October cards

Happy Halloween everyone!
It's been a while since I posted, and all I can say is that life has suddenly become incredibly busy!  Here are a few artsy projects I did over the last month:

A quick thank you card featuring a little embossed "thanks" with coordinating coloured flags.  It's sweet and simple and easy to whip up quickly to drop someone a thank you note!

This is a card I made for my friends Crystal and Josh on their wedding day!  They had a Halloween themed wedding (AWESOME!), so I really got to have a lot of fun with this card.  I got to pull in some of my favourite elements - ribbon, sequins, lace, glitter and rhinestones, and somehow it all comes together seamlessly.

This is probably one of my favourite cards I've made in a long time!

Speaking of Crystal, here's the fun little card that I came up with for her bachelorette party.  I based it on an invitation design that I found on pinterest - I used plain pink paper for the card base (it's made out of a single sheet of 8.5x11 cardstock, carefully measured to make the opening in the middle even!)
I then cut out pieces of pink damask paper, and punched holes for the corset's lace.  I finished it off with some simple eyelets and ribbon.















Finally, this is a page in my journal that's based on something I found on pinterest.  I had fun thinking of all the things that I really love and make me happy.















What projects have you been working on lately?  Link me to them, so I can come check them out!

Handmade Cards: The May Edition

May is tied with December for biggest card month of the year.  It just seems like there are so many birthdays, Mother's Day and weddings that happen in May every year!  So without further ado, here are the cards that I made this past month:

The cutest bridesmaid proposal ever (if I do say so myself!)

Ever since he popped the question, I've known exactly which girls I wanted to stand up there with me, and I also knew that I wanted to make me asking them almost as special as him asking me!  I surfed around on pinterest for inspiration, but didn't really find anything I loved to draw from.
The idea struck me when I stumbled upon these super cute Valentine's Day plates at Target, which just so happened to be in the colours we chose for our wedding!
I bought a few of them, not knowing exactly HOW they would be put to use, just knowing that they WOULD be... and got cracking!

It started to come together when I found this frame.  I thought about decoupaging it in our wedding colours, but instead, I settled on decoupaging it with pages from a vintage romance novel (My one bridesmaid, Marlena, actually got a frame that was decoupaged with pages from a French romance novel!)



Then, I discovered this awesome program to use in conjunction with my Cricut machine called Cricut Craft Room.  It allows you to create a layout using cartridges you already own, OR, any Cricut cartridge, which you can then purchase online, directly through the program.  This made it a lot easier to visualize, because I could see exactly how big the letters would turn out.


I took my letters, and very carefully (using tweezers when necessary!) glued them on the inner matting of my frame.  The Craft Room program made it super easy to get just the three letters ("I Do") in a different colour, because I knew exactly where to position the paper on the cutting mat.  I used a glue runner to glue the letters down, because it's easier and less messy than white glue, a glue stick, etc.   You could also do it with mod podge, if you prefer.


I created some paper medallions, using this tutorial over at How About Orange.  Inside the centre of each medallion, I wrote Bridesmaid, or Maid Of Honour.  I then glued them to a piece of textured paper that matched the centre of the medallion, and on the paper, I stamped, "Will you be my"

Because the ribbons are higher than a flat picture, I couldn't replace the glass part of the frame, so what I did was include it behind the art work - that way, if the girls decide, they can replace the "proposal" part of the frame, with a picture of us at the wedding, afterwards!


I put it all together with some Cherry Red & Aqua coloured Jelly Belly's, and some cheesy, wedding related bubbles that I found at the dollar store (wedding cake & champagne).  I used the Cricut and some of my own decorative punches to create confetti out of matching paper.

I included a card that told each girl why I picked her, and how much she meant to me... Then I wrapped it all up in cellophane and hoped they'd say yes!
(They did!)

Feel free to Pin this on Pinterest and draw inspiration for your own bridesmaid proposal!  Please let me know if you decide to do something similar!

 

Handmade Cards: The Wedding Edition

In a one-week span I had two weddings.  Therefore, I have had a very busy couple of months!  Here's some of the cards I created in the last little while:

First up, the bachelorette party.

This card was for my friend Amy.  It features a martini-glass cut out, where I then sandwiched glitter and confetti in between plastic to create a super fun girl's night out theme.  I used the same martini outline in black & white polka dot paper, and just some plain strips of paper & ribbon on the opposite side to balance it.

Next up is a card I made for my friend Katy's wedding.  I decided to go with simple, traditional wedding colours for this one.  It's a square card on silver cardstock, followed by gold vellum, patterned white paper, and two sticker strips that say "wedding".  The middle stamp says Happy (heart) Day, and there's some gold swirls above and below the stickers.

I created a square envelope by using the same size circles and layering them (4) and tying with ribbon.  This tutorial explains it much better!

And here's the last one - Amy's wedding card!
I knew Amy was going to have a fall themed wedding, as it was taking place up in northern Ontario, where the leaves had already started to turn... So I thought I'd make her something to match the surroundings.  I used a few different Cricut cartridges - for the leaves, the letters, and even the couple (It's actually Ariel and Eric, from the Disney Dreams Come True cart!)





What have you been crafting lately?

Handmade Cards - The June-July Edition

I had a few events in June & July that required some handmade cards.  (And a few more, that haven't been made yet!)

For my friend Christina's birthday in June (you may recall her guest blog with a recipe for Key Lime Cupcakes), I made this little number.  I started with a pink card base.  The Owl and "It's Your Day" are stamped in black ink and cut out.  The owl is affixed with pop dots to give the card more depth.  I used buttons for balloons (attached with a glue runner), and drew a line with a marker to the owl's hand.  The grass at the bottom was cut with zigzag scissors, and then cut vertically and bent forward for some additional texture.





For my friends Katy and Anthony's wine shower, I came up with one of my favourite card designs ever.  I wanted to do something wine themed, but I wanted a monochrome effect for elegance.  I freehanded a stencil of a wine glass, and cut out all the different shapes separately for some texture.  The "love" and bubbles are from a Cricut cartridge (I can't remember offhand which one).  The ribbons are attached with a pop dot.
I totally love this card, and I hope they did too!



For my niece Nicole's 5th birthday, she insisted on a Hello Kitty themed party - so I thought I'd make her a card that went along with the theme.  The week before, she had also come swimming at my apartment, so when I found this postcard of Hello Kitty in a pool, I thought it was perfect!  The postcard came from this set (Hello Kitty Haiku postcards! How cute is that!) which I happened to have stashed away.  I used some white with blue/green swirled scrapbook paper as a background... then added the pieces of the swimming pool that were "scraps", with a ribbon in a coordinating colour.  I then used the actual Hello Kitty image, and affixed it with pop dots for dimension.
At the top, I used a piece of colourful scrapbook paper and dimensional stickers spelling her name.

Hope everyone here can use these cards as inspiration - leave a comment and let me know what you think, and especially link up if you've created something of your own!

All U Need Is Love wedding card

Here's a card I made for two of my friends who got married this weekend!  (Hopefully they've already opened it, or they don't see it online before they do!)
Materials:

• silver patterned cardstock
• gold vellum
• blue ribbon
• silver paper
• gold cardstock
• stamp & ink pad
• Cricut Cartridge: Straight From The Nest

I started with a 5.5" by 4" card base.  Next, I cut the silver patterned cardstock to about 4x3 and glued it down.  The gold vellum is about 5.5" by 2", and is glued down across the middle.  The ribbon is cut down to size at 5.5" and glued on top of the vellum.

Then I took my Straight From The Nest cartridge and cut out the shadow (silver) and main (gold) "Bird4" border image at about 2 inches.  I glued them down on top of the ribbon.

Then I just took my stamp & teal ink and stamped my main greeting along the bottom... and done!

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