Happy 33rd Birthday Jimmy!

Today is my brother's birthday and this is the card I made him.

There is a little story behind this card. For the past year, I have stopped making cards for my family & friends. This is due to my health. I have made the odd one her and there, but for the most part I have bought my cards this year.

I have at least 2 birthdays every month and some months are as high as 9 to 12 birthdays in one month. Then you add holidays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, babies and so forth and so forth and a lot of my time is spent making cards.

This is why I gave myself permission to take time off from making my cards this year. I am working on balancing family, friends, work, scrapbooking, photography & me time and I hope to have a rough plan in place for the New Year. I am realistic and I know my life balancing plan will take some time to work out all the kinks, but I won't stop trying to come up with the "perfect" balance.

Well, I just couldn't buy my brother a card this year. Last year I went to make him a card with this fisherman image from the Greeting Farm. I was so excited because it kind of looks like him. To my dismay, I realized that I didn't own it. This was one of those stamp sets that I had talked myself out of.

Well, I was quite disappointed. So, the next time I had put a Greeting Farm order in, I made sure that I bought this stamp set. I am so glad that I did because I love this card. Yes, I was up very late making it and of course at the very last possible moment, but the process was so therapeutic. I lost track of time in my scrap room and it felt good.

I used Basic Grey's Pyrus 6 x 6 paper pack, Core'dinations Cardstock and some miscellaneous brads from my stash. I played with one of my new Nestabilities - Wonky Square, my sewing machine and I had fun free-hand cutting up my scrap pieces of paper for my tree. As I have already mentioned, the fisherman is from The Greeting Farm and all the sentiment stamps are from CC Designs.

I used the following Copic Markers to colour in my image: Hair - E44, E47 & E25; Skin - E00 & E000; Shirt - T3 & BG72; Hat & Pants - E57; Hankerchief - W3, YG95 & BG99 and the Fish - W1, E43, E40 & E34.

Holiday Cheer - Take Two

Here is my "Bulk" Christmas Card for this year again, but with different papers. I have prepped to make 40 of this colour combination. I am trying to use up old paper lines from the store.

I used Smooth Bazzill & Worldwin Cardstock. I don't remember the company that the patterned paper came from and all the pieces are glued down, so I can't even check. The patterned paper is actually a very deep chocolate brown, but it kept turning out more like black in all my photos.

For the front of the card, I used CTMH's Captured Moments stamp set and I used a sentiment stamp from the Hero Arts Holiday Sayings stamp set for the inside of the card.

I used two different EK Success' border punches for the die-cut pieces.

Happy 7th Birthday Sparkle!

Happy 7th Birthday Gorgeous!

I have mentioned in past postings how I have a difficult time taking my photos because of Sparkle getting in the way. Well, Shanna told me that I should blog photos of her getting in my way. The only difficult part is that I automatically shoe her out of my way before thinking of taking a picture of her.

Well, I finally didn't this time. I shot some photos of her before shoeing her out of the way. This is what I always go through when shooting my photos in the backyard and I thought her birthday would be the perfect day to post them.

She can be any where in the house, but she is normally at my feet or at least in the same room with me at all times. One of her nicknames that I have for her is "Gorgeous", but we do refer to her a lot as "Mommy's Shadow".

I will pick up my card or calendar page and my camera and head out to the yard. Within seconds she is right beside me. I normally photograph my cards on my 8 foot long patio stairs. The first & second photo show you what she does to me. I will be lining up the card in my view finder and then all of a sudden there is a pug nose at the top of my photo.

The reason why I pointed out the size of my stairs is because she could be any where on the stairs, but she insists on being on the one step right above where I am shooting my cards.

For my calendar pages, I normally lay them out on the lawn. She thinks that means it is time to play and she always runs across my page in hopes that I will chase her.

The 3rd photo of her is when I am taking a bunch of photos. She finally gets bored waiting for me to finish and lies down right above my card or project and rests until I am done. This photo was taken when I was shooting all the pages of Stephanie's Bridal Shower Album that we made for her.

I looked up from the pages that I was shooting and there was Sparkle right in my face, she made me laugh because I had forgotten that she was even there and she looked so damn cute!

So, all in all, at times it may be annoying to have my "Shadow" by my side every minute of the day, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Holiday Cheer

Here is my "Bulk" Christmas Card for this year. I have prepped to make 30 of this colour combination. I am trying to use up old paper lines from the store.

I used Core'dinations & Worldwin Cardstock. I don't remember the company that the patterned paper came from and all the pieces are glued down, so I can't even check.

For the front of the card, I used CTMH's Captured Moments stamp set and I used a sentiment stamp from the Hero Arts Holiday Sayings stamp set for the inside of the card.

I used one of EK Success' border punches and medium photo corner punches for the die-cut pieces.

CC Design Witch Card

I am making four of these cards for my great aunts. I have some family photos to send them and I don't want to put it off until my Christmas cards go out. So, I thought I would send them each a Happy Halloween Card.

I used Echo Parks Happy Halloween two-sided patterned papers, Core'dinations & Worldwin Cardstock, Karen Foster Black Organza Ribbon, Doodlebug Black Brad and Spellbinders Crown Ovals Nestabilities.

The witch stamp is Halloween Birgitta from CC Designs, the pumpkin stamps are from CC Designs, the "Happy Halloween" sentiment is from Kraftin' Kimmie and the cobwebs & spider stamps are from CTMH's Creepy Cobwebs stamp set.

The Copic Markers I used are: Hair - W5, W7 & W9; Outfit & Hat - W4, V15 & RV95; Skin - E00 & E000 and Wings - W0 & V0000

You Make My Heart Smile

I made this card for my friend Ellena.

The stamps used on the front of the card are from Elzybells "Stamp & Scrap" and "Stamp & Scrap Sentiments" stamp sets. The inside sentiment is from Inkadinkado.

I used BoBunny Double Dot Cardstock & papers from Basic Grey's Pyrus 6 x 6 pad. The buttons & embroidery floss are from my stash. The border punch is from EK Success and the small corner punch outs were made by using a 1/2 inch square punch & a Fiskars small square hand held punch.

The sentiment on the front of this card is so very true for Ellena & I because we met each other due to our passion for scrapbooking & card making.

She is a Stampin' Up Demonstrator and I opened the first scrapbooking store in Thunder Bay. Prior to DAT'S Scrapbooking, my store was called Sandy's Place. It was a coney dog & fry shop.

I had turned the corner store part of my store into a scrapbooking supply area and I called that part of my store, Scrapbooking with Donna. Ellena & her daughter came by to check out what I was all about and she gave me her business card. I had never heard of Stampin' Up before that day.

It came in handy because 1/2 hour later, I had a customer come into my store who had just moved to Thunder Bay looking for a Stampin' Up Demonstrator. Ellena was coming back the next day to drop off a catalogue for me, so I gave this new customer the card that Ellena had just given me.

Our friendship has been growing ever since that day.

Congratulations Mr & Mrs. Hyde!

On Saturday, October 2, 2010, my friends, Stephanie & Chris were married on a beautiful Autumn Day here in Thunder Bay. It was a bit chilly, but there was no rain or snow like the weather person had forecasted.

This was the wedding card that I made them. I used Core'dination cardstock, the textured brown paper is from my stash that I have had for over 7 years and the orange speckled paper is a scrap piece of Worldwin Medium Terra Cotta cardstock misted with Tattered Angels Harvest Orange Glimmer Mist.

For the embellishments, I used a piece of fabric from my stash, Kaiser Craft pearls, satin ribbon from Fabricland and gold heart brads from Making Memories. For the pocket trim on the inside of the card, I used Gold Waffle Paper from Stampin' Up's Holiday Mini Catalogue.

The sentiments used are from Stampin' Up's Hostess Level Three "Occasional Quotes" Stamp Set. I heat embossed the sentiments using my Versamark ink pad and gold embossing powder.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the bride. The reception was cozy & fun with a fabulous meal. The day was filled with memories that will live on forever in my heart.