A Handmade Friendship Card

I made this card back in March for a Splitcoaststampers Card Sketch Challenge.  Splitcoaststampers is an on-line community of card makers, stampers, and scrapbook enthusiasts.  They have challenges every day of the week and one of my favorite challenges is the Sketch Challenge.

Although I look at the sketch challenge every week, I rarely play along.  Mostly, because I don't have time, but I am also picky about the type of sketches I want to do.  This week, I happened to like the sketch so much I decided to play along.  Here is the sketch pictured below:

Photo Credit

I had this old Crafty Secrets (no longer in business) image that was perfect for this sketch because it was already in the shape of a circle.  All I had to do was color it in and cut it out.  Easy peasy.

Here's a close up of my coloring.  I used Copic Markers to color.

I used designer paper from My Mind's Eye "Stella Rose" for the background.  I cut the scalloped border and the sentiment using dies from Spellbinders and My Favorite Things.

 I enjoyed this sketch and had a lot of fun playing along with the other Splitcoaststampers ladies.

I'm entering this card in the Four Seasons Challenge.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Alethea Turns Two! A Toddler Girl's Handmade Birthday Card

My precious granddaughter Alethea turned two last month.  I wasn't able to make it to her big family and friends birthday party as it was too close to Atticus' due date and I couldn't make the trip twice.  But we did have a smaller, more intimate nuclear family party for her later when I arrived.  So this lucky little girl got two birthday parties and two cakes!

As always, I made her a handmade birthday card.  I used the same Crafty Secrets set "Birthday Kids" that I used last year (you can see last years card in THIS POST).  I think I will use this same set for all my grand children's birthdays.  It's just so cute! I love the vintage images and the numbers.

To create my card I first stamped the background with the background image stamp in the set in a light pink.  I then put dots of clear Stickles randomly in the background.

The sentiments were stamped directly onto the main image panel in different colors of ink.  The little girl was stamped on a separate sheet of card stock and then cut out and framed using Spellbinder's Nestabilities.  The cake was also stamped on a separate sheet of card stock, fussy cut, then glued outside the frame.

When the card was complete,  I adhered the entire front to a pink card stock base.

And here are some pictures of Alethea's little birthday party with us and a few of her larger party.

Alethea's mom said Alethea was so excited for her big birthday party.  She loved helping mom in the kitchen making the cupcakes.  She was tickled pink that the party was just for her.  She is use to going to birthday parties for other people, but this was the first year she fully understood the party was for her.

She was so excited to open our gift from her:  a Melissa & Doug Fold and Go Miniature Dollhouse.  Her mom said every time she went to her cousin's house she would fight with her cousin over this dollhouse, so we thought it was about time she got her very own!  And she was excited to get it!

Her mom kept Alethea's party much more simple and low key this year (in comparison to last years😊!) because she was 9 months pregnant at the time.  They had the party in a local park and this was the table Ashley set up for her.

Alethea's mom and snuck out prior to our little nuclear family party to pick up a small cake and a balloon.  When we opened the door to the apartment we sung "Happy Birthday" and showed her the cake and the balloon.  Alethea had no interest in the cake at first, but went ga-ga over the balloon!

These are the home made cupcakes mom made for Alethea's first party.  Notice her 9 month pregnant belly sticking out on top of the picture?  ha ha!

While cleaning out some cupboards I found this cute little sun hat and I had no idea where it came from.  I'm thinking it was probably an adults garden hat that shrunk in the wash.  Good thing I kept it because it's the perfect fit for Alethea! She wore it quite often the few days we were with her.

Here Alethea is examining my homemade card.  Dad made sure Alethea took time to open and look at the card before opening the gift.  He knows how hard I work on those cards!

And finally a picture of Grandpa Todd showing Alethea where to put the furniture in the dollhouse.  Hopefully she will have years of fun playing with this dollhouse.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Happy Halloween Little Monsters!

Happy Halloween everyone!  I don't have a costume to show you as I will not be doing anything for Halloween but I do have some cards to share.  I made them for my children and sent them along with some fall treats and a little toy for Alethea.

This is the card I made for my daughter, son-in-law, and their new baby girl.  Notice there are THREE little monsters?

These are old vintage Halloween images by Crafty Secrets.

I stamped the main image on a circular panel and then popped it up o dimensionals.  I then stamped the sentiment on the main panel, and added the "Little Monsters" sentiments on separate pieces of hand cut card stock.

A little stamped bat in the corner rounded out the card.  I used fall patterned paper as an accent and added just a touch of olive green ribbon.

My next card I made for my son.  I used Halloween images from the same Crafty Secrets set.

The "Boo To You" sentiment was stamped in purple ink then hand cut, and popped up on dimensionals.  The main image panel is also popped up.

The black cat, spider, and spider web were all stamped directly on the main image panel in black ink. I colored the spider in just a little bit.

I had some fun spider web designer paper that I added to the edge of the card for more interest.

And here are my "Little Monsters"  all dressed up for a Halloween Party.  Ashley and Alethea are both dressed up as ballerinas and  Jason is the ballet orchestra conductor.

My son Jordan also went to this same party, but they did not send me a picture of him.  I was told he dressed up as Home Improvement guy.  Ha-ha!

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

From One Bag To Another

 It was an old friend's birthday so I met up with her for a day of fun last week.  I bought her a fall candle and candle holder from Bath and Body Works and I made her this cute, humorous card.

I was nervous about giving her a humorous card because I know some women can be sensitive about their age, so I added "Hello Sweetie" on top so she would know it was all in love.

The vintage images are from Crafty Secrets.  I stamped them on separate paper, colored, cut them out and popped them up on dimensionals.

The tea cup printed ribbon was from my stash;  purchased at a craft store years ago.

I added a piece of hemp to make the tea bag more realistic and interesting.

This is the first card I've made in a long time where I didn't copy someone else's design, but I'm embarrassed to say how long it took me to make it.  It's so much quicker and easier just to case someone else's card.  I struggled so long with the layout of this card.  Initially I did try to use someone else's layout, but it wasn't working with my images.  I find that small images are the hardest to make cards with.

I also gave my friend a gag gift.  I was sharing a story with my hair dresser that my friend came over to my home recently and was freaked out by my cat.  It seemed the more my friend was freaked out, the more my cat freaked out.  She really is not a cat person.  We cat lovers are a special breed of people.  We know how to handle cats because we understand them.  I find that people that don't like cats, just don't understand them.

When my hairdresser heard the story, she laughed and laughed and said, "Oh, you have to buy her a gag gift!  Get her some kitty socks from Old Navy!  Better yet, say it's "From Jackson".  

I thought it was the cutest idea so I made this tag and attached it to a separate gift:

I cut all the images out with my Cricut Expression machine.  I hand drew some details onto the cat cut out so it would look more like Jackson.

I used a stamp for the "Happy Birthday" sentiment and then hand wrote "from Jackson" on the tag.  The butterfly was stamped onto a separate piece of card stock, colored, cut out, and then glued onto the tag.

And these are the cute slipper socks I gave my friend.  They look just like Jackson don't they?

Old Navy Chenille Cozy Socks


And if you're wondering who the trouble maker was that scared my friend to death, here is the old meanie cuddling with mommy in bed as she watches TV.  He just looks so vicious doesn't he? 😊

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

A Fall Birthday Card For An Old Friend

 One of my dearest and oldest friends had a birthday in October and this is the card I made for her.  I thought the Crafty Secrets "Seasons of Friendship" stamp was the perfect image to use because of her fall birthday and the images celebrate friendship.

These images are a challenge to color because they are so tiny and so detailed.  It's very difficult not to have the Copic Markers bleed a bit when the images are so small.  I think next time I use this set I will try pencils.

I colored the females dress in purple because that is my friend's favorite color.  And when I gave her the card, she noticed the purple dress right away too!

I stamped the sentiment from the set separately, and hand cut it out.  I put "Golden Rod" Stickles on all the leaves in the image and on her dress.  I also added some corner brads for more embellishment.

The fall paper is from DCWV "The Pumpkin Patch" and "Indian Summer".

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

Ashley and Jason's Anniversary Card

My daughter and her husband celebrated their sixth anniversary a little while ago and this was the card that I made for them.

I cased Michelle's card HERE, and just changed paper and dies with what I had on hand.

The image is from the "Home Sweet Home" set.  I cut all the shapes with Spellbinder's Nestabilities.  I put Stickles on all the flower centers.  The bow was made with floss and I added a Prima Flower in the center.

The sentiment was stamped on a tag cut with a Martha Stewart punch.  I used dimensionals to raise the image up from the card base.  Brads were used to adhere the die cut to the flower designer paper.  The designer paper is old, from my stash, so I don't remember the name.  Sorry.

And here are a few pictures taken of our lovebirds from our last camping trip.

I'm very, very behind on my travel posts due to all the computer issues I've had this past month.  I'm still not done blogging about our May road trip...there's weeks left of posts to do on that adventure.  And when I finally finish that travel series, I can then move on to our camping trip we took in July.

In the meantime, here are a few highlights of Ashley and Jason on that trip!

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!
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