Twin Cards for Twin Friends!

These cards were made for two dear friends from high school.  When trying to think of something to put on their cards, I remembered this crazy picture from way back when -- on my 16th birthday.  We were having a PJ party.  These gals would put their hair on these huge rollers to straighten it (obviously back before flat irons), so I decided to put my hair in rollers as well.  What fun memories this picture brought back.  The inside says, "Let the good times 'roll' again.  Happy Birthday!"  I hope they enjoyed seeing it as much as I did. 

I scanned the photo and printed it on cardstock.  I also used a Prima flower, some mini roses by Recollections, fibers from my stash, Nestabilities, circle and scalloped circle punches, a Martha Stewart leaf punch, and a few gems.  Simple but fun.

Hope you like them!

Welcome

I made this welcome sign for the Arts Council Campaign at work.  Every year people are asked to donate handcrafted items, which are then given away in drawings to employees who make donations to the local Arts Council.  I almost didn't make anything this year.  It seems that what most people want are the pottery items, not papercrafted items.  But, the night before the deadline, I felt guilty and thought I should contribute SOMETHING, so I bought this tray and altered it to be used as a welcome sign.  I finished it at 11:30 that night -- not bad, huh? 

It is actually a metal candle tray that I found at Wal-Mart.  I love it!  Since the bottom was flat, it was perfect to add a word or pictures. 
Size:  The tray was approximately 8" x 14" (can't remember for sure)
Welcome:  Cricut Storybook Font cut at 4 1/4"
Borders:  Martha Stewart and EKSuccess border punches
Flowers:  Prima, I Am Roses, and Unknown
Flourish:  Sizzix Die
Pearls:  Queen & Co.

This picture shows a closeup of the scroll work on the tray:

Thanks for much for looking, and be inspired!

Celebrate 30 -- This Time A Card!

Happy Thursday everyone.  This is my daughter's birthday card from earlier this month.  I don't know how it slipped through without being posted!  Although she turned 30, and I could have really given her a tough time about it, I chose to make an elegant card for her.  I thought her friends would probably give her a tough enough time about having a "0" at the end of her age.  LOL.  We actually had a surprise party for her a few weeks ago, and she opened the card at that party.
Here is how the card was made:

Size 5 1/4" x 5 1/4"
Papers:  SEI Chick-A-Doo; Cardstock:  Bazzill
Doily:  Wilton
Blue Leaves:  Martha Stewart Punch (then I ran them through a crimper)
Fancy Corner:  Cuttlebug die
Gems:  Unknown
Daisy Flower Border:  Martha Stewart
Butterfly:  McGill Punch
Celebrate:  Straight from the Nest Cricut cartridge
Flower: Handmade (see instructions in this post)

Thanks for looking, and for your comments.

30 Years

I made a layout!  Woo hoo!  This simple layout has pictures from a little celebration that our daughters had at our house for our 30th anniversary.  When I looked at these pictures, I thought, "What was I thinking wearing my hair like that?" Ha.  I'm so far behind on my scrapbooking now.  This was a few years ago.

Here are a few details on the layout (click on the picture to get a better look):

Paper:  DCWV Cotton Bloom Stack
Flower Vine:  Some are actually on the paper.  The ones next to the photo on the left were made with a Martha Stewart border punch (given to my by my friend Jane for my birthday -- love it!).  I added Stickles on the flowers and some gems in the middle of each flower)
Flowers:  A combination of handmade and a Prima (white).  The centers are the miniature roses from I Am Roses.
Font:  Baby Steps Cricut cartridge
Scalloped oval behind 30:  Baby Steps as well

Thanks for looking!

Birthday Candle Card

Happy Wednesday everyone.  Here is a card made for a co-worker's birthday.  I recently got the Baby Steps Cricut cartridge and found this adorable cupcake on it.  I decided that it works for babies, children, and adults!  I made the card using Sketch 106 at Card Patterns.  Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:

Here is a closeup of the flower:

Here are the details on the card:

Size:  5 1/4" x 5 1/4"
Oval labels:  Nestabilities
Ribbon from my stash
Cupcake:  Baby Steps Cricut cartridge cut at 2 1/2"
Flower:  Made from punches -- This is the same flower I used on my napkin rings at the hospitality banquet (see post from last week).  I found the tutorial on You Tube.   Here is a link to the video, or here are the easy instructions:  Punch 8 2" scalloped circles (I actually used a 1 1/2" circle for this smaller flower).  Ink the edges of all 8.  Spritz each with water.  Crumple them up into little balls.  Unfold them gently and lay them in a stack.  Punch a hole in the center and add a brad.  Then start folding them up toward the center and scrunching them one at a time.  After they are all folded up, start folding them down one at a time until they form a beautiful flower!  I then painted Stickles on the edges.  I sure hope that helps.
Behind the flower I used fabric from my daughter's shirt.  I cut out a circle and then made slits and added Stickles.  This is for the fabric challenge at Creative Corner.   I love this challenge!
I added a few gems, and it was done!

Thanks for looking and for your comments.

Corner Bookmark

As promised, here is a picture of the corner bookmark that I made and gave as favors at the Ladies Hospitality Banquet at church (see previous post for lots of photos).  I did a Google search for corner bookmark tutorial and found Dawn's (of Dawn's Stamping Thoughts) on You Tube.  Here is a link to the video.  Thanks Dawn!  They really are easy to make.  I used my Corner Chomper to round the corners and then decorated mine on top as you can tell by adding a Nestabilities Lacy Scalloped Circle die.  I printed a Bible verse and cut it using a Nestabilities Circle die.  I then added a punched butterly, some flowers, gems, ribbons and fibers.  Easy Peasy!  Enjoy, and let me know if you are inspired!

Finally . . . Pictures from the Church Banquet

The ladies at our church have a banquet, usually once a year, called a "hospitality banquet."  People decorate tables in a theme of their choosing and invite friends to come to the banquet.  We eat a great meal and always have a great speaker.  About a month ago, my youngest daughter said, "Mom, I think you need to do a table for the banquet."  I of course replied, "What?  That's not my thing.  I'm not a decorator."  Then she convinced me by saying, "Sure, you can do a scrapbooking table, and I will help you."  I wouldn't commit to it at that time, but the more I thought about it, the more ideas that kept coming to my mind.  So, I decided to do it and came up with a plan.  First of all, since it was supposed to be a scrapbooking table, I had to come up with a way to "scrapbook" something on the table.  That's when I decided that I had two shadow box frames already and that I could put something in them.  Then I thought about doing "Faith, Hope and Love" as my theme.  So, I bought a third frame, and the work began.  I cannot begin to tell you how many hours I spent making all of the "stuff" for this table, but it was a complete labor of love!  Hopefully, someone was blessed by it.  (And it won the "Martha Stewart" award at the banquet -- how fun!)

Here is a picture of my "Faith" frame.

I made this design using my Cricut, some Prima and Bazzill flowers, lace, and my Spellbinders Nestabilities.  The frame is an 8" x 10" frame, and the word "Faith" was cut using the Home Accents solutions cartridge. The cross was cut from the Indie Art solutions cartridge.  I put it on a Nestabilities scalloped circle.  I ran the word "Faith" through my Cuttlebug and embossed it.

Here is a picture of my "Hope" frame:

Since I didn't have a Cricut cartridge with the word Hope on it, I used Sure Cuts a Lot and designed the word and welded it.  I do not remember the font, but if you are interested, email me or leave a comment, and I can figure it out.  After I cut the word, I ran it through my crimper to give it dimension.  I also used some Prima lace with flowers attached to it that was given to me by a dear friend for my birthday last year.  The bird was cut from the Straight from the Nest Cricut cartridge.  This is the frame to which I added my cupcake liner flower that I showed you last week.

The last frame is my "Love" frame:

This was my favorite frame.  I cut the word "Love" from the Sweethearts Cricut cartridge.  The heart came from the Straight from the Nest cartridge.  The Bible verse is on a Nestabilities label.  The cross is a Spellbinders die.  The fancy corner is also from the Sweethearts cartridge.  The white flower was made using punches.

Now onto a few of the other table decorations:

Here is one of the six candles that I placed on the table.  I tied a ribbon around them and added a flower made from punches, plus a little rose in the middle.  I ran the flower through the crimper to give it texture.

Here is a picture of the candy bars we gave as favors.  We covered them in paper and added a quick punched flower:

This is the goody bag we gave with cards made by my daughter, a gift tag, and a bookmark (pictures and instructions for this on another day):

Next, we have a picture of the flowers I made for the napkin rings (instructions on this flower will come another day as well).  I loved making these flowers from cardstock and will make more of them:



And this is one of the placecards I used.  It was very simple, with a name printed from my computer and a punched doily flower and center:

Here is a picture of our glasses, with black ribbon and a little charm tied on.  It may be hard to see the angel charm:

And here is a picture of some of the carnations and rolled roses that I made to sit at the corners.  The carnation is the one I showed in a post last week:

Now to a picture of my true labor of love -- a flat rolled rose topiary made from felt flowers!  While surfing the internet for ideas, I found the tutorial and pictures, which you can find here.  I loved it!  I did mine a little differently though.  I added a pearl in the center of each rose and then painted Stickles glitter glue on the flowers.  I started out making regular rolled roses, but they were pretty small, and then I realized that I was doing them backwards from the photos on the tutorial, and I really liked them flat.  So, here are a couple of pictures of the topiary:

And finally, here are pictures of the table.  We used my daughter's red polka dotted square plates and put them on red chargers.  We used a white tablecloth and a black overlay.  We had blue fabric covering a small box and then a damask hat box that I got for $4.50 (50% off) at Hobby Lobby -- woo hoo -- sitting on top of the fabric.  The frames and topiary sat on top of the hat box.

And another picture:

You can click on the pictures to see them better.  Thank you in advance for any comments!  If you have questions about anything, just let me know.

Another Quick Sneak Peek!

Here's another quick sneak peek at some of the things I'm working on.  This is another flower made from mini cupcake liners (or baking cup liners, whichever you prefer to call it).   I found several videos with tutorials.  Here was one of my favorites.  I can't wait to play with these again and get different looks!

Here is my flower.  It is in a frame, so I hope you can see it clearly.  I added a white wedding silk flower in the middle, but you certainly don't have to.  Just the liners are gorgeous.  I painted a little Stickles on the flower for shimmer.

Thanks for looking, and let me know if you are inspired!

A Quick Sneak Peek

I know it isn't much, but here is a quick sneak peek of what I'm working on.  As I said in my post last week, I am working on a huge project for a banquet at church.  These are a couple of the flowers I will use.  Believe me, I have made lots of handmade flowers over the past two weeks.  Some of them were just experiments that didn't work for me, and some will be used.

I started out using Crystal's awesome idea over at Frosted Designs from a few weeks ago (check it out here), making carnations from mini cupcake liners.  The things I did differently is that I didn't use the pipecleaner, and instead of twisting my layers, I instead crunched the layers up together toward the center and then pulled them back down, one at a time.  As a final touch, I used spray adhesive on the flower and then sprinkled glitter on.
Here are my flowers:

I'll be back later with more flowers and will definitely post pictures of the entire project after next Monday night.

Thanks for looking, and I hope you are inspired.