Happy 40th Wedding Anniversary

Today is my mom and dad's 40th wedding anniversary.  What an astounding accomplishment?!  I thought I might celebrate this ruby anniversary with a card.  Knowing that this anniversary is very special, I've been trying to design a card all week and had many near misses, nothing seemed to work with my vision.  This morning I thought I would try it with some scraps of red cardstock.  This simple result worked for me.


The flowers are made using my Heartfelt Creations Posy stamps and dies.  It's hard to tell in these photos, but I stamped the flowers with Versamark ink creating a watermark look and then cut them using the dies.  After shaping the flowers, I individually applied glitter to the edges of the flowers and then glued them together in layers.  This allowed me to be able to place glitter only on the edges of the flower.  The flourish comes from the Spellbinders Floral Flourishes.  The trick here was selecting the right green so that this didn't look like a Christmas card!  The sentiment was printed on the white cardstock using my printer.  Once again, I used text boxes to selectively place each word to create the sentiment.

The inside sentiment was also printed using my printer.  Everything came together and I now have just the right card to give.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Andie

I've entered this card into the Simon Says Stamp: Flower Power challenge.  Come join the fun!

Darling, Sweet and Delightful

This little 6 x 6 paper pad from MME has really caught my fancy.  I'm almost out of paper, but there's just something sweet and alluring about the patterns from The Sweetest Thing- Tangerine set.  The flowers cut with my Heartfelt Creations Posy dies are simply sublime.  The flowers were created by shaping them with my Heartfelt Creations mat and stylus and layered together.  That center portion is the very smallest flower that was shaped and then petals pressed into the center on each other.  Darlin'!


The ribbon is a length of cotton, ruffled ribbon that was originally a cream color.  I simply spritzed the ribbon with my Glimmer Mist in a pink color.  There is a fair bit of variation in the color, but that adds to the vintage feel of this card.  Finally, I cut the banners on the outside from a piece of pattered paper, curling the edges up to add dimension.  The cardstock base was embossed using my Scor-Pal.  It really makes this card look fun. 

On the inside I stamped using my Tilted Banners Sayings to stamp on a die cut piece of coordinating paper.  This is a card I'm pleased with how it turned out and the sentiment is broad enough for a lot of different uses.  I'm going to have to move on to a new paper pack soon...

I've entered this card into the Simon Says Stamp: Flower Power challenge.

Andie

Oh My, I'm blushing! It really is a Moxie Fab World

You all have seen me make mention of Cath and her blog, Moxie Fab World, many times over the past years.  It is one of the few places that I frequent regularly on the internet.  Working full time just simply sucks up a lot of my extra time, so I chose my internet time wisely (or try to).  The Moxie Fab World has just the right mix of various informational posts and challenges.  I'll play along with challenges (rarely) but always check in and read the posts.

I watch others crafting posts and the prolific and beautiful creations are always inspiring.  Maybe its because we're getting my daughter ready for her 8th grade formal dance, but I relate the craft watching as somewhat like my high school dances.  I'm a joiner enough that I almost always went to the dances, but I'm an introvert enough to have spent a good deal of the time on the sidelines being a wallflower.  Not the kind of "wish I were out there enjoying myself" wallflower, but the kind of "I love people watching and this is so much fun" wallflower.  I realize this admission could label me a "geek" or "weirdo", but it's been a long time since high school and so I've had a lot of time to get use to and realize the truth of any label someone might use to describe me. :)  I'd occasionally be asked to dance with a boy and I'd do my best interpretation/imitation of dancing liked I'd watched others do.  Sometimes it worked out, often I think I must have looked like the short, gawky teenager that I imagined in my head.  Crafting and blogging sometimes feels that way too- I can imitate the creativity of others and sometimes attain the finished result that I'm looking for.  In the end even if I could compare myself with others and come out wanting, I'm always just so satisfied to have participated.  I'm a joiner!

I'm going to own that I can get unreasonably excited about some things.  *Squeal*  I'm super excited to share with you that I'm featured today over at the Moxie Fab World as the Moxie Fabber of the Week.  This is why I'm blushing.  I'm not good at tooting my own horn- it's a form of calling attention to oneself that no self-respecting introvert really seeks out.  And I'm a card carrying member of the introverts club.  However, I'm very pleased to have been asked to share about myself and hope that my sharing might encourage others.  If you've every thought- "my contributions aren't good enough" or "no one wants to see what I've been doing", you are wrong and I'm proof!

So, go check it out- Moxie Fabber of the Week.  Don't look too closely at any pictures of me.  I'm not sure they really look like me- I've got a much-bigger, more-stupid-looking grin on my face today.


Andie

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all you out there.  I hope this day finds you celebrating your mother or being celebrated by your children and/or grandchildren. 

I've previously shared my Mother's Day cards for this year.  You can check out previous year's creations here, here, and here.  It's good to celebrate mothers after all their hard work and perseverance.  I say yeah mom's everywhere.

I also wanted to share a little goodness that arrived in the mail this week.  You might remember our Contagiously Crafty milestone celebrate earlier this year.  To celebrate, we offered a small bundle of blog candy to a random commenter.  We don't get too many visitors, but Loly Borda-Towery was our winner.  She blogs over at Card Ville.  You should go check her out.  She's pretty good about joining in challenges and her card creations are very inspiring.  Well, she ever so generously popped this card in the mail to thank us after receiving her small blog candy.  Inside was a very nice note of thanks.  No doubt about it, there is nothing random in this world and I'm so glad she was our winner.


I've heard it is not good etiquette to say thank you for a thank you.  So, I'll just say one more time, congratulations Loly.  We're glad you stopped by to visit us here at Contagiously Crafty.  We'll be watching to see what you do with the blog candy.

Brandy and Andie

Gratitude

Today's simple card was made using the Glitz Vintage Blue paper stack.  The Gratitude stamp comes from an older Close to My Heart stamp set, Thanks a Lot.  The hexagon shape was stamped using a Studio Calico/Hero Arts hexagon cling stamp which I fussy cut out.  The swirls come from a Recollections stamp set and the Gratitude sentiment was fussy cut and raised using foam squares.  All stamping was done using my Faded Jeans Distress Ink.

Andie