Vacation

Just a quick post. Tomorrow, Saturday 5/15, we begin a road trip with a final destination at Enterprise, AL on Monday 5/25. We will attend the high school graduation of my grandson, son of my daughter. We return to Sacramento on Saturday June 13th.

I will be blogging our trip over on my other blog if you care to follow along. http://anewdaywithbetty.blogspot.com/.

I have a few cards to post which I will do next week sometime.

Mother's Day Cards

Here are cards I received for Mother's Day. The first one is from Denise. She used a digital kit from Creative Memories. It is a girl with a lei around her neck and flower in her hair. The background has hibiscus blossoms and other tropical flowers, all in the tropical colors. She told me she bought the kit especially for me. :)) She is going to use it to make a birthday card so she will get other use from the kit. My granddaughter didn't like the girl because she has blond hair. Her tutu doesn't have blond hair. With as much gray hair as I have now, it will in time match the little girl's. :)) It is a very sweet card and I love it!

The next card was given to me by Michelle. She named my blog and is so very special to me. It is simple yet a beautiful card. She tied the ribbon so the ends would be the leaves for the flowers. She used 3 different size flowers with a yellow brad in the center.

She wrote in her card "Thanks for being a mom to more than just your own! You are always there for me." I must say I got misty eyed reading that. I do refer to her as being one of my girls. She is also my stamping buddy.

The next card is from Wendi, my youngest step-daughter. She always remembers a card for Mother's Day. Although it is not a handmade one, it is beautiful. The flowers in the center are cut out. So beautiful!

Thank you, Denise, Michelle and Wendi!! You brightened my day with your beautiful cards!!

These next cards are the ones I made and sent to some special moms in my life! I didn't make as many as I did last year. I wanted simple yet beautiful cards and I think I accomplished that with these cards. They are for the most part A Muse stamps and card bases.

The card base on this one is olive green and the zinnas were stamped with two different chalk inks. I stamped a closed zinna first in one color and then stamped an open zinna on top in another color. These stamps are new for A Muse this spring.

The stamp on this card is one by Impression Obsessions. I inked the flower with tangerine chalk ink and the stem with olive pastel chalk ink. The leaves are a separate stamp and that was stamped with olive pastel also. I thought I did pretty good in getting them right on the stem. :) I bought the cardstock I used for the base from The Paper Garden some time ago and is a peach color.

The card base is lavender polka dots from A Muse and another new A Muse stamp, a cherry blossom branch with the bird. It is two stamps in one with the bird mounted on the side. I didn't get him right on the branch like I wanted. :(

Another A Muse. The lime green polka dots with two different size flowers stamped on the branch with 2 different chalk inks.

A Muse. The card base is a light aqua and I colored the poppy with Copics.

The girl is by Elzybells. The yellow cardbase and yellow polka dot layer is A Muse. Copics to color.

Another A Muse new stamp and card base. Light aqua card base. Used Copics to color.

You will have to click on this one. I wanted to show what I did on the bottom. I used a Martha Stewart eyelet lace border punch on the bottom and then cut a strip of light aqua card stock and adhered it under the scalloped border. I liked the way it turned out. I now have a couple of Martha Stewart border punches and I know I am going to be using them a lot. They sure finish a card off nicely!!

I made this card in an A Muse card class I took last summer. I liked the way it turned out so decided to do another one as a Mother's Day card. I love it. The card base is red. There is a layer of black and the layer with the tea cup on is white with red polka dots. I used Copics to color.

Another A Muse. Simple! Copics to color.

Another new A Muse. This is another cherry blossom branch. Again, Copics to color. The card base is light aqua polka dots and I colored the blossoms lavendar.

Another A Muse. I used different chalk inks to stamp the two different size flowers and the butterfly. I used a fine point black pen to do the butterfly trail. Not too happy with the way that turned out.

Update on Thank You Card

I got an email from the SU Demonstrator who sent me the Thank you card. The colors of the cardstock are Pacific Point and So Saffron. Pacific Point is an In Color for this year, meaning it will only be available this year until it is sold out. The stamp set is called "Fifth Avenue Floral" and the embossing folder is an SU exclusive called "Manhattan Flower".

A Thank You Card & Another Bumper Card

I finished making my Mother's Day cards yesterday. I made a total of 11 cards, not as many as I made last year, still a lot. This morning I got the pictures taken and will wait until probably next Monday before I post them. Several of the people getting a card read my blog so I don't want to reveal the cards just yet. I still have 2 birthday cards to do and a couple of Bumper cards that I should make before we leave on our trip back east.

What I can show you are a couple of cards I received this past week. The first card is from a Stampin Up demonstrator that I met at the card swap last month. I ordered a couple of SU products off of her website and she sent this card.
The card base is white and the layers are a turquoise and mustard yellow. They are SU cardstock and unfortunately I don't know what the names are. I love the combination. It may be difficult to see in the picture, on the yellow layer she embossed some beautiful roses (click on the picture to enlarge and you may be able to see it better). The ribbon is the matching turquoise with white strips. And she stamped the saying in the matching ink. Beautiful card.

Here is the inside of the card. This stamp set is called "Fifth Avenue", I believe. It is these beautiful blossoms that she stamped in the same color inks as the cardstock layers. She left the inside blank and a note to me said she intentionally leaves her cards blank in case the receiver wants to use the card. What a clever idea! Anyway, I want to get this stamp set!!

This is another bumper card that I got from Angie in Oregon. She mailed one to me already, the one with the skunk. When I emailed her to thank her, she said she couldn't remember if she had mailed one to me so sent another one. LOL!! It's an A Muse card and so adorable! The sentiment inside says "You're my cup of tea".

A Quick Post

I've been busy making graduation cards and Mother's Day cards. I have a few more Mother's Day cards to make, hopefully I can get those done tomorrow and get the out of town ones in the mail. They are probably going to be late. :( Oh, did a birthday card too. I've got one more birthday card to do too.

I will post them later.

A Muse Cards, Birthday RAK, Bumper Card

One day this past week, I dropped the drawer that holds my A Muse stamps. Gerry picked them up for me and then I had to organize them again. I decided to make some cards with stamps I either haven't used or it has been a while since I used them last.

This hula girl is one that was among the first A Muse stamps I purchased yet I hadn't used it. It is very simple. I thought it needed something more so I added a couple of Prisma flowers.
Of course, adding the flowers made it no longer an "A Muse" card. I used a dew drop in the middle of the flowers. The card base is red.

I mentioned a new product called "Smooch" in an earlier post. I got a few bottles of it and used the red and green on these strawberries. Don't know if you can tell, the strawberries have a pearlized finish. I really like this product. I got red, green, blue, white and gold.

I love this flower cart. I used turquoise Stickles on the canopy of the cart and put a clear twinkle sticker in the center of the cart wheel. Another really simple card. That's the beauty of A Muse cards, they are simple yet cute.

I cased the layout of this card I made for a Birthday RAK from Dawn's Stamping Studio. She does a video each day on her blog of the project she is making for that day. She made this as a thank you card. I actually changed it somewhat. She had the front of the card cut back to an inch and a half and after putting on the strips and butterfly, the inside of the card was exposed quite a bit. I wanted to write inside of the card and didn't want it to show so I cut the front a little wider. I used a Martha Stewart border punch to do the white strip. Then a piece of cardstock from Basic Grey. The stamps are Stampin Up from three different sets. I hope the person receiving it likes the card. Thought it turned out pretty good. I think if I make it again, I'll use a Martha Stewart butterfly punch instead of the stamp. I used my Copics to color before I cut the butterfly out.

Here is the bumper card I received yesterday. This little skunk is super cute.

Last night I found some Close To My Heart stamps I purchased a long time ago and have never used. I stamped each one on a scrap piece of white cardstock so I know what they are and can start using them. They are unmounted rubber stamps that I had to put some sticky stuff on the back and then use the clear blocks with them. I need to get some more of the sticky stuff (can't remember what it is called. I'm sure I'll recognize the bottle when I see it. Got it at Michael's) and redo the backs of each one.