Cards for non-stampers

I am trying to come up with some easy cards for non-stampers to make. My church has a monthly Crop and tries to add something different every other month to let people who don't scrapbook do a craft. These cards are Valentines and Friends cards. I have to limit the layers and I will pre-cut some of it, especially the dies - but do these look ok? Would you want to do them? I am struggling with making simple ones as I have gotten used to lots of embellishments and lots of layers which of course take me hours and hours to make. Can't do that at a Crop! Anyway here are the first four, I am going to work on some more over the next few days. Oh and the black ink keeps smearing on me! Not sure what's going on but I smeared it on a couple of these cards, ugh! TFL :)

Valentine Containers

These are some cute containers I made with a friend for Valentine's Day :) You put M & M's, Kisses or any chocolate or even candy hearts in them. I haven't gotten that far yet! I need to go buy some chocolate, hmmmm not a bad thing ;)

Kinda busy

So I will hit ya with several Valentine's Cards at once! These are all CASEs. I am just kinds busy right now. My boys have just entered leadership training and I am a bit confused as to when to bring who where, what to get, what to bring and goodness what to do. I hate it when two people tell you two different things :) Oh well. Today time got away from me and tomorrow I have to be at one kids school while I am supposed to be driving my other kid to practice. I wonder what other mom's do? Especially ones that have like 6 kids or more than 2 anyway! How do they get to two places at once? Hubby is out of the picture, this is busy season for him and I am lucky to see him before 8pm.

I will be back maybe Thurs. to post some containers I made for Valentine's Day :)

Valentine's Heart Card

It's official! This card has the most comments of all of my personal cards on Splitcoast. It is so dazzling in person. I used Stampin Up's chunky glitter on this chipboard heart that I die cut with my Cuttlebug. I used some pretty Valentine's paper I got at Archivers last week and not wanting to cover it up I layered it even on the middle strip. The layout is this weeks TSSC (techno stamper sketch challenge.)

The medallion is my favorite part. I made it up all by myself LOL! I used burgundy cardstock with circle Nestabilities die then I cut a piece of pink pirouette cardstock with a scallop die and went back and cut the inside with a plain die to make a "ring" or "frame" and placed that on the burgundy piece. Then I stamped the circle sentiment and placed that in the middle. I used a 1/2" punch to punch out one of the hearts from the paper and put that in a build a brad, then put the brad in the middle of the sentiment. I put the whole medallion up on dimensionals so it overlaps the chunky heart. So there you have it!

More Snow Pictures!

Our home from across the street.

Sampson wants in! See Kitty in the corner almost looks like he is laughing.

Snowing hard (for NC anyway!)

Not enough hill to sled but that won't stop him from trying!

Almost 7 inches!
Bare with me, this blog also serves my family and friends besides my card making friends :) I will have a card tomorrow for you that has gotten the 2nd most and soon to be most comments on SCS than any card I have made so there will be a card!

SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW SNOW, YEA!

YIPPEEEEE! SNOW! We are soooooo excited! This is the most snow we have had in years,looks like 4 inches and that is enough for the kids to play in! They are so excited, plans of snowmen and sledding and of course, snowball fights LOL! OK, Some of you are thinking, "She is nuts", but it is all relative. Some places have gotten more snow than they would like, others always get a ton and then there is us, praying for that one snowfall a year that we may or may not get. Just be patient with our enthusiasm here and I will try to be patient when y'all complain of the snow :) LOL!

I will be back later with more pictures but this is what I took as soon as there was enough light out to see the pictures. Off to make breakfast!

Thank You Card

This is a nice thank you card I made in a class recently, it is a case, not my own idea :) I just like how sometimes these simple cards look so nice and clean. Nothing over the top or fancy yet very pretty.

On another note there is a really nice blog candy prize being given away on this blog, run on over there to get a chance to win! I am coming upon my 2 year anniversary here on my blog (I have to look up the date but seems like it was Feb.). I am not good with coming up with blog candy but I will look around at other blogs and see what I can come up with :) After all- you all deserve it since you visit my blog regularly! Thanks :)

Tea with Tilda

Isn't that teapot adorable? It is the inspiration for this card. I joined a new type of swap for me, it is a card kit swap. You supply a couple of quality papers (6 x 6), nice embellishments, ribbon, stamped images and an extra thing (in this case the slider tag) and they get exchanged out and you receive back different kits to make. I am liking this! This is my kit that I am sending, the theme of the swap is Magnolia Tilda or Edwin. I didn't use the ribbon that I enclosed for this card but a different one that fit this card better. The sketch is this week's sketch challenge on SCS.

I am really pleased with how this turned out, I tried coloring it with my Stampin Up markers. It worked fine, they just don't give the shading and depth that the Copic markers do. I just can't invest (or justify for myself) hundreds of dollars in markers so this will have to do. Now a couple of fun things that I improvised are, I used chalk to create a faux background where Tilda is sitting - to look like she is sitting on a bench outside. Me and chalk get along great :) Then the mat under that isn't the card stock I used on the rest! I ran out of the raspberry card stock (I had one less piece than the kit) and had to make a piece to match. I experimented with a few colors and found that taking pink cardstock and sponging on regal rose heavily matches the raspberry so well it is hard to tell the difference! Better than running to the store and getting another piece :) All in all this was a step out of my ordinary (no water color crayons!) and a little bit more fun.

Be My Valentine

How could anyone resist being this lil guy's Valentine? He is so cute and a rose to boot :) I got this acrylic sheet of Penny Black stamps that has several cute critters on it (I think that is what it is called). I also picked up the round Valentine stamp in the dollar bin at Michael's. So giving them a try this is what I came up with! It was so hard trying to make a layout that had two focal points that were different shapes - work together. Took me days! Then I saw how someone had made an offset mat to go under their main image and I knew it would work for this. It's a good thing I can just leave it sitting on my desk because I was able to get it right :) Off I go to my Stampin' Up demo's house to get the NEW CATTY! Yahoooooooooooooooooooooooo! I am so excited.

Different Colors

Here is a nice birthday card I made using some different colors. It is more mustard, riding hood red and old olive (SU colors). This is an acrylic stamp that I was trying to do the two different colors on the flower but I was using the chalk inks and it messes them up a little. I hate to mess up my ink pads! However I did achieve the results I wanted. I still love the "old" Prima flowers and I cant find them anymore! All I see now is striped, polka dotted, big and odd colored flowers. I have seen a couple of the old style but the color they had was whites. I could buy those and die them. I used clear dew drops in the centers, and the slider tag is from Cuttlebug. Thanks for looking!

TSSC51 Cute Card for my Kit

I finally got a chance to do another techno stamper sketch challenge, I wish I could get to them every week! Maybe I will with this new year :) I was going through all of the images I have received in the Splitcoast Wish RAK club and I have a good many now! I need to use them. I was looking for something small enough to fit on the center oval. For some reason I have mostly big stamps or at least too big for most of these ovals and circles and such. Got to remedy that! Well except I am not spending any money right now. So off to request more Wish RAKs, how cool is that? Isn't this a cutie little guy? I think it is from Whipper Snapper but I am not positive. I used the paper I used for my card kit (see yesterday's post) so this matches it. It may just sit in there to look pretty LOL! Then I will use the other cards I put behind it. Silly, huh? That's it, thanks for looking!

Card Center Kit

I saw this on another blog and just had to make it! It took me a few hours to put it together as I had to figure it out from pictures. That is the fun part, I much rather figure something out (a challenge) then follow directions. Just ask my SU demo LOL! She laughs about it all the time, especially when I make a mistake she says, "well if you read the directions..." That's no fun :) Now if you really like this and want to make it yourself let me know and I will give you the link to purchase the directions. Since she is selling them I don't want to give it away and since I made some changes for my liking you may like hers better. Anyway I am not posting the link due to the fact she is selling it and others are making a different one but same idea and giving the directions away free. Did that make sense? I try to be fair :)

I used my current favorite color (of the week LOL) soft sky/bashful blue shades and pulled out some matching designer paper by SU. I wanted it soft and pretty and flowery but not overdone. The things I changed are: I changed the punch for the handles and I used a jewel type brad, added a pen holder, a holder to clip birthdays or some list on and on the other side I made closed end boxes so the stamps wouldn't slip out. I also didn't want a place for tags or 3 x 3 cards as I never use either so why put it there. The other ladies who have made these type boxes have put tags and small cards and such in theirs. I intend to use this. I will put a list of all the birthdays of the month I need to send cards, envelopes, stamps and as I make the cards I will put them in here and pull the kit out and use them as needed. I love it :) I will be organized for 2009!

Chipboard Calendar

I hope you aren't sick of seeing these yet! I finally got a chance to make one for myself. I love blue and the green in this paper matches my walls in my scraproom (see behind calendar). I hate the color on the walls but love this particular piece of patterned paper :) Why do I have walls painted a color I don't like, especially where I am all day? Because that is the color my designer picked. Period. She said it would go with the adjoining bonus room's color called camelback. Someday I will find a color and repaint it but for now it stays. Everyone else likes it so it is just me. Get this- it is called River Rock! Which was last year's InColor from Stampin' Up. I just find that funny. At least I know what colors to accessorize with! Anyway back to the calendar. The designer paper is maine blueberry (which by the way is being retired in a week) from SU with night of navy and bashful blue card stock. If you want to make one and can't figure it out from this picture just let me know and I will tell you :)

That lil Chihuahua Stamp

I love this stamp! I bought the whole sheet just for this one. It is by Hanna Stamps. I saw a card using a challenge called Blogger's Challenge, which this week is a color challenge. Baja Breeze, Red (I used riding hood red) & Chocolate Chip. Looks really good together so I jumped right on in. I think I am a challenge junkie. It is BC80 in case you wonder :) I was experimenting with different ways to use the curved rectangle Nestabilities die so this is what I came up with. It is similar to the Stampin Up! die but it nests (oh yeah!). I have a few more cards ready for this week so I should keep this blog hoppin' LOL! Have a great week :)

On to new cards...

I see myself doing this layout again! I really like how the layers play off each other. The added dimension of the green layer being a frame and raising it onto pop-dots looks cool in person :) These are my favorite colors too -blue & green so I am loving this combo. I have a bunch of birthday cards to do this month so you will see more!

OH and the image below is my son's picture. He "staged" the card his way :)