Thank You Cards, Round 6 (Guy Cards)

We are getting almost done, trust me, with these thank you cards. This round I am showcasing guy cards. These are ones that are going to go to some of our single guy friends/family that were at the wedding. I just didn't think they would want all the frills so I kept them simple, but yet still used my fun alphabets that I had on hand. See, I'm an alphabet addict! And I haven't even gotten to start making them on the Quickutz Silhouette yet! Enjoy!

Thank You Cards, Round 5

Here's the latest batch!

Instead of cards using stamps, I seemed to have decided to change to using some of my alphabets. This was kinda done randomly, but it was good cause I was getting into a rut with my stamps. I have all these fun alphabets that I haven't been using for scrapbook pages and so then it makes it fair game for cards I say!

But, even though these alphabets can be fun, I must say it is quite annoying when the set has letters that are commonly next to each other in the SAME color. Hello! When I spell "thanks" I would like at least a little bit more variety! I did find a way around it though, can you spot the letters that were made from other letters? :)

Thank You Cards, Round 4?

So I was first going to call this post Round 1 but then realized that I had already started that with the shower thank you card posts, so I guess this is Round 4. These are thank you cards for wedding presents and those that attended. I'm a little late with the cards, I realize this, but for homemade cards I think people will understand.

The techniques used on these cards seem to stem from my new fascination with stamps. I have always liked alphabets (stickers, metal, thickers, etc.) and recently I have found that my alphabets can go so much further if I use stamps! But now I'm starting to collect stamp sets so that I have about just as many font choices as my others. Eh...I'm just in love with alphabets!

Besides the stamps, I also tried a few new things such as using my flower punch for the pink polka dot card, little bug trails to spell out my sentiment (thanks to the husband for that idea), and created a rosette flower from paper. The last idea there came from my latest issue of Creating Keepsakes that my mom got me a subscription to for my bday. I guess it came in handy! So here's round 4. I'll have more coming, but I promise I won't bore you with all of them...as there will be a lot due to the wedding!

Wedding Recap

So it's been about a month (oh man, I can barely believe that the time has flown so fast) since the wedding, so it's probably due that I give a recap. 

The night before we went to Montana, Steve, Stephanie and I were up til way too late working on the programs. I finally decided that having it perfectly spelled out what we were doing for the ceremony wasn't important, but a part of me still wanted to have the programs so we made programs. It was a simple design really and I got the idea from a picture I saw on theknot.com. No glue, just two eyelets and we were set! I think they turned out well.

Then Steve also helped with making the photo upload cards and we got the favor cards all set for the cookies.

As for the actual wedding itself, I was very happy to see all of these elements that I had put effort in designing and assembling come together. The photobook guestbook turned out great, except for the fact that people didn't quite want to sign all over the book yearbook style but rather more just at the end. At least I got lots of compliments on it! The cookies turned out awesome...we're still finishing some of those here in California (used them as a dessert to our housewarming party just last weekend even). The orchid lights decorated the lodge nicely and I made just enough strings of lights. And finally, the centerpieces were simple yet effective. I love it when things come together!

One of my favorite aspects was our "Marmon Wedding" sign that my now brother in law....wow, I haven't had brothers before..made for us. I love the pictures with them in it. Another good thing that happened at the wedding was that friends and family stepped in to get things done. I never could have done it alone. So for anyone still to do this wedding thing...make sure you use your willing helpers! I had people want to do stuff and we definitely gave them stuff to do! (But I think they enjoyed being a part of it all)

Overall the wedding was a great success. The day went WAY too fast, but there are moments that will stay with me forever and luckily I will have my great scrapbook and pictures to remind me too. Married life is great!

Wedding Table Numbers

In keeping with our orchid theme, the table numbers for the wedding have our little orchid gif and our Museo font both seen with the invites and will be on the programs, menu cards, and escort cards still to be produced. Simple frames from IKEA make the look that I was going for. I'm happy how they turned out.

During the design of these we tried different colors for the orchid or the flowers, but bright pink (our other wedding color) didn't quite look right. Looked good to grabbing attention so people could find the table number, but then kept a person's attention with the glaring pink. All green was a much more subtle choice.

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...