Double Slider Card

What a beautiful day it was yesterday! So warm and sunny!  My hubby and I got to enjoy the outdoors by taking a hike at a recreational park just outside of town. We hiked around a beautiful lake, taking pictures at the lookout point and walking down to the water. Our dog, Keta, especially enjoyed it and was wiped by the time we got home! 

I had a couple requests to make Mother's Day cards this past week and wanted to try a different fold. This one is called the 'Double Slider'. I love it! Once put together, it really is a mystery to the person who receives it - these are the best kind of cards! 

Just pull the tab and both ends slide out! 

Here's a softer colour combo using the same pattern and stamps as the one above:

Cool, right?

Thanks for stopping by! 

Happy Mother's Day!

It's been a great weekend so far! Last night especially was a highlight. I enjoyed a great date night with my hubby. We went to see Iron Man 3 -- it was awesome! Such a great end to the series... or is it the end?? We then finished with an evening stroll around the neighbourhood. Love how peaceful it is at night!

Today, I think of my wonderful Mom on Mother's Day. She is such a blessing in my life! I miss her so so much! Wish I could be back home celebrating this day with her. Love you, Mom!

 

 

Also, a very Happy Mother's Day to my Mother-in-law! She has also been such a blessing in our lives!

 

This year I made a fun-folded card for both my Mom and Mother-in-law. It's called the Z-fold. Super easy to make, but takes some time to decorate. I just LOVE this fold! I used monochromatic colours for both cards and added designer paper, stamped flowers, leaves, and rhinestones to embellish them. Here are a few pictures:

 

I thought I would enter one of these cards in the Pink Elephant challenge. They have a Mother's Day Theme challenge this week.

 

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog today :)  Wishing all the Mom's out there a wonderful day!

A Framelit Easel Card - Celebrating Mom

What a wonderful weekend it is so far! The weather was glorious yesterday!  I got my first suntan of the year :) After doing a bit of shopping and running errands, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a nice long walk with our dog, Keta. I then soaked up the sun while browsing through the new Stampin Up annual catalogue. It was a perfect Saturday afternoon!

I am playing along with two challenges today: Stampin Royalty's challenge is "Celebrating Mom" and the Paper Players has a Mother's Day theme as well.

I wanted to try a framelit easel card for these challenges and found a great video on youtube with simple instructions -- check it out here!
 

The base of the card was super easy to make! I decided to keep it fairly simple. The flower from "Blooming with Kindess" is so pretty on its own! However, I decided to add small butterflies and a rhinestone in the middle of the flower to embellish the card front. I stamped the sentiment "happy mother's day" and cut it into a flag shape. A Rich Razzleberry button acts as the 'stopper' to keep the card front upright. Here's a side view of the card:

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy your Sunday. Hope it's sunny and warm where you are!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Blooming with Kindness, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White
Ink: Rich Razzleberry
Tools: Label Framelits, Beautiful Wings Embosslit die
Accessories: Rich Razzleberry button, White bakers twine, Rhinestone (Michael's)

Inspired By... a Shower Curtain!

I didn't get home till about 8PM last night. I had quite a few errands to run and wanted to stop at the mall. With it starting to feel like spring, I wanted to spice up my wardrobe a little with some new spring clothes (not that I need more clothes...). I ended up finding a couple of nice shirts from Dynamite. I find it's usually hit or miss at that store, and this time it was a hit! I don't have any greens in my collection, so I thought these would be a great addition!Here's a pic of my recent purchases. (I bought the shorts at Winners - love them!).

Now onto a new inspirational photo challenge!

It was my choice this week and after much thought and looking for inspiration around my own apartment, I took a photo of our shower curtain. How can a shower curtain be an inspiration to cardmaking, you might wonder...

IB #14

 



I love the flowers and colours on this shower curtain! I think it makes a great inspirational photo. I was inspired to make this beautiful Mother's Day card:

 

 

See how you can be inspired by items you see everyday?? I used a great sketch from Deconstructed Sketch as a guide. At first glance, I wasn't too sure about parts of this sketch. So I revamped it a little and left out parts of it. I still think my card resembles the sketch quite well!

 

 

The flowers were stamped in Midnight Muse (my new favourite blue!) and I sponged the edges of the oval shape with Baja Breeze ink. The Crumb Cake piece of cardstock is distressed on the edges with a distressing tool. I added bakers twine and pearls to embellish the card.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by! Make sure to visit Karly's Creations to see how this photo inspired her!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Upsy Daisy, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Subtles DSP, 2012-2013 In-Colour DSP

Ink: Midnight Muse, Baja Breeze

Tools: Ovals nestabilities

Accessories: Pearls, Bakers Twine







Mother's Day Geraniums

Before I show you my card today, I want to introduce you to my sister's blog -- An Adventure Called Teaching. It's her first year of teaching and she writes about her experiences as a Grade 2 teacher and an Art teacher. She has lots of creative ideas and makes an excellent teacher, in my opinion :) Check out her latest post on dinosaurs!  

I am entering the Try Stampin' On Tuesday sketch challenge today. Here's the sketch:

It has some great layers! I decided to make another Mother's Day card. Remember seeing those geraniums before? A few weeks ago, I made a housewarming card with a pot of geraniums (click here to see the original post). I've been meaning to put them on a Mother's Day card and thought this sketch would be perfect. Here's my card:

 

I embossed a stitched design on the card front, added layers of designer paper and cardstock and made the pot of geraniums as the central focus. The flower pot is cut free hand, the leaves are from the Bird Builder punch, and the geraniums are created using one of the itty bitty punches. Even though it's got some layers, I think it is a nice clean and simple card.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Early Espresso, Crumb Cake, Old Olive, Whisper White, Real Red, Cherry Cobbler, Birds of a Feather DSP

Ink: Early Espresso

Tools: Needlepoint Embossing Folder, Bird Builder Punch, Itty Bitty punch



Three Challenges in One

It's been difficult for me to get motivated lately to create papercrafts for the upcoming craft fair. I didn't get quite as many items made on the weekend as I wanted to, but with my hubby gone this week, it gives me lots of time to get caught up. Last night was a good start. I completed two more mini albums and two mother's day cards. I also snuck in a phone call with my hubby, a skype call with my sister, and a phone call with my Mom. It was a good night!

Today's design was created using three different card challenges. Karly and I were brainstorming at work yesterday afternoon which inspired me to create this card:

 

I used a great sketch from Mojo Monday for the layout, a colour combo from Dynamic Duos and a theme from The Pink Elephant.

 

 

 

Our challenge theme this week is to:

"Use 3 Decorative Papers & Your Favorite Embellishment"

 



This sketch was great to work with. And I love that we could choose our own colour to go with Primrose Petals. I chose So Saffron. I think it's a nice pastel contrast against the bright pink. The biggest challenge for me was to use 3 different decorative papers in one card. But, I think I managed to make it work and have it not look too 'busy'. I used neutral colours for the card base and the card front so that the two colours 'popped'. The Primrose Petals cardstock is embossed with the Elegant Bouquet embossing folder. I like adding a little 'bling' to my cards, so I used pearls as embellishments.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Primrose Petals, Very Vanilla, More Amore DSP, Floral District DSP, Subtles DSP

Ink: Early Espresso

Tools: Large Oval punch, Scallop Oval punch, Circles nestabilities, Scallop Circles nestabilities, Elegant Bouqet embossing folder

Accessories: Pearls (Michael's)

Mojo Monday #284 & Paper Players #136

Yesterday was another productive day at work (I'm on a roll!)... let's see if I can keep this motivation going all week. I'll keep you posted. :)

Last night I went to another one of Cass' fabulous card classes. Cass is my upline with Stampin Up. Even though I am technically a demonstrator, I don't have the time or space to hold my own classes so I attend her classes :) I love it. Not only do we make beautiful cards, it's also a time of laughter and good times with the ladies. Here's what we created:

 

Aren't these cards gorgeous?! Cass did a wonderful job designing these. (The image in the back is a bit blurry.. it's a large tag with a handmade pouch - so adorable!)

 

 

For today's card, I decided to play along with Mojo Monday and Paper Players. It's another great Mojo sketch and Paper Players has a nice spring colour combo this week!

 

 

To be honest, I really struggled with this challenge! I didn't know how to incorporate all four colours in this Mojo sketch. So, I can't say it's one of my favourite cards, but it turned out pretty good I think!

 



I used Early Espresso for the card base and for one of the layers. The background is Regal Rose designer paper (I originally had Lucky Limeade designer paper, but thought there was too much green, so I changed it :)). I punched out the bird from the Bird Builder punch and popped up the wing. I embossed the white piece of cardstock with the Elegant Lines embossing folder and lightly sponged it with Regal Rose ink to make the embossed lines stand out a bit more. As if that pink wasn't enough, I coloured the three rhinestones with a pink sharpie :)

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 



Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Early Espresso, Regal Rose, Whisper White, Lucky Limeade, Pool Party, Brights DSP

Ink: Regal Rose

Tools: 2-3/8" Scallop Circle punch, Circles nestabilities, Bird Builder punch, Scallop Border punch, Word Window punch, Elegant Lines embossing folder

Accessories: Pool Party ruffled ribbon, Rhinestones (Michael's)

Inspired By... a Tulip Field!

Oh how I love weekends! Had a great 9 hr sleep :) Last night I enjoyed a dinner out at Earl's with my hubby. I had Chicken and Field Mushroom Fettucini and Kevin had Dungeness Crab and Asparagus Linguini. They were both delicious! I actually finished my plate! Usually I take home a 'doggy bag', but it was just too yummy :) We went over our trip plans together and we're getting more and more excited about it. It's only 3 months away! I have a feeling it's going to fly by!

Today is supposed to be a gorgeous day! We're expecting a bit warmer weather and sunshine! Hoping to go for a walk later today.

Now for a new challenge....

It was my pick this week and I chose a beautiful photo of tulip fields. This picture was taken by my brother when he was in Holland a number of years ago. I had the opportunity to go to Holland when I was 15 with my parents and my younger sister. It was a fun experience! We didn't get to tour around too much because we had so many relatives to visit, but we still got to see the typical Dutch windmills and cobblestone streets. I would love to go back there again someday, especially when the tulips are blooming!

IB #8

I knew exactly how I was going to incorporate these tulips into my card. I picked an older sketch from Sweet Sunday Sketches and chose the colours that I saw in the photo: Tangerine Tango, Rich Razzleberry and Daffodil Delight. What a fantastic colour combo! Here's what I came up with:

 

I love how it turned out! I created tulips using punch art. The tulip flower is made from three punched-out wings from the Bird Builder punch. They are the perfect shape for a tulip! I free-hand cut the stems and the leaves are also from the Bird Builder punch. A strip of Tangerine Tango designer paper from the Summer Smooches collection covers the bottom half of the card.  I added some detail by creating a scalloped edge border with an embossed stitch design.

 



 

Thanks for stopping by! Make sure to visit Karly's Creations to see how this photo inspired her!

Just a reminder....

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Rich Razzleberry, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White, Summer Smooches DSP
Ink: Rich Razzleberry
Tools: Bird Builder punch, 1-1/4" Circle punch, Modern Label punch, Word Window punch, Scallop Border punch, Needlepoint Border Embossing Folder

Freshly Made Sketches #75

Yesterday was PJ day for me :) Stayed in my PJ's till about 3:30PM, believe it or not! In all that time I did some laundry, house cleaning, skype calling, papercraft organizing and more trip planning. I pretty much completed our road trip itinerary. Still need to do some tweeking, but managed to include most of the top sites we want to see! A few things I'm super excited about -- swimming with dolphins, snorkeling at La Jolla Cove and sun bathing on the California beaches!

One of the highlights to my day was receiving an email from my hubby! He's safe and sound on the boat in QCI! It was so good to hear from him. I miss him so much!

Another highlight -- a fun skype call with my Mom and sister, Esther. Wish I could be there to hang out with them...

Today's card was based on the Freshly Made Sketches challenge this week:

 

At first glance, I thought this was too clean and simple for my taste. But then I brainstormed what I could use for the big open space. I was inspired by Jennifer Brum's card and thought of the poppies paper from the Floral District collection. I added some pleated ribbon and the sentiment "happy mother's day" and this is how it turned out:

 



While Mother's Day is still a couple months away, I thought I'd get a good head start on some cards for my Etsy Shop. I added dimension to some of the flowers by punching out circles from the same paper and popping them up with dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

 

Stamps: Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Floral District DSP

Ink: Tangerine Tango

Tools: 1-3/8" Circle punch

Accessories: Pleated Lucky Limeade Ribbon