Blue and Silver Quilled Bunting Card for Men

How was your thanksgiving? We cooked on Saturday. Had a turkey, but some of the accompanying dishes were chinese-style. We had a Chinese-American thanksgiving you can say. It was a much smaller and easier to manage party versus the one last year where we had what must've been 20 people. I was in the kitchen the whole day and night last year--ready to crash when it was all done, so I paid little to no attention to the rest of the gathering unfortunately. This year we were able to breathe with about half the people! :)

For this card, I gathered inspiration from Paper Daisy Card Design. This one was made for my manager's last day right before Thanksgiving. It's tough making cards for men and this one was no different. At first I thought to myself, do I want to quill a bunch of flags? In the end, my comfort zone kicked in and the next thing you know I have the bunting banner ready. lol

It's snowing at the moment. I can't believe how cold it got and so fast!

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-Bearly Mine Challenges #63 Blue and Silver

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Printed Happy Birthday Unisex Leaf Cards Autumn/Fall

Good afternoon! We started our Thanksgiving shopping yesterday and will finish off out list in the next few days with the perishables. How are you all doing with it? Last year we had a big one with friends and it was a nightmare. By the end of the night we were about to pass out from all of the cooking. This year we're a little smarter and will do a much smaller one and make sure to start preparing much earlier. :)

Autumn cards are quickly being retired for the season, but I got in at least these 2 before it becomes completely weird to hand out! :D Here are 2 cards that you can give to both men and women alike!  I was inspired by a Hero Arts card that I saw on a Pinterest board. The gold leaf is a vellum sticker whereas the maple leaf (Thanks Laine for the stamp set!) was stamped and then wet embossed with glitter embossing powder. You can compare the appearance of the two against the same background. 

Eyelets sit in a row on the upper left corner of the center frame. Flourishes were stamped with white ink for a DIY pattern paper. Inside square with "Happy Birthday" in brown was printed with a photo printer. Leaves were centered on top of yellow vellum paper. 

You can see how the maple leaf interacts with different light angles. It really is an explosion of iridescent colors. 

 Have a sweet, short week!

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-Cards for Men #23 Anything Goes
-Challenges4Everybody Anything Goes
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-Gingerloft Challenge GL52 A Touch of Gold

Pink Quilled Mini Sunflower Bouquet Card

After the rain comes the sun! Literally two storms in the last two weeks. As with weather, life changes and you'll have the good and the bad. Eventually the sun always comes out. It's important to remember the things you are grateful for when things aren't so great. With Thanksgiving already fast approaching, it has never been a better time to remind yourself of what's most important to you in life so happiness is never far away. I hope you all enjoy your family time next week. :)

This card was made for my supervisor's birthday at work. She is a valued team member who received little appreciation in the past. In addition to the card, we threw her a mini frozen yogurt party last week.

The card is a bouquet consisting of punched leaves, a quilled mini sunflower, 2 mini quilled flowers with quilled centers, and a paper vase which I regretfully did not make darker for contrast. They sit on a dry embossed background with yellow ink dusted on.

Pink vellum creates and extra layer for writing on the inside.

Sentiment is stamped on the vellum.

My supervisor commented on the plain envelope I gave out last time, so I decorated it for her. She mentioned that she keeps all cards and envelopes. This makes me feel less wasteful if I dress it up a bit. 

Enjoy your Tuesdays!

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-365 Cards Day 257 Blank Slate
-MIM #115 Anything Goes
-CMC#7 Embossing
-Through the Craft Room Door #44 Anything Goes
-Papertake Weekly Flower Power
-Craft Room Punches and Die-cuts

Orange and Purple Quilled Flowers For Friend Framed

"Friends are flowers in the garden of life."

This framed piece was made as part of a birthday present. Unfortunately, the glass shattered in transit. :(

As with many others, I play around with the way it looks before. Sometimes what I originally had imagined turns out to be completely different. These things are normal. Just to give you an idea, here is the before:









I felt more comfortable with the arrangement that I settled on though, so I went with that:














Here is an up close shot. There are 5 flowers total. Quilled centers lay on top of Prima flowers. Wording is a rub-on sticker. Green leaves were also quilled.










This picture shows you how it shimmers. The inner border has some dry embossing (that I did not do) along with more shimmering frame lines.











Being creative is a process, so patience is key!!! Don't give up!

Before I go, I want to give a shout out to Laine who is doing yet another generous giveaway! Head over to Hugs4theHeart for instructions on how to enter!

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-Anything Goes Challenge Blog #79

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Handmade Blue Onesie Card

Hello everyone! My family is all okay from Hurricane Sandy! Thanks for all of your concern and well wishes! I really, really appreciate your thoughts! Unfortunately we are in the middle of yet another, less severe, rain/snow storm at the moment, but still packs a punch. Hopefully those who are still without power are with family like my dad. He will be staying with us for an indefinite amount of time. He lives in a Zone B flooding zone, but were not asked to evacuate unlike those in Zone A. The basement was completely flooded (they found swimming fish!) and it will take weeks to pump out water and replace equipment. The street in front of the building became a river and there were many scary explosions outside from cars and water boilers reacting with the water. They issued a mandatory evacuation over the past weekend as temperatures were at dangerous levels with no heat, hot water, or electricity. The gas situation for cars are still a nightmare and trains/buses are very slowly being restored, so there are massive delays. Many areas are devastated as you may have heard, but the city will slowly get there...surprisingly Halloween was unaffected in my neighborhood last Wednesday. Despite the downed trees and damaged homes/cars, everyone was in a hurry to get out of the house after being locked in for half the week.

Anyway, as a result of the hurricane I wasn't able to send out a baby shower present to a friend in Virginia in time...yes...my fault for leaving it to the last minute. :X This was the card that accompanied the shipment.

Card opens from bottom to top. Dry embossed buttons run down the middle section. A lighter shade of blue lines the rims of sleeves and collar. The ducky and stars are stickers. I wanted something cute without stamping. I was afraid the texture of the cardstock would hinder a perfectly stamped image.





Hope you're all doing well!!!

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-Make it Monday #114 Anything Goes