Personal Update: Wedding Shower and 2011 PKD Walk

No card this morning.  I wanted to update you on the wedding shower I hosted for my sister on Saturday, and give a huge call out to my friends that helped me in the planning!  Thank you to NORMA for helping me make the thank you cards I gave as a gift, in addition to making some of the best door prizes ever!  Handmade necklaces, as well as beautiful applique hangers.  Thank you to TARA for bringing fresh salad and veges from her garden as well as for helping execute the shower!  Thank you to KATHY for helping wrap the gifts and keeping things on track!  You all helped me make the shower special for my sister and her guests seemed to have a really good time!  We're a month away from the wedding!  I can't believe the time is going so quickly!

Onto my second subject this morning.  The 2011 PKD Walk.  PKD is Poly cystic Kidney Disease.  It's a disease that has impacted my family back to my great-grandmother.  My mom had two kidney transplants before she passed away in 1999, and she struggled with complications of the disease from the time I was in grade school.  My whole family has been impacted, two of my mom's siblings have also had transplants, and only one of the five didn't have the disease.  most of my cousins also have PKD, and one cousin had a brain aneurysm rupture that can be attributed to it.  I have another aunt awaiting surgery for a brain aneurysm also because of this disease.  So in memory of my mom, and in support of the rest of my family still battling this disease, I'm walking in the PKD walk  next month.  To learn more and see my donation page, you can go to the link here.

I'll work on cards tonight and hopefully have new stuff for you tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by!

Simple Neutral Baby Greeting Card

I'm participating in some swaps over at SCS for baby cards, and I finished them up last night.  This is my neutral card.  The stamp set is my lovely friend Norma's (THANK YOU!). 

 The base of the card is Pear Pizazz. The pattern paper is from DCWV. The giraffe is stamped onto whisper white twice.  The background image and then I cut out the color image and popped it for dimension.

 The white is mounted onto Barely Banana, and then onto Close to Cocoa, with a wavy border punched.

 I added some green buttons to the wheels of the cart the giraffe is one.  I'm hoping this can be used for either a shower or an arrival card.  Neutral enough?

Thanks for looking!  Have a wonderful day!

Wedding Shower Gift: Recipe Box

I've been a bit slow at posting as I'm trying to get everything ready for my sister's wedding shower this Saturday.  We had a shower hosted by my aunts for the family this past weekend, and today I'm going to share with you the recipe box I made. 

I followed the great tutorial over at Just Give Me Stamps.

Thanks for stopping by!

Embossed Doily Thank You Cards

I'm getting ready for the showers being held for my sister's upcoming wedding celebration.  The first shower is this weekend being held by my wonderful aunts.  Next weekend is the shower I'm hosting for my sister's friends.  I showed you the shower invitations that I made with left over paper from the wedding invitations that I made for her.

My friend Norma came over for a play date last night and brought her new toys from Stampin Up! and let me play!  She has the new doily background stamps, and when I saw it I new what I was going to make for one of the shower gifts.

I still have a lot of extra papers from the invitations, so here is another use of the purple and black that are so familiar in my recent posts. :o)

I stamped the Doily and the sentiment from Because I Care in embossing ink and then used fine white embossing powder to heat emboss.  Norma and I tag-teamed the process and made 25 of these Thank you cards.  They are just flip cards and don't open, so her message will be written on the back of the purple base.

It's late, and the photos aren't the best, so I'll just leave you with the one image for now and take more photos to share later.

Thanks for looking!

Masculine Seashore Birthday Greeting Card

Another masculine birthday card.  This one is very simple, like yesterday's card.  I used no pattern paper, and chose to limit my embellishments.  I used the stamp set called Lighthouse from Stampin Up! for this card.  I used two of the stamps and "masked' the boat and then stamped the seagull on the pole to the right of the image.

 The sentiment is from Vintage Labels, also by Stampin Up! and I used the window punch to make the sentiment look like a tag under the navy button. 

 I used a base of River Rock, and layers of Chocolate Chip and Night of Navy that both have torn edges.

 I wrapped brown twine around the middle of the card and used it to secure the button as well.

Lastly, I used pop dots to raise the image over the thickness of the twine.  Simple and masculine. 

This card meets the theme requirements for the challege over at One Stop Craft Challenge this week (At the Beach). 

Thanks for looking and happy stamping!

Masculine Nature Birthday Tree Greeting Card

I'm still trying to figure out what cards to make for a masculine card exchange, so I'm been playing a bit today with more attempts.  Today's card is a CAS, but uses some of my favorite techniques.

 I used two stamp sets from Stamp Up!  Lovely as a Tree, and Little Hellos. 

 I stamped my tree image in VersaMark and then used chalk to "pop" color onto the image and the Very Vanilla piece that I stamped on.

 I used brown hemp twine and brads as embellishments.

 Paper tearing is the other technique that I used.  I think torn and distressed edges ad dimension to the images.

This card meets the requirements of at least 3 brads for the Birthday Sundaes challenge.

Thanks for looking and for your comments!  Have a wonderful week!

Masculine Birthday Fishing Greeting Card

It's been a slow few crafting weeks for me.  I was able to play a bit and have another masculine card to share.  I mentioned that my stash of masculine cards is too thin, so today's card a 4 1/4" square card with a fishing theme.

 

 The base of this card is in Chocolate Chip, and the pattern paper is from K&Company.  The stamp sets used are Fly Fishing, and Vintage Labels.  The stamped image is stamped in Ivory, and mounted to Always Artichoke.

 I stamped the outside and inside images in Chocolate Chip, and inked the edges of the paper

 I tore the top of the stamped image on the front of the card as well as the top of the Always Artichoke layer.

 I used to varied size circles to punch out the senitment and used a silver brad to adhere the sentiment to the card.

 Here is a better look at the fish stamped on the bottom right side of the inside of the card.

Thanks for looking!  Happy crafting!

Handmade Stamped Wedding Shower Invitations

It has certainly been a BUSY week at my paying job.  I didn't get much time in my craft room.  Today I was able to induge, as I needed to finish wedding invitations for a shower I'm hosting for my sister.  I had extra paper left from her invitations, so I used them to make the invites for the shower as well.

 These are front/back cards, that don't open. 

 I used the same layout idea from one of the cards I had my folks at work make

 Each cake has a layer of pearls at the base.  The pearls match the wedding invites.

The back of the invitations are very simple. 

Thanks for looking!