Thinking of Flowers

A dear friend of mine, A, has been going through some very rough times for the last ten months.  I haven't seen much of her but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking of her a lot.  When I finally had a chance to to see her, I made her this card.  Not a fancy card, but enough to tell her that I've been thinking about her.  The flowers represent her family, which I thought was quite cute.  I hope things will start looking up for her and her family because they definitely deserve it.

Sending You Love...For Your Birthday

My sister-in-law wanted to use this card style for her wedding invitations next year.  The style is unique and easy to make, however, the card ends up being very small (only a 4" x 4"), not nearly enough space to place all the information that needs to be written on an invite.  To show her exactly how small the card is, I made her a sample, in the form of a birthday card. 

See how the card opens up (sorry the photo was rotated for some reason)?  I might actually make more of these for other occasions!

Birds of a Feather

I had a special request from J to make a wedding card with two puffins on it.  J even sent me pictures of puffins she wanted on her card.  As most of my Cricut-made cards are on the cute side, I wanted to incorporate a touch of elegance by using a purple card base and a purple damask-like patterned paper.  It's the first time I bought a pack of non-colourful, kiddish paper and it sure came in handy.  J was thrilled with the card, and I'm so pleased!

Birthday Circles

Here's another card we made at last week's Team Meeting -  a very simple yet colourful card that can be made for birthdays, thank yous, babies, congrats...The key is in the stamp set used called "A Fitting Occasion".  I've been itching to buy this set since I laid my hands on the catalog but I've been holding out.  I'm glad I got to try it out at the last meeting.  And the best thing about this card - you get to use up your scraps!



Scattered Flower Card

This simple card was made using the Reason to Smile two-step stamp set.  The first step is the solid flower stamp, and the second is the trace of the flower.  Instead of placing the two stamps directly on top of each other, I separated them out on this card.  I've seen others do this to make some beautiful cards but I'm not sure how I feel about mine...

Maybe I need to try a more cheerful colour combination?

Another Hallowe'en Card For You

It's been a few months since I've been able to attend our Team's Monthly Crafting Meetings.  Since I work a far way's away, it's incredibly difficult to be able to make it to these meetings.  However, I finally made it this month and I'm glad I did.  As usual, we did some make and takes, and here is one of them, a not-so-scary Hallowe'en card.  Enjoy!

October says Hallowe'en

I don't normally make Hallowe'en cards, but these stamps were just too cute for me to pass up.  I stamped a bunch of these monsters and bats, and now I don't know what to do with them.  So don't be shocked if you get a Hallowe'en card from me this year!

A Grey Birthday (Card)

No birthdays should be grey, but that doesn't mean birthday cards can't be.  I'm beginning to love muted designs with a pop of colour.  It's just as eye-catching as a card full of colour.

Today is my birthday - maybe I'll save the card for myself :)

An Everyday Card

Sometimes I just want to make a "simple" card just because (though nothing is really simple, right?)  I didn't have anyone in mind when I made this card, nor an occasion, but this design is versatile enough I could add a sentiment on the inside once I figure out what it will be used for.  Notice that the three panels were really from the same image?

Let Patterned Paper Do All the Work

When you're making many cards, for occasions such as Christmas, you need to get the most number of cards out of the least amount of work.  That's why you've probably noticed that many of the Christmas cards I've featured uses colourful patterened paper as the background.  Can you imagine the following card with a plain white background?  Not me.  And by using traditional Christmas colours, you're sure that everyone will come together in the end.

By the way, do you recognize the shape that is cut out from "Joy"?  I re-used them as snow decoration in the Rudolph cards.

I Never Had a Stocking

But how sweet it would be to start that tradition with our family.  In the meantime, a stocking Christmas card will just have to do.

Once again, I let patterened paper do all the work here:

Rudolph Comes to Town

Isn't this the most adorable reindeer you've seen?  The reindeer card is definitely a close second to the Santa card in my books, so you bet I used it on more than one card! 

Here's one version using Christmas themed patterned paper:

Here's Rudolph playing in the snow.  It's not the first time I simply teared embossed white paper to mimic snow.

Christmas Lodge

I'm going to change things up a bit and share with you a Christmas card done with stamping.  When I first saw this stamp set, I fell in love with the Christmas lodge shown here.  Colour it in or leave it plain.  In this case, I went with the latter but I didn't forget to include a splash of colour in both the card base and the snowflakes.  By the way, do you like the watermarked (with Versamark) snowflakes on the blue layer? 

The outside:

 Carrying over the colour scheme on the inside of the card:



From the Both of Us

Simple yet so versatile, you can easily change the number of penguins (or another animal) to reflect the number of people the card is from.  In this case, the card was from my husband and I.  Maybe I should have made one penguin bigger than the other but the two identical penguins look utterly adorable as is!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Who wouldn't love a visit from Santa during Christmas?  This is the perfect card if you like cute designs.  I made this for my mother-in-law last Christmas to give to relatives but she liked it so much she decided to keep the card for herself!  All she had to do was ask me to give her another one, as I had made two version of Santa...

A Joyous Santa

 Santa on a Ribbon



Christmas is Just Around the Corner!

If you're someone who likes to send out Christmas cards, then it's certainly not too late to think about making them!  That way you can nibble at a few a week and have them all done well in advance.  I have to admit I seldom give out Christmas cards (or any cards, for that matter!)  But I'm working on that.  Afterall, it gives me an excuse reason to keep making cards.

Over the next little while I'm going to share some Christmas card ideas.  While many of these were made with the Cricut machine, I'll try to throw in some stamped cards as well, for those of you who prefer something a little less "labour intensive".

Mistletoe and ribbon - but you could easily replace the mistletoe with a stamp or a tag.

The Tree

At our last gathering, B brought over an old stamp she had YEARS ago.  Normally, I would ask, what does one do with a stamp of a tree?  But the detailing on this stamp was so impressive, and the lines on the rubber so sharp that W and I jumped at the opportunity to make a card with it.  The tree speaks for itself and nothing else really is needed...at most a tiny butterfly or two. 

I left the card as is and I was really happy with it.  Thanks for sharing the stamp, B!

Birthday Twins

Twins Chloe and Hailey are celebrating birthday.  I knew I wanted to make 2 animals from Create a Critter for them but couldn't really decide on what.  Then I decided on mice!  I think they're adorable, and what's more, I could use a brick of cheese in place of a birthday cake for them.  I couldn't forget the birthday candle though!  The white background looked a bit plain, so I embossed with Swiss Dots.

The front:

Do you recognize the "Happy Birthday" cut?  I used the same cut for my sister's pig card last year.

The World Got A Present The Day You Were Born

At last week's crafting get-together with W and B, the three of us shared our supplies (namely stamps!) so that we could make cards that we otherwise won't be able to make.  I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to borrow W's Mixed Bunch and B's Papillon Pot Pourri stamp sets.  Coupled with some of my supplies (Fancy Fan Embossing Folder and the old Priceless stamp set), I put together this light cheery card.  The sentiment is from the old Happiest Birthday Wishes set.

The front:

Happy Birthday, Helen!

Hip Hip Hooray!

I have to admit, I wasn't in love with the Stampin' Up Aviary stamp set when I first saw it in the catalog, but after seeing what magic B did with it, I fell in love.  Aren't these little birdies and bird cages so cute?  I put them to use on a birthday card here but they will work on cards for any occasions.  I might just have to buy this stamp set now!