Christmas cards

 

Hi, I'm sorry I have been away from posting new cards.  I have a bad case of Sciatica that makes everything I do very painful.  Couple that with the wood floor installation, and my craft room being the catch all for all random pieces of furniture that get in the way of it.  My craft room is like an obstacle course and I have not seen the color of my desk in months!  But I did get these Christmas cards started.  I was inspired by a card I saw on Pinterest by Susie, you can see it at her blog Summerwalk designs.  I changed it up a bit but I loved her idea.  The letters are a Stencil cut from the SCAL cutting program.  The rounded rectangle shape is one of their program cuts too, (it was a square)  I just layered 1 inside the other.  The Envelope Liner is from Lindsay's Stamp Stuff.  I used 3 rows of glittered ribbon under the stencil cut on the Joy card and I am not sure if you can see it, I used white glittered paper behind the Noel.  The penguin embellie is from Jolee's boutique, part of my Christmas stash from my daughter last year.  I added a little Stickles Eucalyptus and Magenta for trim.  I photographed the cards with some of my favorite Christmas bulbs, the blue one dates back to the 30's, I'm not sure about the pink one.

I hope everyone is surviving this strange summer of 2012.  This is one of the hottest and driest on record here in Michigan.  

I hope to get a few more cards done this week, sorry to be away for so long.  I feel bad, I have been visiting you and I know you have come back and commented and I still have the same post rolling. (It was a good one with all those goodies from my friend Valerie).  But I did need to update it with something new!   Thank you for all of your sweet comments and emails wondering where I had gone and if I were OK.  I am touched to know so many sweet blogging friends, thank you all for checking up on me.  It will be easier to craft once my house is not in a constant state of upheaval too.  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Birthday treasures

 

I want to share the beautiful Birthday presents I received from my friend Valerie, you can see her beautiful blog Bastelmania.  Some of these I can show you you but the best present you can not see, it is the present of friendship that I have received from Valerie and  my other blogging friends, that one sits in my heart.  

One of the things Valerie is famous for are her beautiful envelopes and box decorations, I tried to camouflage the addresses yet still show you the beautiful stamping on my box.   You really need to stop by her blog, she is an amazing, talented artist.  You can see the gorgeous ribbons she sent too.  There is a red satin and yellow that have little wooden butterflies that are covered in gingham cloth, along with a beautiful sheer ribbon and a strand with pearls.  The blue ribbon has a beautiful satin flower with the stranded pearls and green leaves.  These are gorgeous! 

 

This is a musical card, when you open it it has a recorder inside that plays Happy Birthday!  I did not realize right away, but the beautiful gold filigree stickers spell out my name too!

 

The postcard is made from one of her journal paintings that she had sent out and made into postcards.  She made the jewelery pieces for the tag too, they have pretty gold wire intertwined.

 

This is a mini journal she made, I opened it up so you could see both the front and back cover, as I think they are both gorgeous!

 

She also sent me these gorgeous stamps, the LaBlanche rabbit has such an expression and I love the My Minds Eye set, I already have some ideas for what to make with them!

The Jolee bling is all glittery and has rhinestones and the embossed chipboard is awesome, I have never seen anything like that!

 And last but not least a beautiful card from my friend Karin at With an "i" for Paper.  So many beautiful details wrapped into this card.  I recognize the set she used to make this Strawberries and Watermelon from Lindsay's Stamp Stuff where we met on Lindsay's design team.  

Old friends, new friends, to all my blogging friends I am truly blessed for knowing many of you as well as I do.  I never would have guessed I would be celebrating my 60th birthday as a blogger.  Life is good, thank you all, Valerie and Karin and to all of you, thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Gecko Galz Blue and Orange July challenge

Hi, I'm here, lol.  I finally finished this card for my girlfriend's 50th Birthday, the inside of this card says from your 110 lb friend.  I love this sentiment, I don't know who to attribute it to since I've seen it a ton of times and every time I see it I laugh.  The sweet Marilyn image is from Gecko Galz and so is that gorgeous paper (Nouveau Nights).  I am entering this into the July color challenge at Gecko Galz, blue and orange are the colors this month.  I added the message to the front of the image in Pic Monkey, really easy and free photo editing program.  I edit all my photos there but now I am getting a little more adventurous and adding some text, so easy to do!  I added lots of glitter to the edging.  I used my Perfect Layers Rulers to get the nice alignments.  I had originally cut the borders to my picture in blue, white, then blue again.  The white did not look right so I traced my black Stickles around the border and hid the white frame.  The flowers were on the Nouveau Nights paper, I printed it twice and fussy cut the second layer and then added black Stickles to the center and orange Stickles to the flowers.  The flooring still has me floored, ha ha,  I can barely move in my craft room, there are boxes of wood "acclimating" all over the house.  Well, that's it, thank you for looking.  ~Diane

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Stickles, Stickles and more Stickles!

Hi all, sorry I have not been creating much lately.  We are still working on installing the wood floors.  My craft room seems to be the only available place to deposit everything for the time being and it is getting cramped in here, lol.   I made this card for my friends Mother in Law.  I grabbed the gold metal piece a while back at JoAnns for .50 cents on clearance, then I added the green rhinestones to dress it up.  I saw a card on Enfys blog using this technique to ink up the embossing folder before you run your paper through it, I really like the effect.  Not sure if you can see, I used a Spellbinders Nestability to cut the center circle then trimmed it in green Stickles.  I also used some green Stickles to change the trim on that lace ruffle from pink to green.  I used my  Perfect Layers Rulers to get the precise layers and traced the border with more Stickles.  Cardstock and leaf punch are Stampin Up, flowers and rhinestones are from Pizzaz Aplenty.  Thats it, thanks for looking.  ~Diane
I am entering the challenge at
Crafts and Me - anything goes

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For more information and the bove5% discount.

Praying for you card.

 I thought I would show you how much paper I save using my Perfect Layers Rulers, this is just one of the reasons I love it.  The card is 5x7 and the sheets of card stock are 8.5x11.  I cut 2 blue frames and 2 black frames using less than a half sheet of card stock, isn't that great!  I glued my image right on to the full sheet of blue, cut my frame, then did the same on to the black card stock cut the larger frame from the patterned cs, then did another black and blue frame.  I flipped the piece in the middle photo so you can see I don't even need to place it correctly, I can glue it on crooked and it will still cut a perfect border.   I used 2 different size prints of the patterned cs, (I had not made the decision to use the larger sheet as yet.)  The image is free from Magic Moonlight, the paper is Nouveau Nights from Gecko Galz, solid color cardstock is Stampin Up.  I used a Spellbinders NEST-SET-4 Spellbinders Nestabilities Dies for the sentiment a little Tim Holtz distress ink and the lace flower is from Pizzaz Aplenty.  For more information on the Perfect Layers Rulers and a 5% discount, use my coupon code Bove5% here.  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Asha with Friends

I love this stamp, it reminds me of how my daughter would try to grab on to my son and practically strangle him when they were young.  The stamp is called Asha with Friends, the designer is Lia Stampz.  She was so gracious, when I purchased the stamp she allowed me to compose 5 sentiments of my own to go with the image and she emailed them to me.  She does this with all of her images, this is one of my 5, I love how she added the little heart to it.  I used  Lindsay's Stamp Stuff  Decorative Doilies to cut the square doily and I used the negative as my envelope liner, the paper is Stampin Up.  I found a new trick for my bows.  If you look closely I used a tiny rubber-band to make the cinch in this bow.  I kept playing with it and I could not get it right then I remembered I had some of the teeny tiny rubber-bands left over from when my kids wore braces, I had stuffed them in with my craft stuff, sure I would figure out a use for them some day (10 years later, lol).  It really made a perfect bow.  

Just a note here, we will be picking up the wood for our floors this weekend, I may be posting sporadically for the next few weeks, months, years?  I don't know, I'm not sure, how long will it take us to install the floor ourselves?  At some point we will have to take down my craft room, won't that be a nightmare, you did read that I saved rubber-bands for 10 years didn't you, ha ha.  I hope it goes quickly and without too many problems.  That's it for today, as always, thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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I am entering this into the  Inspired By Challenge

Gecko Galz Paris Flea Market Swap

 

 

 

 How fun is this!  The  Gecko Galz Yahoo group had a Paris Flea Market Swap.  This is my first swap and was it ever fun!  Gerri,  from It's All Treasure pulled my name (lucky me) and this is what she sent me!  It was packaged up so pretty I had to show you the way she bundled it all up.  These are progressive envelopes with the flaps glued to the next one so there are pockets inside.  Inside each pocket there was a wonderful treat to unfold, you can see all the goodness I pulled out of them.  Thank you Gerri, I love all my Paris treasures, so much I don't want to put them away lol,  I want to leave them out to admire for just a while longer.

Gecko Galz is a fun group  of crafty individuals on Yahoo.  Leanne, the owner of Gecko Galz has a ton (literally) of fun challenges and swaps.  If you want to have some real Vintage Fun come join us there.  Membership is free and Leanne is always offering new freebies.  In fact if you sign up for the newsletter you will get a new batch of ephemera every month!  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Changing paper colors in Word.

 Lindsay's Stamp Stuff is having a great sale, 50% off  on May 25 and 26 so stop by and see what she has!  I made this card with the multi colored chevron paper from Lindsay's  Hugs and Kisses Valentine papers, that's right Valentines papers!  The paper in the set is shades of red, pink, yellow and green.  I pulled the image up in Word and went to my tools "change color" (I have added change color to my toolbar because I use it quite often) and I selected both the light blue and the darker blue right below it.  I love changing paper colors in Word, it makes your papers so much more versatile!  Of course I used my Perfect Layers rulers to get that clean 1/16" edge behind the lighter chevron layer.  That really gives it so much more dimension.  Follow my link and use Bove5% for 5% off Perfect Layers Rulers. The Tinkerbell stamps are from JoAnns I colored them with Letraset markers and Spica Atyou sparkle pens.  I used Stickles on the wings.  I printed the lighter chevron on copy paper and used it for the envelope liner.  I am sure Kayla will love this card, after all she loves Tinkerbell.  I used a Spellbinders die to cut the birthday sentiment and I trimmed it with StampinUp Stampin Spots Almost Navy.  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Warm Wedding Wishes

 Good Morning.  This card uses Lindsay's Stamp Stuff Beautiful Gown Cards SVG set.   I cut the dress in Kraft and in white vellum.  I embossed the vellum and the card front, added some gold corner stickers, pearls and I used my Spellbinders to cut the computer printed message.  I added a little Tim Holtz distress ink to make the white on white stand out a bit.  I'm sure you can tell I used my  Perfect Squares tool  to get the precise edges and alignments on this card.  That's it, thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Use coupon code Bove5% to receive my 5% discount on Perfect Squares tool.

Sweet 5 x 5 note cards

 I made these sweet 5 x 5 note cards with Lindsay's Stamp Stuff Beautiful Gown Cards SVG set.  I love how easy these were to put together.  I used the pretty Cosmo Cricket papers I won from Laurel on her  Inspired by challenge blog  to line them with.  I was able to get 3 inside linings out of 1 6x6 sheet too.  I cut the sheet 3/4" x 6"  3 times and glued that to the inside so it shows through the scallop when the card is closed, then I cut 3,  2" wide pieces from the remaining sheet.  I always use a white paper liner inside my cards so you can't tell I skimped on the designer paper.  I embossed the cards before I glued the insides too.  Well thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Lindsay's Stamp Stuff and My Graphico will be offering 40% off Sunday 5/13/12  Be sure to check out Lindsay's new watercolor painting sets!

Sharing the most beautiful gifts and my sweet friend..

This is from my sweet friend Valerie, her blog is called Bastelmania, you must visit her!  The sweet hand made card with the beautiful fence and flower, I wish you could see the gorgeous deep embossing on it too, my camera did not really pick it up.

This is a close up of the beautiful roses and daisies and  look at that ribbon!  I have never seen anything like this before!  The red satin  ribbon has sweet little chipboard butterflies and it is a double strand with the pearl balls on it too, just gorgeous!  The beautiful blue sheer ribbon has beautiful satin flowers along with the double strand and a pearl ball and a leaf, totally gorgeous!

 

And the suspense continues, see the pretty package all wrapped up in tissue and more pretty paper underneath I forgot to photograph.  Like how I made you wait like I did :)

Now look what was inside!  Isn't this the most gorgeous wall plaque you have ever seen!  There is so much detail in this, the tiny seed beads, the jewelry pieces, the dragonfly, flowers and strands.  There are so many layers to this, it is totally exquisite!

All of this my sweet friend Valerie sent me!  I could not believe my eyes when I opened this package of sheer beauty.  I actually gasped when I opened the little wrapped package with the plaque inside, I had seen it on her blog and really admired all the intricate details, along with being my favorite color combination too.  I must say this really did make me tear up, the sweetness of someone so far away, that I get to be friends with through our blogs.  I am so fortunate, and so very grateful, for the wonderful gifts and for the wonderful friend you are Valerie.  Oh and I did not photograph it but the box was all decorated with an angel and flowers and a star, my mail man said there must be something very special inside here, I knew there was.  There was also a quote which was very touching and oh so true.  "A friend is one who can touch your heart from across the world or across the room" Anonymous.  I am hanging this in my craft room so I can admire it all day long.  And to remind me how fortunate I am to be blogging and meeting new friends across the oceans.  Thank you Valerie, you totally made my (I was going to say day) month!  I am really touched by your kindness.  Please do stop by her blog, she is an amazing artist on so many levels using so many different mediums too!  And I keep telling her she should be writing a book, she is an excellent author too!

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Cute cards and a thank you.

 

I won Laurel's Inspired by challenge with my umbrella card and this is the sweet prize she sent me, thank you Laurel!  I love the card you sent along with the Cosmo Cricket papers and Maya Road chipboard, those flags look fun!  I hope you will stop by Laurel's blog and her Inspired by challenge blog both, she is a very talented lady, published many times over!

Today I am sharing a couple of cards I made for a friend.  One is for a Disney lover, the other is for a 14 year old boy.   I found a Tigger image that claimed to be copyright free, I'm not sure but this is 1 card for a friend, not being mass produced so I should be OK.  I made it into a pop up card.  This is the first time I made a pop up with the window on the front.  It was a challenge but I love how it came out.  I cut the window with my Spellbinders die.  My second card is Angry Birds and it was a free birthday kit from Sherry K Designs at My Graphico.  I can't take credit for anything other than printing it onto some photo paper and some fussy cutting so I could mount it to add a little dimension.  Sherry K really did all the design work on this layout.  Well that's it for today.  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Pretty in Pink Saturday

 Thank you Beverly for hosting the Pink Saturdays, they are always such a pleasure to participate in.  I have met so many wonderful bloggers through your site and I have seen so many beautiful blogs because of your sharing spirit.   Beverly,  I know you suggested we pick a blog we have never visited but I am changing that to pick a favorite blogger I met through Pink Saturdays my Pink Sisters I will call them.  So my Pink Sister this week is, Sherry, of Country Wings .  You will love her blog, it's a bit eclectic, and filled with beauty.  I never know what to expect, beautiful flowers, crafts and things from her home.  Don't you just love looking in the windows as you stroll by? 

 Whew, I hope you don't mind seeing another card I made with Lindsays great  Printable and SVG set called Beautiful Gown and Favor   I love how it looks in pink!  I cut this twice, once in white card stock and again in vellum.  I used some Tim Holtz distress in Spun Sugar on the edges of the dress then embossed the vellum layer.  I glued the strand of pearls, added the tiny rose to the waistband.  The background is a piece of lace I cut to fit the card and I used a Stampin up punch along the edge of the deep pink paper.  I used my  Perfect Layers rulers to get the precise edges and alignments on this card.  There is a  5% discount if you use coupon code Bove5%.  For the gorgeous liner on this card I used Kissing Booth product line from Basic Grey part of my RAK from Flying Unicorn.    The tiny mirror is a piece of jewlery from Blue Moon.  Sorry this got so long, Have a good weekend and enjoy your Pink Saturday.  

Thanks for looking ~Diane

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Gorgeous win from Flying Unicorn!

 I am sorry (and embarrassed) it took so long to post my win from The Flying Unicorn.  I won this gorgeous blog hop RAK on Helenes blog, Lotsa Scrap from 2 AM Scrapper.  This is the fabulous Kissing Booth product line from Basic Grey, isn't it gorgeous!  You know what a paper hoarder I am and this paper was just too beautiful to just cut into!  I wanted to wait and post my appreciation with something that I made with it.   Flying Unicorn is truly a One of a Kind store, they carry beautiful papers, gorgeous vintage stamps, all sorts of masks, and chipboard.   They have these gorgeous Kits of the Month full of wonderful goodies!  The April kit had a wooden birdhouse and it was awesome!  They are totally off the page when it comes to their kits, not just papers and flowers.   Many thanks to Helene and the Flying Unicorn for this beautiful prize!

The great golfing image is from Free Vintage Digital Stamps, a new blog I recently found on someones blog.  Lots of great images!  Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

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Here comes the Bride

And yes. this was fun, just like playing with Barbie dolls!  Best part is that you can snag this and any of Lindsays other fabulous sets for 40% off on Thursday 4/26/2012.  Lindsay made this awesome Printable and SVG set called Beautiful Gown and Favor,  I love it!  Thank you Lindsay, I hope you will sell a lot since you were so sweet to make the set.  She let me make the pieces for the cover. =)  I used the SVG to cut the dress, and I used the printable to cut the vellum overlay, my cricut is on it's last leg!  I embossed the vellum then added the lace to the skirt.  I used the same lace with the veil and added lots of rhinestones, just because!  I used my Perfect Layers rulers to get the nice clean borders, love that tool!  I used some foam mounting tape under the dress to give it some lift.  I don't think you can see it, but there is a piece of  sheer tulle under the lace veil.  The white dress on the white embossed background did not pop that much, so I added a little Tim Holtz distress ink in Antique Linen.  This photo makes the envie liner and the antique linen look much deeper than they really are.  

 I am linking up to Make it Monday , and a really big thanks to all the ladies on the DT who make this possible and take the time to visit us.   Mary J, Rene, Lisa M, Shirley Anne, Chrissy, Michelle, Karen and Kerrie.

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Thanks for looking.  ~Diane

Another Pink Saturday rolls around.

Thank you Beverly for hosting the Pink Saturdays, they are always such a pleasure to participate in.  I have met so many wonderful bloggers through your site and I have seen so many beautiful blogs because of your sharing spirit.   And in the true spirit of Pink Saturdays I will share another one of my favorite stops  Pats Pink Apron.  Pat is witty and fun, her blog has great recipes and gorgeous tablescapes.  Tablescapes, last year I would not have even known what that meant.  There is another whole world of bloggers who showcase the most beautiful table settings with the prettiest china, the kind that make you drool.  Pat shares another of my passions, collecting cookbooks.  I hope you will take some time and visit Pat at Pats Pink Apron.  

For today's card I used a beautiful free print from Emily at Sweetly Scrapped, she shares such beautiful vintage graphics on her blog too.  I printed it on the Epson matte presentation paper that I grabbed at Staples for $2.99 for 50 sheets.  I always watch Staples for great bargains on photo paper it makes a huge difference when printing vintage artwork and digital papers.  I also used my Perfect Layers rulers to get the precise edges and alignments on this card.  That beautiful square doily was cut from Lindsays Stamp Stuff Decorative Doilies SVG.  I used some Tim Holtz distress ink on the lace and the edges of the card.  I embossed the white card stock too.

OK, so by now I guess a few of you have noticed I have a problem with Word Verification.  I learned something new yesterday, after requesting something more legible to enter, for the 15th time, at a sweet bloggers site, I noticed there was also a "?" button along with the (garbled) audio and pick another scribbled unreadable mess button.  I pressed that little button and it let me "Contact Us" that allowed me to tell Google  I  have a problem reading the new version of Word Verification.  I hope a few of you will take a minute and let them know what you think about it too.  Maybe if enough of us complain they might figure out something better.  Thanks for looking and thanks for listening.  ~Diane
I am entering this in the challenge at:
The Stamp Man - shabby chic / distressed

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Pretty Dresses

I have some exciting news to share, Craft Corners contacted me and and asked to feature my blog in their Best of the Web collection.  You can see my card along with more of their awesome picks at their site Craft Corners Best of the Web .  Be sure to check out their post on Craft Room Organization too, I found it really interesting!  Thank you for featuring me, I am really honored. 
 I must admit, this card was totally inspired by, the challenge at Inspired By this week, thank you Laurel for hosting the challenges they are so much fun and truly inspiring.  BTW, I won the challenge there last week :) thanks again Laurel.

I used the Pretty Dresses SVG cut file from Lindsay's Stamp Stuff along with her Hugs and Kisses paper.  The background paper is from a writing pad that had clouds in the background.  The grass and fence cut files are from Birds Cards, she always has such wonderful freebies.  The clothespins are from my stash, purchased from Dollar Treasure at least a year ago!   I originally had a pale pink and white polka dot dress in the middle and I did not like it so I colored over it with my Canary yellow Promarker, I like how the polka dots did not wash out.  I used some foam mounting to pop up the grass, fence and the dresses too.  I don't think this would mail very well, the clothespins are a bit delicate so I will have to save it for a hand delivered card. 

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Thanks for looking.  ~Diane
More inspiring challenges to enter into here:
Paper Pretties - Create a card for girls
 Die Cuttin Divas - Garden theme
Oldie but a Goodie - In the garden  ( old clothespins)

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