Soaring with Dream Pop

Dream Pop papers are one of my favorite packets of all time! 

For this "Soar" card (in celebration of a graduation or an important life event), I stamped the hot air balloon twice (April's Stamp of the Month) and used pop dots to create two-dimensional layers. I cut the clouds free-hand. The "Soar" stamp is from "Find Your Style".

I tied triple-twisted strands of Baker's Twine and accented with white buttons.

It's always a nice surprise to open a card and find a pop of color there, too!

Inside sentiments are from the "Celebrate the Everyday" stamp set.
 

This card is for a very special young woman who recently soared and "landed" her dream job. You go, girl!

Find Your Style, Friend!

A special friend has a birthday to celebrate!

For her little gift note card box and set of four cards, I used some of my stash of Close To My Heart products:

Card box, Wings paper packet, Find Your Style stamp set, Juniper, Olive, and Smoky Plum inks, Opaque Pearls, Black Button, and Black Hemp. (The "Wings" paper packet has been retired from CTMH. I'm going to be so sad when my scraps are completely used!)

You can see that I love to be creative inside each card as well as outside--why not provide a little surprise to the recipient?

WINGS and FIND YOUR STYLE are some of my all-time favorites! Everyone who knows me, knows that I love butterflies and their symbolism: NEW Life in Jesus Christ because of His resurrection! I love Easter and the joy that only Jesus brings us! 

Because of an infection in both eyes since last summer as a result of shingles, my crafting/reading/driving/anything productive/time has been almost zero. 

Literally, I LOOK forward to getting back to being more productive and creative, and thank my eye specialists for their continued good care. 

In August and September 2012, my vision tested 20/500. That wasn't good! Since my March 2013 checkup, I've made much improvement and now I have eye wear that I'm not quite used to yet, but I can tell that the lenses are helping me. With time, I hope to be back in my Studio Jane getting inky and sticky with some new CTMH products! 

Blessings!

(dizzy but joyful) Jane

Heart 2 Heart Challenge: Doily and Lace

The challenge at Heart 2 Heart this week is to use doilies and/or lace in our paper crafting.

For this 5 x 7 inch card, I chose the Close To My Heart Bliss papers, Find Your Style stamp set butterfly, Celebrate Life stamps, Opaque Pearls, Sheer Ribbon, and a white paper doily.

Though I haven't had much creative "me time" lately with grand-girls keeping us extra busy, I definitely wanted to enter this challenge, since I showcased this card for a recent workshop I held.

Hey, how do you like my lacey blog background?! Fits right in, doesn't it?

Skip over to the Heart 2 Heart blogsite to see many more gorgeous creations!

Happy new week, everyone!

Happy Birthday Butterfly

I'll never get tired of this gorgeous butterfly, one of the stamps in Close To My Heart's "Find Your Style" stamp set!

Random stamping (inside) is ALWAYS fun to do!

I used: The Paper Studio papers, M*s ribbon, M*s orange gems, lace, Cuttlebug
CTMH: Find Your Style stamps, happy birthday stamp, inks, Opaque Pearls

Clean & Simple Cards

We had recently commented that we made it through the winter without any colds or flu strikes. Then spring came on the calendar. Soon after, DH got zonked out of commission with a case of the stomach virus. It's Murphy's Law that when one goes into a doctor's office, one comes out with something worse! That seems to have happened this past week. It wasn't 24 hours after his doctor's office visit and he had the BUG.

I've been forcing liquids into him to prevent dehydration. Each day he feels a bit better. Today he ate chicken noodle soup broth. So far, so good!

Meanwhile, since our crazy weekend snow and sleet storm and the poor guy nearly living in the bathroom, I made these CAS (clean and simple) cards. That's all I could eeeeek out, and they were fun.

Hoping to get our house back to "clean" and life back to "simple" soon!

Stay well! Don't let the bug getcha!

A Marriage of Papers

This birthday card for a neighbor is a result of marrying selected papers from the Wings and the Passages packets.

Inside I randomly stamped "happy," "happy happy," and "happy happy birthday" in Barn Red ink.

Our neighbor is a very special guy who loves to watch birds and travel and so much more.

I used CTMH products:
Wings Paper Packet Level 2
January Stamp of the Month-Find Your Style
Passages Paper Packet Level 2
Passages Stickease
Liquid Glass
Black mini-medley ribbon
Barn Red, Garden Green, & Black ink pads

Happy weekend to you!

Beautiful -- January SOTM

January Stamp of the Month: Find Your Style

(You can get this stamp set FREE or at a discounted price! See my "Inspirations" sidebar link.)

The week is flying by! January is almost in the past. It's been quite a long, wintery month here in St. Louis -- we've had our icy-est, snowy-est, coldest January since the early 1990s, so we made history! And what do I do when it's too cold to garden, mow the grass, walk, play tennis, swim outdoors, and ride bicycle? SCRAP, of course!

Here's a very simple stamped card (clean & simple) for a very special young woman who is just as the sentiment says: Beautiful. Inside and out. And I want her to always remember this. She loves jewelry (and all accessories) so I had to add a simple necklace to bling the card a tiny bit. Can you see it? Click on the photo to enlarge.

I used CTMH products:
White cardstock
January's Stamp of the Month: Find Your Style
Black ink pad
Gray Wool ink pad
Itty Bitty Sparkles (a girl's gotta have some bling!)
Sheer ribbon

It's always fun to make the inside of a card a surprise too. So I used the Gray Wool to stamp "Beautiful" randomly and repeatedly--this way I know she'll get my message!

Then I second-generation-stamped the envelope with the really cool diva dress form. We want to keep our mail carriers wondering. :)

I'm glad you visited! Extra warm fuzzies back to you!

Happy Birthday to My CTMH Upline!

Using the tea bag holder tutorial here, I created a special birthday card for my CTMH upline, Deb Butler, director of the Scrapping Buckeye Babes!

Happy birthday to you, Deb, if you're blog visiting! You're the BEST! Enjoy a cuppa tea with a friend.

I used all Close To My Heart products:
CTMH Wings paper packet, sweet leaf ribbon, Vineyard Berry ink (inside "happy birthday" sentiment, sparkles, licorice opaque pearls, Liquid Glass, Prisma Glitter, Find Your Style butterfly stamp. I stamped two butterflies to give dimension. I stamped each on the top and bottom of the cardstock, so that the gorgeous stamp design would show on their under-wings. Two sides are stamped in Juniper (those face each other), one in Sweet Leaf, and the top is rock-'n'-roll stamped in Vineyard Berry and Sweet Leaf. (The inside section holding two tea bags is made with the Vineyard Berry jaquard design that matches the front horizontal paper strip behind the punched circles.)

Click here to see a traditional Wings/Find Your Style card I made earlier.

Click here to see two tea bag holder cards I made earlier from different paper packets, and to see the inside paper section that holds the tea bags.

Thanks for visiting my blog! Come back soon!