Valentine Cards

Good evening yon invisible comrades in cards....I kinda like that. I won't be doing many Valentine cards, but I do enjoy them...just don't have that many lovers (hah hah) in my life these days.

Tomorrow is the monthly Saturday meeting of the Three Abuelas, as Jeri, Elenorah and I call ourselves. Jeri will be getting ready to go Las Vegas for a fun weekend w/hubby, so we have a sub, Laura who is super talented, but doesn't do the PC thing. She is an artist among many of her talents. She enjoys making cards, but doesn't do it as often as she'd like to. So here are the two cards that I'm sharing with them. We will make one and try for the other one. The trouble is we like to chat and eat, so sometimes, we don't get as much done as we plan to.

My little monkey one is a stamp from Stampendous and the sentiment is from Stampabilities. I used a BG stamp for the strip from Hero Arts. They call them design blocks. The cs is SU's real red & pink pirouette and baja breeze. The ribbon is SU's real red. I used a circle scallop from Quikutz. And the monkeys are stamped on a circle using the Coluzzle.Quikutz dies work in the Cuttlebug, just as well as the Wizard Nestabilities, however the "sandwich" is different. The Cuttlebug folder 'spots and dots' was used on the pink pirouette.The McGill punch is used for the sentiment. I used diamond glaze to adhere the red beads on the heart. Red eyelets (very old ones) are in the corners. I colored with Prismacolors Verithin pencils....I believe I now own about 250 pencils...why do I have to own every pencil set I see??? I used them with Gamsol. Stamped the monkeys in StazOn Brown Timber and the sentiment in SU's Brilliant Blue. Used the white signo gel pen from SU for the dots on the scallop. I'm hoping the photo does it justice.

The 2nd card used a clear stamp set from Inkadinkadoo. I only used the heart. And the sentiment is from SU's Always In My Thoughts...such a versatile little set. The base is SU's real red, then the white mat is SU's whisper white which I ran through the CB using the swiss dot folder. The heart is stamped in Pallette's canvas white onto real red and embossed in detail white embossing powder. NOTE: There is no better pigment white ink than this one. It is highly recommended by many bloggers. And I heartily agree! The trusty Nestabilities was used for 2 of the 3 mats and the SU white signo pen. The prettiest part of the card (to moi) is the Cuttlebug corner dies. The fantastic artist Jeri Jimenez http://jerrikay.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/ uses these frequently, so I had to have them. Caught a 30% sale at HL last week. Used my SU punches for the sentiment layering and stamped in SU real red. For the pieces de resistence, I cut out the flowers from some recently retired SU ds paper and added diamonds, stickles, or liquid pearls in the center of various flowers. I hope those touches show up.

Well, I rarely go into detail about how I make a card. Whew, how do my fellow bloggers do it day after day.

I plan on having a great time this weekend and I hope you do as well. Thanks for stopping by.

The First of the Valentines Cards

Blogger is going to sleep and I'm not there yet, so why should it be. I wrote a lengthy blog which is now in never never land, so since it's 3ish (AM!!), this one is brief. I'm makin a few simple cards and then 4 or 5 more elaborate. This stamp set is SU's "For a Friend," a hostess set from a year or two ago. I added a swiss dot ribbon and a crystal heart I found some time ago. Shoulda' got more of these. I used Papertrey's white...love that c.s. Hmmm, hard to believe that when I started out stamping I used Walmart's Pacific white and thought it was great. Groan! What a long way I've come in understanding the machinations (is that a good word) of paper.

Hope you don't mind all the busy-ness around the photo...I rather like it...shows I'm really creative (or, just plain messy).

Thanks for visiting me today. Come back tomorrow for more elaborate cutsy card.

Erica

The New Year Is Here...

And I don't know how much better it will be than last year, but I have high hopes. I'm gonna try to blog 3x a week. And not be tooo disappointed if I get only get a few readers...but GOSH, I'd appreciate it if I could get just a few. Otherwise, this isn't going to be anything other than a diary for me.

So, I did manage to make all my Christmas cards (posted very few) and I made Lauren Meader's "Keepsake boxes." for 8 of my DD's co-workers. I also made 14 calendars that fit into jewel cases and used Lauren's cd covers. They really impressed my Bible Study friends. So, I had quite a productive stamping season.

Now it's on to a birthday card for my pal El, who celebrates on the 10th. She gets a gift card to one of her fave craft stores too.

Here's another one that I might use instead.

Then I'll be posting Valentine cards. So stay tuned. Here's the B-Day card.

All the Best,

Erica