Christmas Cards 2010

My Christmas cards are done! All I need to do is add a picture and address the envelopes.

Here is a random sample of the basic cards. I know that it is very time efficient to make them all the same, but I have never been able to stick to one single design.

My cards are long and I used scraps from previous years card adventures to decorate the right edge of each card. A photo will cover the left-hand side. I think I will use a black and white photo so that it won't clash with my various color schemes.
 

Here is one of my favorites. So simple.

Most of the papers and stamps are (C) Close to My Heart. ;-)

The weather is finally cooler here...I can't believe what a hot, hot summer it was. The chillier air is so comforting and nice. I love jackets and hoodies.

I can't wait for Christmas!

A few cards...

With the left over paper from my Project 52. I love taking scraps of paper and turning them into cards, it is soooo fun!!



I feel like I am a bit rusty....having only made Christmas Cards lately!! ;-)

Why I started paper crafting....and some of my very first cards!

Things to do tonight:
1. Design one more tag/card for Monday's workshop.
2. Design a photo frame for a tween birthday party/decoration workshop.
3. Get stuff ready for a home gathering tomorrow night.

What am I doing instead? Writing this blog!! And browsing other blogs....I know that it can be a bit counter-productive, but sometimes I find that browsing for ideas will spark an idea. Even just the act of writing and reflecting can be quite inspirational, so I am trying to jump start my creativity before I dig in and get some work done tonight...(Did I mention that I have to get up @5:45 and it is after 9:00 now?!)

I have been totally inspired to write about why I started paper crafting thanks to Sarah over @ Sarah's Paper Tray. (Yes, Sarah we have exactly the same taste...I am thinking we are soul-scrap-sisters or something because we buy all the same stamp sets and papers even non-CTMH!!) Anyway, in one of her most recent posts, she was inspired to write about why she started paper crafting. I recently found a few of my very first cards and I put them in a box of stationary supplies that I am giving to my mom. I am going to be brave and post them here, just like Sarah did! (my mom has lots of old stuff that i've made over the years...I should try to borrow some of it!)


In one of my very first blog posts, I mentioned that I have been 'scrapbooking' for a long time. Stamping is much newer to me. When it comes to stickers, well lets just say I still have my awesome Lisa Frank sticker collection...As a little girl, I used to have a sticker album and I've always loved taking pictures so this hobby is something that I was naturally drawn to. (Luckily I was able to get away from my other 'collections': porcelain dolls, painted ceramic masks, embellished teddy bears, a wooden doll house and various other child-hood hobbies and I can now focus completely on the wonderful world of paper crafting!)



I started out buying supplies at Wal-Mart and I bought a few CM products when I was in high school. In college, I did a little bit of scrapbooking, but since I was an art major...'scrapbooking' was something I did in secret...I didn't want my cool art friends to know about my sticker obsession. I made my own Christmas Cards, Wedding Invitations and various other things before I became a consultant for Close to My Heart.

In December of 2007, I decided to become a consultant. I had gone to a CTMH home gathering while I was in college, but the consultant no longer lived in my area. I sort of signed up blindly because I wanted to get more into stamping and scrapbooking. I also wanted to have a little bit of extra money for my hobbies each month....currently, as a teacher, I only get paid once a month and it can be a tricky balance to keep a decent budget for things that come up mid-month. Selling scrapbooking supplies and teaching classes is the perfect opportunity to feed my growing addiction to stamping.

After being a part-time consultant for a little over a year....wow...my cards, scrapbook layouts and other papercrafting creations have improved dramatically. Blogging has helped me so much! This is one of my very first cards:



I've always loved being an elementary art teacher, but I have come to realize what my dream job would be...it would include writing, photography, teaching and designing...I would love to work from home too. We'll see what happens. For now, I am happy where I am, but I would love to spend more time at home creating. Sometimes I am just too tired to make anything after a day with elementary students (Have I mentioned that I have 11 classes of kindergarten art!??!?!! Not exactly the ideal environment for REAL artistic challenges....I deal with more 'accidents' that are potty related than the 'creative-oops', if you know what I mean!)


The best part about my job is that I get to think about art every day. I get to inspire others and encourage the exceptional artists and push them to do more. Paper crafting allows me to create something nearly every day. Cards and scrapbook pages, believe it or not...are a WHOLE lot cheaper than paint and canvas....I can create in bulk and I can see an idea all the way through without wasting tons of money. If I mess up one card, only pennies go in the trash, not $30 worth of paint that needs to be covered up....Okay, maybe I am just coming up with a justification that makes sense to me, but either way, I really love making cards. I love finding inspiration from movies, ads and color combinations for my cards and layouts. This is a very fun investment.

Owl card gift set

I made a couple of cute cards last night, but my camera batteries died this morning before I could upload them!!! Ugh!

All well. Here is a card I made at a crop a couple of weeks ago.

I decided to make a card with an oval, something I rarely do. I didn't use a cutting system, just sort of sketched it around my owl and then cut it out. I used tulip cardstock with scallop-edge scissors. The argyle stamp is from Close to My Heart. I actually used it to make argyle instead of a diamond background. I used tulip, blush and desert sand on colonial white textured cardstock.


I actually made 2 of these and 2 flower cards and put them together as a little gift set in this cloth bag from Hobby Lobby.


I stamped the cloth bag with StazOn. Enjoy!

First five are getting their goodies!!!

Well, I finally got my first five comments from my PAY IT FORWARD post and I am getting ready to pass out the goodies. I will work on your creations this weekend and get them in the mail next week. This is so fun! If you want to play, check out one of the blogs below. These lovely ladies have agreed to pay it forward and you could get something hand made by them!!

Karen @ Colebean Creations

Kellie @ The Norton House

Carla @ Harrah's Hangout

Sarah @ Sarah's Paper Tray (She already got hers from me, you can see it here!!)

Cathy Gill @ Petals of Cathy's Life

To see what I got from Sarah click here!!

This is super fun!!

I don't like to post things without pictures so......here is card I made last night. I got this great die cut castle and decided to combine it with a CTMH stamp set and some prisma glitter!!


The mountains and snow are just hand cut and the frog and princess are colored with watercolor pencils and a blending pen. The entire time I was working on this all I could picture was giving it to a bride and groom...he he....good luck with the whole happily ever after thing.... ;-)

I stamped this little heart with blush and Versamark on Vellum and then added prisma glitter. I heated it up with the heat tool just a bit and it gave it a really cool look!!

I don't normally like cards that have a scene on them, but the giller made this one really shine...it would even be a great little girl birthday card....Enjoy!!

Color Inspiration Challenge #47

Hey!! Just a quick card for the KWerner Color Inspiration Challenge #47. I wanted to use some of my Hambly screenprinted transparency paper for this card. It is pretty basic. The owl sticker is from Hambly. The stamp 'Whooo Loves You" is from CTMH.

365 Card Challenge and Cinema Saturday #23

Okay so I have a long to-do list...I need to work on my Project 52 Album, I need to design cards for my 10 cards for $10 workshop and I also need to design a friendship card for a friend's home gathering oh, and I need to whip something up to send to Cathy and Sarah for making a comment on my blog. (PS, its not too late to get something made my me...don't feel pressured to re-post the prompt, I would love to send you something just for leaving a comment!)

In the mean time, I have been making cards like crazy as part of the 365 Cards challenge site. This is my first post with cards for this week's challenges so I am just going to put them all in one post for now, please bear with me. I am going in reverse order with the most recent challenge first. They use Mr. Linky so it is super easy to post your creation. Also, the challenge is only up to #18, we have a long way to go, so feel free to jump in any time. I plan to pick and choose the ones that are most inspirational to me. So far, so fun!

The first challenge is a 2-in-1. I haven't seen this week's Cinema Saturday Creative challenge movie, but I have had an idea in my head for a St. Patrick's day card all week, so I am going to enter it in both challenges. For day 18 over at 365 Cards, we have to make a card with green as the dominant theme and for CSCC #23 the movie is Waking Ned Devine. I have never heard of this movie, but the other half of the challenge was to use green. I go this idea from a bulletin board I can use as Close to My Heart Consultant. I used a big heart stamp as the petals for the clover leaf. I really like this card and since the caption is 'Lucky U" I could use it for anything, not just St. Patty's Day.

For Day 17 over at 365 cards, we have to create a card using 3 buttons and 3 bows. I hope it is okay that mine are knots instead of bows.....I used a corsage pin to hold the knots on and I used vintage paper for the 'button flowers.

For Day 16 over at 365 cards, the theme is to use SUNSHINE!! I love this idea so I made 2 cards with a sunny theme.




And now, some just-for-fun-cards. I love being at home for Spring Break...can ya tell?? I am a crafting fool! AND, the best part is, the UPS guy just made my day when he delivered a package this morning instead of the usual evening time...now I have some new stamp sets, cardstock and ink to play around with....oooh, and some vellum and silver pearl embossing powder (Inspired by fabulous Sarah)....but you will have to wait to see that. I haven't made anything yet. Without further ado, here are the fun cards:







All of the stamps and inks are Close to My Heart. The star background is a card kit from Michaels. The card bases are craft card kits, very fast and easy. I love making simple cards. While I like the look of random stamped background paper, I find that a simple plain card base is so fast and elegant that I often opt for that.

Post 101...

Wow, my 100th post was on Friday the 13th!! I thought it might be bad luck to celebrate that, so I will celebrate post 101! YIPPEE!! I have only been blogging since July and it is surprising how much more confident I feel about my style and abilities. I have participated in lots of challenges and spent hours researching, watching videos, looking pictures, magazines, and other blogs to learn and improve. The challenges have motivated me to create. The videos have taught me techniques and craftsmanship. The pictures give me inspiration and ideas. Blogging has improved my paper crafting ten-fold. I love it!! Last week, I mentioned that I was busy...well, I went from a Sunday to a Sunday and I didn't create anything!! So on Sunday night, I organize my craft room and made 8 cards. Yesterday I organized pictures all morning and started scrapbooking my wedding stuff. Today I will work on that a bit more and I am going to a friend's to crop.



Okay, so here is the story with these cards. I challenged myself to use scraps, and a new big letter stamp set that a friend traded me. She ordered two 2 capital letter stamp sets and she didn't know what to do with this set, so I happily took them off her hands so that I could experiment with this Close to My Heart Giggle Caps letter set. Other things on this card include a Martha Stewart butterfly and cupcake punch, CTMH rhinestones, and some buttons and shipboard that were cluttering up my scrapspace. I used mostly Desert sand ink as it matches craft cardstock perfectly.









Oh, and when I was cleaning, I found these great metal-rimmed tags....after I just ordered some new ones so I thought I would use these up too.




The blue card is a mini-3-by-3 using twilight cardstock.

CHRISTMAS CARDS 1

I am not very good at mass production...I am not really able to keep making the same cards over and over again....I generally make each card a little differently. I know this takes longer, but it just makes sense to me and it never gets boring that way. I am a huge fan of glitter and bling. The paper on these cards is from Basic Grey, I got it at the end of the season last year.....it is sort of a vintage Christmas...I love this paper! My cards feature a variety of Close to My Heart stamps. If you have any questions about individual cards, please feel free to ask. Some cards have flock, others have liquid applique and most have liquid glass. You might be able to see some metallic pens, gemstones, skittles beads, watercolor, and ribbon. I didn't really do any embossing, mostly just paper layering and simple stamping. This has been a great Thanksgiving break...I've been working on cards the whole time. Yesterday I watched some movies, one was Breakfast at Tiffany's, it is amazing how movies can influence your work. Enjoy!