Another Birthday Card

I am still plugging away on making stuff for the holiday bazaar on November 10th.  It is taking most of my free time- well, my crafting time anyway!  This week, I took a break to make a birthday card for my step-mom, whose birthday is at the end of the month.  I found some great specialty paper today at JoAnn's, and that is what I used as my inspiration.

This paper is beautiful- it is threaded with gold, and sprinkled with teal flowers.  I combined this paper with coordinating teal paper, as well as some metallic gold paper for the card, and created the flower out of the same papers, with a gold pearl for the center.  The sentiment was printed out on the computer.  The inside is blank, so that I can write my own personal message there.

The holiday bazaar is only 3 weeks away, and I am still cranking out cards in preparation.  Here is one design I have made for the sale:

I have to say, I LOVE this card!  I recently bought the Spellbinder poinsettia dies, and have been anxious to use them.  This is my first attempt.  I used a paper I bought at Craft Warehouse for the patterned portion of the card.  The poinsettia flower is gorgeous- the best of any I have ever used for a card.  I did have to purchase the Spellbinder embossing pads in order to emboss the cutouts with the proper embossing, but it was worth it.  They really look great!  I used some little gold gems in the middle for the middle of the flowers.


I have made lots of holiday cards for the bazaar, and will try to post pictures of more of them next time.

Birthday Card

I have been very busy creating cards for the holiday bazaar I mentioned in my last post.  So busy, in fact, that I haven't had time to take pictures of any of them!  So I won't have a sneak preview of any of those until I get my inventory up and can take a breather.

In the meantime, I took a break from holiday cards to make a birthday card for my BFF Kendra, whose birthday was last week.  I had some pretty paper I'd been wanting to use, and this was the perfect occasion.  I wanted to do a design that was different than anything I had done before, and had been kicking around this idea in my head of having a tri-fold card with windows, so decided to give it a try.

This project definitely had its challenges!  First of all, I stubbornly wanted to make it 5x7, which was difficult because standard scrapbook paper is 12x12.  In order to do a 5x7 tri-fold card, I'd need something that was 15 inches wide.  I went exploring in Michaels, and came upon some thick paper back by the art supplies that is meant for watercolors or pastels, and was very large- at least 24x24.  It came in several colors, and lucky for me, one of them was a green that worked well with the paper I wanted to use.  The other challenge was die cutting the windows so that the lined up correctly.  There are actually two windows of graduated sizes, so it is important that they line up.

Here you can see that when you open up to the second panel, the window is larger than the one on the front.  It was a little tricky to get it there, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

The second panel opens up to the inside, where there is space to write a personal sentiment.

Kendra said she liked the card, which made me happy.  I am always a little nervous making cards for other card makers, especially ones whose work I admire!

I have some more birthdays coming up in the near future, so will have to work those into the crafting schedule around the holiday bazaar work- I'll be back later to share those!