LOSS OF A FURRY FRIEND

My girlfriend runs a doggie daycare and over the years has lost many of her doggie friends including my two beautiful golden retrievers.   Pet loss sympathy cards are not always easy to come by so I made this book of cards for her.  

These are a few of the cards I made to go inside. I  made sayings for the inside of each card which could be
included with the card or she would be able to write her own message.

AN OWL POP UP CARD

This card was a tutorial from Darlenes cards.  She has the most fantastic owl cards using the stampin up owl punch.   Her instruction are great and the cards are fun to make.   

50th WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CARD

Another casual Anniversary card.   This card was made for a couple that live in the country overlooking a lake.  It seemed really fitting for them.   I got the idea from a similar pin.   The image is Mo Manning and the log cabin is a stampscapes stamp.  The log cabin scene was colored  with  sponges and  stampin up inks. 

The couple were done in  water color pencils. 

THANK YOU CARD

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to be included in a small group of chosen few, for dinner, in honor of a very special person.   We were totally spoiled with good food , wine and great company.  This is a thank you note for the women who did all the work to make the evening so great.

A CASUAL 25TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY CARD

After looking at the anniversary cards, they very quickly started all looking familiar.   If they don't have hearts, they have flowers on them.   I needed a simple card for a 25th anniversary BBQ.   So this is what I came up with. 

18th BIRTHDAY BALLOONS

An 18th birthday should be special.  My friends granddaughter loved looking at the old photo albums so it had to be about pictures and what birthday would be complete without balloons.   So I scanned in a photo of the birthday girl from age 1 - 18   and mounted 17 of them on  30 inch dowels with  matching balloons and curly ribbon.   I had one   3.5 ft  balloon in the back which held the gift bag with an album to put all the pictures.  They were secured to the little gift boxes which had candies on top.

VICTORIA SECRET CARD

Most of the cards I make are at the requests of  friends and  family. This card is for my best friends sweet granddaughter who turned 18 today.  She is a big fan of  Victoria Secret so I had some fun  making her this card.   There is a pocket on the inside which holds a gift card.

I swapped out the model on the poster in the store and put a picture of the birthday girl.

SPECIAL ANNIVERSARIES

The following cards are for a friend who is going to a 25th  and 50th  wedding anniversary parties. I decided to make 4 cards,  2  for each occasion so she could choose.  These are the first two. The card ideas were taken from the net but adapted to my supplies and tools. Unfortunately  I could not capture on camera the beautiful gold paper from the  50th anniversary card.

BABY CHRISTENING CARD

It is hard to come up with a baby christening card idea.  I didn't  want it to look like a new baby card but  I wanted to keep it baby themed.   This image is from Lily of the Valley , colored with spectrum noir markers.

MENS BIRTHDAY CARD WITH SPONGED BACKGROUND

My ex boss collects watches so this card is so perfect for him. I saw a similar card and just loved the colors and textures.  The inks are from Tim Holtz ,  the embossing folder is a cuttlebug, and the clocks are images I took off the net.  

CRAYONS FOR GROWNUPS

I found an awesome tutorial on coloring your card images with crayons.  You use baby oil and artist stumps to even out the crayon marks.   What a fun inexpensive method of card making.    I couldn't wait to try it. The following two cards are done using this method .

FLOWERS AND BUTTERFLIES CARD

A friend of mine needed a birthday card for his sister.  He had seen a similar card  and asked me to make it for him.   It is  a stampin up image done in  colored pencils. The flowers and butterflies are 3d.

WATERCOLOR WOMENS CARD

One of my most talented friends is having a birthday soon.  Besides water color painting, she plays the sax, is a female dog whisperer and is just an all around amazing person.  I made her this card with a little inside touch to hold the card verse and gift card I plan to give her.   The image is from Mo Manning and I painted it  using watercolor pencils.   

MENS CARD COLORED WITH BIC MARKERS

I wanted to color with alcohol markers but didn't want  the expense of the copic ones so  after watching Gina K's tutorial and the purchase of an inexpensive set of bic markers I made this card.  It is really remarkable how they blend together just like the better ones. Unfortunately they don't have a  large color    range.

NEWBORN PAGE

All books have to have a beginning.  In each of my childrens scrapbooks I made a newborn page. Being a packrat I still had their original hospital certificates and the new born picture the photographers took in the the hospital when they were days old.   Remember these were the days before digital. 

MASCULINE FISH CARD

Another tutorial from Michele Zindorf.  I didn't have  a lot of the right things to work with like the markers or the right color inks so I did a work around.  I usually don't copy a tutorial 100% but this card was just so stunning I couldn't help myself.  A friend of my is having birthday and is an avid fisherman and will really appreciate this card.  I am always so grateful for those talented people out their that share there incredible talent.

GOLD WATCH FOR 90TH BIRTHDAY

What do you give a man who has everything.  I designed this cake for my bosses 90th birthday.It was definitely something he never had and  was really thrilled with it. The face of the clock was an edible image and the gold fondant was a edible spray coloring.

MASCULINE BIRTHDAY CARD

This is a Mo Manning image.  Perfect for the fisherman in you life.  I used spectrum noir markers to color the image and a real fish hook for an embellishment. I designed the circular sentiment.

PET SYMPATHY CARD

If we are lucky enough we have had the joy of sharing  a part of our lives with animals.  Unfortunately, the time is never long enough because they live for such a short time.  I made this card to share my sympathy for a loss of a dog.

JEDI CAPE AND ANIKIN SKYWALKER COSTUME

If you have been following my blog,  I had posted two Elsa costumes that I had made for my granddaughters.  My grandson wanted to know where his costume was and of course it wasn't going to be an Elsa dress.   He picked Anikin Skywalker from Star Wars.   I had already make him a Luke Skywalker for Christmas which he thinks came from Santa so I used the same Karate Halloween Costume for the pants and top and bought a ghoul costume and turned it into a cape.  Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of the costume  because it needed adjusting and I didn't get back into taking more pictures once it was done.
The important thing being , he loved it and wears it all the time.

ANOTHER SUMMER CARD

This is a Lily of the Valley Image , colored with spectrum noir markers  and it is 3d.  I designed the sentiment and cut the cattails  from MTC . 

SUMMER CARDS

I have never entered a card challenge before , so I decided to try my luck with Crafters Companion  summer card challenge.  I used a sassy Sally and Bella  digi image and colored them with spectrum noir.
I also made them 3d.  Wish me luck

CANOPY CARD

I was dying to try making the canopy card. I am so grateful for the wonderful people that share their ideas, and give us  the instructions  for some great cards.   This card is my version of the canopy card.  The cut out is from the sweetheart cricut cartridge.  The stamps are from Stampin up  Don't you think it would make a great engagement card.

FRIENDS FOREVER

Over the years we have many friends come and go but there are those who seem to be in our lives forever.
My son has a few friends he has had since  he was very young so I decided to do a scrapbook layout of theses special friends.

ORGANIZING YOUR DIES

I have seen a lot of methods for organizing your dies especially the spellbinders sets but I was always worried that they would fall off hooks or magnets.  I decided to  put  magnets sold for printing pictures in a 8.5 by 11 scrapbook album and store my dies.  I filed them back to back with cardboard in between and marked all the sizes and how many I should have in each set.  Knowing the size makes it easier when you want to print an image and use a certain die cut.

RIBBON ORGANIZATION

I have tons of ribbon in every color and if it doesn't stay easily accessible  I usually wind up buying more because I can't find it.  I came up with a system that works really well. I purchased boxes from the dollar store and cut small squares of card stock with a indent in the middle to keep the ribbon from slipping off.
I then took small elastics , also from the dollar store, and secured the ribbon.   If the ribbon was narrow  I wrapped two on the same  card stock square. I cut the card stock squares with a little  tab in the middle  to separate the two ribbons.  Originally  I cut the cardboard squares from my cricut until I realized it was much quicker just to do it by hand.

CRAFT STUFF ORGANIZATION

So much stuff to organize.   All my sentiments stamps were in sets so when I was looking for a Happy Birthday  I would have to pull out all the  different sets of sentiments or other sets and look through them all to see what size or style I wanted to use.  Many times the stamps had fallen off the acetate and I would have to search for them.   It drove me crazy.  I decided to divide all my sentiments by  events , like Happy Birthday,  Sympathy, etc. etc.   I got thin plastic boxes at Michaels and Stampin up , cut two pieces of acetate to fit .   I then stamped all like sentiments on the sheets of acetate in stazon ink and filed two sets in each box back to back with white cardstock in between.  You can find the sentiment in seconds and if it falls off the acetate it remains in the box.

SCRAPBOOKING THROUGH THE YEARS

In the middle of my sons scrapbooks I made a through the years page with all their school photos.
This is my middles sons pages.

MORE WEDDING CARD CHOICES

This is the other wedding card I made for my brother.  It is a  5 X 7 inch card , embossed with a cuttlebug folder and stamped with a inkadoo bride and groom.  You could actually use any bride and groom silhouette.  Simple but elegant.

WEDDING CARD CHOICES

My brother called me this morning, looking to see if I had a wedding card in my stash.  No luck, so I made him  a few to choose from.   This card is one of them.  It is a stamping bella stamp colored with spectrum noir markers . The frame is a spellbinders cut out with a plain oval. The embossing folder is cuttlebug hearts.

POOL( BILLIARDS) CARD

My son is a big time pool fan so for his birthday I made him a pool card.  I took the silhouettes off the net and cut it out with MTC. The letters are metal brads. The background is stamped in memento grey flannel.  In retrospect  if I redid this card I would have changed the 8 on the ball to his age.

SMALL GIFT IDEAS

I am sure like myself you have that special person that does nice things for you, be it a neighbor, friend or co-worker, that you need that small gift for , that isn't the regular plant, flowers  or candies.  My neighbor is just that person. I wanted to give her something a bit different and I knew she loved the flavoured Keurig coffee. In Montreal, it is very hard to find the pods sold separately but I did manage to buy her some and made a special box for them.  I used the box maker on my Crafters Companion  Ultimate Pro and I cut coffee cup shapes out of the front of the boxes.  I then made her a coffee card using an Art Impression girl friend stamp.

NO REPLY TO COMMENTS.

I am sorry if I don't respond to your comments at this time, it is because I am having difficulty using  the reply feature.  I have added my email address to the side bar if you want any information or a copy of templates.  Hoping to have this problem fixed ASAP  Thanks for your patients.

POP UP CHAIR CARD WITH A PERSONAL TOUCH

I love to personalize a card for close friends and family.   This is a birthday card for my best friends daughter and the pictures on the front and the inside card are of her father and family. The dog in the chair is her dog.
The stamp on the front is  from ,MFT ,whos that girl collection.  The embossing folder  and the pop up chair are from sizzix .   Hope you enjoy.

GRADUATION SCRAPBOOK PAGES

My son had so many graduations I needed two sets of  pages to cover them all.  The idea  for the high school grad page was taken from  various cards I had seen.  The collage on the left hand bottom page was an invitation for his last graduation party.

POOL SHARK AND TEENAGERS WITH ATTITUDE

This is a scrapbook page I designed for my teen with attitude.  The pool cues are a digi imaged resized , cut out and colored with markers.

ARMY LIFE

My two sons were in the army reserves for a few years.  I saved their dog tags and added them to their scrapbook pages.  This is one of the army pages. 

SCRAPBOOK PAGES, BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS.

  My sons were born in the seventies before the age of digital pictures. Fewer pictures were taken back then  so preparing a scrapbook proved to be challenging at times.
I mapped out my scrapbook  like a book trying to cover  pages for different ages and special events in their lives.  Over the years I had gathered up small mementos  of their life which I scanned into the computer , shrank down and added to the pages.
Each book had an opening and closing page.
The following are the opening and closing pages for my middle son, Chris.