September is Card Month for me.

     I have sent more cards out this month than at any other time in my life.
     In the past I was told that one of my nephews liked his card so much he fell asleep holding it!  That made my day.  Also my adult Niece only received one birthday card this year and it was from me.  She felt like no one remembered her birthday because they didn't send cards (except me of course), so I am happy she got at least 1!
     My Aunt still sends out cards so I understand the feeling.  I can get many Facebook happy birthday messages, but a simple card delivered on, or a day ahead of my birthday lets me know someone remembered on their own and cares about me.
     So here are my most recent delivered cards.

For my Brother-in-Law

For my teenage nephew who broke his wrist

For a young niece.  Inside says Happy Birthday.

For a different young niece

Cas(e) this Sketch

Valentine's Card

Easter cards for my daughters.

     This card is for my 17 year old daughter.  The yellow stripe "paper" is actually the backing to a package of stickers.  I really liked the print and pre-cut it to card size to use at a later date.  I used a paper doily, sheer orange ribbon bow, some flowers and pearls.  The pastel plaid paper border to the right of the image and the blue card stock is old and I don't know who makes it. I raised the main image but chose to directly adhere the greeting to the raised piece.  I distressed all the papers and card stock a little to help keep in theme with the old time feeling of the print.

Sweet Sixteen Card

     My second daughter just celebrated her 16th birthday.  I made her a card but it didn't say sweet sixteen on it.  I made it in bright colors since that is appealing to most teens.  I had a birthday stamp set and had just watched a video about a new technique I wanted to try out using the balloons.  I also had a birthday paper set I wanted to use.
   

Fiskars Birthday Bash

Mojo Monday #287 Sketch

     The details of the video and supplies used for this card are at the end of this post.  Basically, I double stamped the balloons after removing part of the second color.  That gave the balloons more depth.  (Notice there is more color at the bottom and part of the right side of each balloon- and it isn't a matching color.)  I've never been able to line up my clear stamps to do a second stamping on top of the first one.  I always mess up. This time I noticed that if I lined up the little dots inside the balloon the second time I stamped, I could keep them in line with each other.
     When I double stamped the balloons I still couldn't get the ribbons below them to line up for a second stamping so I rubbed the ink off the ribbon, double stamped just the balloons, and free-handed the ribbons.  I'm not particularly happy with the look of the free hand ribbons but it is better than if I had double stamped them.  Also I had originally intended to use the balloons paper in the vertical rectangle and the Happy Birthday pink paper for the half circle, but I messed up and did it backwards.

Splitcoaststampers Clean and Simple "Color my World".

     I made this card a few weeks ago for a challenge on Splitcoaststampers to use colored cardstock for a CAS (clean and simple) card.  I wanted to make a Thank You card for someone so I decided to go very simple and just use embossing.  CAS cards are typically the hardest.  I made three attempts before coming up with this card because I had a hard time lining everything up evenly.  I am very pleased with the results though.  I am giving the card away today so I finally photographed it.

Case(E) this Sketch cards.

     I found a website that gives beautiful sketches for clean and simple cards.  I find clean and simple cards to look closest to high quality store bought cards and because this is what I am striving for in the cards I sent to Operation Write Home, I thought I would try a few of their sketches.  I did not participate in their challenges because these were older sketches.

I used Autumn Leaves-Elegant Flourishes and Fiskars Holiday Frolic (for the snowflakes) plus some blue gems.  I framed the design with blue card stock.

My favorite stamps from PaperTrey Ink.

I got this stamp set as a freebie in December 2013 for having a large order.  I never would have purchased it because flowers just aren't my focus.  I do like touches of flowers but not ALL flowers.  WELL-that has changed with the beautiful little set.  It is called Ruby Reprise by Dawn McVey.   I initially stamped 2 clean and simple cards using orange and yellow flowers.  My daughters really liked those cards so I purchased inks that were pink because these flowers look tropical to me and pinks just seemed to go better with the vibe of the stamps.  I stamped several more pink clean and simple cards, then added a few gems to dress them up.  I loved the pink way more than the orange and yellow cards so I decided to cut up the orange and yellow cards and use just portions of them on two different cards.  I like all three designs.  Today I noticed a border challenge at Splitcoast Stampers so I stamped the flowers all around the outside of a square card.  My border card for the challenge is the last one shown here.  This seems to be my "go-to" stamp set for now.  I just can't seem to go wrong with it.  THANK YOU PAPERTREY INK!  I LOVE YOU!