random reflections

Fall Birthdays

When I turned the page on my birthday calendar to November I discovered a long list of birthdays and anniversaries. Several of the birthdays were for male friends and relatives, so I decided to make a set of cards that would be appropriate for guys. In the end I made four cards (two identical) and one for my sister-in-law who decorates with, and loves, leaf patterns.

The first two cards differ only with the woodgrain patterned paper. I made two of the first one because I had two pieces of that paper. The card design is a CASE of one Debby Hughes made years ago when the Simon Says "One With Nature" was released. The kraft card is a premade one by Paper Studio, and the tag has long been in my stash. I gold embossed the leaves and used three Karin watercolor markers to color them before die cutting  them and adding them to the tag. The sentiment, stamped in Dark Chocolate ink is from The Greetery.

While I was looking through my patterned papers, I came upon the one used on the next card for my sister-in-law. I just love this design and wish I had more of it. It's also been in my stash for quite some time, and I have no idea who made it.

I added the leaves for this one on a dark brown tag, luckily found in the "tag drawer" and gold embossed the sentiment from Altenew's "Happy Sentiments" stamp which might have been a freebie at one time. This tag got two gold pearls as a final embellishment. 

I'm sending the last card to a new-to-me challenge site The Four Seasons and to Happy Little Stampers Birthday challenge. Here's the inspiration photo for Four Seasons and HLS's Birthday challenge is always an Anything Goes challenge. 

I'm happy to report that (finally!!!) TypePad is back to operating as it should. What a relief!

Belated

It was certainly my intention to post these cards on Halloween, but alas, TypePad had other ideas. I did share them on Instagram, but forgot that I never shared the Halloween cards I made for the three little girls here on the blog. (Actually, the oldest is now 11, and I'm quite sure she'd be offended by the "little girls" description.) She's not too old to appreciate a Halloween card, however!

I had a lot of fun making these cards. I try very hard to resist buying new products as soon as I see them, but I broke my "wait and see" rule when Ellen Hutson released her Halloween products. These cards use two of those products, and the card itself is a CASE of Carissa Wiley's card created for the release.

I just loved these cute ghosts who can hold a piece of candy, a paper heart . . .  the options are limitless, but the girls were happy with my choice of Starbursts. (Unbelievably, only one of them likes chocolate!)

The patterned paper is from an old 12X12 piece of scrapbook paper still in my stash. The die cut sentiment is the other Halloween product I purchased from Ellen's release. I purchased the orange glitter paper last year from Simon Says. 

The card was cut with Ellen Hutson's Essential Ovals die cuts--three times from True Black, the patterned paper, and once with glitter paper for the border.

I also "made" some Halloween notebooks for all five grandchildren. In their goodie bags, I had Halloween pencils and erasers as well as other goodies, but couldn't find any notebooks. I transformed some simple notebooks from Staples with some black card stock and a few stickers.

This was the first year in several where we handed out candy on Halloween. Last year we were in Wisconsin for Halloween, and there was no trick or treating during the pandemic. We only had about 20 trick or treaters, but the first group of about 10 was the cutest we've ever seen, Over the past several years, quite a few young families have moved onto our street. The parents banded together so all of them arrived at once. The costumes were original, and the kids were just adorable! I should have had my camera out!

 

With Sympathy

This card went to a friend, but I never got it posted. Addicted to CAS's challenge right now is Sympathy, so it seems to be a good time to share it. I saw a very similar design somewhere on the internet, but didn't pin it, so I can't tell you who I am CASEing. But it's a design I know I'll use again.

It's important to me that sympathy cards be clean and simple designs. I like this one a lot. The strips of True Black and Smoky Shadow cardstock were added to the side of a cream card base. The leaves were snipped off a Pinkfresh Studio die, "Frame Builder Botanical Circle." I don't often leave the insides of a leaf die intact, but here I liked it better than when I tried it with open leaves.

The sentiment from Altenew's "Wildflower Garden" was stamped in black ink. No embellishments on most sympathy cards either.

We're having such wonderful fall weather here. Today is cloudy, but very warm. The last few days have been sunny and warm. Every day like this in November is a gift!

Holiday Tags

My stash of Christmas cards is in pretty good shape, so when I saw the new challenge at Just Us Girls for holiday tags I decided I'd make a couple since I have no new ones for this year. Then TypePad went down, and now I'm just getting this posted at the last minute! The old adage, "Better Late than Never" seems to fit.

The first tag was inspired by a post on Ellen Hutson's blog for layered tags. Mine looks nothing like theirs but I did layer one tag on top of the other.

I started with a tag from Simon Says and ran it through an old embossing folder by Cuttlebug. I die cut the red tag with Pinkfresh Studio's "Mini Tags with Fillable Words," and die cut Cheers from it layering bright green paper behind the word. The greenery is from Pinkfresh Studio's "Festive leaves stencil," which comes with coloring stencils and dies.

The second tag is a monochrome one. I made my own tag this time around and stenciled Nuvo Silver Glitter Paste through the Simon Says "Falling Stars" stencil.  The trees and house were die cut with Gina K's "Winter Wonderland" dies.

I used tiny strips of dimensional tape behind one of the trees and layered three houses together for some dimension there as well. The sentiment was silver embossed on black and is from Reverse Confetti's "Christmas Card Greetings" that I purchased just before they closed the shop.

In addition to Just Us Girls, I'm adding the second tag to the CAS on Friday challenge which is Winter. I'm not sure if a tag is allowed at CAS on Friday, but I'll take my chances.

I'm happy to have my blog back, but writing this post took at least twice as long as usual. Obviously, things are not quite working as they should. Hope it improves soon!

Color Hues #52

Hannelie has chosen the next color combination for our Color Hues Challenge: Mustard and Turquoise.

Hannelie is one of the most creative and talented card makers I know, so I'll be curious to see what she's come up with this time around, particularly since I found this combination quite challenging. I turned to die cuts as I often do.

I started by ink blending a rectangle with a Taylored Expression stencil on cream cardstock with Concord and 9th's Stardust ink, the only mustard ink and cardstock in my stash. 

After stamping the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Autumn Abundance set, I die cut the main panel with Gina K's Master Layout #1 and then the slightly larger panel from Stardust for a thin border.

I die cut several flowers and stems with Pinkfresh Studios's Dainty Blossoms from both Concord and 9th's Oceanside and Papertrey Ink's Hawaiian Shores. I ended up using only the turquoise dies, and added a few enamel dots for embellishment. 

Hop over to the Color Hues blog and see what Hannelie, the Design Team, and our guest have created. It's sure to be inspirational. And then, come play along!