A Jar Full of Thanks Notecard

I made this card as a thank you note to my sister from a different mother, and the birthday gift she gabe me.  Paper!  Something I so needed since I was running out of white paper and htat is a bad thing in my world.

I have plenty of photos to update but I'll start with this one.

Thanks Courtney!

Thank You Notecard

I made this card for a pair gals over in the Autism group that sent an e-mail Get Well Soon card. It was one of the nicest things that people have done for me since my first encounter with my foot and it having mad issues. Speaking of which, the same hole that is there is leaking but is crusty and looking way better. I'm managing it with the ointment that the doc prescribed to help with the healing, which is hopefuly working. Still have to work on those thank you notes for some others as well, but I've been busy with the nearly 24 hours of NCAA College basketball going on. March Madness has gotten into me and I barely have time to focus on cards. Like this one, I love the font I used, but sadly I think I should have maybe picked a different font, not sure.

Oh and I did sew the sew on the card, hence the different look of the letters, which is why I think I should have used a different font; something that sort of goes with the look of the sewing of the word. Either way I have received feedback to it's intended receivers and they just LOVE the card. I'm always glad when someone appreciates the work I do. Makes a sister proud to have such a "crafty" hobby.

You're the Bee's Knees Thank You Note

Before:


So here's my latest Thank You notecard, this one is for the nurse at my Podiatrist office. She seemed quite unhappy when Lupe, the receptionist, got a thank you note but she didn't. I told her that she would be getting on soon enough, and well here it is! I took one look at the bee and KNEW that this would be the perfect card for her. Kind of dorky, but then again I have my dorky moments more often then not.



It started with the bee cut file that I had for my Silhouette SD, I had a cute cut file with the saying "You're the Bee's Knees" but there seemed to be something wrong with the cute file and was freezing up the computer, so instead I used my own fonts from my font collection and made my own saying, to which I must say looks sooooo much better than what they had. I then dry embossed the background paper, which is purple with white cord center (photo kind of hard to tell the color) with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, hence the white hints on it. Hopefully purple is a color you like Maria because it was a hard to pick a color to coordinate with the yellow of the bee. Then I took a white pen to mark out the edges with and that seemed to complete it. I'm still debating on the ribbon at the top, so there may be another photo with a ribbon on it. You know what? I'm thinking I'm going to do the ribbon.
After:

Thank You

I made this Thank You card for one of the women at my podiatrist office, she has been so helpful with all that has been going on. My work had been a bear about forms being turned in and she has been so accomodating at getting me the forms and such that I need for my work.

Thank you Lupe!!!

Diva Card

I made this card for my supervisor after her attempts at saying her first card was "too small". So I made this card for her, which is 5x7, much larger than her first card, which was a birthday card. This is a just because card. I took the butterfly idea and sort of ran with it once I had the quote.

Get Well Soon Ma!

Here is the "Get Well Soon" card that I made for the mother figure. She has been hinted at me for days about a get well soon card from me, so I spent the better part of yesterday (3/1/2012) working on this card. I think it turned out much more awe inspiring than what I had originally planned. I had done something similiar for someone at work, but the larger butterflies seem to really make the card pop, I'm going to try again this time on a smaller card and see if I can get the same effect going.

Building my inventory for that craft show I'm going to go to one day soon, and see if I can peddle my wears there.

On a side note, I am thinking of selling my Cricut and carts since I rarely if at all use it any more. That will require much more thought but it is tumbling in the back of my mind. I know Julie would love some of the carts that I have and the only down side is that I have them linked to my Gypsy. Guess I should have held off on that. Oh well, I'll figure something out if I do decide to sell it.

More......Hello/Goodbye

Here is the latest card that I made with the airplane and the saying "On the wings of goodbye is the flight of hello."

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.