A Birthday Mouse

I actually started the night out making Halloween cards, but thought I had better stop for a bit & go back to birthdays as they were much more needed. This little mouse is one of my favorite Penny Black images.
Well, this was a learning experience.  Apparently a white card on a white background doesn't show up! I'm hoping once I post, you will be able to see it.

I think I should have stuck to Halloween tonite!

Halloween cards at last!

I've finally started on my Halloween cards.  Yeaaa!!  I love Halloween cards.  All the cute spooks & bats! And I love Penny Black Hedgehogs.  They are always among the first stamps I pull out whenever I make a card for any occassion.  I think I have about every one ever made.  This image with the broom takes a bit more room on a card, so I may have to finish the rest of my cards using a 5 x 7 card if I want to get more on them.

My energy is running out so it's time for some dinner.  Hope everyone has a great week!

 

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Halloween Cards..

Ok, I had good intentions of doing Halloween cards today.  And I still am, but thanks to an e-mail from Gail, I got sidetracked.  Again.  There seems to be a pattern here!  She sent me a cute bookmark and it got me to thinking.  I got it a bit crooked when I scanned it, apparently. But here is one sample.

These fit right over your page and are pretty fast to make, once you figure out the secret to the folding.

I'm REALLY doing Halloween cards now!  Two hedgehogs riding a broom are calling my name!

A sad ending to a happy day...

After spending a wonderful day visiting with my daughter & her family, I arrived home to find the news that a friend & collegue of many years had lost her husband this morning.  So, instead of working with the new stamps I bought today, I picked up my favorite sympathy stamps to work on some cards for her.

Since we have a rather large office & 2 other locations here in town, I decided on 3 cards so everyone will have a chance to sign.

This is an old standby stamp I've used many times & always makes a nice card. It's hard to see, but the background is textured with tiny swiss dots.

This tree is probably my favorite choice for a sympathy card.  Somehow the curling branches just always seem calming. Although you can't see them well, there are some added seed pearls among the branches.

I think it's fair to say that nobody wants to have a reason to make a sympathy card.  Especially for a friend, but I guess it is part of life. And hearing of someone else's loss always makes you all the more greatful to still have the ones you love in your own life.

On that, I am off to get some much needed rest. It was a really long day.

For the Husker Fans!

Since I have a craft show in Nebraska this winter, I thought i had better include as many "Husker" themed cards as possible.  They do LOVE their football team!  I had just enough paper left to do two more birthday cards.  I can see I will have to stock up on it the next time I visit my daughter.  I'm sure every single craft or scrapbook store in town has reams of it in stock at all times! 


Making guy birthday cards is never easy, but if you can just add some paper from their favorite team, they probably won't even notice anything but the background paper! 

Since not everybody runs, I'm hoping there are some golfers who are football fans as well.  And this stamp always makes a great guy card. Oops, "Castle" just came on.  One of my favorte shows.  Got to go see what happens!

Darn Martha & her new punches!

Well, I intended to work on some birthday cards today, but I had to stop & do a couple of fast sympathy cards to try out a new leaf design punch from Martha.  I can't seem to walk past a new punch these days. I guess there are worst "addictions" in life than rubber stamps, paper punches (and purses) right?  And I guess, if we are being honest here, I will have to add chocolate! 
I'm not sure what happens to change my perfectly level image to list to one side when it posts. No doubt, I'm doing something horribly wrong.

This one looks at least looks level. And you can see the leaf punch a bit better on it too.  Now I need to get back to making the birthday cards I had intended to earlier. 

A really fast thank you card.

I've been so busy at work I haven't had much time to be creative this week, but I did manage to make a really fast thank you card this afternoon to try out a new punch. It's hard to tell in the picture, but the butterfly is popped up & done with embossed paper. Hopefully, I will have more time tomorrow to get something more creative done & posted. It's certainly too cold & rainy to do much else!

My favorite cat stamp

I thought I needed a belated birthday card to add to my stash so I immediately thought of my favorite cat stamp.  He looked like a pretty good "I'm so sorry" candidate with his pitiful little flower. The inside message is "Heard you're celebrating a belated birthday this year...Bet all those other fools sent cards on time!"

Now I REALLY have to get back to work!

Magnolia time

Well, I tried taking a photo of this card to see if it would be better than the scanned version.  There wasn't a lot of difference and I could never get it where I wanted it.  A computer geek, I'm not.  So we are back to the scanner, which doesn't really show an accurate picture of the cards, but will give you an idea.

I haven't done a Magnolia stamp for awhile, so I thought I would pull on of my favorites out.  I popped her feet up, although it doesn't show here.    Guess I will get back to my messy desk & see what else I can create .

Back to Birthdays...

Another break from Christmas cards.  Time to work on some birthday cards again.

You know what they say about the "best laid plans"...well, that was pretty much my day today.  I had planned to make cards all day, but that didn't happen.  So here I am burning the almost midnight oil to play catch up!  The message inside this little guy is "That's dog years right? Happy Birthday!" And hopefully, the birthday person will see the humor in it!

The next one is a chicken card.  The cutest thing of this one too, is the inside verse. "Cluck up your heels!"

I have a thing for comic verses. Silly cards always make me laugh & I love to send them. Looking at this poor chicken reminds me of how I feel a lot of days!  Stuffed!

For Husker Fans

This should be the perfect card for a Husker fan's birthday!  And I'm hoping Nebraska has a lot of them (or wives) who will be shopping the fair in November.

A change of pace

I am snowman'd out!  Time to take a break & work on my favorite card holiday.  Here is the new stamp I got from my daughter yesterday.  Isn't she the cutest thing!   Now I'm all in the mood to keep making Halloween cards!

Hope this gets you in the mood too!

I must be crazy!

Here I go again.  Two posts the same night.  Since my daughter gave me this stamp today, I want her to see how many ways I have already found to use it!  I should be winding down for the night, but I still have some more ideas rolling around in my head that need to be put to paper yet.

This one started out slightly different, but I was having a real problem with the glue tearing the border on the first version.  Apparently, this paper was a bit thinner than normal or I was too heavy handed with the glue.

I still really love the embossing folders and they add a lot to a card.

Now I'm done for the night! Promise!

Happy Labor Day!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!  Mine has been wonderful so far.  Not only did my sister & brother-in-law come down, but my daughter & her family. We all celebrated Dad's 88th birthday.  And as if that wasn't wonderful enough, my daughter brought me new stamps!!  YEAAA!!!!  This is the first card from my new stash.  I LOVE the saying!  How cute will these be to send out after Xmas to thank everyone?

I don't know who came up with this clever play on words, but I love it! Better get back to my next idea!

Meow!

I wasn't even going to attempt a card tonight as it was so late when I got home & I mowed besides, but here we go.  I didn't know if it was going to scan well because of the dimensional holly, but I had to try.  As you can see, it ended up a bit out of focus.  I'm learning daily what will scan well & what won't.


Hopefully, I will have something much better this weekend!