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 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

Paper Orchid Shadow Box – I got to play a little!

I used to play with paper and make things on an almost daily basis. But then our lives went down a different path and the time and the emotional availability wasn’t there. My creativity flows best when my mind and shoulders aren’t weighed down.

But every now and then, like a snow day :D, I get a chance to play. And that day was yesterday 🙂

I made the 3D Orchid Shadow Box, found here, in the Silhouette Store.

I really like how mine turned out, BUT it is modified from the original, and here’s why: I didn’t read the directions ahead of time. So, a caution to all you paper crafters out there – if there are directions somewhere, take a quick peek before you start, just to make sure ;D

Because I didn’t, my project couldn’t be displayed like the example. But it still works. So, if you want to make this project, too, here’s the blog with the directions lol.

I cut mine out of white card stock and colored the flower parts using copics and colored pencils. I was then able to nest all the boxes, instead of having two separate shadow boxes – this is an example of how mistakes can be springboards for other ideas 🙂

I also added a back, because I could lol.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo

That Time the Therapists Did Their Jobs Well and We Had to Say Good-bye…AGAIN

Isaac has been in therapy since he was 3 months old. First with CMH, then transferred to First Steps (our state’s early intervention program) for physical therapy when he was 4 months old.

At 15 months old, he was diagnosed with a profound speech delay and a speech therapist was added to our weekly First Steps therapy session.

At 22 months, he was diagnosed with Autism. The next week, a special instructor was added to our sessions to help address the autistic needs we were encountering.

Last year we lost out physical therapist because Isaac had finally caught up in that area.

Today, we said good-bye to our remaining therapists. In our state, the early intervention program works with qualifying children until they’re 3. At that time, if help is still needed, the school district takes over – which is the case with our son.

I wanted to make something meaningful for them, to show my gratitude. My son is in such a good spot and has made up so much ground because of these hardworking ladies.

Here are their gifts.

This is for our speech therapist. The first time Isaac really started participating in imaginative play, they were having a “tea party.” I wanted to commemorate that and create something that brought her back to that memory.

The next gift set was for our special instructor. This woman was described to me as magical, and they weren’t lying! She came into our lives at a time when we needed a little magic, so I made her a Mary Poppins set.

 

Thanks for stopping by

xoxo

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.

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

That Time I Made Some Box Cards…Again

I really do love box cards, probably because I love dimension. Creating something 3D out of paper always seems like magic to me, even though it’s not new.

So, here are a couple of box cards.

This one can be found in the Silhouette Design Store and was for someone in the hospital.

This one can be found at SVG Cuts. I made it for a friend of mine who unexpectedly lost her dog last week. I had NO idea she had a thing for hummingbirds, but she does, so this was a perfect fit.

Thanks for stopping by!

xoxo