A special gift for my sweet Alli

So, since I "kinda" already know how to create cards and scrapbook layouts, I tried my hand at something completely new, something I had no idea how to create but something that would involve using my own creativity, as a special gift for my daughter Allison (Alli) on her birthday.  This was a completely unassembled, unfinished writing desk from Kaisercraft.  It started out as something like this, except completely unassembled with loose pieces in a bag: 

 

Over the course of many hours, a few days, and a couple of weeks, I ended up creating this for her: 

(I wish you could see the dimension and texture on the top....but it's hard for me to capture that with my limited photography skills!)

 

I had fun making it, and Alli is always is one of my biggest fans when it comes to things I've created, so I thought it fitting to make something just for her, to keep, to display, to hold her cherished "things" whether they be letters, pictures, and/or other treasures that she picks up along the way in her glorious life. 

Grey w/black, yellow, green accent B-day card

A new "birthday" card in greys/pale yellow & green/black accent.  thanks for looking! 

Hugs, Love, and UR so Fab cards

I was inspired by the colors of some chipboard letters I had....they seemed like good "jewel tones" and I had some gorgeous paper from scrapbuck (I think?) that I thought would go nicely with them.  Here are the results----I made these back in Sept. but never posted them til now.  I'm sending these off this weekend to Operation Write Home so some heroes can send them to their sweeties!   They don't specifically say "valentines day" so they can be used whenever/however!   Thanks for looking!

Princess Cards

Here's a couple of "princess" cards I made a while back and completely forgot to post on here.  These are Sleeping Beauty stickers aka Princess Aurora!  I followed a video tutorial for heat embossing with a large background stamp in white, then watercolor "resist" technique with my tim holtz distress inks and Stampin' Up aqua painters.  I hope that a couple of our Operation Write Home heroes finds these cards perfect to send home to his/her own little "princess".....    thanks for looking!

some blue/green card combos for OWH!

Boy, I sure haven't posted cards to my blog for a long time!  I've made some cards but I just haven't gotten them put on here, so I'll add a few now!    Thanks for looking!

Couple of monochromatic cards this time

A couple of cards I made a few days ago....sorry I'm only now getting around to posting them!  Mostly I post them here so I can keep a record for myself of cards I've made for OWH, but I DO love it if others peek here and are kind enough to leave a comment if they have a moment---it really is appreciated more than you know!    thanks for looking!   

OWH Card Sketch #135

Hi friends.  Here's a card from Card Sketch #135.   This is only the second time I've participated in the weekly sketch---and I think it's fun!  

I used a kind of "different" take on a love sentiment....maybe it will strike a cord with someone!  The word "fine" is colored and on vellum.  I layered it on white card stock and popped it with dimensionals.  Although it is hard to see in the pic, the two small white hearts are glossy accented (thanks to the blog skip this weekend that reminded me to use my glossy stuff for extra pizzaz!)  A little white faux stitching to finish it off.  I'm sorry that my picture isn't very crisp...it turned out a bit fuzzy.  Thanks for looking!

   

Back to work, finally got some monkey cards done!

Hi friends!  We went back to work at the public schools early in August, from our shortened summer break, which meant busy times for me and less time for crafting, which makes me a little sad  :-(   A new school year is full of transitions for our kiddos, and since I work with kiddos with special needs, I am often especially busy this time of year....transitions are frequently & notoriously hard for kids I work with! 

Anyway, Sandy put out a call for some "fun" cards that mom & dad heroes can send to their own kiddos, so I did 3 along that line.  They all say "Hi" but I was wishing I had a "monkeying around" or a "hang in there" stamp or something....wasn't sure on the appropriateness of something like that?  Thoughts?   hmm...a mom or dad sending a card home that says "hang in there"....please weigh in on this! 

The monkeys are from a couple of sets of La Petite 3-D stickers that were being clearanced at Hobby Lobby.  I used my Texture Boutique for the yellow cardstock and for the "bark" look on the branch.  Tim Holtz distress ink to the embossed image for a "vine" kind of look.  Since I used craft and brown cardstock as the card bases, I lined the insides with yellow for a lighter surface to write on.  Thanks for looking! 

 

3 purple & green cards crafted last night

Hi guys. Last night I did a bit of creating and chose some purple and green (accented with blue) items that were calling out to me!  The die cut pieces are from Paper Wishes.  I feel a little badly that these are pretty "feminine" in color and just hope some heroes in OWH loves them....    Maybe I'll try and counter them with some cards that are more "masculine" next time!   Thanks for looking!

Four different cards...one is a real cute fishie card!

Four new cards I made over the last day and a half. The first one was taught to me by my friend, Judi, at a Stampin' Up demonstration. You use Christmas ornament stamps and punch, turn them on their side, use a scallop oval punch and cut "fins" out of it, add a googley eye, and you've got a cute fishie! Use your sponge inking with about 3 differing shades of blue on a wave template to make the background of the card. I decided to go just a tad farther and cut a piece of craft to use as sand and I had some cute little epoxy stickers for the bottom dwellers.  I made one that says "hello" for OWH and this one is for my daughter to use.

This is just a simple card with no sentiment for OWH so a hero can personalize it as he/she likes. 

I really love how this one turned out.  I'm a sucker for blue anyway and use it A LOT (probably more than I should) on my cards and scrapbook layouts.  I don't own the punch for the border yet (used this one at a scrapbook store) but like the effect that it gave my double side border, so it may have to go on my wishlist. 

I know this one looks like the sentiment is slighly blurry, but in fact, that is on purpose.  I double stamped the sentment:  once in black and then slightly off-side of it in green to get the shadow effect.  Very simple card on craft paper. 

The four of them all together.  I ended up with 3 of the "peace & love & happiness" cards, 2 of the fishies, and that was it!   Thanks for looking.....I appreciate it!

For today's card post, I'm putting on some early Christmas Cards I made----you've all heard of Christmas in July, right?  Well, I did these the final week in July~~~   These will go in with my Operation Write Home (OWH) cards, but I probably won't send them out until late Sept.  

There's stickles on most all of these, but I don't think it shows up well in the photos....looks better IRL (in real life!)

Here's a group of them....I think I ended up with about 3 more than this shows, and now I'm ready to put aside the Christmas cards for a little while!  Back to more "seasonal" crafting!   (i.e. it's VERY hot here, so I'm looking for cool colors to craft with! 

  Thanks for looking!!!!

More "love" & "miss you" type of cards....with a patriotic paper/color scheme---from a OWH sketch.  I made two cards of each of the samples I will show.....so a total of 6 cards in this set.  They're fairly similar....just different embellies/sentiments.  I like how they turned out, and hope that our heroes do, too!   Thanks for looking, and commenting if you have the time. 

So here's a pic of the group of the 6 of them:

 

Also, today, in order to not seem partial, I will post a couple shots of our other kitty: Sissy! She's so very "cat-like" in comparison to our other cat (seen in yesterday's post). Sissy likes people when SHE's interested in them, has the cat instincts for hunting/playing/wanting to escape to the outside and eat grass (which she's not supposed to do!) etc.

New cards from a couple of days ago~~~

I worked concessions at the Salt Dogs baseball games this weekend with my daughter to fund raise for the Cheer Leading trip to the Alamo Bowl.  Because of that, I didn't have a chance to get these new cards on here.   I really love how the "LOVE" cards came out (I made 3 of these same cards).  I used my cricut Lacy Labels cartridge to die cut the "LOVE" part, added some distress inks (Tim Holtz, either tumbled glass or broken china---can't remember!), used my Texture Boutique with the Swiss Dots embossing folder, prima flowers with blue Dazzles from Paper Wishes in the centers, and ribbon from my stash! 

Looks like this guy wants in on some card making action!  This is one of our two cats, Gizmo, all splayed out across my little crafting table!  He's the fluffiest and softest can you will ever know.  Love him, and his sister, Sissy!  (I'll do a pic of her sometime soon).   Thanks for looking and sharing any comments you might have!  I'm looking for advice on how to pack up my cards to ship off for the first time to OWH.  I have about 40 cards now, and hope to add a few more today.....

Back at home, missed my crafting!   So, I did some more cards for Operation Write Home (OWH).  There was a call put out for more "love" and "miss you" cards, so that's what I did! 

First 3 are "love" cards....each seen alone and then together as a group.

Then this is the group of 3 that I did that are "miss you" cards....

 This one has the green rick-rack trim and the other 2 look alike and have lavender rick-rack trim, as seen below.   Pretty quick and simple cards....makes me want a stamp that says "missing you" rather than "miss you"

 This is a card I did for my daughter's friend's b-day....sweet 16 obviously!

and then just a simple "hi" card....using my texture boutique with the swiss dots embossing folder.

Thanks for looking!   Glad to be back home with the rest of my family, whom I missed dearly!  And back to crafting, which I so enjoy doing.