A Thank You, A Birthday Card, Some pretty Flowers and Even some doggie updates

A Big Thank You for the Blog Candy!!

I want to send out a Big Thank You to Diane Carubia for sending the fantastic blog candy that I won on her site. Diane is the very talented artist who creates some adorable digital images, and I am a huge fan of her sweet little animal images. I will be making some cards with them shortly and showing them off for everyone to see. If you don't want to wait, check out my right sidebar and there is a link directly to Di's Digi Downloads! You will love the adorable images there!!

Now back to the blog candy....I was so happy to learn that my number was selected to win the blog candy and it arrived in the mail all the way on Friday from England. How fun it was to open up the package and see all of the great treasures inside. Di also included such an adorable card that she made that I had to take some pics to show you! As you will notice, all of the items in the candy match and I am looking forward to using them as soon as I can.

Here is what I got! Thank you again Di for the generous gift that you sent! *Hugs*
















Margie's Birthday Card

My dear friend Margie who is the owner of Stamp Fanci here in Pittsburgh had her birthday on Thursday Feb 10th. I wanted to make her a card, but what kind of card do you make for a woman who owns a rubber stamp/card making store??? She has seen them all, so no surprise factor there...but....what if I use some digi images and make it a bit of a surprise inside in a style that is something different than she would expect...So this is what I came up with. She loved it...Hope you do too!
This is the outside of the card. This image is a digi from Pollycraft. Once you see the next photo, you will understand why I selected this image for the outside of the card. I colored Cuthbert the bear using Copic Markers.

Here is what you see when you open up the card!










Not only did I have a blast making the balloons for inside of the card, but decided to add in a Bugaboo digi image with a pink elephant and it's balloon!

Here is a close up of the balloons that I made for the inside. Let me tell you a little bit about how some have stars and some are plain.

When I saw the idea for this card on You Tube, I thought it would be perfect for Margie! Something that she may not expect, and something fun for her birthday! When I thought about how I was going to make the balloons inside without a balloon punch, my mind went to work. Hey, I have a stamp (Cost me $1.00 at Pat Catans) and it is a Balloon stamp with Stars on it. Ok...I will use that and cut them out...with 24 balloons (front and back), I wasn't looking forward to all of that cutting. An email later that day Michael's came to my rescue with a 45% off coupon and off to Michael's I went in search of a balloon punch! For a mere $9.99 full price Martha Stewart punch and my 45% off coupon, I bought it feeling so proud of myself! Imagine how I felt when later that evening I found out that it fit around my star balloon rubber stamped image perfectly! Wooohooo...and a card was born! I used a mixture of Bazzill cardstock and some inexpensive multicolored and heart swirled cardstock from the dollar bin at Target. I cut the strips of acetate and using my pink 1/4 inch ATG gun I attached matching pairs of balloons to each side of the acetate strips. The hardest part of the whole card was making the insert to hold the balloons which is hidden under the inside dotted paper and covered with the heart swirls. Its a fairly easy design...make the piece 2 inches longer than the card you are using. Fold and score the paper in half and then score at a half inch off of each side of the center and again at another half inch off of that mark. Then fold it hill and valley style and tack down with adhesive until you have only the middle opening on the inside of the card to hold the balloon acetate sticks. Line each side of the inside with adhesive and attach the balloons at different heights. Then simply close up the center, decorate and attach to your card. Cover with your favorite DP and add your sentiments, embellishments etc. Fun and easy....try one the next time you need a really FUN birthday card!

Some Pretty Flowers Card

I can not take credit for this next card except for making it, but the idea was from Carolyn down at Stamp Fanci and her card inspired me to make this card. Her card was on green cardstock and the flowers were all white and it was the most stunning card I had seen in a long time. This is a variation of her card, and I added some Ranger distressing ink to color in the embossed flowers and I love how it turned out!


Pardon the lighting on the card, but the card is made on Bazzill Chiffon pale yellow cardstock. The stamp is from the new Hero Arts line and this one is the smaller sized cling style of this image: CG256 Small striped flower. This image also comes in a slightly larger version in clear acrylic and an even larger full sized cling style. I added white and light yellow pearls into the center of the middle flower and used pop dots to raise the middle image up above the others which were adhered with glue dots. The top scallop edge was made using the Martha Stewart doily border punch. I stamped the image using Versamark on a medium weight vellum and heat set it using Ranger Embossing Pearl Silver embossing powder. It gives such a gorgeous finish. I then 'colored' the images by rubbing each flower with Ranger distressing inks. I used a combination of Spun Sugar, Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade and a touch of Fired Brick on the middle flower. I used a yellow art sponge that I cut into pie-like slices and used it to rub the distress ink onto the flowers. Remember when you use the distress ink to start and stop OFF of your image so that you do not have any hard edges on your image where you would start or stop. I used the lightest colors in the middle and the darker at the edges. I then cut just outside of the embossed lines to keep the shape of the flower around the image. This was a very quick but fun card to make.

Sabrina and Jake Updates

Now if I havent totally bored you to death by all of this reading and if you can hang on for another few minutes, you will get to see a little snippet into my life and you will get to see who shares my bed with me too! Ut oh..that didnt sound right, but take a peek below and you will see what I mean!

If you have read the left sidebar of my home page, you will recognize this beautiful face as Sabrina, one of our rescue dogs that I own. Sabrina was our first rescue and she is not only beautiful, but also soft as silk. In this picture she is laying in my bed on a pillow and ready to take a nap.

It was a dreary cold winter day and not only was Sabrina ready for a snooze, so was Jake, but he has his own way of snuggling in my bed. Where Sabrina prefers the bottom of the bed on a pillow next to the footboard of my bed, Jake prefers the top of my bed like a person. Check out this adorable picture!!

Yes, Jake needs a haircut, but all of those curls and waves make him who he is! I am constantly clipping back the hair around his eyes, but he is so cute with his hair longer that I will let it grow until it gets hot outside and then get him a nice cooler cut!

Yes, Jake really does like to lay on my pillow, in my spot with my blanket wrapped up to his chin and he dozes off to sleep.

If you are a dog lover like me and have room in your heart ...and your bed!....run down to your local rescue facility and take some love home for Valentine's day for yourself! They never forget what you do for them and love you forever for it!!

Thanks for bearing with me and my ramblings.

*Hugs*
~Andrea