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! :)

The invites are out. All 66 of them have been mailed! Yes, that meant that I needed to make 16 more than my original 50! AHHH! 

I'm starting to get compliments on the invites though. Both sets of parents thought that they were very nice. Others were excited that they had gotten one and I got to tell my story of how they were all assembled.

In other news, I'll be heading to Iowa a week from Friday. I'm actually kinda excited. Three of us, including me, in my family have birthdays in the beginning of May. My cousin turns 40 so there's a big party for her. I'm also having my bridal shower on May 9th! I heard from my Maid of Honor that a few more guests have decided to make the trip (no one is local to the Quad Cities, but it was the most central location). I'm excited to see some of my friends that I haven't seen in a while, as well as my family. Plus, hopefully Hannah will get to come back with me to California. I've missed my kitty.

Well, off to make a birthday card or two. Have a few birthdays in April that I need to attend to. Will post the results later!

Invites - round 1 have been sent off! They came in at exactly 1 oz so they only required 42 cents! I had hoped that they would, but also figured that I was too committed to my design to change much about it at this point. Little worried about the knot from the ribbon bow, but the post office checked that too and they passed. They actually have pretty 42 cent wedding stamps. They are green and silver stamps with a silver heart and green background. They went quite well with my printed addresses in green ink.

Round 2 will hopefully get done this week as well. I started with 50 invites created but I need a few more as we're just going to go ahead and invite everyone possible (equalling about 120) and know that already some invites will come back with "no," leaving at about the right number. Most of those that are left are the local California crowd, who needs them quickly if they want to make plans for Montana, but will get their invites pretty quickly since they are mailed from here.

I'm armed with my supplies, so I should get cracking! (Not like the cracked tree in our backyard, but you know what I mean. ;) )

Okay, I really need to keep updating this. I'll update now with more about my invites as that's where most of my craftiness has gone to lately. I finally have them all assembled! Well, okay, no ribbons on most of them yet, but I will put that embellishment on there when I send them out.

Just waiting for Steve's family's addresses and then I can start the addressing and sending! Hopefully will have them out by the middle of the month. A little early, but guests need to know they are invited and where to stay. Yes, I should have done Save-The-Dates, but we still didn't know who all would be invited then either. 

So here's a pile of 50 invites! I'll probably need to make a few more, but this is a good start. I plan to put step-by-step instructions to what I did soon.