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!

Organizing my craft room

     Last night I took round clothespins (called "doll pins" - found the wooden crafts section of JoAnns online store) and organized my ribbons.  I should have taken a "before" picture because the difference is totally AMAZING.  After winding each roll of ribbon onto the spool, I put small rubber bands (from the hair accessories department of the dollar store) around the ribbon to secure it. I found this technique several places on Pinterest.

Side view of the open drawer of ribbons

     Originally the ribbons were in the same drawer pictured below (set of 3 stacking bins by Sterlite) but the drawer was extended out, completely filled and spilling out, and the yellow basket was on the floor in front of it completely filled with ribbon spools plus I had clear containers of ribbons on the floor filled with ribbons.  I only bought a bag of 30 clothespins, but I should have bought 2 bags because I had too many spools of ribbon and had to wind two identical spools of a few ribbons onto 1 clothespin to get them all on the 30 spools.  I really would like to buy more ribbon now that I can easily see which ribbons I have.  I had a few stray long strands of ribbon that I just rolled around my finger then secured with a rubber band.

     Here are the benefits that I have found with this organizational method and some additional details of the photo.

-I can easily see my options.

-The ribbons take up practically NO ROOM.

-A rolled up bag of rubber bands is in the lower left side of picture.

-Bakers twine is in the upper right corner of picture.

-Plastic containers of embroidery floss and etc are on the right, which is actually the back of the drawer.

     My daughter is concerned that the ribbon will be curled when I decide to use it but if it is and doesn't stay straight once glued to the front of a card, I will iron it.  Seriously.  It's worth it to be able to save so much space and easily see ALL my options at once.

Operation Write Home Super Bowl 2014 Weekend Challenges

     Operation Write home is having a 3 part Super Bowl challenge this weekend.  The first challenge was to make a masculine card inspired by either the Denver Broncos or Seattle Sea-hawks logo.  I chose to use the colors from the Seahawks and a stamped bird design (which isn't an eagle, but you get the idea).

Inkadinkado Winter Birds

     I used sketch #89 which seemed to fit into the masculine theme along with the colors I chose.  I will be attempting the other two challenges this weekend as well.

     Here is the card from the second challenge.  

Papertrey Ink Ruby Reprise sentiment (free gift with purchase)

     I was suppose to create a masculine card using the color brown.  I accidentally got an ink smudge on the inside of the card on the lower right corner so I cut out another football to cover it.  No one will ever know.  (Us card makers are sneaky like that.)

I used sketch #109.

     Here's my third card in this challenge.  

Fiskars Birthday Bash