Graduations are happening...

 ...so I have made a few graduation cards.

I made a few of these cards--one for me to send to my nephew's daughter and a few for the thrift store.

I started with a white cardbase and pale blue panel for the front. I used a blending brush to add some darker blue around the top and sides. Then I created a starry sky by using a background die that cuts all the tiny apertures.

Once that was done I applied a sheet of double-sided adhesive to the back of my starry sky and rubbed some glitter into all the little star openings on the front. I wish you could see the sparkle!

Finally, I die-cut the line of celebrating graduates and glued them to the front. 

The sentiment was stamped with an old wood-mounted stamp and popped up with foam tape. A tiny holographic star was glued to each side of it.

These cards were made by first dry-embossing a white panel for each card. Then I cut some big numbers out of red and blue cardstock to match the card bases. I cut the numbers a couple of times and stacked them for a little more dimension. 

Finally, I die-cut a mortarboard for each card and adhered it to the first "2" in 2022.

This was such an easy card to make, and it is no problem to coordinate its colors with those of the graduate's school.

I will probably make a few more of these for the thrift store.

This is the sentiment that I stamped on the inside of each card. It was put together from a couple of different stamp sets. Love when I can do that!

I had a very busy card-making week. I managed to make 25 cards this week, 23 of which were donated. It does my heart good when I can take a big pile of cards to the thrift store. They sell so quickly there--especially those for occasions like graduation. People still send "real" cards to graduates because they generally include a monetary gift.

Our temps have soared into the 80s and 90s. That means that our grass is growing like mad. It's a good thing our mower has been tuned up and is ready to go. I'm certain I'll be mowing soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day

Cheryl

Pink and gold birthday card...

 

The pink and white cardstock with gold embossing sat in my stash for a very long time. I just wasn't sure what kind of card I could make with it. I finally decided to make a feminine birthday card, so I dug out my favorite flower and butterfly dies and went to work.

I started by making a pale pink card base and added my DSP panel to it. Then I cut three flower layers, gave them a tiny bit of pink inking in the centers and layered them up. I added tiny foam squares under the petal layers to give the flower more dimension. A gold half pearl was added to the center. To finish, I cut some foliage from gold glitter CS and glued it down on either side of my flower.

I cut the stitched butterfly from a scrap of metallic gold cardstock and added some gold Viva Decor drops for the body.

I also cut my sentiment from the metallic cardstock and from white cardstock and layered them up for more dimension.

On the inside of my card, I stamped a sentiment with Versamark and heat-embossed it with gold embossing powder. I also stamped a pink flower with gold leaves as an added embellishment.

I have been working hard to make an assortment of cards for the thrift store this week. I have made 13 so far and will try to get 8-10 more done before Thursday when I volunteer. I plan to put my Silhouette Cameo to work today. I have some graduation card designs that I want to cut out and assemble to add to my card selection for the store. 

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.

Cheryl

Smooshed backgrounds...

 I'm not usually one who creates free-form backgrounds for my cards, but I thought I should stretch myself a bit and give the "smooshing" technique a try.

I laser-printed two big sentiments in a dark reddish color onto two cardstock panels. Then I added three colors of distress ink directly to my craft mat before spraying it with a little water to help the colors move.

The three ink colors that I used were Mustard Seed, Worn Lipstick and Bundled Sage. After adding the water, I laid my sentiment panels face down into the inks and smooshed them around a little bit to make sure the inks touched all parts of my panels. When that was done, I turned them face up and laid them aside to dry.

I didn't use particularly heavy cardstock--I think it was 110 lb. weight--so it curled and warped as it dried. The panels were easily flattened, though, by running them through my laminator a couple of times.

To finish my card fronts I added a couple of balloons, punched from glitter cardstock and popped up on foam squares. I used some actual thread for the strings. I held the strings in place with a couple of tiny dots of glue.

On the inside I added a sentiment, again printed with my computer. Sorry for the partially blurred photo.

These backgrounds were fun to make, and I think I'll be trying this again with other colors. I see so many pretty color combinations online.

Yesterday was a spectacular day--weatherwise--in the Twin Cities. I washed my car and today I'm going to clean and set out all of the patio furniture--finally! My rhubarb is popping out of the ground, having made its way through the extra soil that was piled on top of it when they installed our new fence last fall. The tulips are beginning to bloom, as well, and I'm looking forward to bringing a few bouquets into the house.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.

Cheryl

Let's Craft and Create Challenge #183: Anything Goes or Tag! You're It - (Use a tag on your project)...

I don't often use tags on my projects...or AS my projects...so I was glad to see this month's challenge at Let's Craft and Create. It definitely made me think about how I might use a tag on a card, especially since I have lots of tag dies that don't get nearly enough use.

I hope you'll join in the fun and use a tag in--or as--your project, too. Last month's entries into our butterfly challenge were particularly beautiful, and I am looking forward to seeing more of the same this month. Keep in mind that you can always choose the "Anything Goes" option if tags aren't your thing.

Here is what I came up with:

I actually made two mini-slimline cards, using two tags on each. 

This card has pink in its color scheme and a little cupcake that I fussy-cut from a piece of DSP. It would probably work best for a female. The background was a panel cut from some DSP that looks like it was created by randomly inking a sheet of cardstock. I thought the right side needed just a little something, so I added a narrow strip of yellow glitter cardstock.

The little cupcake had some Nuvo Drops added to the flower center and the bow. It was also popped up on foam pads.

The inside featured a stamped sentiment and another fussy-cut cupcake.

My second card has a more masculine vibe. I used a couple of stickers that say "relax" and "chill" that I happened to have in my stash. I connected the two stickers together with a die-cut ampersand. This time, I added a geometric strip on the right side that was created with a Fiskar's border punch.

Here's a closer look at those stickers.

This card was made for someone who enjoys a cocktail now and then, so I used a humorous stamp on the inside:

The wine glass was another sticker that I had in my stash. It was a nice embellishment for this silly sentiment!

Now I hope you'll check out what the Design Team has posted at Let's Craft and Create and join in on our May challenge. You'll find lots of inspiration here.

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.

Cheryl

Well done, Mom...

 I've made scads of Mother's Day cards to sell at the thrift store. Here are a few of them:

For this card, I printed the panels with the "Well done, Mom..." sentiment and then used a stencil to add the background images, avoiding the area where the sentiment was printed. This was a single stencil, so I used some Post-It notes to mask off images that would be done with a different color of ink. Because this is a pretty basic design, it was quick and easy to do. After I was done stenciling, I matted my front panel with pink cardstock and glued that to an aqua cardbase.

To finish the front, I added a strip of pink cardstock and a die-cut dimensional bow to the bottom portion of each card (I made a couple of these).

I had printed out a panel for the inside at the same time that I printed the front sentiment panel. To add a little pizzaz to the inside, I used my stencil to create a little bunch of flowers in the lower right corner.

This card, also made for the thrift store, featured a hero character Mom. I love this gal. She may look soft, but she's tough as nails!

The hero-Mom is a die-set that has quite a few pieces. I cut them all out of white cardstock and then colored them with my alcohol markers before gluing everything together.

My sentiment was stamped on a white die-cut rectangle using a couple different die sets.

I tried to catch some of the shimmer that was added with a Wink of Stella pen, but I'm just not that good of a photographer.

I should have added a bit darker gray to her hair, but I guess someone liked it just the way it was because it sold right away.

The inside was stamped with a simple "Happy Mother's Day."

I recently purchased a layering tulip die set. This time I cut the blossom's pieces out of light pink cardstock and then colored the layers with darker pinks. I used the same idea for the stem and leaves, cutting them out of a medium green and then coloring the layers with a darker green. The stitched butterfly was cut from pink vellum and I adhered it along with a tiny pink gem in the center.

My card base was made with a sheet from a really old 12" X 12" paper stack. It has a glossy finish on it and the butterflies are actually embossed.

Here you can see the shimmer I added to the blossom with a Wink of Stella pen.

The inside sentiment was computer-generated, and I added another little butterfly here as a little embellishment.

They are finally finishing up the stucco on the outside of our house, but soon they will tear the kitchen apart. I think we'll be visiting some of our local restaurants on a regular basis while the kitchen is out of commission. I'm not too excited about trying to figure out meals using only small, electric appliances. If it was up to me, I'd probably exist on cold cereal and microwave meals for the months we'll be without a stove. We'll see if my DH gets grumpy because he doesn't get his usual meals. LOL

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.

Cheryl

Remember those "Peter Pan" collars?

 

I made three cards with "Peter Pan" collars for Mother's Day cards. If you do a search for them, you'll find lots of examples. The real Peter Pan-style collar is a bit more rounded, but still quite similar to what I created.

I used double-sided DSP and cut a piece that was slightly smaller than my card base.

I cut 1 1/2" down from the center point of the top of the piece.  After it was cut, I rounded both the corners that met in the middle.

Each collar half was rolled over a narrow strip of foam tape that held it down while also giving it some dimension.

Once that was done, I added a bow and three buttons. The buttons on this card were made using button dies. I cut several layers and glued them together.

For this one, I added real buttons. Each one was adhered with a glue dot.

I also stamped my sentiment in the middle of the card base above the collar.

This card also had die-cut buttons. I used baker's twine for what looks like the thread in each button.

I'm not sure why this card's bow looks so wonky. I guess it's been a while since I've tied ribbon bows!

Each card had a computer-generated sentiment on the inside.

I took these cards to the thrift store today, so we'll see if the customers like them.

And now for a bit of family news--my DH and I attended our first synchronized swimming meet this week. Three high school teams competed in the meet. It was so much fun to watch. Our granddaughter Polly is on her high school's synchronized swim team and absolutely loves it! I'm proud to say that Polly's team won the meet.

Polly is the swimmer in the center. She performed here with two other girls.

There were actually solo, duet, trio and team performances during the meet.

This was taken while they were performing. Polly is again in the center, and the trio is perfectly in sync!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.

Cheryl

Using up some stash...

 I've had--for a few years--a small paper pack (4" X 4") that has some gold foil doily punch-outs included in its pages, and I really wanted to use them. I finally just took a couple of them out and made two identical cards.

I decided to make two anniversary cards for the thrift store. I cut each doily in half and glued each half to either side of a strip of ivory cardstock on top of a DSP panel. My card base was also made from ivory cardstock.

My sentiment was heat-embossed with gold EP onto my ivory strip. I also added a few gold half-pearls.

On the inside, I heat-embossed another simple sentiment.

As you can imagine, these were quick to make, and I had two of them done in no time flat!

Then, I looked at a random pre-made cardbase that had been laying on my work table for months. I NEED to use that up, I thought, but what could I do with it?

When you look at this card base, I'm sure you can understand why it took me so long to use it. With a pattern that large and uniform, how can you complement it?

I decided to use a little trellis-like die-cut (also laying on my desk for a couple of weeks) and add some climbing flowers to it. I was hoping they would sort of mimic the flowers on the card base.

I glued the trellis directly to the card base. Then I die-cut the climbing flowers twice out of white cardstock and colored them with alcohol markers.

After gluing them onto the trellis, I added a banner sentiment (another unused item on my desk!) over the point where the two die-cuts met.

On the inside, I cut and colored a couple little flowers and added a strip sentiment (from my pile of strip sentiments) to finish the card.

I felt pretty self-satisfied, having used so many items from my stash for these cards. But then, two seconds later, reality set in and I realized I hadn't really made a dent. I promise to keep trying, though. LOL

Thanks so much for stopping by, and remember to laugh--a little or a lot--every day.

Cheryl