It's Your Birthday

I made this card for my friend, Kim, last month. January was a busy birthday month for my friends and family. It's terrible that I can't even find time to post cards on this blog. Well, at least I posted this card on Instagram last month.

The stamps are from Lawn Fawn and Papertrey Ink. The patterned paper is from Amy Tangerine for American Crafts. The baker's twine is from The Twinery.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday to You

Hi there! There's something very appealing to the heavy use of black in card design. When I saw this month's Papertrey Ink Blog Hop - Black challenge, I had to participate.

Here's my card. Using my Big Shot, I die cut the Leafy Vine Border Die  several times in different colors of cardstock. I glued them onto black cardstock. I die cut a scalloped circle from black cardstock and then white embossed the birthday sentiment (from the Signature Greetings II stamp set) onto a scallop circle die cut. As a final touch, I added some bling.

Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday, Norma!

I made this birthday card for my friend, Norma, who celebrated her birthday today.

I also made this card for the Papertrey Ink Make It Monday Challenge since it's a chalkboard challenge. I like the look of a Plum Pudding chalkboard, how about you? I used stamps from the Birthday Bash Sentiments set, Holiday Photo Finishers set, and the Little Labels stamp set.

Two cards made for a challenge; I've never done that until now. I was very inspired! If I had more time, I was going to make another chalkboard-inspired card.

A quick note...these last two blog entries were partially done on my iPhone; photography, adding watermarks to the photo using the Phonto app, and the Blogger app.

Have a great day!

Chalkboard Thank You - Papertrey Ink MIM Challenge

Happy New Year, everyone! 

I couldn't resist when I saw Papertey Ink's latest Make It Monday challenge was a chalkboard challenge. I just had to participate. I loved Betsy's tutorial in November; my Christmas card was inspired by her cards.

I embossed the Thank You sentiment with white embossing powder. The flourishes were stamped with white pigment ink. Besides Versamark Ink and white pigment ink, I also used colored pencils on my "chalkboard".

I paper pierced the perimeter of the die cut to give some visual interest to the edges. I added some buttons and some baker's twine and that's it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Merry Christmas - Chalkboard Style

To my friends and family here and all around the world, Feliz Navidad! May this season bring you and your family blessings and good health.

This is my annual photo Christmas card. The stamps are all from the Holiday Sayings set from Hero Arts, except for the Lawn Fawn banner stamp.

With all the inspiration on Pinterest regarding chalkboards and when I saw Betsy Veldman's chalkboard-inspired cards here, I knew I had to create our Christmas card with that inspiration. This card is probably one of the most time-consuming cards I've ever tried to mass-produce. It involved embossing, die cutting felt, using a white pencil to color in chalky details, rubbing white pigment ink over everything (my favorite step) to give the chalkboard authenticity, and slicing an opening above the banner to insert the photo. I ran out of steam after creating 60 of these babies. Sorry to all my local friends who will not be receiving one of these cards this year.

Thanks for stopping by! I've got to get downstairs to get dinner prep started. Ho, ho, ho.

Happy World Card Making Day!

My dear card-making friends,

I hope you had a great World Card Making Day today and found time to make some cards. I didn't get time to make anything, so I'm actually showing you a card I made for my friend, Lutex, back in August. The design is completely based on this great card by Nichole Heady.

The floral stamps all come from the Natural Beauties set from Papertrey Ink. The sentiment is from Birthday Bash Sentiments stamp set (also from Papertrey Ink). The papers used are also from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 9th Birthday Kalino!

Yesterday was the Little Guy's 9th birthday. This is the card I made for him.

The card started with this Silhouette design. Instead of using a number in the middle, I used the same photo I used on his Evite.

This kid loves his birthday. For example, on New Years Day he said "8 more months until my birthday." And he's been counting down every 1st of the month ever since. He also loves to have his party on his actual birthday, and since it's summer time, we have been able to accommodate his request. He invited 8 friends from school to play laser tag at Laser Quest in Mountain View. He attended a birthday party there last month and was totally excited to have his party there. Since they didn't open until 2PM, we took all the kids out for burgers at In N Out before driving to the party location. He had a great time. Here's a collage I posted yesterday on Instagram.

I did very little crafting for his party. Kalino and I decorated small water bottles with By the Numbers Papertrey Ink patterned paper. My friend Judy added numbers to the bottles so the kids could keep track of their own bottle. I also wrapped the same Papertrey Ink paper on jars that I up-cycled to hold the spoons and forks (didn't include a picture).

Instead of giving a traditional party favor bag, I bought gift cards at Baskin Robbins and made these gift card holders (Kristina's pattern). I added a photo of Kalino with a speech bubble that says "Thanks for making my day sweet." I used the Phonto app on my iPhone to create the speech bubble on the photo; I love my iPhone!

I researched laser tag cake ideas on Pinterest. I found several that all had glow sticks. I found several packs of them at Big Lots for $.60 for a pack of 4. Just stick the glow sticks in and "break" them to start the glowing effect. I had Costco customize their All American chocolate cake. I asked them not to put chocolate shavings on the perimeter. I also asked for neon-colored frosting. Did you know that Costco customizes more than just their sheet cakes? You can even take swatches of color and they will color-match the frosting to your color(s).

Thanks for stopping by!

Look Who's Turning 2

Our friend, Little Miss A, turned 2 this weekend. Here's the card I made for her 2nd birthday. The white card base was made with the heavy white cardstock from Papertrey Ink. I recently bought some new washi tape from Target and Groop Dealz, so I layered different washi tapes on the card base.

The design and dry embossing was completely inspired by these cards Lisa Spangler made where she dry embossed the washi tape after she placed it on cardstock. I loved the look so much, I had to try it out immediately. I used the By the Numbers impression plate from Papertrey Ink on front of the card.

I took this picture of Little Miss A when the kiddos had a playdate and I ran it through the Instagram App on my iPhone. After printing the photo on 4x6" photo paper, I trimmed it to look like a Polaroid photo.

The sentiment stamps are from Papertrey Ink and the chipboard number is from American Crafts. The baker's twine is from The Twinery. I also got a great deal on this baker's twine from Groop Dealz.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the inspiration, Lisa! 

Happy Botday Dante!

I've said it before, but I love robots! And nothing says young boys birthday more than a birthday card with a robot on it.

We went to a birthday party for 6 year old cousin Dante this past weekend. Here's the card I made for him.

Here's a closeup of the Best Bots Forever stamps from Stampin' Up.

The embossed background was created with an embossing plate from Papertrey Ink.

It's been a busy week here, so I'll make this short and sweet. Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Mr. G.!

Hi there! I made this card for my son's principal who celebrated a birthday this week. He is a huge proponent of up-cycling. Last year he took apart an old broken laminating machine and converted it into a piece of metal art. His home and outdoor living spaces should be featured in a home decor magazine; his house is that amazing!

I couldn't make him a card without using some recycled element. The "happy birthday" on the card is die cut letters from some Starbucks "java jackets". I used the Block Alphabet Die Collection from Papertrey Ink and my Big Shot machine. I love how the corrugated paper actually came out looking look wood.

The star is also recycled paper from another project with chunky glitter glued to the front.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Belated Birthday

Hope you had a great weekend. Here's a belated birthday card I made for one of my sisters. I also made this card for the Embossing & Debossing Challenge on the Moxie Fab World blog challenge.

I used the In Bloom Impression Plate to emboss the Royal Velvet card front. I die cut the frame with Fillable Frames #12 die. I stamped and heat embossed the frame with the Fillable Frames #12 corresponding stamp set. The sentiment comes from the Birthday Bash sentiments set. I used the rickrack border die to cut a scrap of Simply Chartreuese paper.

The heart paper punch and stamp are from Stampin' Up. I finished off the card with a touch of bling and rounded one of the corners of the card.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Happy Birthday Kim

Hi there! I was just watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Oh my goodness...what crazy drama and arguing! I had to change the channel.

Here's a card I made earlier this month for my friend Kim. 

In my rush out of the house, I didn't have time to photograph the card until we were all at El Torito's for Kim's lunch. Thanks to my friend, Nancy, for holding up a white napkin as the backdrop of the photo while I took a picture with my iPhone. Crazy!

The papers and stamps are all from Papertrey Ink.

Thanks for stopping by!

Look Who's Turning 5

Hey there!

We went to a party today for little Ms. M who turned 5 today. She is one of my best friend's daughters and so cute! I love that she is bilingual in English and Spanish and she has the cutest voice.

This card combines some of my favorite things:

• Using my Silhouette SD to cut the number 5
• A cute heart
• My iPhone and the Instagram App
• Some great Papertrey Ink stamps
• My Corner Chomper

Have a great week! Thanks for stopping by.

Christmas Card Collage

I hope you had a great holiday weekend. Here are several designs of our photo Christmas card I created this year. All of the cards use the Holiday Photo Finishers from Papertrey Ink and the coordinating metal dies. The design is based on a design Dawn McVey created for the Holiday Card Boot Camp class I took last month.

The cards with the thicker embellishments were hand-delivered since mailing them would be harder and more expensive.

Christmas day was spent at my parent's house in Taos, New Mexico. It was fun and filled with lots of family, gifts, extremely delicious food, and fun.

One thing I noticed is my family is definitely an Apple family. Between us, my parents, some siblings, nieces, and cousin, here's a photo we took of the Apple devices at the festivities. Notice all the iPads, iPhones, iPods, and MacBooks. Almost every niece owns an Apple product. The photo doesn't include every Apple product there (AppleTV, and a Mac in the living room).

The only hitch in the day was I ruined the Pioneer Woman Cinnamon Rolls recipe. I started out scalding twice the amount of milk that the recipe called for. When I added the initial 8 cups of flour I realized my mistake. I still haven't made the cinnamon rolls, but I plan to go to the grocery store today to buy more yeast.

Turkish Lentil Soup and a Tag

Reminder: I have a giveway going on. See here.

Last year when I visited my friend, Ericka, in Seattle, she served me the most delicious Turkish lentil soup. I think I ate it at 3 different meals. I loved it!

I made a batch the night before the last day of school and I got the idea to give the principal a large Mason jar full of soup as a gift. He is a vegetarian, so this recipe was perfect since you can use water or broth.

I used Papertrey Ink stamps, paper, and a doily metal die to make a quick gift tag to make the packaging. This particular doily die looks like a snow flake to me, so I thought it was perfect.

Thanks for stopping by. If you make this soup, let me know what you think.

A Sweet Treats Gift Tag

Here's a gift tag I made using a tag from the office supply store, some Stampin Up scraps of patterned paper, and a Papertrey Ink stamp. I also used the Papertrey Ink metal die for the leaves and some felt finished off with some red buttons.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Happy Birthday Tag

(Edited to Add: I already posted this tag in October; sorry!)
Long time no see! Sorry for the lack of blog posts. There were none in November; oh my...that's never happened before. Nadja, this blog post is for you! Thanks for reminding me that it was Halloween since my last post.

I find it hard to purge smaller pieces of paper, so I find a perfect way to use up scraps is to create gift tags. The kraft tag was cut with my Silhouette SD digital cutter. How many of you have purchased the new Silhouette Cameo? Lucky!

The papers, stamps, and button are all from Papertrey Ink. The baker's twine is from The Twinery.

Happy Birthday Tag

Happy World Card Making Day! Hope you were able to get some crafting done. Recently,  I've been making a lot of tags because they are a perfect way to use of bits and pieces of paper.

The tag was cut with my Silhouette SD. The papers are from Papertrey Ink and the stamp is also from the Birthday Bash Sentiments.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Belated Birthday

Hi there! Here's a quick card from the same Silhouette design I used on a card a few weeks ago. My mom's birthday was a week ago, and I haven't sent her a card yet. I may send her this one if I don't finish the one I already started in my studio.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday

Last weekend I had so much fun since one of my best friends, Ericka, was in town for the weekend. We made cards and tags for hours on end. We stayed up way past midnight. I moved a lot of the crafting stuff to the dining room table (which I added both leafs to) so we had space to work.

Here's one of the cards I made using the Little Labels stamps and die from Papertrey Ink.

I also used my Silhouette SD to cut this design. I couldn't resist adding some baker's twine too. Thanks for stopping by; have a good one!

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3/14/11