Our Favorite Greeter, Snoopy

It's hard for me to imagine why I stood for so long in the aisle at Hobby Lobby trying to decide if I'd use this stamp four dollars and sixty cents' worth. I most certainly have.

Snoopy is a welcome sight for so many occasions. Today, he stars in a birthday card for my father-in-law who will turn 89 tomorrow. Instead of his letter, he comes bearing a birthday cake.

My card is based on this fun sketch over at Mojo Monday this week:

Thanks for such a fun sketch, Julee. If you haven't tried Mojo Monday, hop on over there and give it a go. Great inspiration to be found!

My First Tuesday Trigger

One of the blogs I look forward to reading every day is Moxie Fab World. This blog has many features I enjoy, but one regular feature is the Tuesday Trigger. On Tuesdays, blogger Cath Edvalson supplies a picture to be used as inspiration in a papercrafting project. While I often mull over ideas in my head, I never seem to get anything made. This week, I have finally, actually, created a project based on the current Tuesday Trigger, Type Hype. As soon as I saw this picture,

I knew it was the perfect inspiration for a birthday card for a friend who just finished her first novel. The color combo is fun and funky, and who can resist a vintage typewriter?

I launched right in and created this card:

Pretty cute, huh? I like it, but in my efforts to better my design skills, I knew I could improve it. I felt that the color panels seemed a little heavy, so I had the idea to lighten it up by using a dotted background with a vellum overlay. I punched a zillion little circles, and here is my second attempt:

Again, I was pleased. I liked the look of the dots (reminiscent of the typewriter keys) and the vellum (remember when typing paper was really thin?). I felt that printing the typewriter on blue cardstock added balance, and when I realized how much black seam binding looked like a typewriter ribbon, I was just giddy.  A couple of things were bothering me, though. One was that the dots were a little uneven (I had eye-balled their placement), and the other was that I had decided my text should read "deserve" in place of "have." Hence, card version three:

It's very similar to card two, but this time, I made a little template in MSWord for gluing my dots in place. It is a series of circles (aligned, distributed, grouped), printed in light gray. I made the change in the wording, and I found a typewriter image that was a little more modern, more in line with the trigger typewriter. 

Inside, in a typed font, it reads, "Wishing you a letter-perfect day." I can't wait to get it in the mail to my friend for her birthday in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the inspiration, Cath, and thanks for looking!

Birthdays . . . and working on my style

Recently, I've been trying to hone my design style. One technique I'm trying is copying cards I admire. This card that I made for my nephew's birthday is a copied card. I saw it in PaperCrafts Magazine. I think the circles on the original card were cardstock, but I made mine from tissue paper and chose a color scheme to suit my nephew.

When the time came to make cards for two sweet friends whose birthdays are a day apart, I decided to try the banners I'm admiring everywhere:

This next card is based on a design I saw in PaperCrafts Magazine, but I had to change several things in order to get it as masculine as I wanted it. Aside from studying good design, I've also been studying my cards when I don't like them and trying to discern why. My first attempt at this card looked like this:

Sad, pale card

While I was still excited about my idea to use real cassette tape as ribbon, this card lacked pizzazz and the cassette seemed to get lost on the card. Also, I felt the color combination was just too stark, even for a masculine card. I reworked the card and came up with this version:

Now this is a card I'm proud of. I like its warm festive color scheme and its crazy cassette tape bow. The sentiment seems to point me straight to the party. Sending the orange piece through the crimper for texture and off-setting the elements for interest really changed the attitude of this card--and changed my attitude about the card. I'm sure there are other improvements that could be made, but I am encouraged that I am learning to improve my designs. 

Thanks for looking!

Anniversaries Abound!

July is anniversary month around here. My husband and I celebrated 17 blissful years, my sister-in-law and her husband marked 46, and my in-laws commemorated a remarkable 67 years! Of course, there were cards for the occasion.

For my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, a simple fun "Happy Anniversary" wish:

Lucky for me, in many ways, my sis-in-law is a card maker too, so she sent this pretty card to us:

For my in-laws, a card based on Mojo Monday 249, but unfortunately not photographed in time to post there: 

In addition to the immediate family anniversaries, my mom was invited to a 50th anniversary party for some dear life-long friends. I made two cards for her to choose from. Guess which one she chose . . . 

Of course, this anniversary post would not be complete without the card I made for my sweetie and the card he chose for me. It's not easy to choose cards for someone who makes cards, but he always does a wonderful job. Usually, he chooses something that inspires me. But then, he inspires me, so that shouldn't come as a surprise. Look at all that glitter! I LOVE glitter. A man who will risk being covered in glitter . . . now that's true love.

Inside, it says "Happily Ever After." Yep, he's a keeper. And my card for him, inspired by a card I saw in PaperCrafts Magazine: 

Because he will ALWAYS be the one!

Some Recent Baby Cards

I love to paper piece. I had so much fun stamping these tiny onesies on various colors and patterns of paper and fussy-cutting each and every one. Almost makes you forget that with onesies come spit-up and sleepless nights :) But we don't want to talk about that at a shower, now do we?

After all that cutting, I decided to keep this "baby girl" card simple. Just some patterned paper, a heat-embossed image, two layers of ribbon, and one little shimmer of bling come together for a sweet little card. 

Thanks for looking!