Happy Birthday from Texas

I made this card for my SIL's birthday this year.  Since she was visiting us here in Texas, I thought I would make her feel right at home here with us :)

 

The image is a whimsy stamp designed by Elizabeth Bell called Kaydance.  I love this little Texan girl - I've often thought of buying it, but I always end up using my daughter's instead. One of the many benefits of her moving to Texas, other than the fact that she's close by instead of what felt like a million miles away,  is that we are able to share our toys :) The papers are from The Paper Studio, everything else is from my stash. I used copic markers to colour her in and the die I used is from Spellbinders called Lacy Ovals.

 

 

For the inside I used the same papers as those I used for the outside of the card. I stamped a button instead of using a real one so that the card would not be too bulky.  I think it came out pretty cute and very Texan :)  My SIL liked it very much, so mission accomplished.

 

Thank you for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

 

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~

 

 

Teen Boy Card w/ KennyK Image

I have a card to share with you today that I made for an 18 year old.  He is a drummer in his school band and wants to join a drum corps for the summer. I couldn't really find anything to do with snare drums, but I did find this digi stamp at the KennyK website and thought it was perfect for him.

 

I used copics to colour in the image. The papers are from Heidi Swapp Street Smarts pack. I distressed the edges and added some copper brads.

 

 

This is the inside. Not much to it so I decided to add some stars to bring the theme onto the inside of the card.  What you can't see in these photos is that all the stars and the drums are sparkly :) I outlined them with the Stardust pen.  You can see it better on this pic.  I think I definitely need to take some photography classes :)

 

 

I just can't capture the colours, the sparkle and the lack of glare all in one!  I guess some classes would definitely help :)

 

Thanking for taking a peek and for all the lovely comments you've left.

Have a very blessed day,

Lena

~*~

 

Congratulations Card

Hello crafty friends. I made this congratulations card for one of Hubby's cousins who is celebrating his company's 30th jubilee.

 

It's a 3 fold card that I cut from the Wild Card Cartridge. To give the bottle the glass look, I stamped Versamark all over it, sprinkled it with clear embossing powder and heat embossed it.

 

The clock die was a cut that my SIL gave me, so I'm not too sure what company it is from. The little corner swirls were made with a Marianne Creatable.

 

On the inside, I used the same swirls and added a champagne glass.  This was also given to me by my SIL so not too sure of the company either. I cut out the 30 using the font from the Quarter Note Cartridge. All the papers are from Paper Studio and the white card base is from ColorBok.

 

On the right hand side of the card, I left a blank white mat so Hubby can write his message.

 

All in all I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, especially when this was my second attempt.  I was almost finished with the original card, only had to glue the Congratulations embelly to the top,  when our puppy decided that it needed some adjustments in the form of total destruction!

 

Here is what was left of my first card ...

 

 

Yes, he is still alive and in good health lol ...it is a good thing he's cute :)  The rest was all in bits and pieces.  In fact I don't know whether he ate the bottle because I couldn't find it amongst the scraps. We have to leave everything away from the edge of the counters - I guess my card was not far enough back on my desk and it was total destruction in a matter of a minute or two.

 

Well, my friends, thank you for stopping by and sharing this paper crafting adventure with me.

 

Many blessings,

Lena

~*~

 

 

 

First Birthday :)

Hi everyone. I made this card for my little cousin who just turned one! This stamp is Popcorn the Bear at Bathtime, from Crafter's Companion. I thought it was just too cute. Since my little cuz is a boy, I decided to go with blue, white and yellow - all the papers and cardstock are from Paper Studio. You can't see from the pic, but I went over every bubble with my Stardust pen to make the water bubbles look sparkly.

 

For the inside, I used the same papers, added the ducky and the bubbles and called it done :)

 

I hope all the mommies had a great Mother's Day yesterday. Mine was wonderful spent with my hubby and my kids.

 

Thank you for stopping by and taking a peek. I hope you come back soon and remember that I love hearing from you.

 

Hugs,

Lena

~*~

 

 

Mother's Day Card

Hello my crafty friends. Today I want to share with you the card I made for my mom. I used the Inky Antics Rose stamp. I coloured it pink with my copic markers and then used the Madera Corner die to make the flourish in the corner.  Also added a few pearls, and little butterflies that were punched out using a MS punch. The papers were a gift that came with my Cardmaking & Papercrafting magazine.

 

 

I was going to use the honeypop paper on the inside, but I didn't have the right colour, so I decided to use the rose bud stamp instead.

I had been so busy with my son's confirmation that Mother's Day snuck up on me and so this had to be one of those "speedy" cards.  I think my mom will like it though.  She loves roses!  I just hope the mail service doesn't take 3 weeks to get it to Portugal like it did with the Easter cards :)

 

I'm glad you stopped by today and hope you come back soon.

I wish all the Moms a wonderful and love filled day!

 

Hugs,

Lena

~*~

Confirmation Party Picks & Center Piece

I made these party picks to put on the cupcakes served at my son's confirmation lunch.  At his request, he preferred the red velvet cupcakes and chocolate/cheese cake cupcakes instead of a large confirmation cake, so I decided to oblige him :)

 

 

I made the two different ones to differentiate between the two different flavours.  They must have been pretty good, because out of the 48 cupcakes I only had 6 left :)

The cupcakes were all placed in a cupcake holder which was used as a centre piece on one of the tables.  On the other table I used a floral centre piece that I bought at Party City.

 

 

This is what the package looked like .  It was perfect as the colours were silver and white.  However, I wanted to incorporate a little blue into it, so once I "fluffed" out the flowers, I used Tuxedo Memento Bahama Blue ink to sponge the edges.

 

 

This is what it looked like.  It came with 5 flowers and once they were all done I thought that the arrangement was very pretty but still needed a little something to make it more appropriate for a confirmation, so I went looking through my cricut cartridges and decided that this beautiful cross, put in the middle of the flowers, would add just the perfect touch.

 

 

It was very difficult to photograph this arrangement because both the blue and silver papers were very shiny.

The cross was cut at 5.5" from the Wedding Solutions Cartridge. I cut one in blue and then two in silver, one with the "flip" option, so that I could glue one to each side of the blue base cross. It looked very pretty, even if I do say so myself :)

 

Thank you for stopping by and for the wonderful comments that you leave. I do enjoy reading each and every one of them.

 

Hugs,

Lena

~*~

 

 

Confirmation Card for my Son

This is the card I put together to give our son on his Confirmation. The ceremony was beautiful! We had a lunch the next day to celebrate this wonderful step in my son's life. It was a great afternoon spent with family and friends. Now for the card ...

I had the darnest time photographing this card because of the shiny cardstock, but you get an idea.   I used the Grace's Frame embossing folder for the white mat and the Victoria folder to emboss the blue part. The oval is a die from Spellbinders called Floral Ovals. The beautiful cross is a sticker - not too sure from what company though.  I added a little blue gem to each side of the sentiment as well as to the centre of the cross.

 

For the inside I chose this verse that I had from a card that I had purchased a long time ago. I framed it with the Floral Ovals die and added a little silver cross and white dove to add a little more detail.

 

Thank you for stopping by and taking a look-see :)

 

Hugs,

Lena

~*~

 

Confirmation Card from Granny

My mom asked me to make a card for her to give my son.  I must admit that I'm happy to be using my Inspired Heart cartridge - feel justified in having bought it :)

I cut the image at 3.75" in blue. Then I cut it again in white and cut out the dove and placed it on top of the blue one.  Somehow the blue dove just didn't look right. I used some fancy silver corners that my SIL had brought me from Holland and voila, a beautiful card that didn't take too long to make. I coloured the little branch with a marker.

I'm always squirreling away sayings, verses and poems just for these occasions when I don't know what to say. This blessing was just perfect!

I hope you enjoyed my card. Have a wonderful weekend and do stop by again real soon. I enjoy hearing from you, so comments would be greatly appreciated :)

 

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~

Confirmation Card for Sponsor

Hi everyone, after having had a wonderful extended weekend in Dallas, I'm ready to start creating some cards again. Here is the card I came up with for my son's confirmation sponsor.  I'm sticking to the colours of blue, white and silver as those are the colours we chose for his confirmation.

 

I used this cut from the Inspired Heart cricut cartridge. I cut it at 4.5". The cross with the gem is the same I used for the invitations. White cardstock is from Colorbok and the blue is from recollections.

 

Here is the inside. I found this verse online and thought it very appropriate. I used the Spellbinders Lacy Squares for the scalloped mat both on the inside and outside of the card.

 

That is it for today, I will be back again with the card I made for my son.

Till then ... happy crafting.

 

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~

 



Confirmation Favours

As you all know by now, my son is getting Confirmed in a couple of weeks.  This is the favour I made for our family and friends. I wanted to use Jordan Almonds but the blue didn't match at all.  The whites would have looked too blah, so I went with these blue sixlets that I found in a candy store at my local mall.

 

 

The little boxes are from the wedding collection at Michaels. The cross is a 3D sticker that comes in the Wedding Doves Border selection from Jolee's Boutique.

These stickers were designed and printed by my daughter.  Don't they look pretty?  They match perfectly. We used these to put at the bottom of each box.



 

Thank you for visiting my blog today and I hope you come back real soon.  If you like what you see, I would appreciate it if you would follow me :)  Comments are always welcome too.

 

Have a wonderful weekend,

Lena

~*~

Easter Cards and Yummies :)

Well, since I'm so late in posting these, I thought I would do them all in one post.  In order to keep this post short, I will only list a few details under each card to give you an idea of what I used. Please feel free to email me if you need any more detailed information.

 

 

Aren't these just the cutest lil chicks? I fell in love with this stamp the minute I saw it at Archiver's. It's a Northwoods Stamp. I used copics to colour the image. The little flowers were made using a variety of punches. Papers are from Paper Studio (Hobby Lobby). White cardstock on which the image is stamped is Gina K.'s pure luxury heavy weight cardstock. I like her paper as I find that it helps me blend in my colours nicely and believe me, I need all the help I can get, because colouring just isn't one of my talents :)

 

 

I love these adorable little bunnies. This is a Penny Black Stamp called Easter Joy! I guess a chocolate egg that size would definitely make anyone's Easter very joyful indeed! :-)  The image was coloured with copics and stamped on Gina K cardstock. The mat for the image was cut using the Spellbinders Fleur de Lis Rectangles.

 

 

 These are Easter Inchies from Inkadinkado, coloured with copics and punched out with various punches. Bunny paper is from Paper Studio and the rest are from my stash.

 

 

Another Penny Black stamp - this one is called Finders-Keepers. Yes, indeed, being the chocolate addict that I am, I would also keep this basket of yummy chocolate eggs. The image was coloured in with copics. Bunny paper is from Paper Studio and polka dot paper is from Bo Bunny. Ribbon and other papers are from my stash.

 

 

Last, but not least, I made these chocolate and cream cheese cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I decorated them with sugar flowers and little plastic bunnies.

 

That is the end of my Easter posts for this year - I hope you're all firm believers that it's better late than never :-). 

 

Just a note:  some of you have asked me about the cards that I use.  Well, I love the cards from Recollections (Michaels) or their equivalent from Hobby Lobby. They are 6.5" x 5" and come in packs of 50 cards with 50 matching envelopes.  They normally cost $9.99 which is not a bad price but I wait till they have them at 50% off and then I stock up.  I buy mostly white but I also get a pack of the ivory. This works out to 10c per card/envelope. They are all pre-scored down the middle and I find that they are just the right weight and size, not only to work with but also to mail. Hope this is helpful.

 

Have a wonderful day,

Lena

~~*~~

 

 

MS-150 Bike Ride and a Card

Hi everyone, I'm so proud of my hubby and I would like to share the reason with you.  He rode the MS150 bicycle ride from Houston to Austin this weekend in order to raise funds for the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation. The ride took place over two days, 83 miles (134 km) on Saturday and 66 miles (106 km) on Sunday.  Not only did he decide to join this worthwhile ride very late, but the last 6 weeks he had been fighting a bout of vertigo and therefore unable to get any rides in, in order to get fitter. Yet he did it - Way to go Hubby!!! :)

I made him a card from Brian and I and we got him his favourite dessert too - Tiramisu.  Here are a few pics I would like to share with you ...

So here is a photo of hubby crossing the finish line in Austin, Texas.

 

This is the card I came up with for him.  I used the cricut Dude cartridge to make all the cuts for the rider. I embossed the silver paper with the cuttlebug diamond plate folder and used a MS punch for the border.  Added a few black brads and voila, done!

 

This is what I did for the inside.  It was a bit of a joke - since this ride seemed to be a breeze for him, in my personal message on the card, I told him that next year, I want to see something a little more extreme :) like the rider in the front of the card.  I also told him how extremely proud we are of him.

 

That is it for today. We had a very enjoyable weekend. We drove from Pearland to Austin to be there for my hubby and visited the Capitol Building while waiting for him to arrive. 

 

Until next time,

Lena

~~*~~

 

Easter Wreath

Oh this was so much fun to make!  My SIL brought all the goodies over from Holland to make this Easter wreath. It is made by tying plastic bags around a wreath base. It doesn't sound too complicated does it?  Well, my bloggy friends let me tell you that by the end, not only was I a perfect conduit for lighting, but everything in my house that could be static was :)  In fact the only way we could clear away the bits and pieces that went everywhere was with slightly wet hands.  I think the clean up took longer than making the actual wreath :) It was a morning well spent filled with laughter and fun.

 

 

So to recap ~ the yellow that you see are plastic bags, tied around a wreath base and then trimmed and fluffed.  The little birds are stunning, I couldn't get a really good picture to show you but their tails have gems and pearls on them.  The little eggs are coloured beautifully with different designs that match the green of the birds perfectly.  Next year, I'm either going to have to find a slightly bigger nest, or a slightly smaller egg, because that is the only thing that I'm not totally happy with.  The egg is just a little too big for the nest :)  You can add to it by placing a candle or a small plant pot in the middle.  By the time we finished this, all the St. Joseph lilies were sold out, but I will be on the look out for it next year.  Being that it is made of plastic, I'm not totally kosher with putting a candle in the middle. Maybe a large chocolate Easter bunny?

 

Thank you for taking the time to visit today.

  Wish you all a very happy day,

Lena

~*~

Easter Card with Whimsy Stamp

I know I'm late in posting the remaining of my Easter cards, but I hope you still enjoy seeing them.  This is one of the things of my "catch up" list :) So I will be posting things I worked on with my SIL while she was here as well as new projects that I'm busy with.

This is the Easter Card I made for my daughter ...

 

The image is a Whimsy Stamp. I coloured it with my copic markers. The flowers are from Prima and Recollections. The butterfly was a button from one of my daughter's outfits when she was little.  Amazing the things I keep :) but I'm finding use for them now, so I guess it was worth it! The pretty doily is a die from Cheery Lynn Designs.  The little scalloped border was made with a StampinUp! punch.  Papers and ribbon are all from my stash but I can tell you that the polka dot paper is BoBunny.

 

The inside of the card was kept very simple.  I used the same papers and punched out two leaves with a MS punch.  The sentiment is computer generated.

 

I hope you enjoyed my late Easter post.  I will be back tomorrow with another Easter card, so bear with me till I get all my posts up to date :)

 

Have a wonderful day,

Lena

~*~

 

Confirmation Invitations

Hi everyone, today I have an invitation card to share with you.  These are invitations I made for my son's Confirmation.  I think they came out just the way I planned and I am very pleased with them.  I had put a little white bow where the little leaves are now, but both my son and my husband thought it made it look girlie and Heaven forbid that that should happen! :) I really struggled to come up with something manly to balance the little dove and in the end I decided to just add the little leaves since the background was embossed with a leafy pattern too.

 

Once again, I used the Marianne creatables die for the blue mat and the embossed one. The embossing folder I used is a Cuttlebug folder called Victoria. The bible is also a Marianne creatable. I sponged it with Mememto Desert Sand ink. "Brian's Confirmation" and the little flourish was made with MSWord. The ribbon is from my stash. The leaves were punched out with a MS punch. The little dove is a 3D sticker from Jolee's Boutique called Wedding Dove Borders.  It is a border with 20 doves on it but once cut individually they worked perfectly for my card to symbolize the Holy Spirit.  The cross is actually confirmation confetti but was just the right size for this bible. I added the tiny blue gem for a little bit of sparkle while still keeping it "manly" :-)

 

For the inside I typed out all the information on MSWord, then printed it on cardstock and cut it out using the same Marianne die.

 

That is all for today.  I hope you enjoyed your visit and liked what you saw. I would appreciate your comment on this card as with all other cards.

 

Till next time,

Lena

~*~

 

Wedding Card for my daughter

Hello my crafty friends.  I can't believe it's been over a month since I last posted on my blog.  I don't really have an excuse other than that I had a very busy month filled with birthdays, Easter, a wedding and a great visit with my SIL who lives in Holland.  Oh what fun we all had!  Did I mention that my birthday this year fell on Easter Sunday?  It was such a wonderful day spent with my family.
Well, in order to get back into blogging again, I thought I would begin with a post of the wedding card I made for my daughter. Her colours were blue, white and silver - absolutely beautiful combination. So without further ado, here it is ...

 

I used a Marianne creatable for the mat and the doily cuts. The image is a Whimsy Wee stamp that I coloured in with my copic markers. Then went over the flowers with my stardust glitter pen to add some sparkle.  I also placed a tiny rhinestone flower in the centre of the flowers in her hair, bouquet and on his label and the one in his hand.
Since my daughter's wedding was beach themed, I added the silver sea shell amongst the flower spray on the left bottom corner.  I was so happy to have found these blue flowers, it matched perfectly with the papers.  They are from Paper Studio and Recollections. I also added a couple of rhinestone flourishes to give it a little bit extra pizazz.

 

As always I try to bring the front of the card into the inside, so I used the same Marianne creatable to cut the two mats.  The verse is computer generated and the flourishes were stamped with Versamark  and heat embossed with the Ranger fine silver embossing powder.

That was it.  I must admit that I was really happy with the way it came out and my daughter love it too.  I will post the invitations we made soon.  Since it was a combined effort, we decided to put them on both of our blogs :)

Thank you for visiting today.  I hope you enjoyed the time you spent here enough to come back again real soon.

Hugs,
Lena
~ * ~

Another Easter Card

Hi everyone, here is my next Easter card. This is something out of the norm for me - I recycled the image of Christ from an advertisement I received. I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be a perfect image to use on a card for my mom. So I trimmed it and played around with it and built the card around it.

 

 

I began with the DP which is from a DCWV stack called Chateau Lavender. Then I added the die cut from Marianne Designs. The flowers are from my stash - I placed a little pearl in their centres and added a little sparkle to the petals with my Star Dust pen.  For the leaves I used the Fanciful Flourish die and also punched out a few branches with a MS punch.

 

 

For the inside, I typed the sentiment on the computer and printed it on the same kind of paper I used for the top layer of the Marianne cut. I stamped the little leaf flourishes to match the ones in the front. I have to admit that I'm very happy with the way it turned out.  I think my mom will like too :)

 

Thank you for sharing some of your time cruising through my blog. Don't forget to leave me some love. I really do enjoy reading your comments.

Have a wonderful day,

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~

First Easter Card

Hi everyone, here is my first Easter card for 2013.  I used the Easter Blessings stamp set from JustRite and the coordinating die called Oval Nesting Medallions also from them.

 

The DP is from my stash and I don't know where it came from. I used copic markers to colour the image and went over the swirls with my star dust pen to add a little sparkle. Flowers and pearls are also from my stash.

 

I copied this greeting from a card that I received last year. I just think that it's a beautiful sentiment for this blessed season. On the inside, I used my Viva décor pen to add the little pearl to the flower instead of a real pearl because its less bulky and still looks pretty.

Thank you for taking a peek and I hope you come back soon.

 Enjoy your weekend.

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~

 

Nautical Birthday Card

I made this card for a male friend who has a birthday today.

 

 For the front I used two different stamp sets from SU! The background was stamped with a set that is no longer available but I borrowed this beautiful stamp from a friend. The ship is from the Open Sea set which is still available. I added a few metal brads from my stash and stamped the Happy Birthday greeting right onto the map.

 

The inside was stamped with other stamps from the Open Sea set. The sentiment stamp is from Hampton Art.

 

Thank you for visiting my blog today. Have a wonderful day.

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~

Monogrammed Beer Glasses

Good morning everyone. Today I have a glass etching project to share with you.  I bought some beer glasses for my hubby and decided to monogram them with the family initial. It was really hard to take a picture that shows how pretty they came out, but this one should do the job. I did 8 of them.

 

I used the font from Tie the Knot. I cut it out of vinyl on my cricut but used the negative image to place on the glass to etch it.  Hubby was very happy with them.

Thank you for visiting my blog today and for all your sweet comments.

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~

Kitty Valentine :)

Well, the last Valentine card finally reached it's destination yesterday, so I can now share it with you. My SIL loves cats and has two precious kitties who think they're royalty.  When I saw this cute image I thought it perfect for her - doesn't she look very regal?

 

 Hubby gave me this hearts spellbinders as a Stocking stuffer for Christmas and I just love it. This card turned out very simple but I like it very much - just red and white. You can't quite see it from the photo, but this little cat has a "diamond" collar with a "ruby" heart gem.  Very regal indeed! :)  I added little heart gems to the corners and voila, done. 

 

For the inside, I used a MS punch to make the heart boarder on both layers of paper.  I think it makes a very pretty contrast. What do you all think? I took the little red cut out hearts and added them to the corners and made them look like gems by using glass accents.  I didn't want to use more real gems because it would make the card too thick and then it would probably get damaged in the mail, or I would have had to use special padded envelopes.  By using the glassy accents, I got the look I wanted without the bulkiness.

This was the last of my Valentine cards for 2013.  So now it's onto birthday cards and Easter cards.  March is the busiest month for me as far as family birthdays go and this year Easter falls in March too!   Little fun fact - Easter falls on my Birthday this year :) Isn't that a blessing?

 

Thank you all for taking a peek today.

Hugs,

Lena

~~*~~