A few Shabby Chic cards

Hello! I was browsing Pinterest and looking at some of Melissa Phillip's cards and got in the mood to do a few shabby cards. I love shabby cards. I don't often make them because:
1) I don't know who in the world I would send them to
2) They are difficult to mail

But when I do make one, it makes me happy! So I pulled out a new set of dies I bought from W9 - Quilt Cuts2. These three dies cut quilt blocks. Since I am a quilter, these are way cool for me. :) I have a bunch of quilting friends I could send these cards to. Or maybe just hand them to them.  I cut out the quilt squares with some of my very favorite paper - October Afternoon Thrift Shop. I don't think it's available anymore - I hoard have a bunch of it! But I decided on a couple papers that went together well, and kind of mimicked fabric. By cutting out each quilt block twice, I could interchange the squares within each design to make two complete blocks. Then I decided to use some of my hoarded Melissa Francis stickers - these were all about friendship. And then pulled out some seam binding and colored the edges with a copic marker E53 to age it a bit. I used Papertrey's vintage cream cardstock and used a large rubber script stamp for the background. I can't for the life of me remember where I got that background stamp, but it's one of my favorite for vintage type backgrounds. 

 This card also uses the Wonderful Words: Friends die by Papertrey.

 Just a quilt square, a couple MF stickers, and some seam binding.

 Sentiment from Join Us set by WaltzingMouse.

 Don't you just love that cute seam binding ruffle around the quilt square?

And this last one uses Spellbinders Lacey Doily die and again a MF sticker.
Hope you enjoyed these cards! Do you do shabby? Mine don't hold a candle to Melissa's, but they still make me happy. Thanks for looking!

Papertrey January Blog Hop

Hello! I am participating in Papertrey's January Blog Hop this month. This month, the Hop is all about PINK! With Valentine's Day coming up soon, this was the perfect excuse to pull out my stamps and make a card for my husband. I can always tell him, I HAD to make it pink because of the Blog Hop. LOL. The challenge is over on Nicole's blog - you can read more about it here.

The pretty stitched heart reminded me of a quilt, so I used my hexagon coverplate to make a pink and grey quilt. The pencils reminded me of arrows, thus, the arrows above the YOU. I had to add a vellum heart and a little pearl for interest up near the top.

 There are so many wonderful entries on the Blog Hop this month - my favorites were the stitched hearts. I had the same idea, but never had time to do it. Hope you have fun hopping - thanks for stopping by! 

Snow Cool Puffin

Hello! I wanted to share a card I made using Lettering Delight's Snow Cool Puffin cut-it set that they offered FREE about a week ago. I made a valentine for my husband with it. Given the freezing cold temperatures we've had in VA these past couple days - this was a perfect set to use!

Isn't he so much fun?? I love puffins, so he is right up my alley! LOL the background paper (from the Great Scott set) and sentiment were done using the Print and Cut method, and the puffin was cut separately and popped onto the front of the card. What do you think?

Papertrey Feathers!

Hello! I wanted to share a couple cards I made using one of Papertrey's newest stamp sets - Feather Finery. I had held off on purchasing any feather sets from other companies, waiting for Papertrey to come out with it's own version. I am so glad that I did! The detail Nicole achieved with this set is just amazing - and beautiful!

 I stamped the feather die cuts on this card using Royal Velvet and Winter Wisteria inks. I swiped the edges of the feathers and the card with VersaMagic Purple Hydrangea and Spring peony chalk inks. I hate to use chalk inks directly on my clear stamps because they stain so much, so it's nice to use the teardrop pads to swipe the edges of things.

 I'm not real crazy about the watercolor craze going on right now in cardmaking, so I came up with this more "controlled" method. I used the negative diecut of the feather die as a mask, and then swiped the chalk inks mentioned above all over the exposed area. Then I stamped the feather directly over the chalked area. I like the soft effect of this method and the fact that the paper doesn't curl. Then I added a little sparkle with some glitter. :)

 Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did - it's a great set!

Princess Sophie's Book

Hello! I am playing along with Papertrey's Make-it-Monday this week. I made a glitter embellishment (the number "1" - photos 7 and 9) on one of the pages of a book I made for my granddaughter's 1st birthday.
As I shared in my last post, my daughter and I are gearing up for her daughter's 1st birthday party on Feb. 1st. I made a card for Sophie that I shared in my last post, and I shared that I wasn't satisfied with it. Sometimes ideas just come to me and all of a sudden I knew what I wanted to make for her. I saw a line of cut-it sets from Lettering Delights called "Ice Princess". There was also a party set. I love cutting out LD designs on my Silhouette Cameo for the cards I send to my grandchildren each month. The theme for Sophie's birthday is "winter", so the Ice Princess party set seemed like the perfect answer. So I cut out a flip book pattern I got from Lori Whitlock in the Silhouette Online Store here, 3D Layered Mini Album Bracket #41595. I had already purchased the LD Ice Princess Cut Bundle, so I started making up my story and cutting my shapes to put in the mini album. It was so much fun to see it all come together! Here is what the finished product looks like - lots of glitter and sparkles! The largest page in the book is about 5 1/2" by 8 1/2". Warning: There are alot of pictures!

 The front of the book. The title uses the alphabet that comes in the Ice Princess bundle. All of the pages were Print and Cut, and then the 3D images (princess, castle, cake, and balloons) were added.

 The font on the story pages is Albemarle Swash. I believe I got it from dafont.com. I recolored the princess and her dress to look like Sophie and her party colors.

 I cut the castle out of pinks to add the "girly" effect. I added glitter to the snow layer. Lots of layers on this castle!

 The "1" on the top page is made using a glitter technique taught by Heather Nichols on the Papertrey Make-It-Monday this week. I used Scor-tape for the stripes, removing one at a time to apply glitter.

 The last page has glitter on the "Happy Birthday" and pearls to embellish it. I thought it would be fun for her to "feel" the pearls.

The back of the book has a personal message from me and my husband. This was such a fun little book to make! If you have time, leave me a comment and let me know what you think! Thanks!

Sophie's Birthday Banner

Hello! My granddaughter Sophie is turning one at the end of this month, and her mom has been busy planning her birthday party. With a winter birthday, Katie has decided to have a winter theme - snowflakes - and will have a hot chocolate bar and smore bar, as well as other desserts. I offered to make a banner for the birthday and wanted to share a few pictures. I used this banner we pinned on pinterest as my inspiration. Here is what I came up with using my Silhouette Cameo.

 Martha Stewart chunky glitter on the letters.

 Vellum snowflakes on the end pieces and underneath each letter.

 A smaller Happy 1st Birthday banner to hang above it.

 And of course, she had to have a birthday hat! Sophie's dress is cram and gold, so I went with those colors for her hat.  I used a hat template from the Silhouette store, and stamped it with a Flourish set from Waltzingmouse, and then heat embossed it with gold. The trim and flowers are from Melissa Francis.

 I am also making little cocoa cup decorations, and maybe labels for the toppings. It's going to be a fun party! happy Birthday my dear Sweet Sophie! Gramma loves you very much!

Some catching up with my card posts

Hello! I haven't had time to blog lately, but I have been making cards. I thought I would share some of them with you today on this snowy day in Virginia.

 

This is a birthday card I made for my daughter. I used a new set from W9 - Sweets and Treats. This set is full of cupcakes with different toppings and bottoms, plus a couple cupcake stands. I recently purchased this set from my local stamping store in Reston, VA. The set has dies to match, but they were out of stock, so I have them on order. Love this set! Such cherry cupcakes! Happy Birthday Kelly!

 This card uses two other new W9 sets I purchased from the same store in Reston, VA. I have been having fun playing with my new goodies! The sets are Coming Up Roses, and Written on Ribbon. Both sets have matching dies, which makes the whole process so much easier! The ribbon set has a bunch of little sentiments that fit nicely on the ribbon. I need to go through my Papertrey stamps and see what other sentiments I have that fit on it. The rose and leaf stamps are two step images.

 This is a birthday shaker card for my littest granddaughter's first birthday. I used a cupcake image from the Framed Out set by Waltzingmouse. I made this card before I purchased the W9 Sweets and Treats set, and I'm not totally satisfied with it - I may remake it using the W9 cupcakes. I totally cased this card from Marybeth Lopez. I just love everything she makes!

 This card, and the next one, use a fun technique using diecuts. You die cut an image from the card front, in my case a bike die from Memory Box here, and a Hello sentiment from Papertrey next, and then cut the same sentiment out a few other times (I cut it out 3 times from heavyweight cardstock). Then you glue the cardstock diecuts together, and top them with the patterned paper diecut. Then you just glue it back in place. I just love the raised effect of this duecut technique! It is such a simple technique, yet kind of time consuming. Think about gluing those tiny spokes on top of one another! It's addicting though - I just love looking at these cards from different angles. The diecuts really pop from the side!

 Thanks for taking the time to look at what I've been up to lately! Hope you are having a great day, and staying warm! 

Babysitting little Will

Hello! I have a fun post to share today. I am up in Philadelphia today babysitting my little grandson Will so his mommy and daddy can have some together time. Will is 17  months old and just the cutest little boy - so fun to hold and play with. He is curious about everything, constantly investigating all the hidden crevices and doors and openings of his toys. Kelly, Will's mommy, has gone to great lengths to provide Will with educational toys. Everything from a latches board, to shape recognitions toys, to animal sounds, to musical instruments. He even has a little green chair to sit in to look at his books. Will loves his books! He "talks" to them - it is so cute! Here are some pictures of him this morning while we "played".

This is the magnetic blackboard Will's Granddaddy Polk made for him for Christmas. He's not quite old enough for the chalkboard part of it yet (he would probably eat the chalk), but he loves putting his magnets on it.

Will's Aunt Katie gave him this little chair for Christmas. Will loves to sit in it and "read" his books!

I find that the best part of being a grandparent is that you  are in the position to actually play. That's one of the main roles of a grandparent, as far as I am concerned. I hope to be able to take Will on long walks when he gets older and tell him all about the things in nature, just like my mom did with my children when they were growing up. Being a gramma is awesome!!!

Papertrey MIM #147 - Multi-Layer Images from a Single Stamp #2

Hello! This is my second attempt at Papertrey's MIM #147 - Multi-Layer Images from a Single Stamp. I used Latte Love stamp set for my second attempt. I stamped the image onto a Tag Sale 3 base, and then 3 more times onto white cardstock. I colored three of the cups and cut them out separately and mounted them back onto the card base.

I like the way it turned out because the cups with added lift really add to the idea that they are "holding" the cup above. The one mistake I made was popping up the top cup, because it should have been going into the cup below. Anyway, it was fun, and I love the way it turned out. Hope you enjoy them!