A Thanksgiving Card For A Little Girl

The past couple of weeks I've been showing the fall/Thanksgiving cards I made for my kids.  I showed adult cards the first two weeks, now I'm moving on to the cards I made for my beautiful grandchildren.  This week I have a card I made for a little girl, my granddaughter, Alethea.

My image is an old MFT stamp.  I colored her in with Copic markers using all fall colors.  I made her a blond because Alethea is a blond.  Then I added some pretty leaf crystals because I knew Alethea would like that.

The sentiment was stamped directly on the main image panel then I adhered the panel to an orange card base.

Alethea was so cute when she got her card.  After she opened and looked at it, she immediately knew to put it on top of the bookshelf where it would stay safe but she could still see it.  Mom has her trained well. :)

Have a Great Day!  Amy

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A Handmade Floral Birthday Card For My Daughter

My daughter turned 31 last month.  Can you believe it?  I can't believe I have a daughter in her thirties.  She asked for houseplants in cute pots for her birthday and this is the card I made for her to go with her gift.

This is an old MFT sketch.  Designer paper was cut on on angle to create an envelope look.  I stamped the flowers on separate card stock and cut them out with scissors.  Some of the flowers were popped up on dimensionals and some were just glued directly to the card.

The leaves and sentiment banner were cut with MFT dies.

All the stamps are super old and no longer available, but you could easily re-create this card with just about any floral stamp set and sentiment.

Have a Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

A Handmade Card For A Newborn Baby

I am thrilled today to show you the card I made to welcome my first grandson into the world.  In case you missed it, I shared Atticus' birth story from a grandmother's perspective in yesterday's post.

My daughter decorated Atticus' nursery with some cute animal photos, one of them being an elephant picture, so I decided to use my "Adorable Elephants" set from MFT. to make Atticus' card.   I don't normally buy new stamps anymore, because I have such a huge supply already, and frankly, most new stamps are just remakes of the old ones.  But every now and then a new stamp set pulls at my heart strings and I just have to have it.  This set has the cutest elephant images in it, and I love how versatile it is as well.  The sentiments that come with the set are birthday, thank you, or accomplishment related, but I ended up using it as a baby card by adding a sentiment from another old set.

I stamped the image on a separate piece of card stock and colored it in with Copic markers.  Then I fussy cut it using a pair of scissors.  The stamp set comes with an optional die cut set, but that cost $26.99.  Uh, no thank you.  A pair of scissors works just fine.  Why do those dies have to cost so much?  

I also stamped and fussy cut the butterflies that came with the set.  The white ovals were cut with a Cuttlebug machine and Spellbinders dies.  Everything was adhered to the white ovals.  The elephant I popped up on dimensionals.

I think the sentiment is from an old Stamping' Up set.  I cut a banner tag and leaves with MFT dies, and then adhered the sentiment over those.  I know hardly anyone uses Prima flowers anymore, but I still have a ton left in my stash, so I added that too.  I thought the blue polka dots in the flower went so well with the blue butterflies.

For the background I chose some pretty glitter paper from an old DCWV stack.  Everything was then adhered to a white card stock base.

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

A Floral Tag Anniversary Card

For those of you who like my Bible Journaling pages that I usually share on Tuesday,  it might be awhile before I show any more pages as I have so many cards to post!  Summer time is a busy time for me to make cards as I have five summer babies and two anniversaries.  I already showed you Alethea's Birthday card last week, this week I have Ashley and Jason's Anniversary card to show.

This is a card that looks so simple, but it actually took me about three hours to make.  Isn't that ridiculous?  There's a lot of detail in this card that isn't noticeable right away.  I did get this sketch off the Internet, but for the life of me I can't find it again.  I suppose it doesn't really matter as I used completely different stamps and supplies, so other than the sketch, it doesn't look much like the original at all.

Now, lets get on to why this card took three hours to make.  First, I stamped retired Stampin' Up! "Roses in Winter" in white on the edge of the Kraft card stock.  Then I stamped a retired Stampin' Up! background stamp in clear ink.  I then covered the entire Kraft card stock with Gesso.  Then I sewed the Kraft card stock to the white card base.

Now, to make the tag, I cut it out of vanilla card stock with a Spellbinder's Nestability Tag.  I put a grommet in the tag hole.  I stamped another retired Stampin' Up "French Script" onto the tag.  I wanted a more 'aged' look, so I applied Gesso to the tag, that blurred the words a bit but it still was not 'aged' enough for me.  So then I took a thin coat of white craft paint over that.  a piece of hemp was strung through the grommet and the tag was mounted up on the card with dimensionals.

Finally, I cut the flowers, leaves, and "love" sentiment with more dies.  I wanted the "love" sentiment to pop more so I put in on a small piece of green card stock.  Pearls were added for embellishment.

I was really pleased with how the card turned out, but not pleased at all with how much time it took to make.  Yikes!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

A "Manly" Thank You Card

Do you like the humorous title to my post?  There's a funny story behind it.  We finally got hit with some significant snowfall here in Wisconsin, followed by the Polar Vortex.  Hubby went to work as usual, leaving our very long, long, driveway packed with snow.  Our sweet, 80+ neighbor came and plowed our driveway out in the bitter cold.  It was such a blessing because we don't own a plow and hubby would have had to hand shovel it in -30 temperatures after working a 12 hour day at work plus a one hour commute.  So, my husband bought a gift card to our neighbor's  favorite restaurant and asked me to make a Thank You card for him.  I already had Thank You cards in my stash, but when I showed them to him he rejected them all because they were "too girly".  So back to the craft room I went to create this more "Manly" Thank You Card.

I used my Deer Die set from MFT.  I just love this die!  The deer are so sweet, and I think it works for both feminine and masculine cards.   Because I had limited time, I kept the card very clean and simple by just stamping a foliage image in the corner and adding a sentiment.

For the inside a stamped another sentiment and repeated the same foliage image in the corner.

Isn't this deer just the cutest?  I just love him!  I don't buy a lot of dies as they are very expensive and I own a Circuit machine, but this one I knew I'd get a lot of use out of.  I live in "Hunter's Country".  We have the most and largest bucks in the state here and almost all the men I know hunt, so I knew this die would come in handy.

If you're wondering how I got all the different colors on the leafy image, I stamped onto a Spectrum stamp pad.  Easy peasy!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

A Fall Card For My Lil' Pumpkin

Every Halloween, Valentine's Day, and Easter I send my children and grand baby a box of treats to let them know how much I love them.  In every box is a handmade card for each of them, some edible treats, and sometimes some little gifts like books or DVD's.  I like to personalize the card as much as possible by picking an image or sentiment that reminds me of them.  When I saw this Pure Innocence image, it reminded me so much of Alethea when we met up in the Wisconsin Dells a few weeks ago and she picked up a pumpkin.  I just HAD to use it!

I hand-wrote a sentiment on the card instead of using a sentiment stamp.  I wanted the sentiment to represent what she is to me "My Little Pumpkin" and also to say "Happy Fall" and not "Happy Halloween."

The flower and little pumpkin are images I fussy cut out of designer paper and glued to the main image panel.

The main image is a digital image that I printed onto white card stock.  I then colored it in and fussy cut it.  I popped it up on dimensionals onto the main image panel.

The main image panel is fall designer paper from an old DCWV paper stack pad.  I thought the pumpkin border went perfect with my pumpkin theme.

I adhered the fall designer paper to a beige card base.

And in case you missed my Wisconsin Dells post, here is my Lil' Pumpkin!  I can't wait to see her again.  Thanksgiving can't come fast enough for me!

Have A Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE!

A Thank You Card For A Good Samaritan

I don't know about you, but I don't witness true, unselfishness kindness too often anymore.  I leave my home on average about one day a week, and quite often I am fighting back tears on those days (or downright crying) because of the rudeness of a stranger.  It makes me not want to leave home and just stay home and cuddle my kitty.  But recently, my husband and I experienced the kindness of a stranger and I feel the need to share the story to help outweigh all the bad out there.

My husband and I were invited to a wedding in New York.  The save-the-date and wedding invitation arrived too late for us to make plans so we had to decline.  We then sent one of my handmade cards and a check in the mail.  About a month later we received the check back in the mail from a return address we didn't recognize.  The person included a small handwritten note asking us to return the check to the wedding couple and tell them congratulations.  We had no idea the check was even missing.  It turns out the bride dropped the check in a public place, and a good Samaritan picked it up and mailed it to the address on the check.

I was stunned.  This person could have tried and cashed the check herself.  She could have thrown it away.  She could have walked right past and pretended not to see it.  Instead, she took time out of her busy day to address an envelope, include a nice, thoughtful note, and put in the mail.  She was a good Samaritan.  So I decided to make a card for her to thank her for her kindness.

I used an image from MFT "Adorable Elephants" set to make my card.  I thought the sentiment was perfect for the occasion.

I stamped, colored, and cut out the elephant and balloon images separately, then popped them up on dimensionals onto the card base.

The sentiment is stamped directly onto the white card stock.  The shape of the sentiment made a nice "bench" for the elephant to sit on.

I added clear sequins for embellishment and put the white card stock base onto a black card stock base then adhered the entire thing to a white 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 card.

Have a  Great Day!  Amy

Linking Up with these Fabulous Blogs HERE.