Birthday cards

Hi Everyone!

I have been quietly working on Halloween cards and treat bags and was under the impression that I had tons of cards for all occasions.  Well, a few days ago a friend asked for a couple of birthday cards so I pulled out all of my cards and sorted and organized them.  I was shocked to discover how few birthday cards I had in my stash so I knew it was time to build up that collection. 

I started out by grabbing some scraps from my scrap drawer.  I cut some scraps from the dcwv Cotton Bloom Stack (Thanks, Peggy!) into 1" x 1.25" rectangles.  I used a sheet of tag from that pad to create a blank A2 card.  I cut a large "scrap" so that it measured 5.25" x 4" and adhered it to the blank card.  Then I glued all of my squares onto the layering paper.  Added some epoxy letters and stickers from my stash and my first card was done. 

I used papers from Kaisercraft's Party Animal 6.5" Paper Pad to create my next 2 cards.  I haven't even made the mini books that I wanted to make with that paper yet so I either have to forget about the mini books or use other papers or buy another pad. 

I used my Star Nestabilities to cut the stars for this card.  I deliberately glued the first set of stars off center, trimmed them, and then glued the part I had trimmed off to the top edge of the card.  Then I glued another set of stars slightly off of the layering paper and trimmed that set.  Used my Sizzix Scalloped tags die to cut some white tags.  Stamped A Country Welcome's "Make a Wish" wooden stamp onto one of the small tags, tied some baker's twine to it, and attached it to the card. 

The third card took a little more time to create.  I cut some Party Animal scraps into .5" x 3" rectangles to create candles.  I ran the 4 rectangles through a Cuttlebug embossing folder and trimmed the top of each of them before I attached them to my layering paper.  Added an epoxy sticker "flame" to each candle.  "Make a Wish" was stamped with a Stampabilities wooden stamp.  The small cupcake is a brad and the larger one is a sticker.  The circles were cut with Nestabilities.  I ran the smaller one through an embossing folder.  I really love the texture those embossing folders add to my cards and must get back into the habit of using them more often. 

That's it for today.  I have bits and pieces of other cards around me and I want to get back to them while things are quiet here. 

Have a great night!
Carol

Party Animals

Hi Everyone!

One of the blogs I follow is Audrey Yeager's "Audrey's Reflections".  She is a scrapbooker, not a cardmaker and I am a cardmaker, not a scrapbooker, yet I love reading and rereading her posts.  She writes from the heart and her projects and photographs are always amazing.  She just had her second child a few weeks ago.  Congratulations to you and your family, Audrey. 

About a month ago Audrey posted a blog about a mini album that she had created for her daughter Charlotte.  I LOVED that album and immediately ordered the "Party Animals" paper from Kaisercraft that Audrey used for the album.  In addition to some 12" x 12" sheets of paper I also ordered the 6.5" Party Animals Paper Pad.  It is such a cool pad to have.  Janet and Cindy Virtual Vine you MUST MUST MUST get this paper.  There are 24 sheets of paper that have among other things the cutest animals.  In the back there are paper die cuts and borders. 

Well, I cut out the animals to make a mini album, but that is as far as I have gotten with them as I still have to fussy cut them.  But last night I used some of the paper from the paper pad to create this card.  You may not be able to tell from the photograph, but there are a lot of layers on it.  First there's the 4" x 5.25" sheet of paper that has the stars in circles on it.  Then I used a scalloped blade in my trimmer to cut a 4" x 2" piece of yellow dotted paper.  Then I cut a sheet of 4" x 1.5" striped paper that I adhered on top of the dotted yellow paper. 

The circle was cut with a purple Marvy paper punch.  I adhered it to my layering paper and then paper pierced around it to make it look stitched.  Actually I had another circle that I threw away.  I cut it with a paper punch and then drew stitches around it that I didn't like the look of so I cut a second circle.  I paper pierced the second circle and then I drew my stitches.  I LOVE the way that technique worked for me.  I can paper pierce evenly so now my stitches are even and even close up look real. 

Next I used a star Nestability to cut a star and adhered the star to the circle.  I paper pierced the star and "stitched" it.  Fussy cut a tiger from one of the paper and glued him to the center of the star.  The orange circles were created with a 3/4" circle punch and the stars were punched with a star punch.  I added just a few tiny rhinestones to the card.  Oh, and I stamped "Happy Birthday" below the star. 

I like the card, but I wish I had embossed the striped paper just to add a little more texture to it.  A while ago Jeanne hung a wooden mail organizer on the wall for me that I use to store my Cuttlebug folders.  That does keep them organized and got them off my work table which is good and bad.  Now that they are even slightly out of sight I sometimes forget to use them.  I definitely prefer having my supplies out in the open and immediately in my sight.

Had lots of company yesterday and today Diane's coming for lunch and crafting so I either need to make some lunch or run out and buy some. 

Have a great day! 
Carol

Western theme Wedding card

Hi Everyone!

A friend asked me to create a wedding card that has a western theme.  I instantly envisioned a card with a lasso and text that included the words, "Tie the knot".  I didn't find any western themed stamps at the local paper crafting stores, but did find some Sandylion Essentials Western stickers at AC Moore. 

I found some 8" x 8" denim and bandana patterned papers in my stash.  I cut the papers down so that they'd fit on an A7 card.  I used a Martha Stewart Zig Zag edger punch to embellish the edge of the denim patterned paper before I adhered it to a strip of the bandana patterned paper. 

I created all of the text bubbles on my computer.  After I printed them I fussy cut them before I attached them and the Western stickers to the layering paper.  The boot stickers are attached to the inside of the card. 

I love the textures that the embellishments add to the card. 

The plumber is here to install a pump in the basement floor.  He's also going to fix a leaky faucet and best of all fix the one toilet (the handle broke yesterday) that we have in this house!  Oh, happy day!

Carol

If Friends Were Flowers...

Hi Everyone!



I needed a card for one of my dearest friends so I put this one together for her.

I used a 1.5" scalloped circle EK Success punch to punch out 3 tag circles. Then I wrapped some twine around each of those circles by catching it in the "groove" of each scallop. I added a brad to each circle so that they would look like flowers.


I used my pink Marvy circle punch to punch a circle for a vase and cut off the bottom of the circle to give the vase a flat bottom.


The text was stamped with a clear stamp from Lawn Fawn's 'Hello Friend" set.


The layering paper is from SEI's Corinne collection.  I ran it through a Cuttlebug embossing folder and added a piece of lace ribbon that my friend Diane gave me to it before I adhered it to a blank card,
 
That's all for today! Stay cool!

Carol

Today's Cards

Hi Everyone!



It's a little too hot here so I decided to spend some time at my work table creating cards with 3, yes that's not a typo, 3 fans blowing on me! I learned that today is National Lollipop Day and since I had some lollipop brads from Eyelet Outlet in my stash I decided I'd start out by creating a lollipop card.

I adhered lollipop brads to some Memento papers before I attached the papers to a blank card. "Thank You" was stamped with a wooden stamp from Stampendous. "You're Sweet" was stamped with a wooden stamp from Impression Obsession. I used a Medium Heart Crock Pot wooden stamp from A Country Welcome to create the crock image. I used foam tape to attach the crock to the card.

I mostly create A2 cards (4.25" x 5.5"), but this time I decided to make an A7 card ("5" x 7"). The squares are 1.5". I used paper punches to create the leaves, flowers, and bows. "Thinking of You" was stamped with a Hero Arts wooden stamp. There are tiny blue brads in the centers of the flowers and bows.

I gave myself a challenge when I was creating this card. I only used scraps that were sitting on my work table. I used pieces of leftover Hero Arts lace, a pearl flourish, a few punched out flowers, some brads and scraps of Momenta papers. The text was stamped with a couple of Hero Arts wooden stamps.

That's it for today. I wish I had a cold pool to jump into, but I guess the tub will have to do!
 
Have a great night!
Carol

Anne of Green Gables Note Cards

Hi Everyone!



As I told you a few days ago my sister Jeanne has been a fan of the Anne of Green Gables book series since she was about 10 years old. To celebrate Jeanne's 55th birthday on July 16th I gave her an Anne of Green Gables party and created some note cards for her.


I skimmed the Anne of Green Gables books and went onto the internet to find quotes from some of the books. I selected a few of those quotes and typed them on my computer using a cursive font that is called "Adorable". I deliberately selected quotes that coordinated with some of my stamps and/or patterned papers. Here are some of the note cards I made for her.
 

I used a Hero Arts Silouette Women cling stamp for the image on this card. 

 

 I used a Heartfelt Creations wooden rose stamp for the image on this card.  The bees are tiny brads from Eyelet Outlet and the layering paper is from K and Company.

 

I used a piece of Memory Box paper from their 6" x 6" Nightfall collection for the layering paper for this card.  The leaf is a button.

The trees on this card were stamped with a Mod Tree Border stamp from Memory Box.  

 

The lace on this card is from Hero Arts.  The image was created with a wooden stamp from the Hero Arts Three Silhouettes set. 

Happily Jeanne loved her party and her cards.  Have a great night!
Carol

Happy 55th Birthday Jeanne!

Happy Sunday Everyone!

My sister Jeanne turned 55 yesterday. She has loved the Anne of Green Gables series of books since she was about 10 years old so I decided to create an Anne of Green Gables theme for her party.

Many years ago I gave Jeanne a copy of the Anne of Green Gables cookbook which is now out of print. I decided to use the recipes in that cookbook for the food for our party. I didn't want Jeanne to know what I was planning so instead of borrowing her cookbook I took the cookbook and a copy of the Anne of Green Gables book and video out of the library. I reread the book and watched the video a few times while I was working on the decorations and Jeanne's gift.

Anne of Green Gables was published in 1908, but the story takes place in 1878. Anne and her best friend Diana wear straw hats as do many of the other characters in the story. I went to a craft store in Arlington, MA called PlayTime and found a package of tiny straw hats. I attached a piece of elastic cord to the inside of each hat to transform them into napkin rings. I decorated the outside of each hat with some thin Martha Stewart ribbon and a floral brad from Eyelet Outlet. In place of the brads tiny silk flowers could be used, but I already had the brads so I used them.

 

Jeanne loved the lanterns I made for Rob's party so I decided to make new ones for her party. I used spray glue to adhere large paper doilies to sheets of 12" x 12" lavender tag weight scrapbook paper. The glue dried almost instantly. I cut each paper so that it measured 9" x 12" (that left me with a 3" x 12" scrap) and then folded and cut the paper into lanterns. I cut 3/4" x 12" strips from the scraps to make handles for the lanterns. I hung the lanterns from the umbrella on our deck as I had with Robbie's.

 

I used some of the "scraps" to make tiny treat baskets, but forgot to take a picture of them. Like the lanterns they were lavender with pieces of the white doilies on them. I used a hot glue gun to glue a piece of lace around the top of each of them.

Anne loved flowers so I used some floral patterned paper from my stash to create placemats for our picnic table. I used my Martha Stewart circle cutter to cut the floral circles before I adhered them to oversized paper doilies.

I cut some real flowers, used cordial glasses as tiny vases, and placed a vase at each place setting.

The recipes that I chose from the cookbook were Saucy Chicken, Chocolate Goblin's Food Cake and Chocolate Fudge Frosting. On the Internet from another cookbook I found and used recipes for Anne Shirley's Creamed Potatoes and Anne's Favorite Peas and Green Beans. I also prepared Diana Barry's Favourite Raspberry and Old Fashioned Lemonade and served each of them from tall glass bottles. Those recipes are from the Anne of Green Gables cookbook. Jeanne LOVED the raspberry cordial and like Diana Barry drank most of the bottle, but in the book Diana actually drank nearly a bottleful of currant wine. I am not a fan of raspberries so I drank the Old Fashioned Lemonade which I plan to make again and again using Splenda in place of sugar.

I used the cake batter to make chocolate cupcakes. I waited until hot and humid yesterday to bake and decorate them so I didn't fuss with them and just quickly swirled frosting onto each of them.

I found images of the main characters from the Anne of Green Gables movie on the Internet and pasted them into Printmaster. I printed the images, fussy cut them and attached them to scalloped circles I punched from and EK Success scalloped punch. For each cupcake I glued images onto 2 scalloped circles. I glued a toothpick to the back of one of the scalloped circles before I glued the 2 scalloped circles together. Anne is on the front of one circle and Gilbert is on the back. Marilla is on the front of one circle and Matthew on the back and so on.

Jeanne LOVED her party. I will share the gifts I made for her in tomorrow's post.

Have a great day!
Carol

Momenta's Floral Simply Perfect Page Kit

Hi Everyone!

Busy days! Busy nights! I've been working, entertaining, being entertained and getting ready for Jeanne's birthday. Jeanne will turn 55 on Saturday and I have been creating all sorts of paper crafts for the celebration. I cannot share them with you until after the party because Jeanne and some of her friends read my blog. I am very excited about some of my creations so it's hard to wait to share them with you.



Meanwhile, last night I stepped away from "preparing for the party" for a while and played around with some of the contents in Momenta's Floral Simply Perfect Page Kit. This kit includes 6 patterned papers, puffy stickers, bling, alphabet and message stickers, chipboard stickers, a gorgeous die cut mat, frames, tags, and more. I decided to use 2 of the papers, some of the chipboard stickers, and a few of the alphabet stickers to create some cards.


I added some ribbon from my stash to this card.

The text was created with a stamp from Lawn Fawn's "Hello Friend" clear stamp set. All other components of the card are from Memento's Floral Simply Perfect Kit.


Everything I used on this card with the exception of the lace is also from that kit. The lace is from Hero Arts.

The background paper, butterflies and flower on this card are also from the kit.

 
I used a scrap of SEI paper to create the sun. The text was stamped with a clear stamp from PaperTrey Ink's Egg Hunt set.

That's it for today.  Science program tonight!  Have a great night!
Carol

Momenta's Design Your Own Stickers

Hi Everyone!



This post will be a little long, but I hope that you will take the time to read it because you will learn about a blog I recently discovered and some very cool products.

Just in! While I was typing this post I received an e-mail from Jamie at Momenta saying that my write up about Rob's party is being featured on their blog today. How cool is that! Stop by and read it by clicking here.  Please remember to come back here!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the "Birthday Wishes" Momenta paper I had just purchased. Momenta puts a sticker on the front of each of their products that says, "Free Designer Downloads, www.momenta.com". Well, give me a web site to check out and I am there. The Momenta web site is a wonderful place to visit. They have a link to their awesome blog and a wonderful collection of ideas on ways to use their products in addition to great videos that showcase products and techniques. (How's that for a long sentence! Sorry grammarians!) You can also shop on Momenta's web site and print free downloads.

After I explored their web site I decided to visit their Facebook page. It was on that page that I learned about a focus group that they were having at their office in Portsmouth, NH last week. My friend MaryBeth lives near Portsmouth so I quickly contacted her and told her about Momenta and the focus group. She was interested in attending it so I signed both of us up. Now I had a totally win-win opportunity. I was going to hang out with MaryBeth and learn about Momenta products at the same time.

Momenta has a brand new beautiful office in Portsmouth. We were warmly greeted by members of their staff and offered cold beverages and munchies while we waited for the meeting to begin. We were shown paper samples and asked to rate them based on how they appealed to us. Then we were shown all sorts of forthcoming products and asked how we felt about each of them. There are some awesome products in the works that I cannot wait to buy.

The products were amazing and the people that work at Momenta couldn't have been nicer. They were all genuinely excited about their products. They were all truly interested in hearing our ideas. They asked us questions and we asked them questions. The 2 hours flew by and then it was time to leave. As we were leaving we were each given an unbelievable collection of materials to take home and use.

In addition to a paper pad, page kits and multiple packages of chipboard and epoxy stickers we were given a package called Design Your Own Sticker.

Talk about amazing! Talk about a unique product! Talk about fun!  This package contains 2 sheets of white letter and number stickers.

Each sheet has 234 stickers in it for a total of 468 stickers. I typed in the code on the front of the page and was taken to a link where I was given not one, not ten, but seriously thousands of designs that I could choose from to decorate my stickers.


Once I chose my design all I had to do was place the sheet of stickers on my printer tray and hit print.

Seriously? Seriously! That was all I had to do.

How many times have you created a card and discovered you needed just one more "A' and a couple of "P's" and sat there cutting apart other letters to create the letters you needed. Or maybe you ran out to the store to pick up another package of the stickers you used and discovered they were out of stock! With Design Your Own Sticker you could just print another sheet of stickers. (Just be sure to keep a back up package in your sticker collection!)
I think that there are about 2 dozen Create Your Own Sticker designs to choose from at this time.


Momenta has been around since 1979 so I don't know how I could have missed them. Locally here in Massachusetts their products are carried in Michaels, AC Moore, and JoAnn's. I did check the Michaels closest to me and they had a limited selection, but it is a small Michaels and I was told that the one in Natick might have a broader selection. The good news is all of us can buy their products directly from them online. (But I may run over to JoAnn's on Route One to see what they have later today!)

Hope you have a wonderful day!
Carol

Denami Lovely Layers Blog Hop

Good Morning Everyone!

I hope you are enjoying this sunny Sunday morning.  Today is the day of the Denami Lovely Layers Blog Hop.  Here are the details for this blog:

When: The blog hop starts on July 10 at 6 AM, PST. However, you have until July 11, 2011, 11:59 pm PST, to leave comments on all the blogs (to be eligible for a prize).


Why: To be inspired by beautiful creations featuring DeNami Design stamps and also the chance to win mini shopping sprees on the DeNami Design website!

Prizes: We are giving away THREE $20 gift certificates to our website! We'll be giving away one gift certificate to a random participant (DT members not eligible) and then we'll also be giving away TWO gift certificates to TWO people who comment along the hop!
 
If you started at the beginning of the hop you will have arrived here from Jenny Wagner's blog
http://www.jennyscreativecorner.blogspot.com/
 
You are now at Carol Hartery's blog http://www.carolhartery.blogspot.com/ .  I decided to make an accordion card for this hop.  I used a variety of Denami stamps. 
 

castle
whale
Get whale soon
Hey chickie
large dot circle
demi dot circle
 
Starting at the base of the card you can see that I tore 2 sheets of sandpaper to create some sand.  I used Memento Tuxedo Black ink to stamp the castle 3 times and then fussy cut the images before I used Scor-pal tape to adhere them to the sand..  The beach ball is a brad from Eyelet Outlet. 
 
I used the demi dot circle stamped image to highlight the "hey chickie" text on the second layer of the card .  After stamping and fussy cutting the whale image I attached it to the card with foam tape.  I used epoxy stickers for the "splashes".  The fish are Favorite Findings buttons. 
 
The circle on the 3rd layer of the card was created with the large dot circle stamp. 
 
Next you will visit Ayana Posada's blog http://ayanaposadas.typepad.com/
If you get lost along the way you can always start all over again at http://www.denami.blogspot.com/
 
Before you leave my blog please leave a comment for me.  I also hope you'll become a follower of my blog.  I am in the process of creating some special paper crafts for my sister's birthday that I will be sharing with you soon.

Have a great day. 
Carol

Birthday Wishes Part Two

Hi Everyone!

This is part 2 of a Birthday Wishes post.  Yesterday was Robbie's 26th birthday. He was born on July 2, 1985 at 8:47 AM. The arrival of a newborn is always exciting, but Rob's birth was an especially happy occasion for our family. Our mother had passed away 11 months prior to Rob's birth and we were all eager to celebrate something happy and positive.



Rob and I have always shared a special bond. We both love to cook, bake, read, and craft. We both enjoy working with young children. In each generation of my mother's family there has been only one person with brown eyes. Rob has brown eyes. So do I and so did my mother, her father, and his mother. I think that's kind of cool.


Rob is usually quiet and pensive. He's not especially comfortable with adults that he doesn't know well, but he's slowly becoming more talkative and chatty even with people he has just met.

It's fun to make things for Rob because he's very sentimental and appreciative of what you have done for him. I've already shared turkey stories with you and the turkey card I made for Rob. I decided to integrate a turkey theme into his birthday party.

It wouldn't surprise most of you to hear that I have a turkey cake pan and a variety of turkey cookie cutters, but they weren't what I wanted. I looked through my cookbooks and went on the internet and found a great selection of ideas for turkey cupcakes, but as much as I liked all of those things they still weren't quite what I wanted. Then I found turkeys that were made with Oreo cookies and candy corn on a flickr page. 
Rob LOVES Oreos...and so I made these turkeys.

I could have baked cupcakes and put the turkeys on them. I could have made a farmyard cake and put the turkeys there...but I decided that they were just fine the way they were because...


I also made this turkey fruit arrangement.
 

Talk about EASY! I washed and cut the fruits and put them on the skewers before I went to bed.  I cut the bottom off of a personal size watermelon and hollowed most of it out. Then I poked a few toothpicks into the watermelon and attached the pear head. I broke toothpicks in half, poked them into the pear and attached the grape eyes, pineapple beak, and strawberry wattle. Then I poked the skewers of fruit into the watermelon. I cut a large strawberry in half and created feet with toes. They are attached to the watermelon with toothpick halves.
 
Rob loved his turkey birthday party. 
 

 
By the way...Rob's a vegetarian!
 
Have a great day!
Carol