There's no people like show people....

Hi All! Just thought I'd pop in with some thank you cards I did recently. My daughter just finished up her final middle school musical of all time (at least as a middle schooler), and she asked me to make thank you cards for the drama teacher, vocal teacher, and the costume coordinator (who is a mom with EXTRAORDINARY patience). She wanted something that would be big enough for the whole cast and crew to sign. Did I mention that there were 54 kids involved in cast and crew? Yeah, a simple A2 card would NOT do. So I decided to go for the 12x12 napkin fold card. Let's take a look:

 I created each of these cards using Black, Sapphire, and Honey cardstocks for the base, and then layering them with Whisper, Crystal Blue, and Cranberry cardstock. I then added a third layer of White Daisy cardstock (for the areas that the kids would write on) and patterned papers from the brand spankin' new Magical paper pack by Close To My Heart. The middle school musical this year was Aladdin, Jr. and this paper pack just screams Disney to me.

For the belly bands, I used the same cardstock and paper combos that I had used for the cards and then added red, grey, gold, and white glitter papers in a variety of shapes, along with some black glitter letter and number stickers from my stash. I also die cut some letters and numbers from the gold glitter paper. I used some of the Magical Compliments to layer the letters and numbers on in the first two cards, and then added a special little Aladdin, Jr. charm using CTMH gold base and bling pendents and glass covers along with a bit of white and gold ribbon. Finally, I added sentiments from the (also brand spankin' new) Beyond Awesome stamp set. (LOVE this set!) The sentiments are all stamped on White Daisy cardstock in Black, Whisper, Sapphire, Crystal Blue, Honey and Cranberry inks.

Let's take a quick look at the inside:

You can really see the all the layering when it's open. I layered the front (inside) and the back of the card the same way so that the kids had plenty of room to write. The sentiments (which I stamped in colors matching the base layer cardstock) are from the A Thousand Thanks stamp set. This is my absolute go-to stamp set for thank you cards.

And here's a look at the cards all together:

The kids loved them. And so did the recipients, I think. They were definitely fun to make, though I think I may be done with the whole belly band thing for a while.... But that's okay because musical season is over until September. At which time I'll have two in high school and BOTH are show people! (And there's no people like 'em!)

Have a wonderfully creative week!

CTMH Magical Paper Pack	CTMH Magical Complements	CTMH Beyond Awesome Stamp Set	CTMH A Thousand Thanks
CTMH Black Cardstock	CTMH Whisper Cardstock	CTMH Sapphire Cardstock	CTMH Crystal Blue Cardstock
CTMH Honey Cardstock	CTMH Cranberry Cardstock	CTMH White Daisy Cardstock	CTMH Gold Glitter Paper
CTMH Red Glitter Paper	CTMH Black & Grey Glitter Paper	CTMH Archival Black Ink	CTMH Whisper Exclusive Ink
CTMH Sapphire Ink	CTMH Crystal Blue Ink	CTMH Honey Ink	CTMH Cranberry Ink
CTMH Base & Bling Pendant - Gold Square	CTMH Square Glass Covers	CTMH White & Gold Ribbon	ATG Gun

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Hey, Thanks!

Hi All! It's time for another Thankful Thursday project. The sun is shining. The kids are happily involved in school. The dog is snoring. I have LOTS to be thankful for. So let's take a look at my card, which is celebrating another reason to be thankful: my friends!

This fun-fold card is FULL of techniques. I'll just go through a couple with you here, and do a how-to video on the whole shebang in the up-coming weeks.

The base of the card is made with Colonial White cardstock and layered with patterned paper from the Sangria collection. The fun-fold part of the card is made from Eggplant cardstock layered with Colonial White cardstock and Sangria paper. I decided to make my own back ground on the paper using the September Stamp Of The Month, Paper Garden. To do so, I stamped a variety of images on each of the Sangria layers in Pomegranate and Eggplant inks. For the front, I stamped the large flower in VersaMark ink and heat embossed it with gold embossing powder. The sentiment is stamped in Black Archival ink and is from the Hello, Life!-cardmaking stamp set.

Here are some close-ups of the stamping and sentiments:

And here is another look at the card with the gorgeous Sangria paper behind it:

Hope you enjoyed this little thank you. Have a wonderful, thankful, creative day!

A Bunch of Thanks

Hi All! Welcome to another edition of Thankful Thursday. Today's project is a group of thank you notes I made a while back using the Variety of Thanks stamp set (a hostess reward set from Seasonal Expressions 1, which retires at the end of march), the Brushstrokes stamp set (which was introduced in Seasonal Expressions 1, and will NOT retire at the end of the month), and the Paper Fundamentals Adventure Assortment paper pack.

While most of my projects include lots of layers and bling, I do occasionally prefer the clean and simple. This set of cards is just that. I let the bright, bold patterns and colors of the papers do all the work, and just added a little stamping and heat embossing.

Lets take a look.

Color: Gypsy

The note cards are standard 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch cards made with White Daisy cardstock. I layered that with a piece of patterned paper that was cut at 4 x 5 1/4 inches. The back of the paper fundamentals papers have a resist pattern, so you need to use a strong adhesive to adhere them to the base. (I used Tombow's Xtreme Adhesive.)

The sentiment is stamped on a piece of White Daisy cardstock that is cut at 3 1/2  x 4 3/4 inches and adhered to the patterned layer with regular adhesive. I stamped the Brushstroke stamp in ink that matched the patterned paper (in this case, Gypsy Exclusive ink), and then stamped the sentiment in Versa Mark ink. I added white embossing powder and heat set it. I like the texture and shine of the embossing,  but you could stamp the sentiment in White Daisy pigment ink if you don't want texture and shine. If you don't have white embossing powder, you could stamp the image in white ink and emboss it with clear embossing powder for a similar effect to the above.

Here's a close up:

And here's a look at all of the cards:

Colors: Cranberry, Cotton Candy, Hollyhock

Colors: Sunset, Honey, Pear

Colors: Topiary, Lagoon, Pacifica

I ended up making 2 of each pattern, so 20 cards in all. My goal is to start sending notes regularly to friends and family. I know we usually keep thank you notes to respond to gifts given or specific things that have been done for us, and I'll use these that way. But I also thought it would be nice to send out a few to just thank people for being themselves and being in my life. I'm grateful for my friends and family. I should probably tell them that more often....