slightly to spread the color.  When this was done I dried my paper with a heat tool and then proceeded to the embossing stage until my sheet of background paper was complete.  Then I got to place the finishing touches on my card.  Here is what my desk looked like by the time I was done (just for grins!)

Isn't this great!!!  I had so much fun making this card but alas it is time to go and pick up my son now....I will be back to finish this post a little later so I can add the product supply list!

 

Thanks for taking a look at my card!  And thanks to Meredith and all of the designers for fantastic inspiration!  I hope I get to make a couple more cards before the deadline!

:) Jill

Waltzingmouse Flower Show CASE Competition....a card CASE'd from Helen Berry Design

Hello Everyone,
I seem to have found some MOJO to create this week.  Yeah!!! I have been sadly lacking in the ability to create ANYTHING for over a week now and then the last two days I am whipping out cards in no time at all....go figure.  I think the events in Boston and Texas and in my own life do get me down sometimes and it is hard for me to create....but I also know that it is our incredible human spirits and our families and friends that keep us keeping on!  My heart goes out to anyone that is in pain from difficult circumstances in their lives!  Blessings to you ALL!

Tonight I put together a card for the Waltzingmouse Flower Show CASE competition:

I hope you will got to the Waltzingmouse site and join in all the fun!  Thanks Claire and designers for wonderful inspiration and a fun competition to participate in!  I want to just case every single incredible card that the designers came up with....but for today I chose to case this card by Helen Berry: HERE.  Here is a photo:

  I specifically wanted to play with Folk Art Labels No. 25.  A small $6.10 stamp set that is full of charm!  Here is what it looks like (courtesy of the Waltzingmouse Stamps Site: HERE.)

  I was intrigued by the small stamp on the right that is almost pine cone shaped.  I just fell in love with that little stamp and wanted to play around with making a background with it.  Here is what I came up with:

 I liked the way Helen stamped her background.  She made her card multi-colored and broke her background up into thirds visually. However, after a few minutes playing on scrap paper I gave up on this idea and ended up just adding some darker pink centers to the lower third of the card and the additional mats to balance the card.  I wanted to only use stamps from this one set to make my card so my choices were a little more limited.  I think I may try to CASE this card again though because the tri-color background was what I originally set out to CASE as I was so intrigued by the way my eye moved through the card.  The Rule of Thirds is so powerful!!! I would do well to remember that more often! LOL!

Anyway thanks for taking a look at my card.  And thanks to Helen (and all of the designers) again for the inspiration and to Claire and the Waltzingmouse family for their wonderful products that I so enjoy playing with!
:) Jill

Celebrate Your Day!

Hi Friends,
Here today with a card using a new to me sentiment set from Paper Sweeties.  It is a birthday card as my birthday card stash is very, very low and I am trying to replenish.

I used the Paper Sweeties Sketch Inspiration #3 when making my card.  Here is a picture of the sketch:

 

I actually flipped the sketch so that the 3 small embellishments at the bottom are on the top right of my card.

 

I used a border stamp of little drawn hearts from a There She Goes Clear Stamp set called "Cute as a Button" to create the background panel on the left side. The other panel is a digital paper from Etsy from "Iralamijashop".  It is called "Victoria Backgrounds". I also like a new paper she has out that I just saw today called:  English Rose Collage.  Maybe someday....LOL!

 Here is a close-up of the little cupcake I made out of paper! I had to add some glittery sweetness to it!  

And since I made a little hand-sewing goof on the upper corner of my card I added some glittery goodness to the top right corner and bottom left corner to carry all that yummy glitter through the card and help direct your eye.  Probably difficult to see in the pictures unless you click to enlarge them.

Thanks for taking a look!  Debbie released some lovely new Paper Sweeties this week.  They are just so adorable and fun!!

:) Jill

Make It Monday #66: Felt Flowers From Border Dies

Hello,
Here today with a card for the Make it Monday challenge over at Papertrey Ink.  The challenge asks us to make Felt Flowers from border dies.  I chose to use the edgers #2 card border dies to make my flowers after experimenting a little bit.  I ended up making two sets of 3 flowers each - enough to make one more card this weekend if I can find some more time. 

Here are some pictures of the card I ended up making:

Thanks for takig a look at my card.  I had fun trying this technique out and I liked the detailed edge on my flowers that I was able to get with the dies I used.  I hope you have time to join in this challenge too!  Happy Crafting!

:)  Jill