Card Purse or Treat/gift Bag

I found another adorable idea while cruising on SCS and thought I would share it with you all. This is a card purse and it will hold 8 cards with envelopes. It could also hold all kinds of treats! It's pretty simple to make, if you don't take forever deciding how you want to embellish it, like me!

This is front view. The only thing not from SU is the patterned paper. I have had this paper for a couple ofr years. Before I became an SU demo, I bought almost every Die Cut With a View paper pack, so I have a TON of paper that I really love, and need to use! This DP is from the Pocket Full of Posies pack. Here are the rest of the supplies:

• Stamps: Yummy
• Paper: Blue Bayou, Barely Banana, Wild Wasabi
• Ink: Chocolate Chip, Blue Bayou, Pumpkin Pie, Barely Banana
• Accessories: Blue Bayou double stitched ribbon, CAD, eyelets, Big Shot with Simple Flower Embosslit and Little Leaves, nestabilities scallop oval dies, rhinestone brads, eyelet border punch, word window punch, dimensionals, sponge daubers

This is the inside view. This is a really fun project and turns out adorable! There is a tutorial and template for the pockets at Julie Buhler's blog here. Thank You Julie!

I hope you give it a try! I would love to see what you come up with. Please post a comment and link to your project.

Last Minute Valentines

The night before Valentine's Day, I took a few supplies, and some precut Top Note die cuts to work to make some Valentines for my coworkers during my break. While I was plugging away at them, Bekki, my partner in crime on night shifts, wanted to know if I could make her a card to give to her hubby. Well, I really didn't come prepared to make cards, just the little bag toppers seen here: I made one of these for each of the nurses in the Inpatient dept. In the little treat bags, I put Hersey's Treasures wrapped with an address label that I used the a Jumbo Wheel to decorate with hearts. I used Choc Chip and Real Red markers to ink the Yummy stamp. Everyone thought they were just adorable and kept asking where I got my ideas. I said, from my favorite website, http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ of course!

ETA: I forgot to add that these treat bags were clearance from Target a couple years ago, and twice as long as I needed. So I cut them in half and stapled a folded 1/2" wide strip of paper to the bottoms of the 2 ends open top halves. Worked out great!

I had just enough paper to make a plain white card base that opened from the bottom. This is what we came up with:

Not bad for a limited supplies card, huh?! The bow is made out of a pink twist tie that came with the treat bags. I had to use a push pin and a Kleenex box to make the holes in the cardstock to attach the twist tie bow to the card. The hearts are a retired jumbo wheel called Lots of Hearts. The top image is from the Sale-A-Bration set Yummy from this year. The Happy Valentine's Day is from Holidays and Wishes. Talk about pulling it out of my !@##
Let me know what you think!

Lucky Me page and Beer Cheers card

Here are the projects we did for club this month. The theme is, guess what? St. Patrick's Day! The page and the card can be used for anything and the card is a great masculine all occasion card.

This page is a case of jazzescrapper from SCS here

This page will be about my oldest kids' friendship. They are 13 months apart and in the same grade since the 2nd grade. They have been asked if they are twins since David was 3 and Charlene was 2. They are as different as night and day in many ways, but they are both wonderful people. I love to see how well they get along and how they watch out for each other. They are close to each other in a way that I don't think me and my siblings ever were, and I find it so inspring. This picture was taken during our marathon session of picture taking this fall for family pictures, individual pictures and for Senior pics for David and Charlene. We decided to do them ourselves and they turned out pretty well! These 2 goofballs wanted to submit this as their senior photo for the yearbooks (they are in 2 different high schools-Charlene is in a charter school so she can focus on her artsy side). I of course vetoed that. But I still love this picture :)

• Stamps: Wanted, Typeset Alpha Lower (retired), and Sanded BG
• Paper: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Kraft, Whisper White, retired DSP from Christmas 07
• Ink: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Close to Cocoa
• Accessories: Heart to Heart punch, Corner Rounder punch, white gel pen

1. Cut SS cs to 7-3/4"x12", WW to 4-1/2"x12", Kraft to 8"x11" and 4-1/4"x6-1/4", DSP to 3"x12", HH to 4-1/2"x6-1/2". Cut some 1/2" and 1" wide strips from scraps of SS. Punch 4 of the largest heart on the punch in HH.
2. Use SS ink to stamp medallion from Wanted randomly over the large SS piece. Use corner rounder on 2 corners on a long side. Ink edges with SS ink pad.
3. Use Close to Cocoa ink to stamp the Sanded BG all over the large Kraft piece. Use corner rounder on 2 corners on long side. Ink edges with Close to Cocoa ink pad.
4. Ink edges of white piece with SS ink pad.
5. Use grid paper to help line up and glue together the large SS and WW pieces to make a 12"x12" page.
6. Adhere the large Kraft piece to the page as shown.
7. Ink edges of the DSP strip with Close to Cocoa. Adhere to page.
8. Stamp your title in HH on the 1" strips of SS and cut the words apart. Adhere to page as desired.
9. Cut the 1/2" strips of SS to 4" long, then adhere to page as shown. These are for journaling. Adhere only as many as you need. You can write journaling between the strips also if you have a lot to write :)
10. Adhere your matted photo to page. All done!

• Stamps: Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Cheers to You, Bella's Border wheel
• Paper: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Kraft, Whisper White
• Ink: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Chocolate Chip. Apricot Appeal, Summer Sun, and Pumpkin Pie markers
• Accessories: Paper piercer with Mat Pack, 2 way glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Crystal Effects, gold brads

1. With 3-1/2"x2" piece of WW cs, stamp Cheers to You and the mug in Choc Chip and ink edges with Choc Chip ink pad.
2. Color the mugs with the markers, starting in the center with the AA, then around the AA with SS, then around the SS with PP. You can also go over the letters of Cheers to You with the SS marker.
3. Use 2 way glue pen to the foam and the sprinkle with dazzling diamonds and tap off excess.
4. Use the Crystal Effects to apply an even layer over the mug and handle. Set aside to dry-it will take about 1 hour to dry.
5. Stamp the bubble like stamp from Itty Bitty BG in SS on card base.
6. Use Bella's Border wheel in HH ink on the 1-1/4"x4-1/4" strip of HH. Ink Edges with Choc Chip ink pad.
7. With the 4"x2-1/4" piece of Kraft, randomly stamp the mug in Choc Chip , then ink the edges with the Choc Chip ink pad.
8. Ink edge of the 1/2"x4-1/4" strip of WW cs with Choc Chip ink pad. Adhere to the right side of card base approx. 1/2" from edge.
9. Adhere the HH strip slightly overlapping edge of WW strip.
10. Use paper piercer and Mat pack to make line of 3/16" apart holes. Then put 3 gold brads in through the holes.
11. Adhere the Kraft piece as shown.
12. When the mugs are dry, adhere to card as shown. All Done!

And everyone has decided to not do Christmas cards to exchange. We are going to do any/all occasion cards instead as some of our group to photo Christmas cards each year. And no one else had any done, so next month we will get to see all of your creativity!

February Stamp Club Tonight!

Tonight is going to be another fun night for the girls. I can't wait to see what everyone has done for the new monthly Christmas card swap! Here is mine:

I just have a thing for Kraft paper right now. I've always loved it, but haven't used it much lately. And this stamp set seems to be a very well put together set. I find myself using the whole set almost every time I use ANY of it!

• Stamps: A Cardinal Christmas
• Paper:Kraft, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, Holiday Treasures DSP
• Ink: Close to Cocoa, Kiwi Kiss(inside)
• Accessories: Earth Elements Watercolor Wonder Crayons, blender pen, Kiwi Kiss ribbon, 2 way glue pen, Romantic Red glitter, Designer Label and Large Oval punches

I will take pictures of everyone else's tonight and post them for everyone to love :)

This is a sneak peek of the card we are doing tonight. Love how that mug looks like glass? I'll show you how to do that tonight.

This is a sneak peek of the scrapbook page we are doing. This is a 4 leaf clover out of heart punches. Way to multi-purpose it huh!

And don't forget that this is Sale-A-Bration season! Lots of lovely stuff to earn!

Cards for the Coaches

Today was the last day of Cross Country Ski for my youngest son and we had a little party at the school to end the season. The parents all got together and gave gift cards to the coaches and the ex-coach who still helps quite a lot. I volunteered to make the cards and here they are!

I decided to not try to reinvent the wheel for each card and used the same layout with different color schemes and patterned paper. I really love this quilted look with the Top Note die. I have used this die so much, my cutting pads have the design pretty well etched in them! For this card I used:

• Stamps: Winter Post, All Year Cheer I
• Paper: Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Candy Lane DSP
• Ink: Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip
• Accessories: Riding Hood Red striped grosgrain, Pewter Jumbo Eyelets, Crop-A-Dile, pink Rhinestone brads, die cut machine, Top Note Die, white gel pen, paper piercer and mat pack

• Stamps, Peaceful Wishes, All Year Cheer I
• Paper: Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Apple Cider DSP
• Ink: Close to Cocoa, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip
• Accessories different from previous: Chocolate Chip satin ribbon
  
  

• Paper: Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Ski Slope DSP
• Ink: Baja Breeze, Chocolate Chip

I made these half fold cards so there would be plenty of room for all of the kids on the team and any parents that were there and wanted to, could sign the cards. Everyone really liked them! I hope you do too :)

ETA: In answer to the question "how did you get the squares lined up so well" , here is how I did the quilted top note die cut:

I cut a piece of cardstock to 4"x5", then cut 1-1/4" squares of the patterned paper. I don't remember why I chose that size,lol! Then I just glued the squares to the cardstock. Then I used my top note die to cut it out, eyeballing the way the "seams" lined up on the die. I hope that helps :)