Veggie Tales Dressed for the Holidays!

I got some great dies to make winter/Christmas accessories for the Veggie Tales characters from my good friends at Cheery Lynn Designs! Here are Larry and Bob and a beautifully wrapped box on a Christmas card... Larry's dressed as a reindeer "snowman" with scarf, carrot nose, branches for arms, and antlers... Bob's got a striped woolen cap... too cute! This card is called a stair step design and is really quite easy to do... Here's a link to Julie Davison's blog for directions on making a side-step card.  And here's another link to the step card tutorial on SCS done by Beate Johns. Be sure to check out the galleries on SCS for these types of cards... there are some awesome and very original designs for inspiration.

I'm working long hours and out of town so I may not be posting every day for the next few weeks anyway... VERY thankful to finally have some work but it's hard being away from friends and family, especially at this time of year... I hope you're enjoying getting ready for Christmas and making lots of wonderful memories with your family and friends... and celebrating the real Reason for the Season... our Savior, Jesus... Blessings dear friends,

~Kathy

Another CAS Card

This is a great little CAS (clean & simple) all-occasion card to have on hand... I scored the front of my brown card base using my MS (Martha Stewart) scoring board. I then opened my little container of pre-cut and embossed butterflies... and chose 5 that were all the same size, just different colors. They happen to have been cut from glittery cardstock. I love these little guys... with one small embosslit die from SU, you're able to cut and emboss five different sized butterflies with every pass through the Cuttlebug or Big Shot! So I just did a whole bunch of them one evening while watching TV and now I've got a little clear plastic container with oodles of butterflies to chose from when I need one.... or five!

The multi-colored grossgrain ribbon was from a roll I had on hand... and I placed a tiny shiny (flat) sparkle dot in the middle of each butterfly for just a hint of bling. I love these dots... they come in about 4 sizes on one sheet and you can find them in silver, gold, pink, and red (I got mine at Michael's). They're great for cards you plan to mail since they don't add the bulk of regular raised jewels.

The white piece of cs was matted with a black piece and then popped up on dimensional glue squares and attached to card front, overlapping the ribbon which I glued down flat on the card front. (I must give credit where it is due... I think... I believe this was a card we did at my SU Demo's house one evening (thank you Bilynda)... my twist was the scoring on the card front.)

Til next time... happy crafting!
Blessings,
~Kathy

House Mouse with Pencil

I love this House Mouse image...he was first given to me by a good friend I met through a swap on SCS who had received one of my cards... we sent goodie packages back and forth and she included some stamped images of this little guy.... I had to get one for myself...

He's stamped on watercolor paper... He's really fun to color with watercolor pencils, then blend with a wet paintbrush or aqua pen... I used a silver gel pen to go over the metal parts of the pencil near the eraser ends. I used a tiny bit of Crystal Effects on his teeth...

The corners were shaped and embossed using one of Fiskars' corner embossing punches.

The card base is brown and a couple of small Cuttlebug embossing strips were used to do the button border along the top and the dotted border along the right side.

The brown and pink striped ribbon was glued down the left side and the image was popped up on dimensionals.

This is one of my very favorite cards (and images) that I have in my collection.

I saw on SCS where someone who had retired from teaching made a bunch of cards with this little guy to send to her fellow teachers when they returned at the beginning of the new school year... wishing them a great year and gloating about being retired... I thought that was a pretty cute way to use this image...

Have a great day... and happy crafting,

Blessings,

~Kathy

Another Quickie

OK... here's another quick and easy card made from one of the pre-printed cards from a box of 50 that I get on sale for $6 (includes envelopes!)...
I used my favorite MS embossing border punch on the card front and did the same to two other pieces of coordinating cardstock and glued those to the inside of the card front so they extend in layers.

Had some pink polka dot ribbon and a little "friend" charm which were added to the front and the finishing touch was one of the Cuttlebug embossed butterflies with a couple of itty bitty brads. This particular die and embossing set is one of my very favorites... it comes with the butterfly die and four separate, small embossing folders to give you a choice of embossing design...

Hope you like this quick idea for an inexpensive handmade card...
Blessings,
~Kathy

CAS Welcome Baby Boy Card

This is a card I did for a family that already had two little girls and were so excited to be adding a boy to their household... I started with a white card base, matted a layer of blue plaid paper, then a layer of solid dark blue and then the white top layer which was run through my Cuttlebug with this great new baby embossing folder... I added the three buttons on top of the embossed piece, then a gingham ribbon on the botom that I ran through a cute, see-thru, baby boy slide.  I would consider this a CAS card...They loved it!

I love my Cuttlebug embossing folders like this and have several of these (words only) themed folders... this concept/design could be used with any of them... quick and simple... Hope you like it!

Blessings,

~Kathy

Another Adirondack Chair Card

I really liked this card when I finished it and I'm very glad I took a picture because I used it in a pinch for a friend's birthday card when I happened to have it with me and I knew she would appreciate it.

The flowered cs on the front is from a pad of coordinating papers and I thought the colors went well with the watercolored image. I absolutely LOVE polka dot ribbon and I don't remember where I got this very thin green ribbon but thought it was just perfect on here... used a little Crystal Effects on the blooms and put a flat shiny dot in the middle of each...

The second photo shows the inside of the card and has another watercolored image from the same SU set...you can see I used my trusty Fiskar's embossing corner punch on the white and green cardstock.

If you've got some images like this, I suggest you stamp a bunch of them on watercolor paper and then while watching TV one evening, sit and color with markers or colored pencils... you'll then have several ready to go on cards when you need them and not have to stop and color in the images...

Til next time, happy crafting!

Blessings,

~Kathy

Holey Maisy Ketto Card

I love these little KETTO girls... I have two of them - Maisy and Kenya - and love to stamp and color them...

This is really a CAS card... punched the right side of the card front with one of my EK border punches... this one looks like Swiss cheese holes; cut out an embossed and glittery cardstock panel with one of my scalloped rectangle dies, attached a piece of ribbon around the front center of it (vertically) and popped up the oval with Maisy on top of that.

I used this as a sort of get well card for my dear friend Amy who just had neck surgery... hope it made her smile...

Blessings,
~Kathy

One more pic....

Here's a picture of our sweet little Olivia at her recent 3rd birthday party... I miss her cute pigtails that she wore for so long... her mom is now doing these tendril curls... she's just as sweet as she looks! Thought it only fair that I show you how she looks now... the pic below is 3 years ago just after she was born...

Ok... back to cards tomorrow! Hope you're having a wonderful Lord's Day....Blessings!



Four Youngest Grandkids

OK... real quick... a short break from cards...
these are the four youngest of our grandkids... the top photo is Bailey and Olivia (3 yrs ago)... she just turned 3 and he is 11 but this is one of my favorite pictures of them. They will have a new baby sister on January 13th, 2011... Mackenzie Joy... ; )

This one is my favorite of Morgan and John... they just turned 3 and 5, respectively. This was taken this past Easter when they were 2 1/2 and 4 1/2. They are all very happy kids and such a delight to be around... can't wait for the 6th one! (The oldest grandson, Lane, is 20 and is Bailey and Olivia's older brother... will have to get a pic of him on here too... )

That's it for today...

Blessings,

~K

MoMo's Birthday Card

John's little sister Morgan (we call her MoMo) turned 3 on November 3rd... this is one of my favorite pics of her... she has a mouthful of cheesesteak sub... she's laughing at the little robot guy I had pulled out and put on the table...

I forgot to take a picture of her card before mailing it off to IL!!! Just got the pics from my daughter today so here it is... another tri-shutter... I love these coordinating papers in pink and red... some of the papers have a little bit of glitter so there's a tiny bit of bling on the card... The "It's Your Day" and "Birthday Blessings" sentiments were cut out with my new little Cricut...

The picture on the left is a straight-on view and the one on the right is looking at the card from the right so you can see the panels that face that direction... I think I used 3 or 4 different patterned papers... one big red crystal-like flower and some extra flowers cut from one of the papers are popped up on dimensionals on the front-most panel.

Hope you have a great Sunday!

Blessings,

~Kathy

 

 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN V!!!

My sweet grandson, John E. Heater V, turns 5 today... He lives in Troy IL (just outside St Louis)... I'm so disappointed I couldn't be there to help celebrate his birthday...

Hope he likes his card and gifts... box should arrive today or tomorrow... his birthday card is shown in my post two days ago... just scroll down... it's the colorful tri-shutter with Disney's Cars stickers all over it! ; )

Although this isn't a recent picture... it is actually from 3 years ago...it is one of my favorites (and I actually took it)... you don't get lucky enough to snap a natural pose very often... This was in an Olive Garden in Seattle, July 2007... pretty cute, huh?

Here's a more recent one taken earlier this year when I was visiting them and took John and little sister Morgan (she turned 3 last month) for a walk in their neighborhood... This is a carved moose holding a mailbox that I think is just hysterical so I had them stand next to him to show how big he is (the moose)!

Fall Themed Tri-Shutter

Just realized I'd not shown you this one... there's no stamping... just a bunch of 3D store-bought fall-ish stickers and some cute metal leaves that came with their own brads... also some "puffy" sticky leaves...

Adirondack Chair with Cat

The minute I first saw this stamp in the SU catalog... I knew I'd have to have it...
It is so much fun to color with my watercolor pencils and then brush the colors together with a slightly wet brush...

It was stamped on watercolor paper, colored with by pencils and then SU Crystal Effects were added to the flower blossoms... I colored several in one evening... making each cat a different color and changing up the color of the pillow...

A little difficult to see in the photo... but look closely and you can see that I used one of my many Fiskars corner embossing punches on the pink layer.

The card base is a minty green and I thought the ribbon I had on hand matched perfectly... let me know what you think! This makes a great all occasion card.

John V's Birthday Card

Our youngest grandson turns 5 next Friday (12/3) and is a huge Cars (Disney/Pixar movie) fan so when I saw a sheet of padded Cars stickers, I thought they'd be great on his card... Of course, I decided I would have to do another tri-shutter card... to have enough room for several of the stickers... The sparkly cardstock on the front panel is really a Christmas paper that was in a stack I had on hand but I thought it would be okay since it just has candies on it. Most of the other papers, borders, letters, and shaped images were punch-out embellishments from a birthday card stack/booklet I had in my stash...

Even the sentiment on the middle panel is from a sheet of vellum quotes I found in the birthday stack of papers.... Hope he likes it...

Blessings and happy crafting!
~Kathy