Hello/Goodbye Cards

I made these cards after completing another card with an airplane on it with "Congrats" on the inside. For some reason the airplane and bird made me think of start of something new and with the changes that have been happening in my life, I thought the saying on the inside (which was one of my own design) was pretty cool for a card with an airplane or bird. I of course used my faithful Silly on the cuts, even the letters on the outside but from that point on it was all me.

I'm trying hard to get a stack of cards together so that maybe one day I can sell what I have at a craft fair or maybe on etsy.com if I could get some photo skills so that the cards look good.

On another note, I had my foot surgery and I'm off for the next 2 weeks or so, so hopefully things will be okay while I am gone. This also gives me time to get caught up with reading since I'm so behind it isn't funny. Sad that I am that behind on read when I could so be taking lunch breaks and reading.

Been to try and orgazine all of the paper that I have and so far things are going slow but they are moving in the right direction. Julie brought out a plastic container that I must say fits perfectly in my paper sort from before, now I just have to alter it by taking out somce of the shelves, lucky thing is that they aren't glued or anything together, just little clips. I think once I get up enough energy I'm going to try and move it out so that I can have it close by and move the cart holder in that place instead. I got these story boxes at Target for like 7 bucks and they were wel worth it. They hold the stacks just perfectly, now to decide if I want one more or not. I'm thinking yes just so I can have some space in the other two since they are packed pretty tight.

Steampunk Hello Card

Here is my homage to steampunk in the form of a "Hello" card. I've become obessed with the dressform with wings and since I made some Valentine's Day cards using that idea I decided that I could carry it over into another type of card. I found that the hardest part of the card was the quote on the inside. I've never really taken notice of quotes and such but I've found there aren't that many quotes or sayings out there that say something about "hello". Most of the quotes and sayings were so stupid they weren't even worth reading. But I did find one in the end and with that the end of the card came.


It's a semi-basic card but I just love how I added a dress to the dress form in the form of vellum and blinged it out with some crystals on the dress.

A Vintage Birthday

So I made this card as a commission for someone and I think it turned out wonderfully. I wasn't sure what direction to take with the card being as there were so many options given to me, but for some reason this bike called to me for this card. Between the drama of Big Guy passing and attempting to lead a normal life, I managed to put this card together. I thought it wasn't up to my normal standards but when I showed Mom she said I would have nothing to worry about since it rocked.

All of the paper used on this card came from my stash so I'm getting really good at finding paper for the cards that I wish to make. You just never know how much cool paper you have until you stop yourself from buying a whole stack based on just a couple of pages that you like.

I think I could spend days upon days sorting through all the paper I have and putting it into groups that would better help me make cards with. I pull out a paper and have an idea for it but then pull out another piece and the idea goes in a whole different direction. *sighs* the life of a card maker.

Hopefully the buyer and the receiver of the card will like it as much as I do.

In Memory of Big Guy

As of Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Big Guy passed away in his sleep. His life here with the Gray clan was full of love and happiness and he will sorely be missed. You just never know how much you miss someone until they are gone. Now there are some people out there that would say "he's just a dog" but to me he was one of my kids, one of my furbabies. It is not known what caused his death but I can only hope that his passing was as painless as possible. And so I have this one photo of him looking his happiest *sniffs & cries* I can honestly say I miss his barking and general Big Guy-ness. Mom says I have to wait before replacing him, but I don't know if I can ever replace him. I just really feel as if I could have stop it or something caught it sooner, but I can't keep beating myself up over it. I just have to think that it must have been his time to go, he will be missed deeply.

Up, Up and away.....Congrats Card

I made this card using the plane I used in one of the Valentine's Day cards I was commissioned to make. I thought that I wanted to do something a bit different and decided to cut the airplane out of white paper and then used brown marker to color it in, along with adding stripes in green, yellow and orange. I used SEI's En Route paper stack for the clouds that is on the front and inside of the card. I used a font that I thought would look good with the airplane and cut it out in orange. The inside had a quote I thought went with the theme of the card.

I just love the way this one turned out. It isn't as big as the other one I made for Valentine's Day but I think the size is just fine.

Medicinal Potions.....Get Well Soon

For some reason I thought that potion bottles filled with potions to help in the healing process would be an awesome card. So far I just have the front but I'm sure I'll figure something out for the inside soon enough.

Love is in the Air

I made this card for one of my mom's friends. Her Valentine loves model airplanes and such and I thought this was the most perfect theme I could go with. I was able to find the "Up in the Air" on my Silly and the plane from there as well. After I'm not sure how long of writing quotes and such for Valentine's Day cards, I found what I thought would be the best quote for the inside

Dancing Good Luck

I made this card for my boss's daughter, who will be off to a dance audition in the Windy City of Chiacgo at the end of the week. I wish her only the best and this card was the only way that I could say Good Luck to her since she doesn't tend to hang around at work.

I used my Silly to cut out the ballet dancers and the "Good Luck" in multiple different fonts. I am after all a font whore, I just love fonts. It's a wonder why people pay for them when you can find so many good free ones. Anyway, that is besides the point....

Good Luck!

Steampunk Valentine's Day Cards Part 2

I think if I had to pick a favorite Steampunk theme card, the one above would be my favorite. There is just something with the paper and the lettering that I find pretty awesome. I used some of my Graphic 45 paper, stuff that I usually have a hard time using since it is always so awesome cool. I thought the paper went well with the dress form with a belt of floss and a brad that came from one of my Halloween brad sets that I got. The fonts are something that I collected from one of the free font sites, I'm always looking for new and different fonts to use on my cards and I think this collection worked out well.

This is the other Steampunk Valentine's Day card that I made as well using my 5x5 cards that have a detailed edge which make the front of the card pop since I picked a nice dark purple to go with the purple swirls that were on the paper, they had a reflective look to them so I thought it would tie in nicely together. The wings on this dress form was inked with purple to match all the other purple I had going on. I guess I could have used a green to make things pop, but I think this turned out just the way it should have been. The love on this card is using a ton of different fonts which goes with the Steampunk theme.

Steampunk Valentine

I LOVE this card! It sort of just developed as I continued to put papers together and try to make something work. I started out with the dress form (which is so hot right now) and then I sort of went from there. I wanted it to be something classy but I couldn't figure out the background paper to go with the light lime green color of the dress form. I then used my Silly to cut out different fonts letters to spell out the word love. I then used the same quote from the other Valentine's Day card that I made on the inside of the card. I also used some of the paper that had dictionary type style to it on the side as well. I also embossed the background paper of the inside with a clocks and dials type embossing folder.

I so love this card, I may have to make a similar one in a different size.

2012 Valentine's Day Card

In preparation for the 2012 Valentine's Day holiday, I have begun making cards. This was using my latest and greatest Cricut cartridge called Victorian Romance. The woman on the front of the card came from the cart while the rest I either used my Silly or Word for printing out the inside's quote.


I spent quite a bit of time actually collecting quotes for the inside of the card. I also try to collect quote to use in my cards. I thought that the quote in this card was a super good one.

Old Tyme Thank You

This Thank You card is the one card that I had a hard time letting go of. I just loved the way that I backed the dress form's hoop with a complementing color and I of course used the same paper scheme that I did on the brithday card for the chairman of my department's birthday.

This was made as a thank you note to a woman that is in Grand Rapids, that was nice enough to get my family a few of the items that we have always wanted from Gram's house. She's moving and so a lot of her items are either being given away or simply being thrown out. The Gray Women each wanted something from Gram's house. A wanted the mixer, Ma wanted the sherbert bowls and I wanted the rest of the nested set of bowls that I had the largest bowl of. So reto, but I have always loved these bowls and now I have them all! Anway, the woman the card is going to was kind enough to go into Gram's house and get us the items we desired before the wreaking crew came in and items were thrown away or given away.

Thank you Shirley!

Happy Birthday Chairman!

So it was the Chairman's birthday this week, and I couldn't just pass up the time to make a card for her. I thought it turned out quite nicely, with the silhouette of a girl's head decorate with floss and bling. I had seen in enough of my magazines the use of ink on the corners and such on the paper to make it pop. I never quite believed that it would make a card look so much better, but it truly does! I stamped the edges of the paper with dictionary type style words on it, in a complementing blue color. I printed the Happy Birthday with my printer since my Silly was having issues with cutting the font at the size that I really wanted to use. It wouldn't have looked right if I would have cut the words out instead of printing, now looking back at the card.

This was the first of a series of cards that I'm challenged myself to use the paper that I have here and not buy any more and if I do it just be one sheet instead of a whole stack. I think it turned out lovely.

Bon Voyage

I made this card for a co-worker of mine that is leaving. She got herself a job working at the library at UNT, where I graduated from.

The card took quite a bit to make since it is a new card style for me. I usually am just a fold over kind of girl but I have some sort of scoring tool that allows you to make cards like this. The problem though is that I'm not smart enough to figure out how to make a card using the scoring tool. Instead I used my handy-dandy ruler and bone folder to make the card and I must say after a few tries I finally got it right. It isn't very large being 4x4 but I think there is plenty of space for people to sign and such, since I was designated to make the going away card for her. No problem at all, I may just need to try and make this at a different size and see if I can do other things with it. Maybe a Christmas card for Gram is in order using this method.

**Update -- Sadly I was out of commision to give the card, so now I have started a section in my completed card box for going away type cards. **

Asian Greeting Card

For this greeting card I used my Cricut and the Pagoda cartridge. I just love that cartridge, so many good images on it that you can't help but to make cards with it.


The "I just want to say Hello" is from some song that has played on my Pandora.com channel a few times, as well as the commercials for the show "The New Girl". I have no idea who the song is sung by but it has gotten stuck in my brain for the last few days now. I just want to say hello.....

French Inspired Thank You Card

Here is a thank you card that took a few mis-starts to get. It is going to an amazing woman, who is kind enough and cares enough to go and help out my Gram. She's 89 and needs some help around the house, even though she won't say it. But Sue goes over there sometimes it sounds like on a daily basis and makes sure that things are okay for Gram.

It took a couple of different card designs before I settled on this. I saw the image of the 19th century woman that looked to be wearing some sort of french design for clothing. They are after all the place to get clothing back in the day. I saw the image on a piece of paper I had and knew that was what I wanted to go with. I was able to use the whole sheet of paper, that the image came on and I think that my tri-fold card turned out pretty darn well considring it's the first of my making some attempts at it.

I used my Cricut to cut out the Thank You on the inside of the card since it has such a nice look to it. I was tempted to use merci, but I thought a simple Thank You would be enough, and not too theme-y.

Quote of the Day

Okay, so I have this odd little daily calendar that talks about vampires. Yeah, yeah....I'm a vampire nerd but this is classic stuff. They have quotes and information about different types of vampires and the Hunger and stuff like that. Well yesterday was the most perfect quote for my soul sister at work the quote was.....

"False Vampires -- The Falsely Awakened (Part 1)
These are individuals who do not possess a vampiric spirit or its Hunger but nonetheless begin to experience certain physical symptoms of the Hunger. Though these people have not been fed upon, they are often, not coincidentally, related to vampires or descended from known vampiric bloodlines. There are occasions when certain vampiric genetic traits become active in a nonvampiric spirit. The human can experience agonizing pain, physical weakness, mental disorientation, and a number of other symptons. Thanks to the research of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance, we now know that fibromyalgia, a nerve disorder that causes server pain and has no known cause or cure, occurs in disproportionately high numbers among vampires, so it should be no surprise that it is common ailment of the falsely Awakened."

Courtney has fibro and I just couldn't believe that the calendar had something about it. Now granted it isn't true but I thought it was classic, so that is the quote of the day. I wonder what they say about people with Lupus? Maybe I am a falsely Awakened vampire myself? Or maybe it is a gene that tries to turn you? :) The thoughts run wild they do.

Jokes on me....Day 1

Well I joked around with Ma and said that I would create a blog for my pending bunion surgery. Jokes on me though since I'm actually going to do it, I figure I can be a nut too. I need to photo my foot on the pre-surgery but that can wait. I got a couple of days.

I've figured out that I tend not to do much since I'm in so much pain by the end of the day. Hopefully though my journal won't be too much to keep up with since I'm spent by the end of the day.

I have a bunch of tasks that I want to work on but not sure if I can manage by myself. Jules will help me though so I'm glad for that.

It's late so I better turn in. Tomorrow a photo of my foot.

Art Nouveau Cricut Cartridge

I just love, love, love the cricut Art Nouveau cartridge. Here are two cards with images from it that I just loved to make. The picture on the left is of a moth and the other is my favorite insect a scarab bettle. I must say that they turned out much better than I had planned.

Birthday up in air

Another card made for the lovely Autism Group, this time it was Mark's birthday which means I had to do a card for a male audience. Talk about tough, lucky thing I had read my latest card magazine and saw this idea in it. I did what I could and I think it turned out wonderfully.

Happy Birthday Mark!

I used only my Silhouette, some American Crafts paper and a printer to make the card. Not bad for me since I tend to over think cards.