New "tepee" card for some specials folks.  They are technically my son's in-laws, but we count them as family.  Their birthdays are only two days apart so I made them a joint card.  I really like this style card - not hard to make but looks really cool (and folds flat to mail in a standard A2 envelope; the tepee is held in shape by two small magnests).  The hardest thing for me to do is choose the coordinating papers since I'm not good at mixing patterns.  Imagine my glee when I saw this plaid paper because it matched David's shorts almost exactly!

The other issue I had was remembering how to print text in a shape for the inside message.

Birthday card for my sister...

Blast from the past...ran across these pics of from my daughter-in-law's birthday.  She's hard to shop for (this would be the pot calling the kettle black), so I came up with this idea. The "packages" contained gifts that coordinated with the gift tags (bathrobe, lounge wear, slippers).

Seem to be stuck on same two colors (blue and silver).  Today's card used Paper Trey Hugs die and one of my favorite embossing folders, Anna Griffin's Regal Braid.  I die cut the "hugs" and the two strips a second time out of black craft foam and adhered the mirrored cardstock to pop it off the card base.  I have to say, working with the mirrored paper was harder than I anticipated, but I love the effect.  BTW , in case you haven't noticed, my favorite card size is A7, top fold.   To make it out of one sheet of letter sized cardstock, I have to cut two pieces and glue them together.  I've taken to using a die cut on that inside flap to make it look prettier (instead of just a plain flap).  I actually quite like how this works.

I had no idea you could get such dark and even color putting Distress Inks directly to paper!  The end results feels like suede.  The flower was stamped using Glimmer Mist Spray to interact with the dye.  The hello stamp is from SU and is embossed with metallic silver.  All the silvers match much better in person than the do in this pic.  Thanks for stopping by.

Butterfly easel card.

One more card, for my sister who is in the hospital.

My school teacher daughter wanted to make some thank you cards for her co-workers.  She came over and we managed 12 of this design and planned out the next batch.  These are flip cards (made with the Sizzix flip die).  The decorative panels were cut with my electronic cutter.  The puppy was stamped, colored and then scanned into my computer so I could do a print and cut to mass produce them.  Circles were Spellbinders dies.  The stamp is from Avery Elle Furry Friends. I totally cased the card from Jan at http://lilypuss.blogspot.co.uk/.

Guitar Birthday Card

Today I've made a guitar birthday card.  I've seen several versions of this on the web, so I'm not sure who to credit with the inspiration/case.  This is the first time I've used wood veneer paper.  This was a cherry wood with a paper back.  It is very thin and easily die cut and even ran it through my printer.  The printer results are only so-so, as the ink bleeds slightly.  I did not see the insides of any of the other cards, so I'm not sure what they did in theirs, but I do like the how mine turned out.  I will confess that my die cut is not as smooth as it should have been.  I used my digital cutter for it and I didn't have the time to tweak the design like I should have (needed to smooth the curve of the guitar better).  Hope you like it.

I'm a very visual person. When I'm searching for a die, I like to see the actual cutouts like they have on display at our rubber stamping store.  I don't have THAT much room, so I came up with this idea.  It hangs on the back of my door so it takes up no room.  I have the dies stuck on with repositionable glue so I can move them if I need to.  It's constructed by scoring posterboard about 1 inch from the top and then gluing it to a piece of foam core(using scor-tape, it's strong enough to hold the weight).  I've just had to redo (and add more poster board) so I haven't got all the boards labeled yet.  Each diecut is labeled with it's storage location (dvd case or envelope number) so I know just where to go when I find the one I want.  I've got so many poster boards now (gave myself plenty of room to grow) that it does get a little heavy when I'm at the bottom, but I still like it better than any other display methods I've tried.

This is an older card, but one of my favorites.  It uses guilding flakes.

Peek a Boo card for a friend who just retired.

Updated card.  Decided it could use some color.  I'm not good at coloring, but I took my chances.  Wound up added Wink of Stella for a little bling.

Another card for the "White Space" challenge.  You can't tell it well from the photos, but the magnifying glass is cut out multiple times and layered to make it thicker.  I also printed the "magnified" image on clear acetate (with laser printer) to simulate glass.

Birthday card for my sister-in-law.  I used the Anna Griffin Flower Bramble die and the Sizzix Ornate Label.