Mother's Day Cards

Have I mentioned my love for Echo Park paper?  No?  Well, I love it.  So when I saw that they now offer 6x6 pads (with reduced scale), well, I may have bought four of them, which may have contributed to me going way over budget last month, which means I now am on a spending freeze until the end of May. 

In order to your part in my spending freeze, I need y'all to not show any cool projects this month that involve items that I do not currently own, but upon seeing your project, I will not be able to craft until I own said items.  'Kay?  

For example, if you did not already own the Echo Park For the Record 6x6 paper pad collection, it would be very rude of me to post the following card:

because it would make you sad that you did not have such fun happy papers and then you would want to buy them, which you can't because you're on a spending freeze EVEN THOUGH it's the last month of school and don't you think you deserve something for making it through 180 days.  It would also make you sad that you did not buy the stitched alphabet from the A Muse clearance sale when it cost about $2.50, because it is a great alphabet set. The banners, from A Muse Studio's Happy Everything set, would make you happy because they're banners. Maybe the chicken wire stamp from Prisma would make you feel indifferent, but I like it, so there.  

As I was merely posting it as an example of what not to post, I was not being hypocritical.  

As a example of a "safe" card to post, see the following:

which would make you kind of want the Echo Park Springtime 6x6 pad, but not in a craft-threatening way like the previous card.  I probably should have put some sort of background pattern in the back, but I thought of that after I glued all of those down, so that wasn't going to happen (breaking my own rule:  you have to buy a Sakura Quickie Glue pen because you definitely cannot craft without it.  I think it will replace my Xyron).

Finally, do you have offspring that are in school, being taught by teachers? 

First, read this article and then this one. Then make one of these for every teacher your offspring have, even if you have two high schoolers which means at least 12.  Then make one for me.  But don't post it on your blog, because that would definitely be rude.

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone is enjoying Easter Sunday.  I have one more Easter card to share.

Tee-hee!  I love putting the Eat Cake Graphics bunny ears on all sorts of stamps, and Callie (also from ECG) was the lucky recipient this year.  The peep paper and the polka dot paper are from Echo Park, and the pink paper is from the A Muse clearance (I think I ended up with ten stamp sets from that sale!).  The sentiment is from The Cat's Pajamas.

And yes, I DO know where my peeps are!  

They are at Bashful Blogging mixing twine colors;

 at Art from the Heart making funky scallop borders;

at Paper Cupboard cutting into fancy paper;

and at the Post Office, sending mis-shipments back to me.

I hope you know where your peeps are today!

Happy Birthday, Mr Corgi Creations!

It was my DH's birthday yesterday (yes, tax day!), and I always try to do a really special card for him.  He's a pilot, so when I saw that Bombshell Stamp had a downloadable pilot outfit for their Bombshell Angel stamp, I splurged and bought it to make this, a little joke based on "remove before flight" flags that pilots use.

I pulled out my copics (btw, target has put out their summer stuff, which includes red, white, or blue steel utensil bins for $10 for copic storage) and used the full-color image from the Bombshell website as a guide for coloring.  I used E53, E33, E35, and E37 for the pants, E35, E37, and E29 for the jacket, and gray sharpie markers for the boots.  I printed the "Remove Before Flight" tag on my computer.  I bet you can guess what happens when you go to remove it...

Tee-hee!!!  I used R24, R27, R29, and R59 to color her outfit, and E50, E51, and E21 for her skin. 

To make the slider, I first made a practice template, getting the window and slider slot in the right place.  After cutting those out, I cut a thin strip of acetate about 4 inches long (you could just use paper, but I had a different plan first that needed the clearness of the acetate) and also a strip of a paper about 3 inches long.  I adhered the center of the paper strip to the acetate strip to make a cross, then folded the ends around to meet in the middle, pushed them through the slot, and opened them up (kind of like the back of a brad).  Then I adhered another small strip of paper to keep the ends open and flat in the back.  Here's a picture showing the back.  The one on the left is when I first push the ends through, and the one on the right is the finished one.  You only need one slider, I just forgot to take a picture before I glued the second piece on. :)

And here is how it looks from the front:

Then I just simply adhered the end of the "Remove Before Flight" tag to the outfit, put a glue dot on the piece of cardstock on the slider, and attached the tag.  I adhered the entire piece to the card front using foam tape so the slider would have room to move back and forth. 

It definitely got high marks from Mr Corgi Creations, which made all of that engineering work worth it! 

My New Favorite Quote

Am I the only one that sometimes feels a wee bit guilty spending an entire Saturday stamping?  Or spending two hours catching up on Google Reader?  Or maybe that's just me, in which case...awkward!  But maybe you feel a little twinge when you tell your DH "just 5 more minutes!" and then finally come out of your room two hours later (or if your DH is making you dinner while you type this blog post).  If so, this card is for you:

 

But you'll have to look with your eyes and not with your hands because this card is taking up permanent residence on my crafting desk.  Although to be truly stampy, I should have replaced "time" with "paper." ;)

A fun card to make-printed the quote using Love Ya Like A Sister font onto Echo Park paper, cut out and glued and/or popdotted onto the Echo Paper base.  Also added Eat Cake Graphic's Callie's Looking Down, because what card is not improved with a dog.  I even brought out the ol' Janome and did some straight stitching with a little zig-zag craziness near the corners because why not.

I hope everybody enjoys wasting some time this weekend!