Mother's Day cards

At my church I am one of the leaders over the 8-11 year old girls, for their bi-monthly activity. At our last activity we helped them make bath salts and cards for their mothers, as a Mother's Day gift.
(I really don't know much about the bath salts, my daughter is in this same group and didn't want me to see what she did, so I really just stayed with the cards, haha.)

I used up long-retired products for the girls to make cards with, and provided three designs. I prepped seven sets of each card and we still had a couple left over from each design, so that worked out great. And then my kids used a few of the leftover kits to make cards for their grandmothers! Super handy!

Even tho its completely retired, I thought I'd go ahead and share them here since I put time and effort in to it. *grin I just had to wait til after Mother's Day in case any of their mom's check my blog...which they might...!

Card 1:
Stamps: God's Beauty (retired)
Ink: Pumpkin Pie
Paper: Pumpkin Pie card stock, First Edition DP (retired)
Accessories: Peach Parfait twill ribbon (retired), Always Artichoke button (retired), Staple

Card 2:
Stamps: Crazy Daisy (retired)
Ink: Bashful Blue (retired), Certainly Celery (retired)
Paper: Bashful Blue & Whisper White card stock, Cutie Pie DP (retired)
Accessories: Whisper White grosgrain ribbon (retired)

Card 3:
Stamps: Upsy Daisy (retired)
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Paper: Whisper White card stock, Berry Bliss DP (retired)
Accessories: Early Espresso quilted ribbon (retired)

More Catch-Up Sketches!

First this one from Lauren's blog, nearly a week ago! I'm not going to even point out all the issues, I'll just say this was my third try and this is as good as it gets! Apparently I DO shut down at night and my stamping just doesn't work out when its too late! Darnit... LOL! I do like the card, just wish it turned out a bit nicer. I cut it down to a 4x4 to make it more manageable and the base is Always Artichoke. I used Rose Red Prints designer paper for the bottom stripes as well as the back square. That is actually from the same sheet too- love that double sided-ness! Then I topped it with a Very Vanilla square. I stamped the dragonfly from Bugs & Kisses and I colored him with my Rose Red and Always Artichoke markers. Then I used one line from Boho Backgrounds for the greeting at the top. My row of buttons all match! Then, I saw this color challenge on Jen's blog and I had to try it. I picked the retired Cranberry Crisp for the dark red shade, and Soft Sky, (which is about to retire!) for the sky blue color. Love it, love it! I used my Daisy Crazy set and scattered little daisies with Versamark ink on the Soft Sky base. I have the wide Old Olive grosgrain ribbon topped with the fabulous Cranberry Crisp stitched grosgrain ribbon going down the side of the card. A tip? I use two mini glue dots to hold the ribbon in place on the front and then scotch tape on the back or the inside to hold the ends of ribbon down. No complaints yet! Anyway, the flowers are stamped with Old Olive and Cranberry inks, right on the Soft Sky card stock. I swiped the edges of that piece in Olive ink and matted it onto Cranberry card stock, and pierced down the side of that. This one turned out much better than the first. Guess which one I made first? LOL!

Late Sketch Card

I am finally getting around to Lauren's Saturday sketch. I've had a few ideas but went with another birthday card for a friend. Its bright and pretty and I got it done quickly! Can't beat that!

(The stamps come from the long-retired-but-much-loved Daisy Crazy set.) I used Gable Green for the base, as well as the ink for the stems. I have a layer of Pixie Pink, then the flowers are stamped in Orchid Opulence, and so I used the same card stock to mat the image. I have a little White Grosgrain ribbon going across the bottom and for the circle I used one of these ribbon slides from the Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware from the Occasions Mini. And that's it!

Be Inspired Challenge #13

Today Beate posted her Inspiration challenge. I was thinking of doing something with lines...and whatever it was I wanted, I do not have. So I went with my cute favorite- Daisy Crazy!

The picture she gave us did look more like Soft Sky but I used Sage Shadow instead, and the Chocolate Chip color too. I picked Sage for the card base, and I have a strip of Chocolate Chip going across the middle. That has some old Stampin' Up! ribbon on one end and three Pretty in Pink brads on the other. For the focal point I used the trio of daisies. The stems are Sage Shadow and the flowers are Pretty in Pink. I matted this on Chocolate Chip and pierced the corners. The entire Thank You greeting seemed too big and it wasn't til I went a head and inked up just the Thanks and stamped it when I realized a really cute idea for the greeting...alas...this is what I get! :)

I wish the picture was brighter, but adding light in my editing program made the green really funky and not pretty. But there you have it!

More wedding cards!

Here are two more wedding cards. I made these the other night. We have truly, 5 wedding announcements sitting here! Some of them get "old" cards and some get brand new! Here are the new ones.... This was really kind of hard because I don't have "wedding" sets in my house! So here I used Daisy Crazy for the main image. That is stamped on White card stock with Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Rose Red and Elegant Eggplant. Then its matted on Chocolate Chip to tie in the lovely Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon. I even used a Ribbon Slide from the new Hodgepodge Hardware in the mini! Then the card base is Rose Red. I stamped the greeting in Chocolate Chip ink and I used the 2-Way glue pen to adhere the Dazzling Diamonds glitter! Not incredibly "WEDDING-y" but it works for the couple. This one seems more like a wedding card. I used a Groovy Guava base, Chocolate Chip card stock for the mats, punched the squares out with the 1 3/8 inch square punch, made my own tag (which is why its un-even...). The hearts are stamped with Guava and Real Red ink. The greeting is stamped in Real Red and the edge is sponged in Guava. I tied a little bow with the same Chocolate taffeta ribbon, and now everyone knows why I don't do bows! ha ha!

Sympathy Cards

What I find really odd is that I had a need for two sympathy cards, from the same morning, half a world apart! But here they are... This first one I made last night. I used Certainly Celery for the base, then a strip of Perfect Plum beneath the white. I stamped the only flower set I have in my house right now (???) with the same two colors. Added some Celery grosgrain ribbon, Celery brads and then this cool heart. I inked the chipboard tiny heart with Perfect Plum ink and let it dry. Then I drew 2-Way glue pen all over it and dumped Dazzling Diamonds glitter over that. I am really happy with how it turned out. And I used the closest 'sympathy' word stamp I had. I think it works tho. The second card I have to confess, I made at the very first workshop I ever attended. We used the now retired Terrific Tulips set, and I think Mellow Moss and Orchid Opulence ink. (For those demos who hate Orchid, I think this looks pretty good!) The wide organdy ribbon is long since retired and the greeting is too, but comes from All Year Cheer I. I hope its not horrible that I'm sending an "old" card, I think its still very pretty, and time to clean out my card stash and share with others! Now seems like a good time to use this one...

Quick card

You know a really quick way to make cards? Use pre-cut kits! This one is from a class a friend of mine held last summer that I was trying to attend and had to miss. She pre-cut everything and gave me the supplies. I thought I had used them already but in my tidy-ing up the other day came across a few I hadn't used! Since the paper was retired I used my favorite retired stamp set along with it! So its a Very Vanilla card base, a piece of the retired Spring Flowers designer paper, a square of Cameo Coral cardstock, a strip of retired Spring Moss grosgrain ribbon... I sponged Mellow Moss ink on the edges of the Vanilla square and used Chocolate Chip to ink the words, which come from the Daisy Crazy stamp set. This wasn't my friend's design but it's simple, cute and done in minutes!