Wrapping Up Blogiversary Week: Final Giveaway from DCWV/Blue Moon Beads

Happy Mother's Day eve everyone. I'm here with the last giveaway celebrating my blogiversary  week. I'm on the design team for Blue Moon Beads which also owns the amazing paper line Die Cuts With a View. I'm super excited that they've offered one of my readers the chance to win a goodie box containing a mix of both! Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I'm also behind on announcing the winners for the last two giveaways so here goes.

The winner of the $25 gift certificate to CutCardstock.com is LM. The winner of the bird's nest pendant and leaf charm bracelet is: Angela M. CONGRATS ! Both winners have been emailed. The DCWV / Blue Moon Beads giveaway winner will be announced on Tuesday.

Thanks again SO much for making my blogiversary week fun.

Silver and Navy Sympathy Card

I feel like I’ve had to make too many Sympathy cards lately. Not loving that. But I did need to make one more so here ‘tis and sharing how I did it. 

I decided on my card color combo in a backwards kind of way.  I received a bunch of supplies for a sponsored campaign last year (David Tutera Celebrate) which included some decorative phrase stickers like the one I chose as the focal for my card . Then I went to my scrapbook paper and picked a coordinating blue and white paper  (DCWV Tradewinds Stack) to use. Picked a couple more pre-cut pieces from my Celebrate stash. Supplies used:

• 5x7 silver card
• Pre-embossed grey panel
• Pre-embossed silver panel
• Smpathy focal sticker
• White Border
• Decorative paper

I cut the printed paper to 4.5x5.5, the embossed silver panel to 3x5 and the white border to 5 inches and layered them as shown:

.

Then I mounted the Sympathy focal to a piece of the grey embossed paper, layered onto a scrap of the patterned paper and layered once more on grey paper. Wrapped black and white baker’s twine around this before adding to the card using foam dots.

Finished off by adding a couple of fabric flowers ( Prima) .

I know a card won’t make up for the loss but hope that the receiver feels the love put into it.

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Semi-Homemade Mom

BFF Open House Link Party # 75 and Exciting News!

75 parties! WOW.  If it's your first time linking up, Welcome. If you're a regular, thanks for making this party so much fun.

I'm so excited to be able to share some fun news with you. Die Cuts With A View had a call for design team members for Blue Moon Beads ( one of their other great brands in addition to their glorious paper). Yours truly applied and was notified this week that I am on the Design Team! I screamed out loud. Did you hear me? I am so excited and will be posting 3 projects each month . This was truly a dream come true and I can't wait to get started so check back.

I never would have had the confidence to do this without the brilliant and supportive bloggers behind  Crafterminds. If you are a creative blogger, I cannot urge you strongly enough to visit the Crafterminds blog and if you can, participate in the weekly Twitter chats each week on Monday at 4 Eastern. Doesn't matter if you have 1 Follower or 1000, you'll learn something and make some new bloggy friends.


 Now, let’s see what everyone’s been up to this week. Only two more weeks until Halloween. What tricks and treats are up your sleeves?

Gratitude: Floral Thank You Cards

My mom is very lucky to have some incredible friends. Not surprising, because she’s a sweetheart, but with her recent illness, these friends have really been there for her. I can’t thank them enough for the love and care they’ve shown her (and me)  and I was only able to come home because I knew they’d be there for her.

I used a floral print paper from DCWV’s Indian Summer Stack as the background paper for the card. Cut to 4.75 x 6.75 ( card is 5x7) and then layered on cream cardstock panel and another piece of the floral.

The colors went perfectly with K and Co’s Edamame collection which I’ve used in a few other cards. I used self adhesive scrapbook borders and die cuts, and layered some of the die cuts with foam dots to give some depth.

Accented with self adhesive pearls and the sentiment is a Hero Arts stamp ( that’s deliberately off set…I didn’t stamp that crooked!). I stamped the sentiment on a cardstock scrap and layered with more scraps from my focal paper.

These cards don’t begin to cover my gratitude for their friendship to her and to me. But hopefully they’re a start!

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DREAM Card

It’s a good thing I keep having reasons to make cards because it helps make a dent in my paper stash. OK it makes a slight mark. Or an indication that it’s been touched? You get the picture.

This one’s for a colleague who will be retiring soon. It wasn’t planned but she’s actually quite excited now and can’t wait to do some things she hasn’t had time for.

I used DCWV’s Serenity Stack and K and Co’s Edamame die cuts and Grand Adhesions dimensional stickers. The swirly frame I cut from kraft cardstock using my Silhouette Cameo.

Covered the front of the card with a patterned and foiled paper from the stack, and then layered a white panel, the swirl frame and the DREAM sticker.

Finished the card off with layered die cuts and cocoa colored self adhesive pearls.

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Floral and Copper Birthday Card

I love it when a plan I didn’t have comes together. Like when two different companies whose products I love each come out with products that work together. Which of course means I have to get them because, well, they can’t be separated right?

I made this birthday card using a new stack from DCWV called Serenity, a Grand Adhesions pack from K and Co called Engraved Garden, and die cuts from their Edamame collection.

The Serenity stack has coordinating florals and other patterns and some of the papers have foil accents. I used a large and small version of the same foral pattern for the background and center of the card.

The Grand Adhesions dimensional word stickers are all in one piece so they’re super simple to use. Peel. Stick. Done. The letters look a little brassy in this pic but they are a gorgeous metallic copper.

I layered the butterfly die cut using dimensional foam dots and embellished with self adhesive pearls. This was one of those cards where less was more so I actually kept embellishments to a minimum which is a challenge for me!

Easy SPOOKY Banner…

See, I already had to make one more Halloween decoration. Who am I kidding? Like it will be the last one!

I generated the letters using my PrintShop Deluxe program, printed on cream cardstock, cut out and then went around the edges with black ink.

Mounted each letter onto glittered gold cardstock and then added these cute squiggle brads (also glittered) from Recollections @ Michaels.

Time to embellish! Remember this glittery stuff I used on my repurposed dress wreath?

I got that out again and embellished each letter:

using this awesome double sided Elmer’s glue pen. I love this thing!

Cut out the banner shapes from DCWV’s “Ghosts and Goblins” stack using my Cricut .  I also used it to cut out the circle and sunburst shaped pieces from the scrap cardstock. Inked the edges of the circles ( I was going for a grungy look so I wasn’t especially careful) and then finished off with glittered pumpkins! These are also from Recollections @ Michaels…a package of 12 ( I still have orange and brown) that were 2 packs for $3.

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Easy Halloween Decorating

I’ve been having fun working on things to update my Halloween décor. Heavily black and white/cream, with accents of paler orange tones. Mr. Chocolate’s a little nervous that we haven’t even gotten out the actual Halloween bin(s) yet!

One easy way to decorate is to swap out pictures in frames that are already part of your décor. Easy to bring consistency and seasonal updates together. No one makes that easier to do than The Graphics Fairy! I found this guy whom I’ve nicknamed “Skelly” at Karen’s wonderful site:

How cute is a skeleton in a top hat? Using my graphics program, I gave him a bow tie and a mustache, generated the text, and printed on a sheet of paper from DCWV’s “Ghosts and Goblins” stack. Done and done.

In keeping with the “accent what you have” idea, I had some scraps of paper that I loved and wanted to use them up so I made some pinwheel medallions, combining different papers / patterns. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them until I decided to make a “demi-garland” since I didn’t make enough for a full garland. Was passing by a piece of faux stained glass I made years ago (BB…Before Blogging) and….

An old window I picked up and decorated using Plaid’s Gallery Glass.

For the centers, I downloaded a skull image from the internet, printed on cream cardstock and punched with a 2” round punch.

Now to go through those bins!

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