Christmas...in May???

Wanted to share my latest project, and no, it's actually not cards! My boyfriend convinced me to finally get back to scrapbooking projects this weekend. He's more interested in me getting to the Hawaii trip book, but I needed to finish these last outstanding Christmas pages before starting that. These mark the last of my 2006-2008 scrapbook. In January 2006 I started my new job in Peoria and I spent 3 years there. A lot has happened in those three years! It all started with a whirlwind trip to Europe, many trips to wherever Steve happened to be, events with the Peoria crew, and finally this past Christmas in Clinton.

The first page is all about Hannah. She was an elf, an angel and a Mrs. KittyClaus. She just loved these costumes, as you can definitely tell by the angel picture. (haha) I love the felt letters that I used for this page. These are from Making Memories. They come in both red and green and I think black, although I haven't bought the black ones. I might for future pages though. :)

The second page is from opening presents on Christmas Day. I had bought a little premade layout from my faithful Peoria scrapbook store Scrap-a-doodle that consisted of a snow type layout. Well, we weren't lucky enough to have enough snow for any real snow pictures in 2008 and I mostly wanted the set for the little holly page. What was good about the set was that it had the picture spots made up like little packages so I thought I would try that out. Seemed fitting for the subject and I think it turned out great! Hope you agree!

The last page is from making cookie-press cookies with my dad. I wasn't all that inspired with the page at first but now I think it turned out really well. Steve had the idea to make little cookies as the embellishments so we worked together to make a main cookie for the title much like the ones he is doing with the cookie press in the picture. Then I added in Christmas tree cookies with sprinkles and then dogs with sprinkles. Dogs? Yes, for anyone that has ever used a cookie press, the stencils available include dogs and even camels. I remember as a kid always having to make Christmas dogs and camels...it was just a thing we did. :)

Thank You Cards, Round 3

And yet, there's more! Here's some effort from the past two days. I think this finishes off the ones I needed for my shower. Now I'm in a card-making mood, so I might do some more to stockpile for the actual wedding presents. Enjoy these for now...

So for card 1 I decided that I would try black as an accent color. I saw many card makers use black to outline the main design and I have to admit that it does seem to give it a

 more polished look. You might see me doing this a bit more in the future. I finished off this card by corresponding the striped paper with my flower doo-dads. Gotta love my flowers!

Card 2 is where I used a search of "handmade card" in Google and saw a similar patterned paper with a flower on it at an angle. I added ribbon to the top and the bottom since it matched the light blue/slightly darker blue theme. The big pink flower was just by chance. I thought the bright pink was a nice contrast. I realize this card will probably need extra postage to be sent, but I couldn't find a flower that I liked better, so this is how it was decided.

Green was what I started with for Card 3. I hadn't done such a bright green before and it was pretty intimidating. Luckily I found some patterned paper that had the same green in it and introduced some pink, which I have plenty of that color to work with. The final result came out pretty well I think. 

Card 4 shows what you can do with snipping off only the more interesting parts of a piece of patterned paper. The complete piece has a section of pink in somewhat of a similar pattern for about 3/4 of the page and then has a poem verse on top of some of the pink. The area that I really liked was this brown pattern, so I simply kept only that to work with. I also have these metal ribbon slider flowers that I like to use when the moment comes up and I felt the theme of this card was justified. Finishing the card off with a sentiment already printed on my ribbon, the card became complete.

Finally, card 5 is one where I got to use two new designs in the big stack of paper I bought at JoAnn's yesterday. I really didn't need more patterned paper, but since I have been in such a card mood lately, I just couldn't help myself. My trusty Target dollar bin ribbon purchases furnished the ribbon used on this card and I added a stamped sentiment with a stamp I purchased on that same JoAnn's run. They had a complete set of stamps, an ink pad and an acrylic block on clearance for under $5. (Nevermind that I got like 4 of these types of sets! Hee hee)

So there you have it. Hope you enjoyed! Until next time...

Thank You Cards, Round 2

Here's your second installment of thank you cards by yours truly. Enjoy!

I'm finding that using my flower patterned papers is working quite well for this thank you card project. It also offers me the ability to use my little flower do-dads. Personally, I like the first card, but probably because I'm partial to the letters that I used for it. :)

Let the parade of thank you cards begin! Here is the first in I'm guessing many installments of thank you cards that I'll be making for my friends and family from my shower that was held May 9th. As you can see from the date of this post I'm slightly behind on getting these out the door, but I'm hoping to get them in the mail tomorrow and then start on another batch. 

I'm also finding myself a glutton for punishment cause I'm even thinking "well, let's try some new techniques." Don't know if it is wise when so many need to get made, but I did at least try a few new things, which my roommate Stephanie says is good because then I'll "have more techniques to use when [I] return to scrapbooking." Which speaking of scrapbooking, I plan to do that again someday...but for now this blog will be about cards. (Believe me when I say I've got plenty of scrapping to do too...I'm still on Christmas 2008.)

Anyway, back to the cards....enjoy!

It is my goal with these cards to finally use some of the printed paper that I never use for scrapping. I seem to enjoy buying flower paper when I'm at scrapbook stores, and now have quite a collection. So here's a piece of paper that has mocked me for quite a few scrapping sessions. Now I've finally used it. I added a little layered flower from a package of goodies I got long ago and the lettering is some stamps from Hobby Lobby I got on the clearance aisle (yay!). The inside of this card has "much" stamped in it with the same stamps as the "thx." I thought it was a cute touch. :)

Keeping with the same patterned paper, I chose a different color to accent with the yellow for card 2. I liked how the flower looked on card 1 so another one was used for this card. I tried some different letters this time, using my gold-glittery ones (from a scrapbook page about the Hollywood Walk of Fame a while back) and actually spelled it all out this time.

Card #3 is something completely different: 

color scheme, tactics, etc. all changed for this one. I found this fun blue patterned paper in my pile randomly and thought it was too cute not to use for something. This one hadn't been mocking me, but it was calling out for me to use it. :) I then tried my hand at actually embossing something for someone. I had gotten all excited about embossing when I was planning out my wedding invites, but I'm SO glad that I was smart enough to realize making pocketfolds was enough. So I have the stuff to emboss but I hadn't done it much...so here's my first attempt in a while. I think it came out alright even though you can see the pink stamp ink slightly under the blue (note: get more ink!). I then made it into window panes like my friend Belinda had done in one of her cards recently. I like it! And then finished it off with my trademark ribbon bows.

Finally, a little simple card with my usual paper layering and ribbon bow. I thought the pattern on the paper for this card spoke enough cuteness on it's own so I kept it simple. My fiance actually liked this one the best of the four, so I think it passes the test for a card I can send out. :)

Until next time....

I'm sitting in the airport right now with my cat Hannah in Moline, Illinois. The bridal shower went great with my two bridesmaids putting on a great evening this weekend. I had been looking forward to it all week while I was home in Clinton. 

Friends from Cincinnati, Ames, Madison, Rochester (Minnesota), and Peoria came for the fun. I really appreciate the fact that they took the time to come to the Quad Cities (about the most centralized location we could muster up) for my shower. It was a lingerie shower and I got some interesting presents! :) 

Finally, I got one really special present from everyone together. They all made scrapbook pages of the pictures of myself or myself and Steve and things we had done with them. It was great! I plan to treasure that book forever! I am blessed to have such great friends and I can't wait to see them again in July!

So here's the result from my recent card-making adventures. I tried something different this time due to the need to make a few of these at once. The end of April and the beginning of May are a time where there are many birthdays for both family and friends. I found that I liked this printed paper and once I finished the pink card, I decided that I would keep to it and use it for the next, and then the next. I did different accents with the letters and the background cardstock. I kept the print and the ribbon (from the $1 bins at Target...gotta love those $1 bins) the same for the three cards.

As my scrapbooking friends would point out, I'm an addicted to alphabets, so this was a perfect opportunity to use some of them! :)