Signs of Spring.....A Picture Blog - Part 2

 

Dogwood

The "not for hire" Gardener

Redbud

sweet Tater

Dogwood

Dogwood

Enjoy!!

 

Signs of Spring.........A Picture Blog

  The tea olive - blooms are *very fragrant* - We have two of these planted in front of our house....if the wind/temperature/weather conditions are just right, we can smell the tea olive blooms even if we are in the backyard.  One of my favorites - I was introduced to this plant on a fall visit to Charleston...the scent was in the air everywhere because most residents had them planted in their gardens.

 

For rent........"cheep"

 

I noticed that one of our lilac bushes already has flowers!

 

flower buds on the pear tree

  another favorite!

 

 blossoms on the pear tree

Hope you enjoy these photos............I have a few more for a later post.

Ooh La La......Paris #2

Several months ago I posted a picture of a card that I made for my friend Judy.  Judy *loves* Paris so I made her a Paris collage card.   Recently Judy gave me a thin strip of paper that had a Paris theme to it.  As a card maker, NO piece of paper is safe with me.  I now look at everything thru the eyes of "could I do something with that on a card?"   Little did Judy know that the Paris-themed strip of paper would be returned to her on the front of a greeting card.  Judy received this little goodie in the mail yesterday.......

I adhered the Paris-themed strip of paper to the left side of red cardstock.  In the bottom right corner, the following is stamped:

The world is a book.

If you do not travel........

you read only a page

The stamped message is very hard to see in the photo.  I also used a postage stamp rubber stamp as background over the rest of the red cardstock (also hard to see in the photo).   If you click on the photo you can see the stamped images a little better.

 I used my Stampin' Up Riding Hood Red ink pad to stamp the sentiment and the postage stamps.  The postage stamp rubber stamp is also a Stampin' Up product from the retired Letters from Friends set.  The "World is a book" rubber stamp is a Verses Rubber Stamps product.  The 2 cutouts near the top of the card are from K&Company's "Life's Journey Stamp Collage" collection.  I attached these with foam squares to add dimension.  I rounded the corners of the red cardstock with a paper punch.  The red cardstock was adhered to a dark brown card using my adhesive tape runner.  Since the inside of a dark brown card is "dark brown" (duh!), I cut a piece of lighter paper and adhered to the inside of card so that my handwritten greetings could be easily seen (I was going to use the word "legible"; however, sometimes my writing is not legible even on plain white paper)!

A Showcase of Cards

Thought I would finish posting the pictures of cards I've made over the past several weeks.  So, here goes.............

 The inspiration for this one came from the gallery on the Graphic 45 website.  The papers and butterfly embellishments are from their Botanicabella collection.  I really like their products. 

The stamps are from Stampin' Up - Lovely As A Tree.

More Stampin' Up products!

  The flower stamp is a Stampin' Up product.  "Celebrate" is a Cross My Heart product.  The background printed paper is from the Graphic 45 Botanicabella collection.

  More Stampin' Up product.



I didn't do any explaining on technique for making these cards and some products that I've used have gone unnamed.  If you are interested in any of the card making techniques or would like more info on a product that I've used, either leave a comment or email me and I'll get back with you.  I think this post pretty much catches me up on posting some of the newer cards that I've been working on. 

These Have Been Keeping Me Busy!

Here are some pictures of cards that I've made over that past 2-3 weeks.  To save time (which will allow me to get back to crafting), I'm not going to list supplies for each card.  If there is one that intrigues you and you would like to ask about a particular paper, stamp, embellishment, etc, just email me or leave a comment and I'll get back with you.  I still have more photos to post.........maybe tomorrow!

A Time to Celebrate

I've been making quite a few cards during the past 2 weeks; however, I've been too busy to stop and blog about them.  Here is a picture of a birthday card I made earlier this week:

The brown patterned paper is from Authentique's Journey Collection.  I got the 6x6 bundle pad at Archiver's on Tuesday.  The main colors in the Journey Collection are brown, blue, and gray.  I cut the brown patterned paper slightly smaller than my 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 blue card.  A cream colored ribbon was attached to the bottom of the brown paper which was then adhered to the blue cardstock.

I stamped the "time to....." stamp (from the Close to my Heart "You & Me" stamp set) onto some light blue patterned paper from the Authentique Journey Collection, cut around the stamped area and used foam dimentionals to adhere it to the brown paper.   To finish out the front of the card, I adhered 4 brown "pearls" (2 of 2 different sizes) to the ribbon. 

Inside (sorry, no pic) I stamped "celebrate!" in black ink.  I used this as a birthday card but the sentiments would also work for anniversary, retirement or wedding.

Valentines

A quick post just to show a couple of Valentine cards that I made. 

Sentiment on the front "Love is in the air"

Sentiment on front of card "sending all my love".  I have stamped a row of hearts on the front of the card also....they are a little difficult to see in the photo since I used red ink to stamp them on the red cardstock.

Hope you got all your Valentines delivered!!!  Time to start working on Easter cards now....so get your craft on!