A Card and Heartbreak

My sweet sister-in-law lost her mother this week and I play with paper so I made a card for her. This is the first time in a LONG time that I’ve absolutely fallen in love with a card I’ve made. But let’s be honest, I just don’t have that many chances to sit and make a card anymore. At first, I wondered if I’d forgotten how, because it wasn’t working. I regrouped, tried something different and got this. I did really like the chance to make my son’s wedding invitations, but those weren’t “mine” as much as they were “theirs”. An awesome opportunity, but not in the same way.

So after this gushing, I hope you like it, too.

In a few days, I’ll be starting another, and it will be one of the most meaningful, but also the hardest that I think I’ve ever done. We lost my 25yo cousin this week and she earned her wings before she ever left this earth. I’m not sure how to pull this off, but I feel driven to do so. The world lost a light this week, but it seems a little bit of my cousin’s light was left with every person she ever met.

Anyway, here’s this one, and like I said, I’m so happy with how it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by

XOXO

That Time I Made a Few Wedding Invitations

Besides being a mom to some awesome little kids, I’m a mom to some awesome big kids, too ❤️

One of those big kids is getting married next month. It’s a weird place to be. He’s my baby, but he’s not 😔

He was the first little one to call me mom. The first to hold my finger and smile up at me. The first to think I hung the moon.

I really like his soon to be wife. She just fits. So I was very honored to be able to make their invitations. It took some time, there were 150 of them, but every single one of them was made with love and wishes for an amazing future.

I was able to play with wax seals and had an absolute blast coming up with just the right color combinations for the wax.

This is the outside. The band holds everything together and simply slides off to open it.

Once opened, invitations, registry info, rsvp info, and map info can be found inside. And of course, a picture of the sweet couple.

I found the file in the Silhouette design store and cut out the envelope pieces and attached them.

Then I gathered the info, printed it, and cut it out. All of the cutting was done on my Silhouette Cameo. There’s NO way I would have been able to pull this off without that machine. It’s one of the best paper crafting tools I have 😀

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

That Time I Made a Flower Pail Box Card

One of my favorite things to do is play with paper. I like making it dimensional with color and design. I’m not skilled enough to design something that will be 3D once all the pieces are assembled, so luckily there are places like

SVG Cuts who has some amazing files to play with. I worked with this one, Flower Pail Box Card for this project. If you don’t already know, one of the great things about box cards, is that they fold flat-ish for mailing, then they can be popped open for display, like you see here 🙂 At the tallest point, this card is about 9 inches, and about 3 inches across when open. When folded flat, it’s about 4 inches across the bottom.

The leaves and flowers were cut out of white paper. Then I used markers and pencils to color them. Yes, I could have made this project easier and less time consuming by just cutting them out on colored card stock, but like I said, I like to add dimension through color 🙂

After I cut out and colored everything, I assembled it. I have a nice envelope and I’ll design an address “label”, print it, then cut it out so the card can be sent.

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXOXO

That Time I Played With Paper Again ❤️

If you scroll through my last few years of blog posts, you’ll see they’re mostly dominated by topics like autism and service dogs; by foster care and adoption.

If you go back further, you’ll see paper projects, but it’s been a while.

But I got to play this week – yay!

I made a rose /vase box card. There are things I’m not happy with, but I’m rusty so we’re just going to go with it lol

I used this file from the Silhouette Design Store.

I cut out the pieces on my machine, and because I’m extra, I hand colored them with my markers and colored pencils.

The beginning of the flower buds

The finished flower buds

The leaves and stems still on the paper

I like to color things while they’re still on the cutting mat. I don’t have to be as precise, I don’t loose anything, and I have better control of the paper (small things are hard to hold).

The leaves off the cutting mat. You can see the difference between adding colors to the cardstock and leaving it as is.

The finished card.

I had fun playing with paper and colors again. I hope it happens again sooner rather than later, but there’s a lot of other things to focus on right now, so we’ll see ❤️

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXOXO

Service Dog Thank You Cards

Nice people should get thank you cards.

It’s a thing I believe. And I just so happen to like making thank you cards, so this works out for everyone 😀

I’ve had these designed for a while, but finally had time to sit down and put them together. It took a medical intervention to create the time lol. I’m at the sleep clinic with one of my daughters, so I was able to put the cards together while I wait with her. It’s been a LONG sleep study. We’re doing overnight and nap monitoring…I’m pretty sure we’ll head out by evening though 🙂

In the mean time, a dozen cards were finished and my blog updated. They didn’t turn out how I designed them – my printer ran out of blue ink, but I made it work, because I have some people to get these out to 🙂 If you’re one of our donors – THANK YOU SO MUCH! JJ’s so tickled by your willingness to help him. He even cried a little. You guys are making a little boy so very very happy. These cards are for you ❤️

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

And as always, if you feel it in your heart to donate, or if you want to  see more of JJ’s story, here’s the link to our donation page. paws4autism.org/jj.html

 

That Time I Made a Topiary Out of Paper

As mentioned in a few posts before, the autism center my boys use is amazing. Most of the work on this project was done there. I cut out everything at home, then colored, shaped, and assembled most of it at the center. The topiary is from the kit Thank You For the Music at SVG cuts.

This is kind of picture intensive, so please be patient with me. There were a lot of components.

I took pictures of some of the process. I’m always amazed I can start with flat pieces of paper and make something substantial and dimensional. So I included pics for other people who might feel the same way 🙂

First, the focal points – the flowers. There’s two types. The main flowers and the fillers. Each main flower has 5 parts. I cut them out of blue paper, then added white to the centers, dark blue to the edges, then blended with a shade of blue somewhere between the color of the paper and the dark blue. I believe there were 32 big flowers.

I wanted a fuller topiary, so I used more filler flowers than called for. I used the same process of coloring them as I did for the blue flowers, just different colors.

 

I also wanted to add clovers and leaves to the base. The clovers are from the Springtime Box Cards kit at SVG Cuts. The leaves are from the pumpkin in the Harvest Sunset Kit, also from SVG Cuts.

I started with white paper  and colored the clovers and leaves the colors I needed them. I used a mix of ink and colored pencils.

 

 

And I just HAD to have a hummingbird. And wouldn’t you know it, SVG Cuts has one or those, too! This one is from their Hummingbird Box Card. Instead of cutting out different colors of paper, I cut all the pieces out in white, then colored the individual pieces before assembling. I made a mirror copy that I used to sandwich a wire between so I could make it hover by the topiary.

 

 

So those are the elements 🙂 Here’s some pics of the finished product. Thanks to my daughter who helped me get the pics 🙂

The clover.

 

The topiary and the hummingbird.

The whole topiary

And the card. I used a kit in my Craft Artist collection and designed this card. The flowers weren’t colored, which I LOVE because it allows me to color them 🙂 I used a combination of copics and colored pencils for the flowers on the card.

Singing Bird Card and Distress Markers

I’m probably so behind the times, but I finally found the Tim Holtz distress markers 🙂 I only have one set and will probably try and get the rest 🙂

I used the Penny Black stamp called The Sweetest Sound in my stamp positioning tool. I was able to color all the different areas  with the distress markers then go back with water to blend the colors.

After the coloring and blending was finished, I embossed the image with clear embossing powder so I could sponge on the colored back ground. I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I used my Craft Artist program to add the frame 🙂

Someone did a simple act of kindness that had a huge impact on me this week. This card is for them 🙂

 

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxoxo

I Had Time to Make Some Cards – and a Mistake!

I feel like I used all the things to make these 🙂

Most of the designing happened digitally in Craft Artist. Then I added those images to my Silhouette work space and cut them out. THEN I used some stamps and colored those images on the card front. Finally, I assembled them all.

Oh wait, I also used a metal die and my Evolution Advanced for one of the cards. See, I told you. I used all the things 😉

I was in a purple mood, so purple was the theme for these three cards.

First, the one I almost didn’t keep, until I played around with it a little more.

Before:

I tried to be tricky and mask the original stamped image so I could add another behind it. But I didn’t like how it turned out. I felt like it was kind of mashed together and it was hard to tell what you were looking at and where each thing was.

Instead of scrapping it, I got out my colored pencils and played a little. If I messed it up, it wasn’t a big deal, I wasn’t planning on using this anyway. All I could see was a winning situation.

Funny thing. I liked the image after I used my pencils. Although I stamped the flowers, I printed off two layers of pretty for my Silhouette to cut out for me.

After:

This next one I thought was kind of plain, but it turned out to be the favorite of someone else. So, yay! This card I printed and cut out two layers for the card as well as the bow. I also used my pencils to enhance the bow, because I like crazy details like that. The hello is stamped and I used a metal die to cut it out.

This one was kind of fun. I liked the butterfly 🙂 This card just had one printed layer. I also printed and cut out a butterfly so I could pop it on and add dimension. I stamped the orchid and used my pencils to add some shading and a little extra color.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

That Time the Physical Therapist Did Her Job Too Well

and now we have to say good bye.

At four months of age, our youngest started receiving physical therapy in our home through our state’s early intervention program. His muscles were so tight, we had to physically bend him to help him sit on our laps.

In the early weeks of his prenatal development, a part of his brain didn’t form quite right. When the neurologist told us about the finding on the MRI, she couldn’t tell us how or if that damage would affect him.

What we learned is that he needed help meeting EVERY milestone. Rolling. Sitting. Crawling. Walking.

Everything. We’re still working on speech.

BUT, he hit every single one, just in his own time, and not too far out of the normal range. But he was resistant  to them all. Our best guess is that the challenges are a combination of the brain abnormality and our autism diagnosis. But you can’t tell how much work it took to get him to this point because he overcame all of those challenges and most of his success is because of a WONDERFUL physical therapist.

She’s the one that first saw and noted the autism red flags. And when my son needed a break from the PT, she addressed some of those issues. She wrote letters outlining the team’s concerns over these red flags. These letters were so helpful in a number of areas, but especially in his autism diagnosis.

He’s 28 months now…she’s been part of our family for the last 24 months. For two years she showed up each week and worked with him. She explained things to me so I could help him. She found just the right mixture of concern and calm. She listened when I was worried and cheered with us when we saw progress. I think she may have been almost as eager as we were about the adoption 🙂

For two years, my son was her son for an hour a week. I couldn’t have asked for a better woman to work with him.

But now, it’s time for her to go help another little one. So I made her a dozen roses and a card as an inadequate thank you. It took a week, but it was well worth the time.

I cut the roses out of white paper. I used ink and a water brush to watercolor the rose pieces before I put them together. What you can’t see, is that I sprayed them with glimmer mist to give them a little sparkle.

I happen to know she likes humming birds, so I included a little tiny one on this card and used a sketch pen for the greeting.

Thanks for stopping by.

xoxo

Get Well Soon Blossoms

Life isn’t perfect.

Sometimes you need a get well soon card. But these are SO much better than sympathy cards, so I’m happy to do make them 🙂

I used Penny Black’s The Unfolding stamp for this. There’s masking, inking, platform stamping, watercolor blending, colored pencil work, markers, and just the tiniest bit of sparkle (which you can’t see in this picture but I wish you could).

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo