Balloon Animals Birthday Card

I have now made all 4 sizes of birthday box cards that I would use: 4.25 x 5 inches in both vertical and horizontal and 5 x 7 inches in both vertical and horizontal.

I've awed over lots of cards that are vertical that are just over-flowing with all kinds of lovely and fun stuff. I guess I'm just not a big embellisher. Mine never seem to come out so full looking. This is as much as I could stuff in the card and still get my fingers in there to place them!

I used my CTMH balloon animal stamp set. I've gotten pretty good use out of this set since buying it. The animals are quite fun to work with! The sentiment is a different CTMH set. I also made some presents to tuck in here with scrap rectangles and one bit of a border punch that I think looks like a poofy bow.

I used my MISTI to stamp these images because they are solid. I wanted to make sure I got full impressions! The patterned paper I chose actually has a lovely bit of clear sheen over the spots. I thought it looked like party confetti.

Of all the 3D shaped cards I've made, I think these box cards are my favourite with the step cards as a close second. It's really neat how this card easily folds flat for mailing.

I must say, I prefer the horizontal cards. There's more room to work with inside and there's a better space on the back to put your sentiment. Next on my bucket list of 3D cards to try will be a shadow box card!

Husky Treat Bags

When I make a batch of dog cookies for our Husky, I always get more than I think I will use in the two weeks they are good for. (She could eat them all but she shouldn't!) So, I give some away to my fellow doggie parents at work and at my husband's work. I was really enthusiastic the first time and made these baggies.

I used a tutorial from Pootles for the treat bag. It's actually quite a decent size. It looks so good when made out of patterned paper!

I used the fox from Your Next Stamp's Woodland Cuties stamp set (with matching dies) and coloured it like my Husky. (I am going to get SO much use of out this image!)

I was pretty pleased with it. It holds 5 to 10 cookies. I made the cookies with a dog bone cookie cutter but we always break it into smaller pieces when we give her some as treats. I'm thinking that the next time I make these cookies, I will just cut the dough up into little, bite size squares. (I keep looking for a mini heart-shaped cookie cutter, but I can never find little ones.)

How did I do colouring Shadow? Here is my muse:

Silver and Purple Wedding Mini Album

I went to a wedding this July. It was planned a long time ago. It seemed like we had forever to plan for it. It's amazing how time gets away from us! I started this wedding scrapbook mini album in April and finished it the day before the wedding in mid-July. LOVE how it turned out!

I sunk much of the time into coming up with the design. It uses my ribbon-slide binding, but I've modified it for stability so that the ribbon doesn't scrunch up. The wedding colours were silver and purple. The large flower on the cover came purple but all the rest were white and I coloured them with my Copic markers. I put two tones of glitter grey gears in there for a masculine touch.

This "mini" album is not very mini. The pages are 9 x 7 inches so that the couple can fit 4 x 6 photos in portrait or landscape orientation. The pages will fit 5 x 7 inch photos in portrait but landscape will only fit on the photo mat pullouts in each page and on the inside of the front and back covers.

Each page has a pocket flap (with a Kraft Tex hinge) and an inside pocket.

When you open the flap, there's an inside pocket with a large photo mat.

There's a total of 5 pages. If only 1 photo goes on each page (since you can fit two 4 x 6 photos in landscape on some), the album holds 37, 4 x 6 photos.

I did a lot of stamping, die cutting and heat embossing on this album. I wasn't there for the gift opening, so I hope the groom and bride really liked it. I included some "his and hers" tags in hopes that they would both capture some memories together in it. The couple waited a very long time to find this happiness, so it was a very special wedding.

The album looks much better in real life, but the closest I can get you to it is a video walk-through! Hop over to my Vimeo channel to see this wedding scrapbook mini album in action!

Summer of Love!

This summer has had me creating pretty steadily. I attended a wedding in July and my in-laws had their 50th wedding Anniversary on August 20th. I helped to design some of the decorations: the banner, the place-setting cards, the table numbers and the favour boxes. I did the design and cutting. My mother-in-law did the assembly. On top of those two things, a former co-worker of mine also got married on August 20 and another former co-worker asked me to make his card.

So, here are three version of the same wedding shaker card!! The first one was for the July wedding. The colours were purple and silver (grey).

This one had the most filling and the most variety of filling. I've been trying to get better at not over-stuffing my shaker cards! The two stamps (The heart and "together") were from Close to My Heart sets that my sister loaned me. The "Happy" is a die-cut from Your Next Stamp. It's finicky to work with, but oh so pretty!

I had a package of white flowers from Michael's. I coloured one with my copic pale purple/grey marker. I think it turned out well. Then I had two colours of grey glitter paper to cut out with my memory box gear dies to add the touch of a male element to the card as we attended from the groom's side.

The next version is the one I made for the former co-coworker. Her colours were beige/gold, so I'm told.

This card is a 5x7 so that I could fit the spray and the couple. I wrote a poem on the inside that ended with "Now and Always" so that I could use this stamp!

These flowers I sponged with honey yellow ink to make them gold-ish.

Yellow and a light green were the colours of my in-laws wedding party. Gold is the theme for a 50th anniversary. So, for that version of this wedding shaker card, I embossed the heart in a "pearl lustre" colour which looked kind of pale gold to me.

This one is also 5x7. Thank heavens for 5x7 embossing folders! I had progressively less and less time to make these cards. This one probably has the least shaker stuff in it. I could have added more but I'd rather too little than too much! At least you can get movement!

The anniversary party went well. My in-laws renewed their vows with their two children each participating and their only grandchild too. It was really lovely.

What's kept me the most busy has not been these three cards and the room decor. It's the wedding mini (or not-so-mini!) albums I made! I have videos of both to post in the future! (I am so proud of them, it hurt a little to give them away! Hence, the videos so I can return to them for future inspiration too!)