Sharing in Your Sorrow

Today I am sharing a sympathy card that I made at the request of my friend. I decided to make it with teal and pink and make it elegant and simple. I like simple for sympathy cards. And for some reason, sympathy cards always seem to contain some type of plant life, trees, flowers, etc.

I used my SU! markers to color my stamp and then stamped it on whisper white card stock, this was matted on taken with teal and then placed on a craft card base. For the sentiment, I stamped on whisper white and punched it with my label punch. Then I punched a second label punch in taken with teal and cut out the middle section so i could use the edges of the stamp to shadow the main label punch. A tiny pink flower button, to mimic the flowers in the main stamped image is held in place with a glue dot. Finally I used this sheer pink ribbon from Michael's (I know that I have shown you this ribbon many times before- I love using it!)

I have had a great holiday weekend so far. I have been escaping to my craft room frequently and have been pretty busy. I hope to share some of my projects with you this week. Keep posted!

Have a great day!

~Melanie

My Pretty Valentine!

Valentine's Day is right around the corner...have you thought of yours yet?

I actually do not know who I will give this card to...yet. I love the image from SU! and I wanted to use it in a soft way, so i stamped it first and then used colored pencils to color it in. The paper colors look brighter in the photo, but are actually more muted. All of the paper is also SU! I chose to use the yellow and purple combo. I love these two colors together especially when they are soft and not vibrant.

I used a pair of deco scissors to cut the purple paper out around the yellow floral image. Also used one of my SU punches to get my purple strip that runs towards the bottom of the card. (i suppose I should know the names of all my tools, but I don't! lol)

I then used a really cute red button as an accent.

Well, thanks for stopping by...and don't forget your valentine!

~melanie

This card is a snow tubing invite I made for a friend. I smudged out the personal details.

I used my computer and my Stampin' Up! Digital Studio to make the words and snowflakes for the background. Then I punched cut the paper to fit on a 5x7 card.

The girls favorite color I thought was purple so I paper punched the sledding girl with purple colors. I used a variety of my SU! punches. I used the window punch to make the slider. I followed this tutorial http://www.frenchiestamps.com/2010/1...nner-card.html After I had finished making all the little sledders, she changed her mind to orange being her favorite color, so I mounted the white paper onto orange for stability. I found that this actually helped the girl roll a little easier.

The little girl on her sled rolls up and down the side of the card! Super fun to make and super fun to play with!

It was alot of fun to make the invites and she totally loved them. I even managed to find orange envelopes for them!

Thanks for stopping by today,

~Melanie

Thank you Fairy Much!

This adorable card was made for a friend to send a thank you to a lucky little girl. The image is from Pink Cat Studio. The sentiment inside says "thank you fairy much". My paper for this card is all Stampin' Up! Probably alot of retired paper because I am a paper hoarder! I have LOTS of paper but it is all so beautiful! My friends think I am crazy because I get excited for buttons and ribbon, but as fellow cardmakers/crafters/artists/etc. I know you understand me!

The image is colored with SU markers. The beautiful ribbon is from Michael's, I don't even know which brand, but I know I love to use it on cards...it is so soft and pretty. And the buttons are randoms from Walmart. I love to shop around for supplies. Of course I love Stampin' Up! (or else I wouldn't be a demo). I love the cardstock and how every color coordinates between ribbon, paper, buttons, designer paper etc. I also love to shop for supplies anywhere I can find a good deal. I spend the bulk of my money on SU!s great stamps and accessories, but if I can find a bargain, I will! LOL

Well I hope you enjoyed this beautiful card...it is one of many I have made recently...I am on a crafting roll. I plan to try and post daily or every other day, so I hope you check back frequently and if you see something you like or have a suggestion or idea, please post a comment. I look forward to your feedback!

Have a Happy Day!

~melanie :)

I love Papertrey Ink!

I have been following Dawn McVey's blog for quite some time now. I really love her stuff. I kept thinking I need to try some of those Papertrey Ink stamps, and I have "window shopped" on their site many times. Finally last month I decided I actually needed to order! I used my Christmas cash and ordered a couple of stamp sets, some coordinating dies, ribbon, buttons and a package of paper. How exciting, and quite a good deal for my cash! I couldn't wait to get busy with it.

These 2 cards are my first two projects with my PTI stamps and paper. I made 2 birthday cards for some girls at work.

This first card uses a set from last July called Just the Ticket. I love the coordinating ticket die cut. It is really neat to be able to design your own tickets. For the above card I chose to do a Happy Birthday ticket and I used lemon tart and lavender moon paper. The patterned paper is from Stampin' Up! I used my More Mustard SU marker to color my stamps and stamped the sentiment , border and stars onto my ticket. Then I used some Lavender Moon Satin Ribbon and a button from the Spring Mix Collection.

The second card is a bright cheery card. I used Berry Sorbet paper for a card base and used a versa ink pad to stamp the squiggly image from the Little Bitty Bird Set. I stamped the tree onto white cardstock and I used Lemon tart paper again to use the bird dies to cut these cute little guys which I then stamped with my little birdie image. I again used the spring mix buttons and some Lemon Tart Saddle Stitch Ribbon.

So these are my favorite cards from my PTI cards because these are my first cards! But I love the products and I know there will be many more!

Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed them and I really hope my friends from work enjoyed receiving them!

~melanie :)

Winter Wonderland!

That is what we have been living in around here!

A quick post today, as I am probably late for work! This is a cute card I made and actually sold at my last craft fair, so hopefully it was sent and enjoyed by someone! :)

I used the brick red and craft theme for this card as well as whisper white (SNOW!) The snowflake is made of felt and a cute little button center. The only portion of this card that is not stampin up is the twine tied to the button, other than that it is Stampin Up all the way baby!

Well it is zero degrees here in Mass today with a windchill in the negative twenties so everyone BUNDLE UP! and if you are in a warm climate - feel lucky! :)

Have a great day!

~melanie :)

Happy New Year!

Is it 2011 already? What happened to 2010? Well it went by very fast, to say the least, especially the last month. From Thanksgiving to New Years was a complete whirlwind! We survived the holidays in my house with only 2 cases of strep throat and one child with an ear infection! Let's hope to a healthier new year!

So, my goals for the new year? Besides the usual, be healthier, lose w

eight and exercise more? My crafting goals are to rearrange my craft space, which is a "room" in my basement. It has one plywood wall, one framed in wall with a door and a window to my children's playroom and 2 cinder block walls painted a hideous yellow. Oh, yeah and also a water pump that pumps the water up from the well through the basement to the house above. It kicks on whenever anyone does dishes, laundry or even flushes the toilet! Not a very relaxing environment! So, I am saving my pennies for a makeover...put up some real walls that can be painted a beautiful color, clean out the junk and hopefully move the water pump to the other side of the basement....that may not become reality, I do not know how much work that involves! But for now I am resigned to reorganizing my supplies and changing the tables around and layout of the room. Hopefully I get to that soon...

I have done no crafting this year :( but I will share some older cards

with you!

This first card was a bday card I made for a girl at work. I paper pieced the bird from the SU designer paper onto whisper white card stock. I used the same DSP for the background. I chose the purple color for the base and used a deeper purple punched with the large oval punch. I used a piece of DSP punched and folded to make a faux ribbon and place it behind my felt buttons.

This one was not too long ago. My friend asked me to make a birthday card for her mom who likes the color yellow. I decided to use this pretty SU! paper for the background (I never can remember the names off hand and my book is downstairs - in the basement!) I then used my border punch to make the yellow square for behind the paper. It was some figuring to get the corners to come out right, I probably should have written down the size for future use, but did not :) I used the designer label punch in turquoise and then the large oval punch in yellow and stamped the Birthday wishes sentiment. I tied a piece of 3/8 inch turquoise grosgrain ribbon in the corner and mounted a yellow flower with a green sparkle-y brad. I used my corner rounder on the bottom 2 corners.

Well I hope you enjoyed these 2 cards and I hope to create more soon!

~melanie

Thanksgivings!

I had to share this awesome card my daughter Allison made. She is becoming quite the creative card maker!

For Thanksgiving this year my husbands new company gave the employees a turkey and a bag full of all the fixings...potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, butternut squash and even pumpkin pie! It was so awesome of them and tasted so delicious. My husband suggested that we make a card to thank his boss's family (it is a small company that is run by a family). So Allison was super excited to do so and came up with this all on her own.

She used my SU First day of School set to stamp the bookworm image. She colored it in and then cut the worm out from behind the book and placed him on either side of her telephone pole. The thing that makes this so cute is that my husband works for a fiber optics company and they hang the wire on the poles to run the fiber optics. So she knowing this came up with the idea to make a telephone pole and put this little guy up there. I love how he peeks around the pole. Inside she wrote a wonderful not about how great the basket was and how delicious it tasted! She is so cute and creative...hmmm takes after someone...!

Well thanks for stopping by and looking! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and are planning for a Happy Christmas season too!

~melanie :)

And now onto Christmas!!!!

Okay now that Thanksgiving is over, I can focus on Christmas! It seems everyone gets started earlier and earilier, the radio had 24 hour Christmas music last week! Will we be decorating while wearing our bathing suits next year? LOL

That said, I LOVE Christmas! So I am ready to share some of my Christmas cards with you!

Below is the front of the card side by side with the center of the card.

The reindeer image was stamped with white craft ink and covered with clear embossing powder and heat embossed on Night of Navy card stock and mounted on Whisper White cardstock. The satin ribbon is Night of Navy. The background paper is from a paper stack I bought at the store last year. Finally I mounted a rhinestone on top of a felt snowflake.

The card is 4x4 square, so it will fit in a regular A2 size envelope, which makes room on the side for the ribbon!

I hope you enjoyed this Christmas Card..I will be posting more later :)

~melanie

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today I am posting cards made by my wonderful daughters Ally and Lily. The card on the right was made by Allison in school with the help of her awesome Classroom Parent Mrs Jennings. Check her out at www.sentimentsinstock.com. I thought it was so neat that I used her idea to assist Lillian with making a card as well. Each card is for the aunts that we are going to visit today to thank them for having us over for dinner and dessert!

I am thankful for my wonderful family! I hope you all have something to be thankful for today as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

~melanie