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!

Happy Graduation!

What a hot weekend in GA for high school graduations! As happy an occasion as it is, I sure was glad I wasn't out in a football stadium in 95 degree heat. I made a few graduation cards that I wanted to post here for documentation purposes. What amazes me is that I used to ride the bus 8 miles to my high school, and now there are about six high schools within a 10 mile radius of each other in our county. These cards represent three kids who live close enough to attend the same church and yet go to three different high schools. It's a different world these kids are entering, in more ways than one. I pray God's blessing on each one.

For a Special Lady on Her Special Day

The older I get the more I realize how fortunate I am to have been raised in one place. When I say one place, I mean I came home from the hospital to the house where my daddy recently breathed his last breath, to the house where my mama misses him and carries on with life in her vibrant way. Growing up, our road was populated by family—grandparents, aunts & uncles, lots of cousins—and little has changed. And there were neighbors. Good neighbors you could count on. One such neighbor is celebrating a birthday this week and I am thrilled to have created a card just for her. This lady is a neighbor but she has been there for so long and has been so good to us that it is more natural to think of her as family. As a matter of fact, when my daughter was small, she began calling her "Aunt Shirley." She has been such a wonderful friend to my mother since my dad's passing. She has a special gift for thoughtfulness and generosity. You cannot out give her, however you may try. It is my prayer that on her special day she will be blessed by the only One who can truly repay her generosity. Happy Birthday, Shirley.

In creating this card, I was excited to find such a fun sketch today at Mojo Monday. Immediately, I realized the butterfly image I'd chosen would work well with this layout. It's hard to see in my photo, but I have used a natural fiber paper filled with dried leaves and flowers. There were obvious purple and yellow fibers in the paper which led me to choose those colors, but I was completely surprised by that orange ribbon. As I brought out bits from my ribbon scrap bin and held them against the card elements, an orange fiber in the background paper practically reached out and grabbed that orange ribbon. My daughter contributed the tiny formed flowers. She made them using the technique I referenced in my Mother's Day post. The color scheme is a little stretch for me, but I find it was cheery. I hope Aunt Shirley will, too. Thanks for taking a look. 

Mojo 241 Sketch

My take on Mojo 241

Happy Mother's Day

I had great fun creating cards for the two mothers in my life.

First, there is my husband's mother. You've got to love a woman who raises a gentleman. My husband is a true gentleman, and I am certain it is because he was raised by a true southern lady. She is well into her eighties, so we count it a blessing that she is here for us to celebrate. She loves a good Snoopy card, so I've called upon that happy little fellow to deliver our heartfelt greeting: "Happy Mother's Day to the sweetest mother in the world."

I stamped the image with Staz-On black ink and watercolored the background and letter. I then stamped the image again on white paper, fussy cut it, and adhered it over the one on the background. I finished the card with some ribbon, a computer-generated sentiment, and a die-cut lacy circle frame (Spellbinders) which I popped up over the image.

The second mother in my life is, of course, the most special to me—my own mother. It's hard to put into words all that she means to me. All I know is that if I can be half the mother she is, my daughter will turn out just fine. For her card, I've used a beautiful punched flower technique that I just discovered over at Kittie Kraft blog. (That link goes to the tutorial, but you owe it to yourself to look around over there. I'm just in love with her stunning style.) I love how the flowers coordinate with the floral designer paper and pink cardstock that I purchased months ago with Mom in mind. I've tried to capture a few of her strengths in the poem I wrote for the front, "If Ever," and the inside sentiment says it all, "You've taught me everything I know."

I hope they each will feel how very much we love them and be blessed on Mother's Day. 

Catching Up

This blog is supposed to be a record of my card-making, and while my volume of card production of late has been woefully small, my blogging has, sadly, been worse. I'm realizing that I must make more effort to blog about each card as it is created or else I'm going to end up with posts like this, a catch-all. Here are some of my recent cards that made it into the mail (yay!), but not onto this blog (nay!).

Let's start with the somber, shall we. Sympathy cards. I made ten of them to have on hand because, for me, sympathy cards seem to be the most difficult to get out in a timely manner.

Next up, some fun with our furry friends. A Snoopy hello card I made for my husband to send to an underprivileged child and a baby card for my friend's little grand monkey.

A couple of happy cards to celebrate the birthday of a friend's daughter (who happens to also be my dd's friend) and to encourage another friend's daughter during basic training for the Coast Guard.

And then there was Easter . . . 

And last, but certainly not least, my sweet girl's birthday. We're still trying to get used to the idea that we are the parents of a teenager. 

If you stuck it out through all that, thanks for stopping by. Since this is the last week of school for us, I have hope of actually developing better blogging habits over the summer break. But for now, I'm off to make Mother's Day cards! It's next week, you know.