Med School Congrats

My nephew just started med school, so this card was sent to him.  We are all so very proud of him.

Have a great day!

Inlaid Butterflies

Today's card is simple, but I really liked the way it came out.  And it's already in the mail to a good friend's mother and should brighten her day.

I simply cut the die (DoCrafts Wildflower Beauty) four times, first out of black cardstock then out of three different color paper from an old 6x6 Recollections paper pad (Michaels).  I just inlaid all the colored pieces back into the black frame.  It did take a bit of time, but was easy to do.  I then layered it over a stitched rectangle and vellum and onto a grey card.

Thanks for visiting!

A Dress Die? No Way!

Many online papercraft supply companies will sometimes send a "freebie" along with your order.  Sometimes this is something cool and useful, sometimes not so much.  My friend Jan recently received this dress die as a "freebie".

We got a real chuckle because it seemed like such a strange die.  We just couldn't imagine that many people felt the need to purchase this - maybe that's why it was a "freebie".  But I do love a good challenge when it comes to card making, so I thought I'd try to use it in non-conventional ways.  I was able to make two cards.

For this first card I cut several "dresses" from two different yellow colored cardstock, inked the edges just a bit with distress inks and combined with some leaves and a brown scribble diecut to create a big flower.

For my second card I diecut the dress from both black and a multi colored glittery cardstock, layered together and tied with black twine around the middle to create a couple of butterflies.

For both cards I layered my "faux-dress" elements over patterned paper and added a hello diecut from Impression Obsessions.  Maybe they're not my favorite cards ever, but I DID meet the challenge to use this die in a very different way.

Thanks so much for visiting!

Crafters for a Cause and My Favorite Things Summer School

Several weeks ago two of my cardmaking friends and I each purchased a box of goodies from "Crafters for a Cause".  This was a hurricane relief fund raiser through Simon Says Stamp.  For making a $50 donation, you received a box of goodies valued at $100, and your entire donation went to hurricane relief.  Living here in Florida hurricanes are a big part of our life.  Last year we dealt with evacuating and power outages that lasted nearly a week.  So, this seemed like such a great idea.

My friends and I get together about once a month and have started participating in our own "challenges".  One of us comes up with a challenge, and we each need to make a card putting our own spin on that particular idea.

Earlier this summer My Favorite Things Stamps had what they called "summer school".  This was an online explanation of 5 different card design concepts and a call for participants to make cards using these concepts and post them online.  The 5 concepts were white space, repetition, symmetry, primary colors and complimentary colors.

We were too late to participate in "summer school", but my friends and I decided to combine these concepts with our challenge and our Crafters for a Cause boxes.  So, our challenge was to make 5 cards using these concepts but each one also had to use something from our boxes.  This turned out to be harder than we first thought.  Some of our boxes were WAY better than others.  Dee was lucky, her box was the best.  Poor Jan, her box was definitely the least desirable.  Mine, was sort of in between.  But, we did have a lot of fun, and each made a donation for hurricane relief.

Here are the cards we made.  I'm sorry the picture quality isn't good.

First up, Dee's cards.

And here are Jan's cards.

And here's mine.  Of course I had to sneak a few pugs onto my cards.  I actually made 6 of each of the pug cards because they will be sold at Pugsgiving (in the fall) to raise money for Pug Rescue of Florida.

Now, lets just hope for a very quiet remainder of the hurricane season.

Thanks for visiting today!