Granddaughter's Graduation Card (how could that be??!!??)

This week my granddaughter, Kendra, graduated from high school.  I can still SO vividly remember the day she was born and holding her in the hospital when she was just hours old.  Where in the world has all of the time gone?

Kendra graduated "young" at 17, but she is ready to conquer the world. I love talking with her about what she wants to do and how excited she is about college.  I hope she will never be TOO busy to stop sharing some of her experiences with me. And now that she has her driver's license, I am hoping with all of my heart that she will be able to drive down here during the summer and spend a week with me at the beach. We would have so much fun!  I can dream........... :)

I wanted her graduation card to be different than the run of the mill graduation cards and I hope I achieved that. I think it is one of my favorite cards for sure!

I love the saying - it is from the Flutterby collection from

Crafter's Companion

I made a rounded mat and centered the butterfly on the mat and cut out just the inside. Then I cut the full butterfly out of incandescent card stock in black to use as an outline when I was done.  I put a piece of  contact paper (double sided adhesive works well too) behind the cut out butterfly and glittered each portion using a straw so I could pick up a small amount of glitter at a time. 

Congratulations, Kendra. I am so proud of you!

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A Special Two Year Old Birthday

My SeaHawk loving neighbors have such a precious grandson.  His name is Merritt and he is about six months younger than my grandson.  He is such an adorable boy and has easily won my heart.  When he comes to visit his grandparents, he goes out on the patio and yells my name - seriously!  There is nothing cuter than hearing this little voice calling "Gigi" as loud as he can.  It's so adorable.

The funny thing is, that when my grandson,Carter, comes to visit, he will go out on my deck and look down and say "Where's John?"    Those two little boys have us all wrapped around their little fingers - and we don't mind in the least!!

Recently, Merritt had his second birthday and his grandma needed a birthday card.  How could I say no??!!??  I was kind of stumped until I remembered a file from Ducky's Designs that I had used many years ago.  (By the way, we have been talking recently and she is slowly redoing all of her files and her website as well.  I am so excited to see what she comes up with so stay tuned!!)  Anyway,  her "Look Who's Turning ___" was perfect for Merritt.

I wanted it to be bright and fun.  He loved it!  (his grandma suggested that I just make all of the numbers and they can just trade the number out each year and keep using the card!!)

I love how the #2 came out - all glittered.  Who says boys can't have a little sparkle in their lives...right??

You can certainly see the sparkling prisms in the number 2!

And I do have a bit of a confession to make. I normally do not go into a lot of detail on the inside of the card. I just don't take the time.  I will often print a greeting on vellum and heat emboss it for the inside, but that's about it.  However..... I wanted to make this card extra special for Merritt, so I used some mirror card stock in the frame so he could see himself when he opened the card.  You can see the reflection of the "Happy Birthday"  on the left side of the card in the mirrored card stock.  Too fun!

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A Community College Retirement

I don't think I have ever made a retirement card before - and this one was SUCH fun. This special lady devoted her career at our local community college to overseeing the scholarship department.  She was so dedicated to every one of those students and she knew their hopes and dreams and rejoiced in their successes. She touched the heart of everyone who met her.  So I am sad to see her leave, but excited for the adventure ahead of her. She deserves to travel and kick up her heels!

So when I found a this "paradise" image among the stenciled clip art designs that I have, I knew it was the one to use for her card.  I wanted to make a happy, colorful card, and I think I managed that.  It was fun to use up a variety of paper scraps and emboss some of them for detail.

You can see the design in the sand from one embossing folder, and a different

one was used on the tree trunk.  Also used Nuvo Glitter Drops on the layers

of the water.  I sprinkled glitter onto the sun after it was coated in Glossy Accents.

The sky was painted with Distress Oxide inks - those are so much fun to use and they glided and blended easily over the glossy card stock.

I hope she is on an island somewhere...... sipping a cocktail and soaking in the sun...... AND relaxing!

Bon Voyage my friend!

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Birthday Blooms

So many August and September birthdays - which just means lots of cards to share!

I have been cleaning and reorganizing my craft room (seems to be a bi-monthly project!) and paused an extra minute or two when I ran across the two bins full of 4x6 patterned card stock pads.  Because most of the cards I make are larger, I forget to incorporate these smaller patterns. So with this card I realized I could cut it in half and use it as a great accent on a larger card. It worked out so well that I am eager to try it again!

The greeting was simply printed in SCAL on a monolaser printer, foiled in gold Deco Foil, and then cut into a tag image.  It was super simple but gave the card a nice finishing touch.

The main pattern for this card came from one of my Dover Electronic clip art books. Their images are royalty free and they easily convert into vector images for cutting.  And there are lots of options with each one - you can actually make a stencil, or cut out the pieces to mimic a stenciled design as I did here.

Here is another card using the Dover Electronic Clip Art.  I loved the soft image of the large butterfly and the flowers.  I used Paper Temptress Glimmer Text paper for the main image against the dark blue PT Incandescent.

I added some rhinestones for interest. I love this butterfly!

It felt like it needed a little something to stand out more, so I added glitter to the flower images and love the result. It often doesn't take a lot to make a statement.

A closeup of the flowers, embellished with Glamour Dust crystal glitter.

I totally forgot to take a final photo of the entire card as the glitter was an afterthought, but hopefully you get the idea!  It's a fun and sparkly card!

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December Birthday Cards

Here it is a week before Christmas and I still have Christmas cards and recipes to share.  I guess I better make a real concerted effort to post a lot in the next week!!  And what's wrong with sharing a few Christmas recipes in January to get a jump start on the coming year - right??  Geesh...... one of these days I will do a better job of juggling all of it. But for now, until the little elves come and give me a hand, I will do the best I can!

I needed to get a few birthday cards made, so I tried to combine birthday and holiday and am really pleased with the results.  I made ornament embellishments for both cards using two entirely different files and designers, but kept the same greeting because it worked so well!

This design is from Craft Vectors (Dominic). It is one of his Christmas Baubles collection.

It was cut out of gold vinyl.

The designs were cut out of vinyl then transferred to adhesive backed acetate to mimic an ornament. Then each was glittered from the back side. It's a bit tricky to stay in the lines (my perfectionist striving self struggled with glitter that went awry), but I still love  how they came out!

This is the end result - after the adhesive acetate has been added

and it has been glittered from the back.

Here is the second design from A Little Hut and is part

of the Poinsettia  Gift Set.   It was cut from silver

vinyl and also glittered from behind once the acetate was adhered to the front.

This is a relatively simple way to get a stunning look.

This was the first card I did with simple sequins added to the card base. 

The sequins reminded me of falling snow.

I used the same font in both, cut out of vinyl but made this ornament a bit larger

and added the glittered bow.

More projects and goodies to come.....stay tuned!

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Fun Cards for October Birthday Ladies!

It has been a while since I have posted, but sometimes life just gets in the way!  I still have some yummy ice cream recipes left over from summer to share (it was in the 80s here as recently as last week!).  And it was cool enough this week that I did a little baking and have some delicious breads to share soon - but first I have these October cards.

These cards were so much fun to make - one for a dear friend and one for my daughter in law.

The first is using an image from Paulo.  He has not posted designs since 2012, I believe, but there are literally hundreds on his website and they are amazing - and FREE.  Some are simple and some are intricate  - but they are unique from the average SVG file you can find on the internet - and I love that.  They also cut beautifully - an added bonus.

So the first card:

This is the songbird doily design from Paulo's website

The second is a technique/style I have not tried before.  My inspiration (even though this type of card has been on the internet for years) was based on a similar card that I received..  So I grabbed a sheet of firm acetate, scored it, and went to work with the image on the outside and the smaller card with the sentiment on the attached inside card that was also embossed for interest.  It was such fun to make and I hope to come up with variations in the future.  I hope some of you will try it too - if you haven't already.


And for my daughter in law.,.

A stenciled design cut out with the dry embossed backing...

It's really difficult to photography the clear card, but it's to the left of the

embossed green cardstock...The colored card will go inside the clear card.

And here is the card assembled with all of the parts - isn't it fun?

The design is on the outside of the acetate and the card with the message is on the inside

The final result.  I cannot wait to try this again!

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