Easter Basket Treat box

Okay, Okay, I was trying to hold off until I gave this sweet little treat box to my sweet little granddaughter, Arden (you can see her blog at Arden's Garden of Crafts), Easter morning, but I can't wait to share it with everyone! Once again, I can't take credit for the design it came to me via a friend's blog Rubbers 'n Rafters (check it out) and originally from Kerin Sylvester's blog. I used SU match box die (cut 4 from the same paper) and 2 pieces of 5 X 5 card stock for the top & bottom. The adorable choco bunny is from SU, I embossed him/her with Versamark ink on brown paper, embossed with SU clear embossing powder, heated the image and like magic a chocolate bunny appears! The basket stamp is from Rubbernecker.com (don't ya love that name, I love saying it, kinda like a rhyme isn't it)? After stamping the basket I made little slits to insert a few colored eggs (made using my Cricut Expression machine and SCAL, love 'em both

Teapot b'day card

I can't take credit for the design of this card...it was cased from Kristin Bueter's blog. I love her use of the teapot and circle sentiment from Papertrey's "Tea for Two Vol.#15" (I had to purchase it for myself). I liked the simplicity of her design so I used her design with different colors for a more Spring like birthday card to once again ship back to Michigan.

Bird in a cage

This is a birthday card made for a friend in Michigan, using SU "Happy Moments. The polka dot paper is from MTME.

From Our Hearts

Here are a couple of pictures of cards made for Mother's Day for the From Our Hearts organization to forward to our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I opted to make all the cards the same just a few variations of color, using SU Manhattan Flower Embossing folder on vellum paper. I cut away the excess vellum at the top of the flower, swished some glue here and there and added SU Dazzling Diamonds stampin' glitter on the cut edge. The Well Scripted sentiment "Wonderful Mother was the perfect touch on a piece of whisper white CS, punched out using the large oval punch. Forgot to take a picture of the inside of the card, but it was also stamped "Happy Mother's Day" with a couple of itsy, bitsy butterflies from the Branch Out stamp set as well as repeated on the back of the envelope. Thanks for lookin'!

Mother's Day Card

This Mother's Day card is a prototype of a card I plan on making for a project I'm involved in with my gal pal stamper's/card makers, aka "Ladies of the Lodge" in Armada, MI. In December last year our group decided to make and send cards to the "From Our Hearts" organization. This is a non-profit group who have a very dedicated group of volunteers, who receive, categorize, manage and finally ship hand-made cards to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The soldiers are then able to select cards for birthdays, anniversaries, etc., to mail back home to their loved ones. If memory serves me correct, I originally heard about this from Gretchen Barron's blog Inspiration in Action.

The card is made using digitally downloaded patterned paper from My Time Made Easy. I printed 3 different patterns of the paper (1 stripe, butterflies on white and butterflies on brown) on Stampin' Up's (SU) Whisper White card stock. I cut out one of the butterflies from the brown patterned paper adhered it to the base piece, stamped the sentiment in SU's Chocolate chip ink using Well Scripted Clear stamp set (love the clear stamps now available from SU), added a strip of grosgrain brown ribbon with a (kinda) bow and topped it off with a pearl. What mother wouldn't love to receive this card from her son or daughter. This is our group's small effort to help support our troops, for all they do for us!

Hope you like it too.

Also a great big THANK YOU to my fabulous daughter, Nance Leedy, a SU Demonstrator (you can see her blog at Canopy Crafts, for taking the time to create this wonderful blog for me. It was fun working with her in making selections, but especially to see how competent she is creating this (and some other friend's) blogs.

Fabric flower pins

While visiting my daughter, who is a S.U. demonstrator, we created some of the flower pins we've been noticing on other blogs. Here are a few of the flower pins we created using S.U. #2 circle die, cutting anywhere from 3-4 circles each per fabric (depending upon the thickness and type of fabric). We punched a hole in the center of all pieces, inserted a brad and then...yep, used a heat gun to (sort of) melt the fabric! Different results occur from different blends of material, but definitely polyester blends "burn" better. When we were happy with the results we attached a jewelry pin on top of a matching piece of felt and glued it to the back of the flower pin. Almost forgot, after "burning" the flower pin we added a "scrunch" of tulle netting and lightly burned that as well. Just gave the pin a little more "cha-ching". On some of the pins we added a vintage earring to the center, kinda cute don't ya think? Something to do with those "lost one earring" jewelry pieces!

We also made a few flower pins similar to many found on other blogs using SU Bigz "XL Flower Folds" die. We used only the 2 smaller size flowers and cut either 3 or 4 of each size depending on the thickness of the fabric. We alternated fabric patterns as well as adding some tulle netting to "jazz" 'em up a bit.
We thought they look pretty cute, hope you enjoy them too, thanks for looking.