Pink Carnation

My sister, who I hope is not following this blog yet, introduced me a wonderful series of books.  I don't have the time or patience to sit and read a long book, so my sister found this book on audio CD from the library.  If you enjoy a nice romance mystery that light hearted and fun.  These books are great...The first of the Series is, The Pink Carnation:

This book is set in France...so when creating my sister's Christmas Thank-You card...I had to incorporate "Merci" and a simple pink carnation into her card.  I scoured the web to find instructions on how to create a paper carnation.  Most of them were made using tissue paper.  I wanted one made of paper...scrapbooking paper.  Boy, was I in luck when I hopped over to My Basket of Scraps!  Many many thanks to Jackie for her very simple and easy to follow Carnation paper flower tutorial.  I love that she photographed each step...This made creation of my carnation a breeze.  For my card, I didn't use quite as many circles, because I want mine to be able to fold flat (semi-flat) for mailing.  Isn't it cute?

The card is a dark burgundy color with a colorful flower ribbon to line the bottom.  Because no card is complete without bling, I had to dot the centers of the flowers with pink Stickles.  Now that I am finished with the Pink Carnation...It's on to the next book in the series, The Masque of the Black Tulip.  Now, that's a flower I will be playing with in a few months...for Spring! 

I Wanna Thank You...

This year, inspired by a New Year's Thank-You Blog Hop I found on FB, I decided to make all of my Christmas thank-you cards.  I had some rare free time yesterday, so I made a few of the cards.  This fish is probably my favorite one so far...It's not really a Thank-You card, but it's for someone we visited with during the holidays! 

Card is made of turquoise cardstock cut in a long rectangle, scored, and folded in half.  Inside was cut using the "Alphalicious" Cricut cartridge and says...

My favorite Cricut cartridge by far is the "Create-A-Critter."  It makes a huge assortment of cutesy animals with accessories, backgrounds, and phrases.  Each one has turned out so cute, that I can't wait to find a use for all of them.
How do you like this cute little "ewe," which I recently discovered means female sheep.  Guess I'm going to need to add a bow to it...

I loved the colors on this Elephant card so much that I made two of them...It's hard to see, but the black paper has silver  circles that glitter in light.  I LOVE anything that glitters and sparkles, so I had fun with this one.  The elephant was pretty fun to cut out, too.  The pink just adds the right touch!  The card is folded like a matchbook, so the card can stand up....the outside says, "We had tons..." (I cut the letters using the Alphabet from the Cricut "Wild Card" cartridge)

When you open the first flap, it continues, "...of fun!"  Then the bottom flap, which would be the bottom of the inside of the card (matchbook), says, "Thanks!"

For Christmas, I bought an adorable set of snowmen clear stamps from Skipping Stones Design.   I made my coworkers some "Snowman Poo" cards with them.  This was my first time using clear stamps, and now I am completely hooked!  How cool is it to be able to see where you are stamping?!   The stamp designs peel off a plastic sheet and then you stick it to a clear acrylic block (mine has lines on it).  Anyway, I now love stamping and plan to add to may clear stamp collection...but I digress...Just because Christmas has gone, I had to find one last use for my snowman...and here it is. 

 The collection came with a cute anecdote, "Thanks SNOW much!..." The stylish scarf has polka dots, so I colored the scarf the same colors as in the patterned paper that I used.  Then, to add an extra touch, I made snow out of dots of glitter glue.  The picture does not reflect the sweet glittery snow flakes...but trust me, it's cute!

The snowman cards are the easiest one of this group, and I love working with the clear stamps...I will make several more of those to give away to family.  After making some gift cards and these thank-you cards, I am psyched to make some birthday cards...I also signed up for a Cricut Card and a Spring/Easter Critter exchange through FB.  I am also starting an card exchange through friends on FB, too.  The Cricut, Stamps, and card-making has really opened the door to a fun new world for me....COME JOIN ME! :)