Thanksgiving Invitation

My sister and husband are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for his family and she has asked if I would make invitations for them. So this is what I came up with although Sis has not seen them yet.



For this card I used dark chocolate cardstock for the base and stamped the leaf image from the First Fruits stamp set in versamark. I used cooper embossing powder for the wheat image and dark chocolate for the "Your Invited" which is from the Warm Hospitality set. I left off the "to" from the sentiment. I matted this to a piece of dark chocolate shimmer paper that had some cooper/gold in it, although it looks more like gold in the photo. Sorry, I don't know who makes it. I then adhered it to the card base with some pop dots. I didn't want to add any buttons or ribbon that might cost them more in postage, so I kept it pretty simple. Sometimes simply is elegant. I hope they like them.

August Blog Hop

I'm so excited that autumn is right around the corner and am so looking forward to all the beautiful autumn colors. This month's blog hop challenge was to create a project to celebrate the upcoming season. I chose to use the new Fall Elegance stamp set.



The card base is ripe avocado, I added the bitty dots paper in ripe avocado at the bottom and distressed it with Chai tea dye to tone down the white dots. For the top I stamped the small leaves from the set in versamark. Martha Stewarts border punch was used on a strip of summer sunrise cardstock and I distressed that as well. On top of that is a piece of dark chocolate cardstock that I ran thru a crimper.



Here's a close up of the focal image. This is the first time I ever tried the masking technique. I think it turned out pretty good for my first try, what do you think? I used Palettes orangerie and raw sienna on the pumpkins stamped on rustic cream cardstock. The stems were stamped with ripe avocado and cognac. I added some scor lines around the edges and did some distressing. Two eyelets were added and some rustic twine was wrapped around the card and tied in a bow to finish it off.

I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone else has designed for this months blog hop. Thanks for stopping by!

August GSS entry

Happy Sunday! Today I'll be having the whole family over for dinner to celebrate my oldest brother's birthday. But before I get cooking I wanted to share one last project I entered in the August GSS.



For this project I stamped Guidelines Two in fresh snow onto some spring rain bitty box paper. For the flower I took a strip of white fabric and stamped Polka Dots Basics in pure poppy onto it then stitched the top and pulled the thread to make it gather. I then cut a piece of lemon tart cardstock and a piece of tulle using my nestabilities scalloped circle. The little red flower was cut out of red felt with a Cuttlebug's die. To attach everything, I sewed a white button threw all the layers. I am so enjoying using different textures on my cards other than cardstock.

Well I better go get dinner started. Thanks for stopping by today.

Another August GSS entry

This card will be given to my sister and brother-n-law for their anniversary. I love this layout sooo much I think I'll make some more cards but change out the colors and sentiments. I loved making these flowers out of lace. I've made several to have on had and they were so easy to make.



The scalloped piece is stamped with the background basics text style on to fabric then I used some Heat n Bond to adhere it to a piece of cardstock. This made it very easy to cut out. The layer on top of that it a piece of patterened paper and then I made a flower using some lace and attached everything together with a decorative brad.

The card base is rustic cream and I used a layer of true black and kraft. I distressed the black bitty dots paper to tone down the white dots. It makes the dots look more cream than white. The flourish is stamped with Versamark. The sentiment is from Mixed Messages.

Tomorrow I'll have one last project I entered in the August GSS. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your weekend.

August GSS

Here are my entries in the August GSS. I made these for my sister as part of her birthday present. I'm making the same thing for my other sister for her birthday as well.



I had so much fun making these boxes.



I filled the Pack a Picnic box with all kinds of little things including a gift card holder that I forgot to photograph. I didn't fold down the top like it shows in the directions because I needed the extra height to the box.



My sister loves these colors and has it all through her home so I thought it was only appropriate to use them in these projects.



For the Card Couture I was originally going to use it as a recipe box but the recipe cards I got didn't fit. Even when I tries to cut them down. See my sister collects Roosters (not the real ones) and I found recipe cards at Michael's that had a rooster theme on them but I could only cut them down so far without cutting into the theme. So I decided to make it a tea box similar to the one Lauren Meador made. It's a good thing my sister likes tea!



And of course I had to make a card to complete the theme. I just love making these accordian flowers. I hope my sister enjoys them as much as I did making them. Tomorrow I'll share another project I made for the GSS.

Thanks for popping in!

Heartfelt Thanks

I can't believe it's been two weeks since I've posted anything. I've been working on a few things here and there but they're not ready to be photographed. I'm trying to get a jump on some of my Christmas gifts. Yes that's right I said Christmas. I always like to make some of my gifts to make it more personal but I always include a store bought gift as well. My goal is to have everything done before December that includes most of my baking. December is always a crazy month and I don't won't to make myself crazy trying to get it all done in the process.

With that being said and has nothing to do with my post today I thought I would share a card I made yesterday. After I had made this card I found this piece of pottery and couldn't believe how well the two went together. The colors in both are very similar.




For my project I used rustic cream cardstock as my base, stamped the fancy flourish using ColorBox pigment ink in Celadon. Which by the way matches very well with the aqua mist cardstock. I've been using this ink for a while since the aqua mist ink does not show very well. I did order the newly reformulated ink pad which I'm anxious to try. I then stamped background basics text style using the vintage tea dye over top of the flourishes and around all of the edges. I made a flower out of some vintage lace and tied a button to the middle using the rustic cream twine. This card was fast and easy to put together.

Thanks for popping in today!

Sweet Pea

There is a little story behind this card. My niece was born premature and only weighted 1 lb. 7 oz. at birth. From the day she was born my sister and brother-n-law called her Sweet Pea. Her birthday is in November and she will be turning 3 and I'm happy to announce that she is very healthy and has had no problems since birth.



I always make her a special birthday card. When thinking of what I could do this year for her birthday I remembered that the Green Thumb stamp set had a sentiment that said Sweet Pea. I knew right away I had to get this set for that sentiment.



I found that in the Birthday Basics set there was a sentiment that was in the same font as sweet pea and know this would be a great combination. This card is 5" x 5", using my square nestabilities I cut a window then measured out the lemon tart cardstock and cut a window just a tad bit larger. I used my scor pal to create the scor lines. Stamped my image in spring moss and punches out some circles in lemon tart, added some glitter and used pop dots. I finished it off by tying some lemon tart saddle stitch to the top. I am so pleased with how it turned out. Now how am I going to top this next year. Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of your weekend.