Summer card creations mostly birthday and anniversary

Teaching duties start next week so time for crafting and relaxing are diminishing

I have made some Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, and Valentine's cards however not enough for all the relatives I like to mail to and for which I haven't photographed yet. What I will spotlight here are summer birthday, anniversary, congrats, and a wedding/love banner:

 Best wishes stamped on the tag: 22nd anniversary for a sweet couple that I was in their wedding as a bridesmaid!

 HB for one of my sister-in-laws:

HB for one of my aunts who loves blue

HB for one of my uncles who loves to fish

 Congrats to a niece for finishing med school

Congrats to niece's husband who also finished med school

 A nephew was married in June; wedding colors were navy and gray/silver, so banner has teal, navy blue, gray, and black:

 Best wishes for another #22: this time for my brother and his wife; I was also a bridesmaid for their wedding that was one week after my good friend's

HB for my brother (actually early which probably shocked him!)

Lots of different layouts, color combos, and supplies. I'm sure there is at least one you might like!

Card for a fellow teacher using school colors yellow, black and white

Welcome to 2016-2017 school year! Yes, it is now a balance between some more summer fun and getting ready for the next fastly approaching time to teach again. I've got workshops on August 2, 9, 15-16, and then first day with students on August 17th (1 month away)!!!!!

This card was created for my mentor teacher, a biology teacher, whose classroom is down the hall about 2 rooms away. (About the mentor part, I've been teaching at some level of education since 1984 and have taught in 3 states and if you add in where I student taught it would be 4 states, but still am designated a mentor teacher since I'm new to the district. Hopefully with her help, I won't make any blunders learning to navigate how this district and particular high school operate. Schools are basically the same however climate and culture of the local community can be huge influencers to those teaching and learning within the walls of each particular building.)

Here's the card with some added grays to soften the look:

This is the cover: kraft brown card stock for the base; yellow card stock for the background; leaf print paper was a freebie gift from a UK-based card making magazine; border stickers from my stash (might have been purchased from Oriental Trading) plus a black Sharpie for the lettering.

For the inside I decided to switch to using owl stickers but 3 different colors that help repeat from the leaf print on the front. And more of the gray 2 tone dot border sticker and black and white dot patterned paper background instead of the 2nd type of border sticker. The stamped sentiment is "be happy".

Cheerful and colorful!!!

Congratulations cards using same layout

2 Medical School graduation cards 

One is for niece and the other for her husband

This is for my niece.

This is an overhead view to see how I completed the inside. I carried the blue glitter tape inside along with a small tag shape cut from the same brown grid patterned paper. The coral card stock is stamped 3 times with congratulations.

This is for my new nephew-in-law. Same brown grid patterned paper in same size. Tape in same location as placed on my niece's. Same size patterned paper that "dream big" is stamped on. And button pleated fans are actually flat and were cut from patterned 12" x 12" scrapbook paper.

This is an overhead look at the nephew-in-law's. The layout is almost the same but a tad simpler.

These new doctors have completed orientation at their respective hospitals and have been working in their residencies for about 3 weeks. Keep them in your thoughts that they will do their best for their patients.

Card making for 8th grade niece

Promotion or Graduation from 8th grade?

No matter how it is declared, my niece has reached a milestone in the American educational systems of finishing elementary level and is deemed ready for high school. Yea!!

About making the card--I made lemonade out of lemons! The oval floral garland embossing folder was received in this month's issue of a U.K.-based crafting magazine and even with thin paper, I wasn't getting much embossing. So, I thought there's more than one typical way to use this--I'll try a colored pencil texture rubbing and see what kind of results take place.

Here's the card cover:

(sorry, I forgot to crop the photo after I scanned)

I used 4 colors for texture rubbing: orange, pink, purple, and green. I'm hoping my soon-to-be high school niece will like the card!

Paper crafting cards for a retirement and a promotion

School colors of black and yellow are the color inspiration

Masculine recipients

Shopping through my mounds of supplies can be fun or quite a daunting and frustrating task when starting new cards. Themes of retirement and promotion help with supply selections along with striving for gender neutral with color tones of black, gray, cream, yellow, and/or gold.

Here are the finished cards:

Vintage Mother's Day card plus home decor art gift

Mother's Day 2016:

A silvery white gray ink was swiped over the teal card stock to add to the aged vintage look that I wanted to go with the cameo stamp. There are 2 old-fashioned Victorian type ladies fans stamped in a medium blue but will be too hard to see because of the dark lighting when photographing. Embossing was added too in order to give a textured-type border.

The home decor art was my interpretation of many different doily creations I had been seeing this past year at antique malls, blogs, and craft magazines. This one pictured below for my mother is probably the sixth one that I've put together. Last summer for $1 at a garage sale, I bought a medium sized box full of blue variegated doilies and off-white doilies. Since my mom's favorite color is blue, I just had to use one of the variegated blues. Mom was thrilled with it! Yea!

The background paper for the doily was a freebie as an insert in an U.K. based crafting magazine. The cameo and fan stamps and embossing folder were also freebies that came with previous issues. With a subscription they add a "gift" (can be card stock pattern papers, embossing folders, small dies, clear stamps or combination) which is highlighted within the issue. Same thing with the glossy paper inserted within each issue. On two pages, they have 4 prints printed on both front and back, which gives you more crafting options. English crafters are selected to create examples using the freebies. It's always fun putting my own crafting spin with using these new supplies!!!

Here's the framed doily art made for my momma:

The tag under the butterfly sticker is stamped with "Best Wishes".

These are my 2016 Mother's Day craft creations!

Christmas and Winter Theme Cards #1

Dream Big!

Happy New Year Cards

The polka dot paper has a sticky back! I came across the paper in a 3-pack of coordinated prints at a discount dollar store! What a fabulous frugal find!!! The black lace tape was also purchased at the same discount dollar store!

 Studio G produced the stamp of "dream big" and the base square white card and envelope.

Foam snowflakes were purchased many years ago from OTC. They came in a huge volume pack in different shades of blue plus white, pink, and lavendar.

The stencil number ruler has been in my "arsenal" for many years.