A Heartfelt Birthday Wish

Just popping in to bring you one more of Brandy's lovely creations.  This card was made as a birthday card for a family member- the right time to whip out the tools and create a layered series of goodness.

The anchor for this card is the Heartfelt Creations Vintage Floret.  She stamped the flowers onto colored paper using brown ink and cut the flowers out by hand!  The flowers were shaped much as shown in this video.  The ever so delicate light green swirl is from the Gift Ensemble die with a few die cut leaves thrown in for effect.

The sentiment was printed on the computer and cut using Spellbinders circle die- can you pick out the embossed edge?- so delicate.  The light blue framed circle was cut using Spellbinders Butterfly Circles.  The light blue ties in the background paper which has soft blue polka dots.  It's a little tough to see, but the background paper also has random rust colored brushes of color which ties the card colors together.  The pearl and gold gem swirls were picked out of the stash.  All background paper edges, there is one layer of patterned paper and a small edge of light blue paper layered over the white cardstock card, were roughed up with an edging tool.  Distress Ink was added to age the papers and create a finished edge.

Brandy and I have had a few opportunities to craft together lately.  It feels so good to create with a bff, its inspiring to see Brandy's creative work.  It challenges me.  We also get a fair bit of chit-chat time in too!  If you haven't spent some of your own bff time lately- let us encourage you to do so.  It makes our lives full of the things we celebrate!

I've linked this card up to the following challenges.  Come join the fun!

Inspiration Journal's Monthly Challenge: Birthday Celebrations

Creative Corner Challenges: Let it sparkle

Tuesday Throwdown: Challenge #156

Heartfelt Creations- Tattered Blossoms

This is the third of three cards from the Heartfelt Creations card class that Brandy and I missed at the CK convention last April.  I think it is late enough in the year to require the "last" modifier.  Where has the time gone?  It seems as though I've had plenty to distract me with work, kids stuff and a prolific card making "season".  I am happy to say that the stash is smaller than when I started the year.  Keep it up and I might actually make a dent.




When I first looked at the card kit, this card was the least appealing to me. The picture in the kit did not do it justice. Also, the shaped flower pot without a structured rectangle to make it uniform- I was just suspicious. Truthfully, this card opens weirdly to me- down and out rather than up and out. However, the finished beauty of the flowers and other accents totally make up for it.








The flowers are the usual- Heartfelt Creations Tattered Blossoms which were pre-stamped/cut for the class. I applied some Peacock Feathers Distress Ink with a Fantastik. After shaping the flowers and layering them, I used the provided Glass Shards Glitter with my Crystal Accents to create the beautiful dimensional embellishment. The centers are made using my Good Earth- Earth Elements. This really pops in person. Everything was edged in Vintage Photo Distress ink and placed as instructed. I'm telling you, if you attend a CK convention near you don't hesitate to sign up for a Heartfelt Creations class. Even if you don't attend, you'll enjoy the cards!

Mini-book Layouts

Water and I aren't "friends" per se.  I've always (since a young age) had an irrational fear of the water.  As a young girl, I was sent to swim lessons in the Hayfield (midwest town names are so fun, aren't they?), so I could always perform well around water.  I simply hated it though- the kind of hate that is a *mostly* silent, seething hate that others may not be entirely aware of.  Still have an inner voice that feels this way.

These photos in the water are fabulous, but slightly fear inspiring.  "Knuckle under, buddy!", I shout to my inner voice, "This is my kiddo we're looking at."  Since I wasn't actually present for these pictures, my inner voice listens and dies down. 

I much prefer the photos of the girls hanging out.

The blessing of my one irrational fear is that I don't have any inherent reaction to climbing up a vertical wall with a teeny, tiny rope holding you up which is likely manned by the teen counselors at camp.  Wait, maybe that was my inner mama voice....

Katie, like her dad, is game for anything once.  Usually she loves it and then goes back for more and more. 

The archery picture was about a year prior to The Hunger Games frenzy which she is now heavily involved.  I think she's quite proud of this perfectly framed photo.  Our little Katniss.

Still, there's a little bit of the crafter in her.  Needless to say, the mama eventually creeps in there.

The very simple back cover...  I hope you've enjoyed my mini-book trip.  Sorry for the abundance of photos.  Hopefully you might use them to inspire you to get out some old photos, supplies, or projects and finish them up.  That's what I'm most pleased with.  These memories are wrapped up.  Bonus that the pictures have made their way to the blog.  Hooray!

Since green is my favorite color and green played a major role in this book, I've linked one of pages up with the Simon Says Stamp Monday Blog Challenge:Green.  Come join the fun!

Mini-book

These pictures of my surf girl are the most enjoyable for me.  I really tried to keep the embellishments simple to make her the star of this show.  I am pleased with how this worked out, because I do think she is the star.  Katie was one of the girls to get up on the board more than once during the short weekend camp.  Those softball skills come in handy in more ways than one- a sense of balance doesn't hurt either. 

The book still needs journaling, but I've left that for Katie.  There's room for some side comments and a little storytelling.  She's not much for the long winded discussions (unless it's on her teenager terms), so I'll be very curious what happens here.  I just photographed these before because the teenage eye rolls are too frequent as it is.  I can hear it now, "Mooommm, I don't want "my stuff" all out there on your blog!".  I did not seek or desire input on the pics though...

Just simply lovin' the whole thing.  I've only a few more pictures to edit and I can get the final set posted.  Hopefully tonight, but more likely tomorrow night!

More of the Surfish Mini-book

Sun-kissed beach photos are the best, aren't they?  I got these photos taken and edited and now I'm hot on the task of posting them up to the blog.  These next few layouts represent more of the layout of the original mini-book kit.

The papers are fun, retro (a bit?!) and are a beach friendly color scheme.  I picked this mini-book because so many of the surf pictures where heavily blue, but I still wanted a little girly feel. 

The opposing pages are not always a part of the original mini-book design.  I sprinkled the "add-ons" because the original layouts were exactly matchy-matchy and it felt right.

What's better than a shot of you running on the beach looking all tough in your wetsuit?  I've not one picture like this of me!!  At this late date, I'm unlikely to ever have one either.

Katie's troop leaders very graciously joined them in the surfing fun.  I am so grateful to women who volunteer their time and energy to my girl.  Jane and Jennifer are wonderful role models who have taught my daughter and I am grateful.