Good Things Come in Small Packages

As you know, I get great ideas and inspiration while reading blogs of other stampers. Michelle Wooderson, aka MishMash, posted about a mini card holder. She'd found it on Becky Robert's blog, Inking Idaho. I thought these would be a really cute gift for someone who did something special, so I set about to making it.


Oh my! I LOVE the result! The cards are 2 5/8" x 8", scored at 4". I haven't measured the holder, but you will see when you follow the tutorial that it's made from a sheet of 7" x 8.75" card stock, so the final product is little and sweet! I used retired Afternoon Tea--wish I'd bought more of it!--and let myself play.

The cards feature the 4 stamps from Say It With Scallops, since I thought the size of the squares was perfect, as were the sentiments, for a series of all-occasion cards. The only challenge this project presented was that I didn't have envelopes that matched the size of the finished cards. I decided to try to make my own, and one I'd seen Mary Jo Albright make a LONG TIME AGO came back to my mind as I started to work on it. Amazing! I'm thrilled to be able to present my friend with this complete set to express my appreciation.

Thank you, Becky, and thanks, Michelle, for sharing your talents so freely! Stay tuned...there's another post to come tonight.

Afternoon Tea Flower Pot Card

When I was blurfing (blog surfing, for those who aren't familiar with that term) yesterday, I came upon this card by Laura Fredrickson. So much fun going on here--color, pattern, detail, beauty. It made me think about what I could do with some coordinating designer paper to create something that would be just as enjoyable to gaze at. Besides, I need a birthday card!

The other catalyst for this card was a diaper fold pocket that I'd received in a swap. When I looked at it, thought, I saw a pot instead! I took a 6"x6" piece of the Afternoon Tea DP that has a distressed brown pattern on it and began folding until I had my pot. Then I had to come up with some flowers.

So I pulled out three patterns that I thought would make good flowers and stamped them using my Level 3 Hostess set, Time Well Spent. As I cut them I thought, how many patterns of DP can I incorporate into one card? I already had 2 with the pot, and 3 in use as flowers. Going back to the pack, I realized there is one side that's solid Wild Wasabi. Bingo, flower stems--that's 6! A patterned WW became the leaves and the seventh to be incorporated into the design. Amy Westerman would be proud!

The idea to place the pot on a windowsill came when I chose Soft Sky as the card base. The pot just looked blah sitting there out of context. So I set about to create one! The "screen" for the window is vellum that is stamped with the Linen background stamp using Close to Cocoa ink. The rest of the window is just created using 1/2" strips of Whisper White. Doesn't the open window conjure up a breeze in your imagination? It has been hot enough here that the only breeze I'm feeling is the cooled air blowing from the air conditioning vent, but I love cool breeze from an open window most!

I almost forgot! The eighth pattern I added to finish off the card is the curtain valence. I cut a 4"x2" strip and used my slit punch to create the scalloped edge.

The Afternoon Tea from the Occasions Mini is one of my all-time favorites, but there's one thing I don't like about it--it's only available until the end of the month! Get it before it's gone, gals. I'm not a good sharer!

Pretty Thank You

This card reminds me of grandmothers. I think it's the vintage look of the Afternoon Tea designer paper. It just looks like wallpaper from another era. Anyway, it was the inspiration for this card. Sorry the photo's a little dark. These colors are hard to photograph.

I started with that and Soft Sky card stock. Then I pulled out my new Full of Life stamp set from the Occasions Mini to see which saying I hadn't put ink to yet. Everyone needs to have a thank you card in their stash, so I went with that stamp.

I thought about going monochromatic with this design, but SS ink is quite pale, so I felt it would be helped if the saying was matted in a darker color. I chose Chocolate Chip because it's in the DP below. After I matted the saying, it still wasn't as large as I had planned on, so I pulled out my scrap stash of Whisper White and found a strip that's 3/4" wide. I added some visual interest by paper piercing it, and the SS double-stitched ribbon brought it all together.

A tip for those who like to hoard ribbon: although this looks like one continuous length tied in the middle, what it really is is a 5" piece that's tacked around the back of the white card stock on both sides. Then I took a 4" length of ribbon and tied it once--not in a knot, just like the beginnings of tying one's shoes--around the center, creating the look you see.

Some of you have commented that I must be inspired by my new craft room because of the cards I've posted recently. I'm not sure what it is, but I'm enjoying the creative process and sharing them with you. Thanks for visiting and commenting!

Who's Inspiring Who?

The other day, the Restoration Hardware catalog came in the mail. The back cover caught my attention. I liked the color combination and wanted to mimic it using Chocolate Chip and Groovy Guava card stock. I also have a new package of designer paper from SU! called Afternoon Tea that I want to use in a card for next weekend's Stamp-A-Stack.

When I pulled the 12 sheets out of the plastic, low and behold, what colors are part of this group of papers, but these! I chose Groovy Guava as the base for the card and set to work.

I didn't realize when I purchased this that there's a new stamp set in the current Occasions Mini called Live Your Dream that coordinates with this DP, but in the end it didn't really matter. I decided to use the paper with the white background and the flowers as my focal image, and it evolved from there (with a little inspiration from the SCS gallery for Afternoon Tea).

The sentiment on the outside is one of the best that SU! has ever produced, in my opinion. It's from the retired set called Gratitude and it is just such a wonderful thing to communicate to someone. I stamped it with Craft Whisper White ink and embossed it with White embossing powder. The ribbon addition was done using the double rectangle punch and some double-stitched GG ribbon. If you double-click on the photo of the full card above, you can see those details.

I have a really cool card I'm going to go work on for Father's Day that will be part of next weekend's SAS. It's still not too late to RSVP...

BTW, for those of you who may be questioning the correctness of my post's headline, I've included this link for you from Grammar Girl.