Cards Galore

Well- tis the season for weddings. Well, sort of. With warm summer weather drawing to a close, weddings and wedding cards will make way for all the holidays of the fall and winter months.

But not quite yet. A friend of mine was heading to a couple of weddings and wanted me to make her a couple of cards. She also wanted some grad cards, but the grads are gone, my summer was busy and alas- I didn't get to them in time. But because she already paid for them I owed her another two cards- SO thank you cards they became :)

Here are the wedding cards:

This is definatly my favourite layout. I found it on Splitcoast and can't remember who did it- but I loved it! This is my second time doing this layout- I used golden tones instead of the pink. The edge was one from Martha Stewart- I forget it's name and bought it at Michaels- but I can't seem to find it on her website- it must be an older one. It's a 4x5.5 card. I cut a 8.5x11 sheet in half at 5.5 and then scored each edge at 1.5 and 3.5 folding the 1.5 edge out and the 3.5 edge in. After punching the edges I embossed using the Swirls embossing folder from cuttlebug, highlighted it with gold ink and spread gold stickles over it. The Patterned paper I made myself and was FUN! I used an old flourish stamp set and stamped randomly on a peice of vellum. Then I took a medium sized and small sized flower and stamped them randomly on the flourishes. I did that with gold ink, sprinkled gold embossing powder all over it and embossed it. Of course, you need to be careful when heat embossing on vellum, going quickly over the entire sheet and not too close (I've blistered a lot of vellum before). BUT the result was worth it! I don't know if you can see it too well, but I plan on doing it again as it was absolutly GORGEOUS! Then topped it all of with some frosted fairy tale flowers from Prima.

For this next card I used the Baja Breeze (my last sheet :( ) with the matching DSP (which I also forgot the name of- geez- I think I gotta start labeling my stash!) It's 5.5x4.25 and I overlapped the folds on this card. This one was fun too! I got to use my Storybook Cartridge and cut two background leave images at 4.5 inches. I sprayed them with some tattered angel spray and let them dry. The one side I mounted on vellum and then cut out a rectangle on the cardstock to create a window. On the other fold I mounted the die cut on the DSP. I added some more Prima flowers and printed my sentiment on the computer using the Word Art feature and mounted it with a Making Memories rim.

Here's the inside. I found some BEAUTIFUL wedding poems and (OF COURSE) forget where I found them. sigh. My friend loved these. It was fun (and actually, pretty easy) to make.

For one of the thank you cards I tried my hand at that Trifold technique recently featured on splitcoast- so here's my take on it:

I used neutral cardstock from the Paper Company for the base. I used DSP from Stampin' Up and added some simple embellishments. I wasn't too sure- I've seen some AMAZING other cards like this. Mine, to me, seems kinds "wa-wa". I used my new Lyrical Letters cartridge to create the argyle strips and highlighted them with some tan ink. I added some brads from MM and also a rim for my sentiment, stamped with the elegant thank you from SU!. The swirl came from one of my various acrylic stamp sets (which I organized my style, not manufacturer- so I don't know who made this) and a ribbon. I wanted it simple and sort of masculine- or at least not as feminine as I'm used to. I'd love to try it again- but totally pimp it out girlie style :D

Anyways- that's it for now- I've got more cards coming and some new templates to showcase. Thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~

A Long Time

wow.

I mean WOW!

I am so sorry. It's been roughly two months of chaos. I didn't mean to abandon you all- I have just been crazily busy. Too busy to craft :( What a sad state.

WELL- we are all moved into and settled into our new home. It's nice to have the space. Wasn't so nice to have to clean up the entire house before moving in. GROSS I mean deep clean scrub your toilet elbow grease on your hands and knees type of clean. I am told that's normal. Ick- I was just hoping to move and settle right in. So I had to clean this place, which took two full days, and the old apartment which took the better part of one day. Then unpacking, settleing, buying new furniture and fixtures and then setting them up- that seemed to take forever. Then pregnancy hit like a rock and I was tired constantly. (cram in hubby's vacation and a some-what impromptu trip to Edmonton). Then came August with a ton of babysitting and helping out with VBS.

Now I have actually been able to craft (in my new craftspace :D) I don't have a 'room'. But HOLY HANNAH is my bedroom ever big! I have my space in there, which is very gracious of hubby considering it's like my desk exploded now. So I have been verrrry sloooow on a few projects, but I got my bum in gear and have tons to share :) So hold onto your hats kids- here we go!

So using Lauren Meader's "All Boxed Up" template, I created this cute box for a friend of mine who wanted some baby thank you cards. Her baby was born premature, but thanks to the miracles of God, the support of friends and family and LOTS of prayer, he is a healthy, happy BIG baby boy :) And she wanted to thank everyone via card. Poor girl waited three months (or longer, I lost track) but still has many people to thank, so that's good she can make use of them :)

Using a stars I created two sets of eight thank you cards. The images are from inkadinkado's "Baby Boy" acrylic stamp set.

I made vellum stars using my star punch from Fiskars and cut the vellum out, then I inked them and dabbed them with stickles. The star stamp from the set was almost the exact size as the punch, so creating a layered look was fun and easy :)

The other set I used my Stars border punch from Martha Stewart (I am soooo falling in love with die cuts and border punches again! They make such amazing embelishments and background elements!) For the focal point I cut the light blue cardstock to 5.5 inches and cut the sides with the border punch. Then I scored the sides in, just past the punched image, and folded the sides in. I them took some vellum, splashed it with alcohol ink, stamped the sentiment, and then glued the punched sides over the vellum (so the vellum was cut at 4.75? after). I liked the effect it's made. Then I glued the element to the bright blue cardstock which I cut at A2 size and punched the outter edge. I hope that made sense :P I didn't think of actually taking pics while I was making them. I was too concerned with actually FINISHING them.

Inside of the box:

WELL- blogging is tough when you have to go and edit the placement because the photos don't line up- and I'm watching SIX children today (aigh!) So I'll let that be that for today and come back tomorrow to showcase the wedding cards I've made for a friend of mine. Thanks for stopping by!

~Brandie~