A Flower for All Seasons

Here are some cards I designed and created using my stamp set, A Flower for All Seasons.

 Thanks, Julie for the cute card below!

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Clearly for You

How fun this new Clearly for You stamp set is!  I really enjoy designing 3x3 cards because they are so simple and compact.  I'm elated that my new stash of stamps and supplies arrived from the United States and I can create some cards and share with others.

• Stamps: Clearly for You
• Ink: Basic Black, Baja Breeze
• Cardstock: Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White
• Accessories: crochet thread, black gingham ribbon, mini library clip, brad
• Tools/Techniques: Small Heart punch, Word Window punch, 1/16" handheld circle punch, Crop-o-Dile Corner Chomper (1/2 inch), sewing machine stitching, sponging

Crushed curry crush

Since Crushed Curry cardstock has been on clearance at Stampin' Up!, I have been having a heyday with it.  My Chinese New Year cards were crafted using this lovely golden yellow paper, and this week, I've been crushing on curry by cranking out about 50 invitations for an upcoming Relief Society event where we will make three-tiered ruffled skirt aprons.  So fun!  The fabric swatches are above, the black polka dots, black floral, and crushed curry print are what inspired the design for these invitations.  I used the Elizabeth stamp for the image, then hand wrote Relief Society in the centers.

When I ended up with two extra pieces of crushed curry, I whipped up a quick Mother's Day card and an Easter card and can't seem to get enough of the color combination.  And since I live in Taiwan, I have to make the majority of the invitations in Mandarin, so here are the foreign texts.  Sadly, I am not talented enough to read these Chinese characters, but fortunately for me, I'm surrounded by wonderful, smart Taiwanese friends who can translate for me. Hopefully I will add more posts before Mother's Day and Easter.  The Happy Mother's Day and Easter Wishes sentiments are from Stampin' Up's Something to Celebrate set.  And in case you are curious, the little heart stamp is from Stampin' Up's Filled with Love set and the darling square medallion image is from Stampin' Up's Cute by the Inch set. 

Bingo game cards

Backtracking a bit, I want to show you these Bingo cards I made when I went home for the holidays. I made sets of cards for various family members and hope that they'll enjoy their Bingo cards every year on Christmas Eve in the future, as it has been a tradition in my husband's family for years.
By adding the sewing machine stitching around each border, it not only permanently adhered all the layers together, it now eliminates worry about anything coming apart the way paper crafts sometimes tend to do, plus this dainty threaded accent also creates a tailored keepsake edge. I really like the colorful cheer of all the pieces together too.
I almost forgot about making the game pieces, but they were easy to whip up. I used Stamin' Up's Bingo Background stamp along with the Jolly Bingo Bits set. White cardstock was the best choice for stamping the Bingo image, as I had less of a clean, bold look when using confetti white or confetti cream. Very vanilla would be my second best preference.

Chinese New Year card

In case you haven't noticed, this is my first post in months! We moved to Taiwan in August from Texas, for a year. I didn't know how much space I would have, so I didn't pack my stamping supplies and I missed everything desperately!
When I went back to the States over the Christmas break, I loaded up my luggage with rubber stamps, punches, cardstock, inks, pens, scissors, adhesives, you name it. My cousin helped me unload my junk from her trunk when she dropped me off at the airport in San Francisco and I was embarrassed at how heavy all my bags were! I maxed out on the luggage weight limit and carried back as much as I could. I snatched up this darling lantern rubber stamp in Taiwan, which was made in China.  I found a fun way to make your own paper lantern card on this blog.
Now I can create once again! Thank you, Eva Airways!
I made these wonderful Chinese New Year cards and hope to post more fun cards over the next several months while I'm living on this tropical Asian island. Enjoy!

My daughter's high school graduation

Congratulations to Lindsey! This post is a sampling of the graduation party I hosted for my lovely daughter, designed in her school colors of burnt orange,white, and black. I've always wanted to order custom M&Ms and this was just the reason (or excuse) I was looking for.

The little tins were darling in and of themselves, but slightly boring for my preferences, so I had to add a bit of ribbon, a couple of coordinating cardstock colors, cut with two just-right punches.

All those extra details just seem to make something good, even better.

We chose a line from "Wicked," to accent the party favors, "Because I knew you, I have been changed for the better."

I've also always wanted to try making one of these lovely banners and give complete credit to Kelly for her excellent tutorial. I'm a huge fan of her card making style and overall creativity--she is my muse! It was in the middle of the night when I spotted the step by step instructions on her blog, and all I had was Halloween cardstock in my daughter's school colors, and I was bound and determined to make a banner right then and there, so I went with it. Now I have a jazzy new banner to hang up in October as well.

Here's a closer shot of my banner. I seriously need either a new camera or photography lessons, or both, but you get the idea.

I'm extremely proud of my girl and will miss her when she heads out of state to attend college at BYU-Idaho in the fall.

Happy grad and more

T's the season! I just received this new Happy Grad stamp from Stampin' Up! and quickly put this simply layout together. Here's another quickie design that I came up with recently using a sentiment from Whimsical Words that turned out okay. I did a couple of alternate versions that I'll post later too.

Got these next two from a card swap a long time ago and think they are both lovely.The wires on this butterfly make this card.