Happy Birthday Cards....

Here today with a couple of birthday cards for some special people.  One is for my son who will turn 10 on July 10th!  The other is for my dear cousin Stacy who will turn....a.... 29.... again.  :)

Today, June 23rd, my sweet husband Stuart would have celebrated his 57th year and so I send Happy Birthday greetings to our dear "Papa Stu" up in Heaven!  We are all thinking of you today!  Tim and I will be celebrating with some cupcakes and an annual picture later today!

Here are some pictures of my cards:

 I finally did it!  I used sequins on a card!  I wanted this one to look like a birthday party!  I cannot believe my son Tim is turning 10 years old.  Double digits!  The teen years are around the corner!  Oh my!  Where does the time go!!!!

 I placed things at different angles to give it a more "happy" or "celebratory" feel....

And for my sweet cousin...a more feminine card:

 Same style of card just softer colors and some lovely Tilda papers I had in my stash along with my beloved gingham from my digital paper files.  I am linking this card up to this week's Shabby Tea Room challenge.  It is week #224 and the theme is "Party Time".  We are challenged to make a Birthday card or project using pink, green and polka dots.  I hope that the "dots" around the mat for my sentiment count for the polka dot part of the challenge?!  :) 

Thanks for taking a look my friends!  I so enjoy reading your comments and visiting your blogs to see what you are up to!  Hope you are enjoying these lovely summer days!  It is our first full week of summer break from school and I am so enjoying taking a little bit of time in the morning to craft!  Today we are off to take a walk with my sister and her newest grand baby girl!  So fun! 

Rhonda - sending big hugs to you and your entire family my dear!!!   HUGS!!!!!!

Hope to be back with another post soon!
:)  Jill

Have A Very Merry Christmas in almost July...

 Here with a little Victorian Country Christmas spirit in almost July.  For the first time ever I am trying to make Christmas cards all year around so that I will have less to do come December and can relax and enjoy family and friends more during the season.  To this end I have a card this week for the Festive Friday Challenge #11.  It is an element challenge and here is the inspiration photo:

I have a ton of ideas for using tree elements bouncing around in my head tonight.   But I have to say that this card took me a while to pull together as several of my ideas did not pan out (yet!). Needless to say my spare parts box has lots of extra diecuts tonight for future Christmas cards! LOL!  The one thing that did work perfectly was the gorgeous sentiment from Verve that I wanted to use:

I finally settled on using a pine cone stamp and 3 small Magnolia tree diecuts in cardboard and cardstock for my tree elements.  Here is a close-up:

The heart dies are from both Cheery Lynn Designs and PTI.  The ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon.

Thanks for taking a look at my card!
Happy Weekend!
Jill

A little bit of green paint....

Hello all,
I was doing some blog hopping this afternoon and came upon the Embellish Magazine.com "Paint Color Trends Challenge". 

Here is the inspiration graphic and color pallette:

 

I recently purchased a little 6x6 distressed diamond mask and have had it sitting on my desk ready for use.  I decided this was the perfect opportunity to try it out.  I also have a notebook where I jot down card ideas when they come to me and have been wanting to try making a "felt" christmas tree using the star border dies from Papertrey Ink.  I woke up one morning with the idea in my head and drew a quick sketch in my notebook.  I am happy to report that it came out as cute as I thought it would!

 

 

I also chose to decorate the inside of the card as I usually enclose a Holiday letter in my cards and just sign our names to the actual message area.

 

That is it for me tonight!  Thanks for taking a look at my card!  Sorry that the pictures have shadows and are a little dark - it is overcast in Seattle this afternoon and very dark and shadowy even with my extra lighting!!! 

 

:) Jill

Papertrey July Blog Hop Challenge

photo credit

                                                
                      Hello!  We are just home from Day Camp and I am taking a quick moment to upload a card I made last night for today's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop.  I loved the inspiration photo and was inspired by the soft water colors, the floral patterns and the countryside in the background.  I started several cards last night but this is the only one I have finished so far.  I hope I get to upload more before the deadline tonight - we shall see! 

You can find all the information about the Papertrey July Blog Hop on Nichole Heady's blog:  Here

Here is the card I created.  It is a collage type card I guess.  I just played and had fun while making it!
Thanks for taking a look!

                                        : ) Jill

A card for this weeks Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge #99...

Hello all,
Tonight I had some time to sit down and play with the Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge #99. 

 I decided to make a masculine card for Father's Day which is just around the corner.  It will be Tim and my first Father's Day without our beloved Stuart, Tim's "Papa Stu".  I thought I would be best served by getting my Dad's and Father-in-law's cards done early as doing them closer to the day may be a time when my mojo is sadly lacking. 

Here are some pictures of the card I came up with.  I was inspired by ALL of the wonderful cards by the mischief makers and loved the medallion on Lenet's card.  I hadn't made a medallion in a long time so I decided it would be a nice jump off point for a Father's Day card :


The sentiment stamps are from Waltzing Mouse's "Say it Loud" set.  The heart bling is from prima, and all of the papers are scraps from my stash.  The cardstock is papertrey ink's vintage cream.  The medallion is made with a die from MFT stamps and paper from a CD from Crafty Secrets - although I just received the chicken wire background set from Waltzing Mouse so I can now make my own chicken wire background paper in any color under the rainbow - so excited about that!!!!



 The letters I used are from a Studio Calico kit and are by Basic Grey.  I thought they looked very masculine!

The border is from a Martha Stewart punch around the page set.  I don't remember the name of it though - wish they were on the punches for me!  I used a piece of felt cut from a "sun" die for the center of my medallion and inked it up with some pumice stone distress ink to help it show up a little bit better and give it some dimension. It is topped with a button and twine from my stash. The black ink for the sentiments is archival ink - jet black.

Thanks for taking a look at my card.  I so appreciate reading everyone's comments and going to look at how everyone interprets the sketch.  It makes me realize how unique and special each one of us is in God's eyes when I see how much beauty we can create out of a single sketch idea!
Happy Crafting!
: )  Jill

A card for Papertrey Ink's May 2012 Blog Hop

Hello friends,
I just made the fastest card decisions in my life today for the Papertrey Ink blog hop.  I was so busy working on my crafty project last night for the Waltzing Mouse Hop (which I still haven't finished and have probably missed the deadline on...) that I forgot about the PTI hop today!  I  LOVE the great inspiration photo!   HERE is the blog post it originated from....and here is the photo they chose for this month's inspiration:





I had tons of errands today and went to visit my Mom who has not been feeling well to check on her.  When I got home I logged on to check emails etc. and realized the PTI hop was today.  How can it already be the 25th of May?  Time is flying for me lately! I decided to try and race through a card using the photo for my design.  Here is the card I came up with...

 I did not have the exact ink color I needed to make the very light chartreuse colored hydrangea flower that was in the bowl.  Soooo I improvised by combining two ink colors that I did have and using a blending tool.  Then I overstamped the "In Bloom" largest flower with the darker ink when I was done. 

I also didn't have a harlequin or diamond shaped stamp so I used an embossing folder on the limitless layers circle below the flower and blended some black ink over the top to bring out the diamonds....however most of this effort was covered by the flower....oh well...

I struggled with how to put the sentiment on the card and ended up cutting some flag pieces and splitting the sentiment between the two.  I am still not sure that this card is balanced....that it doesn't need something else?  But due to time constraints I decided to just go with it....and call it GOOD!  I had fun whipping it together and I still have time to finish the laundry before I pick up my little one from school.  Happy hopping  everyone!

: )  Jill

Card Making night with my son...

Hello it is Tuesday night and my son and I were making cards together and he wanted me to post his and mine to our Greenwood Girl Cards blog. 

We used a "Pure Innocence" stamp set called Warm Fuzzies from My Favorite Things to make our cards.
My sons card has two bunny kids on it and he helped color them and I cut them out.  He made the sun with orange rays and the clouds and grass.  He picked out (and I helped him stamp) the sentiment which is from Michael's and says "All U need is Love".    We have the occasional craft night when Papa is off with the guys and it was fun making cards together.   Here are a few pics:

This is a picture of the two cards side by side.  My son's is on the right and he added the orange sunrays at the last minute.  He wanted the card to be very sunny!  Which is a good thing since it hailed, rained, showered, and poured today with thunder and lightning!  Quite something for Seattle!

Here is a close up of his card.  It was his idea to place the sentiment on the cloud and to make it two layers - the first layer is felt and the second is white cardboard tile from PTI with the sentiment.  You can't see the felt on the large cloud because it is behind the sentiment completely.

Here is a close-up of my card.  Some of the dies used are from My Favorite Stamps and some are from Papertrey Ink.  

I have one more card to share today.  This is one I made as a thank you for my neighbor and her sister who have been helping my family since my husband's diagnosis with cancer back in July of 2010.  Here are some pics:

The stamp is from Hampton Art and the flower was made using the Tim Holtz floral die and both patterned paper and tissue paper.  I made the leaves with a Martha Stewart punch and used too much stickles glitter glue to bling the card up.  The butterfly is made from the "Love Lives Here" dies from PTI.

Thanks for looking at my little card blog.  I decided to make a blog for my cards in 2010 so I could see how my skills progress over time since this is a fairly new hobby for me.   Until I blog again - be happy!  Each day is a gift!

 

Happy Anniversary to Papertrey Ink! Love, love, love your company and design team!

Today I am going to repost one of my favorite cards using papertrey ink products.  This is my first year using Papertrey Ink products.  I saw a card in a magazine using their stamps and decided to check them out online one day and I fell in love!  I love their stamps, their ink, their cardstock (which I just ordered for the first time a week or so ago and am just starting to use) and most of all their dies!  I am impressed with their service and the way they package their high-quality stamps!  I know I will be a customer for life!

This year my favorite product has to be the stamp set "Love Lives Here".  I love the verstility of this set!  There are so many uses for the stamps and the sentiments and the dies which have already made it onto several of my scrapbook pages too.  While I am still learning how to "design" and have a long way to go before I will feel that I am 'good' I still enjoy trying my hand at being creative.  It takes my mind off of my husband's illness and also allows me to make thank you notes for all of the people that are helping us out in our time of need.  This stamp set from papertrey ink along with the Crafty Secrets "Little Blessings" Creative Scraps which I also found this year have allowed me to send off some lovely thank you's to all the special people in our lives who are helping us right now.  So thank you Papertrey Ink and Crafty Secrets!  I love your products! 

Here are some of the cards I have made this year using Papertrey Ink's products...

I think the first card is my favorite of all because it seemed to turn out the best though I also like the last one.  I am still learning how to make cards so each one helps me grow a little.  The important thing is that I have fun making them and I get to send them to all my family and friends that are helping me out!  What could be a better reason to sit down and play with some ink, stamps and cardstock!  Again - thanks Papertrey Ink!  What a wonderful company full of amazing people doing what they love!  I am blessed to have found you this year!  Happy Anniversary!