Sympathy Cards

Hi friends! How are you this week? Are you excited that the work week is almost over? Isn't it sad that it seems for most of us we are looking forward to the weekend all the time? I mean every day is a gift and we should treasure each one of them because we never know when that day might be our last. A couple of my co-workers experienced losses in their lives this past week and asked me to make cards for their loved ones or friends. This stamp set is from Paper Trey Ink and the words always seem to give me comfort when I read them so I hope that they bring comfort to whom ever they were made for.

This card was for a man so I was hoping for more of a masculine feel. This card was made using the Guideline Stamp set from Paper Trey Ink and all of the cardstock and ink was Stampin Up.



I really liked the way that this card turned out. I was able to use my new Martha Stuart punch (thanks Michelle for inspiring me on your blog...because I purchased this punch a few days after you used it on your blog). The embossed dot background was made using the Swiss Dot embossing folder and the Cuttlebug.



Well thanks for peekin' in tonight friends. Hope you have a wonderful day tomorrow! This weekend is packed full of fun. My youngest is getting ready for a robotics competition through her school so they will be practicing and making the finishing touches on their presentation and display boards, my oldest has a few school functions in the morning and Mike's daughter will be in this weekend with our grandbaby! Yey! How exciting is that? We are celebrating our daughter's birthday. I can't wait to share pictures with you! I ordered the cutest cake! If you don't know...that's my thing...making birthdays special. I usually try to have a fun cake made to celebrate the occasion. Some years it gets a little challenging to think of fun designs but I haven't come up empty handed yet! This year is going to be so much fun because we will have out little grandbaby here to celebrate her momma's birthday too!
Take care of you!

Some bunny loves you...

Hi everyone. Hope your week is going well...mine is just zippin' right by...now watch now that I said that tomorrow and Friday will crawl! Here is a fun little card that I made for one of my customers for her daughter. Isn't this bunny just the cutest? I got the bunny and sentiment stamp from Amuse Art Stamps, they are out of Seattle. They have the cutest little sayings on their stamps! My stepson lives in Seattle so one time I had him run over to the store and pick up my stamps with the intention of bringing them home with him, since he was coming home shortly after I intended on placing my order. He picked them up for me but forgot to put them in his suitcase...even after I reminded him. Then it took another 2 months of reminding for him to mail them to me. LOL! KIDS!

Anywho...I got the inspiration for this card from Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink you can check her blog out here. She is always doing a fun sketch that helps get your mojo going!

Thanks for peekin' in! Today is the start of the Lenten season, I have decided to give up chocolate. I did this last year and made it the whole time. It is definitely a challenge but I can do it...besides if it is a challenge then it is really a sacrifice and that's the least that I can do considering what He did for me. Hope you have a great day! Take care of you!

Supplies:
Paper: SU cardstock
Stamps: Little Bunny & Some Bunny (both from Amuse)
Embelly's: heart eyelets, ribbon, mega scalloped square punch, heart embossing folder

More love...

Hi friends! Did you have a good Valentine's Day? We sure did. My DH (Dear Husband) and I don't make a big deal out of Valentine's Day, we just do little things to remind each other how much we care. We went to the movie Valentine's Day...my opinion of this movie is...wait until it comes out on video, but the company was good that that is what matters. Here are a few more fun cards that I made for this special holiday. Sometimes when I get stuck and and need a little help with inspiration I head over to splitcoaststampers.com there are so many wonderful talented people over there! In this post I mention where I got my inspiration as well as the blogs you can visit.

All of these cards were made using my new stamp set from Paper Trey Inc called Say It With Style. I just love this little set! It is so much fun and you could use it for many other cards through out the year it just happened that it worked perfect for Valentine cards! Here is what it looks like. See how versatile it is?

My inspiration for these next two cards came from Julie Lacey. She is a wonderful artist and her blog is so cute! You can check her blog out here. On the first card I used the fiskars heart boarders punch. The patterned paper on both of these cards is My Minds Eye, Love Nest and the large circle was done with Nestibilities.

This card is pretty much the same with the exception of the punch. The punch used at the bottom of this card is Martha Stewart's doily punch. I have always thought Martha's crafts have been too expensive but her punches are worth the money. They are really easy to use and make such a nice addition to your project.

This next card was designed by Dawn McVey. This is another lady that makes me want to create! Her projects are so much fun! You can check out her blog here. She is the designer that created the stamp set I mentioned above!

This next card was created using the My Minds Eye Love Nest line and the ribbon is Basic Grey. The layout idea of the card was inspiration from Kristina. You can check her blog out here. She is full of fun ideas and her blog is so much fun!

I LOVE this card! It was so simple to do and with the stamp set you can change it up so easily. The other cards I made with this design said "Love You" & "Smooches". The heart stamps were from a Stampin Up set called Happy Hearts.

Thanks for peeking in today. I love to hear from you! Talk to you soon friend!

Toni

Valentine's Day with Changito

Hi friends! It has been a while since I posted. Life has been so busy lately. I have some fun news to share with you. A while back I got some really cute Valentine's paper and stamps and I was so excited to try them out that on Tuesday this past week I got a wild idea. I put together an email and sent it around to my co-workers and told them that I was making Valentines and if they wanted to place an order just let me know. Usually I get maybe 5-10 requests for 1 card each....this time I had orders totaling 35 cards! So I was overwhelmed and was so excited that I took the task on. Needless to say I haven't had much sleep in the last 3 days but have been really excited about my creative venture. It was such a challenge to get a "game plan" going and decide what to do. All of my customers told me who they needed cards for so here are the kid cards I came up with using the Changito Monkey line from Stampendous.

This stamp is called Changito Bouquet and I actually made several of these but not just for the kids. I colored the monkey in with a cinnamon toast colored Prismacolor art marker. I really like the even flow of coloring when using these markers. They are similar to the Copic markers but just a little more affordable. This little guy was originally holding a bouquet of flowers but since it's heart day I punched some hearts out and outlined them with a black marker and adhered them to the card. I used a smaller heart stamp and SU's white craft ink to add some detail to the bottom of the card.



I made this card for a 12 year old who's brother got the card above. For some reason it is so hard for me to come up with fun ideas for cards for boys. This stamp is called Changito B-day, I punched a heart and put it right over the "B". I love this stamp...doesn't it just look like a couple of brothers? *grin*



One of my customers didn't care what I did as long as I used camouflage paper. I was really trying to think how I would incorporate camouflage paper into Valentine's day but I think worked out pretty good






I have a lot more examples of Valentine's Day cards coming up that I am so excited to share with you. I hope that you have a wonderful Valentine's Day whatever you do! Thanks for peekin' in! Take care of you!

School Pages

Hi Everyone! How are you today? I tell you I am really ready for some warmer weather but I don't think that's gonna happen since that old ground hog saw his shadow the other day! We are supposed to get more snow and ice here and man I hate driving on that stuff!

I am still trying to play catch up with the girls school scrapbooks and slowly but surely I have made a little head way. I knew this would happen but school scrapping has slowed way down for Haley since she is in High School now. There just aren't as many school functions to take pictures of. She is in choir and I have gotten pictures of each of her concerts but you know how embarrassed they get when mom pulls out the camera?

This is last year's 8x10 of Sidney. I always hang them up in the frame on the wall for the year and when they get the new one for the next year I scrapbook the older photo and we do it all again. So far that has worked out pretty good.

I loved this paper! I thought it fit her personality in the photo great and the colors where so much fun. I can't remember what line this was from but I picked it up at Scrappin Time in Derby. The "5th grade" title is done with the Cricut Alphalicious cartridge. The arrow and the stars are chipboard pieces that I covered in the same green cardstock as the title. I used zip dry to adhere the chipboard pieces to the cardstock then used an exacto knife to cut around the shape. Then I used my Basic Grey nail files to file of the edges and a little bit of chalk ink to keep that distressed look going. I thought it needed just a little something so I added the jewels to bling things up a bit. Here's a closer look...



At the end of the year they always take a class photo. I just love these...I wish they would have had these when I was in grade school...maybe they did and mom just didn't get them. Later down the road the kids are going to love looking back at these!


This was a fun little page...so simple but just right. The blue apple paper is from a Karen Foster line and the yellow school bus paper is Junkitz. Those fun little embelly's on the side are little wooden pieces that I picked up at Michael's. I used a white gel pen to write her name and grade. Here's a close up...


I have been such a busy little bee lately but I have been trying my hardest to work out every week. I found the greatest workout so far! I love it and I am really starting to feel it! If you have a Wii and are looking for a fun workout you should check this out! Very fun! I have such a hard time finding something that keeps me interested...lots of workout things tend to get boring to me but not this one!

I am so glad that you peekin in! Hope you are having a good week so far! Take care of you!

Vintage Valentine

Hi Everyone! How are you doing this fine Friday? I am ready for the weekend. I don't have anything planned so I am hoping to finish cleaning up my scrapbook room and start working on some projects. One of my most favorite card magazines is Paper Crafts. I just love all the fun ideas that they have in there! The January/February issue arrived not too long ago and I was so excited to see all the fun Valentine stuff. Vintage is really in this year and they just caught my eye so I decided that I would try to set out and find some fun vintage valentines or vintage photos online. I started reading the supplies list of all the valentine cards I liked and I found this neat web site called Lunagirl Images, you can check them out here. They have the neatest web site, you can purchase a CD Rom for 14.99 and get 1,000 or more images, or if you are impatient (like me *wink*) then you you can download some for $3.95 each sheet. The image above is on a sheet of 12 or so. What do you think? I really like the way it turned out! I am going to play around some more this weekend so I may have more to post.

I have some sad stamp news too...this may be old news to some of you but Hana Stamps has gone out of business. There were several of there stamps that I really liked and I missed the boat on that one. One of my stampin' buddies mentioned that I may be able to find them somewhere else online so I may check that out too.

Hope you all have a great weekend! Hugs!

Supplies:

Paper: old olive cardstock (SU), patterned paper (bo-bunny shabby princess collection, cherry pie)

Stamp: I love you, Out On A Limb Sentiments (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: Chestnut Roan (Colorbox Chalk Ink)

Tools/Accessories: oval & scalloped oval punches (SU), flowers (Hobby Lobby), lace (Hobby Lobby), vintage button (stash from around the house)

New Stamps

Hi friends! How are you this week? I don't know about you but it has been tough for me to go to work this week. Maybe I have the blues after so much activity during the Christmas season, or maybe I am a little sad because my pants are fitting a little tighter after Christmas. Either way a little sunshine would help! Sheesh it has been so cold here, but I hear that we should have some nicer weather this weekend and I plan to get out and enjoy it a little bit.

What do you do when you are blue? Me, well I hop online and look around at the fun crafty sites. I hadn't been to Papertrey Ink in a while so I thought I would look around. Yep, I know I don't even have to finish my thought...you already know I bought some new stamps. I thought I would take one of the sets on a test run last night and the card above is what I came up with. I got my inspiration from Amy at Prairie Paper & Ink who used to design for Papertrey Ink...the girl's got talent! I need a little more practice with this set but over all I am happy with the way it turned out. This is a fun little set that Papertrey Ink sells called Guidelines. This is what the stamp set looks like...

Or you could go here to get a better look (yes you are right, I am enabling you right now to spend a little money *wink*). You stamp the Guideline stamp on your paper then you use the other little stamps to make a fun pattern. I usually buy Stampin Up cardstock but since I was buying stamps from Papertrey I thought I would try out their white cardstock, so that is what I used on this card. I really liked the weight and it was a little cheaper than SU *bonus* The sentiment is also a new stamp from Papertrey and the name of the set is Signature Greetings. To simplify my posts a little bit I am going to try something a friend of mine does on her blog and put all the information about the card at the bottom of the post.
Because of the weather our daughter Whitney and her baby Angelina weren't able to make it for Christmas so they were in last weekend and we got some of these pictures while they were here. Angelina is into everything and loves putting things in her mouth! We got to help feed her. That was so much fun for us! Let me tell you there is nothing like lovin' on a little one in the morning. It was so hard to see them go but we all had a great time.

Thanks Grampa for my Christmas presents! I love you!

Thanks for peekin' in! Hope you're having a great week! Valentines day is not too far away so I am sure I will start working on some fun projects soon! Take care of you!

Here's the scoop:

Stamps: Guidelines (Papertrey Ink), Signature Greetings (Papertrey Ink)

Ink: SU Perfect Plum & Pale Plum

Accessories: SU ticket punch, SU key tag punch, purple flowers (Walmart), brad