Irene and a birthday card

What is left of Hurricane Irene is now coming through Maine; I'm watching the trees bend in the wind.  I'm surprised we still have power but the worst of it hasn't arrived.  An earthquake and a hurricane in one week - who says Maine is boring?

I wanted to share my grandson Ethan's birthday card.  Hard to believe he is 11; he and his brother seem to be growing up faster than my own kids did.

 The card has lots of texture with flocking borders and glitter on the cupcake brad.  I used die cuts for happy and birtday along with the letters.  I backed the 2 panels with coordinating cardstock to reduce the white space when the card was opened.  I didn't use any other embellishments besides brads so he wouldn't think the card was "girly".  All products are HOTP.

Once I decided what I wanted to do, it was a very quick card to complete and I heard my DIL say she is going to keep this card.  What more can a cardmaker hope for?

 Thanks for stopping by!

PaperCutz Challenge #106, Wish Upon a Star

Happy Friday everyone.  Well, we are preparing for Hurricane Irene up here.  I'm sure the stores are full of folks stocking up.  She is expected late Saturday night.

Well, this week we are going to "Wish Upon a Star" by creating a project using stars and any color or theme you would like.  I created a star shaped card and used a star covered paper.  I wish I could give credit to where I first saw this card idea, but I was blog surfing and can't remember and couldn't find where it came from (sorry!).  It is a fairly simple card to construct.

 As always, my picture taking doesn't do justice to the creation!  I used gold metallic cardstock (DCWV) for the base and a dark gray with foil stars for PP.  I used gold metallic vellum for matting and for the star which I heat-embossed with Gold Stupendous EP.  I outlined all of the outside lines with a gold leafing pen when I finished.  As you can see by the inside, I didn't let the leafing dry enough before I started to handle the card - it left streaks.

The card opens out giving plenty of room for a sentiment, more embellies if wanted and a message.  I stamped the happy birthday sentiment using gold EP and outlined the inner triangle with border stickers from Flower Soft.  I thought of stamping more stars on the white framing sections, but decided that would be too much.  If anyone would be interested in how to make this card, let me know.


This card is headed to Alex, my son who will be turning 23 soon.  It's the end of August which means the kids are heading back to school.  This year, we only have 3 left in college.  Alex will finish his Master's in Chemical Engineering; Toni will finish up her degree in Electrical Engineering and Ben has 3 semesters left for a degree in Economics.  Andy graduated earlier this year and is happily settled in Buffalo, NY working in his field of psychology.  Rocky and Chris have chosen different paths than college; but I secretly hope one or the other will go back to school at some point.  Chances are very good that when the other 3 finish up, they will no longer be calling Maine "home"; I'm trying to look at the bright side - potentially fantastic vacation sites with different LSS to visit!

Please play along with us this week and, as always, I appreciate comments!

PaperCutz Challenge #105, down at the farm

Good morning everyone. It's been a while since I have posted, my apologies, but life got in the way!

This week at Papercutz Challenge, the theme is to make a craft project with the theme "Down on the Farm" using any colors or theme you would like.  Now having grown up in big city, Boston, I don't have a lot of familiarity with fams and I have almost no craft supplies.  However I do have this cute boy stamp from I Brake for Stamps; he's got a straw hat and a rake, certainly that's  a little "farmish" don't you think?

I colored everything but his clothes with Copics and decided to paper-piece his clothes.  I stamped parts of him again on scrap pieces of paper, cut them out and glued them down.  I consider myself to still be a Copic beginner and I really enjoy paper piecing.  In person he is very cute.  I was all done and feeling proud of myself when I realized he was holding a bag of seed corn!  I solved that problem with my Tonic leaf punch and the vibrant leaf  paper from HOTP.  Finished it off with the Autumn rub-on from Scenic Route Paper, the cool fibers and the leaf charm from my stash.   All in all, not too bad.

Join us this week, won't you?

As always, I love to read comments.