Check it out!

My husband has started a photography blog called George Raihala Photography. If you enjoy nature photography, please click over and check it out!

Speaking of Christmas...

This set, Spirit of Love, comes from Stampin'Up! and is very old, one of the first sets I ever bought. I love the image, but it drives me batty trying to make a card with it every year. It looks cheesy colored in (at least colored in by ME), and it's pretty big, so there's not a lot of room for background variation and such. Embossing or stamping in Brilliance or metallic ink seems to serve it best.

I hope you like them!

Supplies
cardstock: PTI white
ink: (top) Colorbox gold in the Christmas chalk queue, (bottom) SU not quite navy
accessories: gold and silver metallic pens, dimensionals, sheer white ribbon

Christmas Thanks

I always need lots of Christmas thank you cards, and this one is very, very simple, and thus easily reproduced. Plus, it uses PTI's Out on a Limb. I just love that set! I used the berry stamp that fits over the limb, and then went back in with the little leaf stamp to add the leaves.

Hope you like it!


Supplies
cardstock: PTI white, SU real red
stamps: Out on a Limb
ink: can't remember
accessories: dimensionals

Classic CAS Layout #1

I've made lots of cards with this particular layout. Seems like I've seen it lots of places but never could put my finger on where, largely because it's a classic that's been around forever. From my Simplicity perspective, those are the best kinds of layouts. In fact, I used it on a whole set of cards for my very first post on this blog.

Then I saw THIS LOVELY CARD by Diane Cramer (fionna51 at SCS) and read her inspiration for it and thought, "YES!" I have a Life is Good tee in my dresser drawer with three citrus slices (orange, lemon, lime) on it. If only I had a citrus slice stamp, I'd use it for sure! Diane, thanks for making that connection for me and inspiring me to go straight to my craft room and make these two cards!

The tees don't have a line around them, of course, but for some reason, these cards begged for a line frame. Who am I to argue?

Simplicity Tip: For drawing line frames, I use a gridded, L-shaped, clear ruler. When I use the inside of the "L" to draw the lines, the corners look better than just using a straight-edge and trying to match the ends up. As you can see on the Lots of Love card, sometimes drawn lines don't turn out perfectly, but I am not a computer and can't be perfect. Sigh.

Hope you like these two classics!

Supplies for both cards:
cardstock: PTI white, SU!
stamps: Hero Arts clear stamps, PTI simple alphabet
ink: various (sorry, can't remember exactly, but not SU, probably chalk inks)
accessories: circle punches, MS scalloped circle, rhinestones, dimensionals, markers, black stickles

Ask and It Will Be Given to You

This very simple card showcases one of my favorite embellishments at the moment: Hero Arts half-pearls. They come in several soft, pretty colors, including this pale green. So pretty! Several companies make pearls like these, and while I adore rhinestones, the pearls are so subtle and lovely.

The only oddity here is that the card is A6 size (6.25 X 4.5) rather than standard. The sentiment needed more space to breathe.

Supplies:
cardstock - PTI white
stamps - Hero Arts (background); sentiment ?
ink - SU wild wasabi, Palette noir
accessories - dimensionals, Hero Arts light green half pearls

And the winner is....

#15, Ali Manning! Congratulations, Ali!

newenglandstamper said...
These cards are stunning - I love how you make sets like this. Believe it or not, my favorite season is winter!
June 2, 2009 6:31 PM

My firstborn drew Ali's number out of a hat. So, Ali, email me your address and I'll send your prize out ASAP!

CAS17 Inspiration Challenge

What a GREAT challenge! Inspired by Lands End beach towels and totes.

Here's my first card, based on this towel. I'd love to chatter about it, but it's really quite simple. And I LOVE IT!!!!

Inside, it says, "I'm here for you" from PTI's Floral Frenzy set. Let's shout out how wonderful the sentiments in that set are. Yeah!

And here is an orange card, inspired by the polka dot towel. Because orange is a happy color, and I'm feelin' much more orange than blue.

The positive and negative dot stamps are from Hero Arts. I punched them out with a 3/4-inch square punch.

A girl can never have too many thank you cards on hand, don't you think?

Thanks for looking, and, as always, comments are very much appreciated!

Don't forget to comment on THIS POST before tomorrow night at 11:48 Eastern DST for a chance to win a little blog candy. One comment per person, please.

Happy Monday!