Greeting Cards

So I like to do crafts and I'm on a budget.
With Christmas around the corner you all know that means it's time to start hand making some Christmas gifts.
I've only just begun, but I plan on making  a big pile of greeting cards for my mom and my mother-in-law. They have previously received these for Christmas and loved them.

I want to do a few intricate cards and a bunch of cards that are a little simpler. I started with simple. I've made two or three copies of 4 different cards so far.

 Many Thanks:

Then I used the circle I cut out of that paper, cut it in half and made

Congratulations!:

 A simple

Thank You:

Again I used the cut out for another card, this time,

Happy Birthday: 

I'm planning on making more cards, as well as making lots of other gifts this year, so stay posted- hopefully I'll have lots to share!

Cowboy Cake

My BFF's son turned one- so I made a cake for the occasion!

His birthday party was a "cowboy" theme so that's where I decided to go with the cake:

Almost everything is fondant. the cow print, the hat, the number one, the borders and the red bandanna.

I just used icing to pipe on the decorations for the bandanna

New Cakes

Here are a few cakes I've made lately- I left the sides completely undecorated, I call the 'open-side' cakes.

Birthday Cake

Here's a birthday cake I made for my son when he turned two
A toolbox cake, covered with fondant.
I made the tools out of rice krispie treats and covered them with fondant also. I used edible ink markers to write on the ruler.

Mojo 94

I have made another Card for Mojo Monday.
Here is this weeks Sketch:

There is a lot of stuff on this card- so at first I was going to do something sort of monochromatic, like mostly black and white, with just one accent color in a few places, but I was looking through my pile of scrap that I save and decided to put these papers together and so I ended up with something more colorful.




I used matching Gel Pens to trace over parts of the stamps and draw "stitches" around the edge of the card.

Window Card

Here is yet another card that I made for my cardswap.

First the cutting:
I cut pink card stock into pieces that were 5.5"x3.75" I folded it in half, and cut a 2.5" circle out of the center of one half of the card.
I cut a dotted patterned paper into 3.75" squares and cut a 2.5" circle out of the center.
I had a paper that had a grid pattern of squares and cupcakes on it, I cut it into strips, and cut the strips down so they had four squares each.
Last, I cut transparencies into squares that were about 3.5" (I just bought a box of overhead transparencies from OfficeMax

I stamped happy Birthday on the transparency with my Staz-on white ink, and then glued that down onto the front of the pink card.

I then taped down the dotted paper, lining up the circles. I also taped down the strips with squares and cupcakes along the edges of the card. Last thing, I just had to trim the extra paper around the edges.

Here's the final product, with the back half of the pink card showing through.

Sunday Sketch #4

Here is a card that I made for Sunday Sketch and Stamp

Here is the image that I used to create my card:



I have previously changed little things about the card when I've done sketch challenges, but I LOVED this layout- so I changed nothing!
First I got out two little cupcake stamps I had and stamp them on squares of white paper that were about 1-3/8".

After I stamped the images I colored them in with colored pencils.

I cut slightly larger squares from a pink card stock and layered those behind the cupcakes, I attached each of these pink squares to the front of my card, where I had stamped 'Happy Birthday' and attached a matching pink ribbon.

There is my finished product

Purple Birthday

So I'm a little bit torn on this card... it feels a little TOO purple, but here it is anyway.
First, the cutting:
I cut 4x6 cards from white card stock.
Next I cut some purple paper into 3x5 rectangles.
Then I cut 2x3" rectangles from a paper that used lighter shades of purple and had a diamond pattern on it.
Then I cut some of my scraps of white card stock into rectangles that measured about 1"x2.5".
Lastly, I cut a purple ribbon that said 'happy birthday' on it into to strips about 4 inches long.

I stuck the ribbon onto the 3x5 card (with the edges of the ribbon folded over the back.)

Then I Stuck that piece onto the actual card.

I stamped "Happy Birthday" onto the small white rectangle with black ink and taped that onto the diamond patterned paper. Then I pierced holes right along the edges of the white "happy birthday" piece and placed silver brads into those holes.

I then taped that entire piece onto the card.

I thought it needed something more, so I got out a mini stamp that I have of dots, and stamped the little dot pattern on each corner with purple ink.

Birthday Invitation

For my sons first Birthday I handmade his party invitations. They were pretty easy.
I cut 4x6 rectangles out of the background (polka dots) paper.
I drew the number one onto some card stock and cut it out to use as a stencil, So I traced the number 1 onto the yellow paper, and cut out the number.
I took a set of party themed stamps that I bought at Target and stamped the images onto the invitation.
I then took a black pen and added "stitches" around the outline of both the background paper, and the Number One

and MORE Cards

I made new cards for the next month's cardswap.

First the birthday card. Simple I cut 8-1/2 x 11 red cardstock in half lengthwise then folded it in half and cut the edges off of one half... like so:

































I used Kraft Edgers Scissors to cut a length of patterned paper from making memories, I cut it just wider than the skinny portion of the red cardstock.

















































Attach the two pieces and you get this:





































Next I stamped "Happy Birthday" on a smaller piece of the same red cardstock and voila:






























The other cards I made were Thank You






I layered two flowers I bought in the scrapbooking aisle to some cardstock using some cute little brads, then I painstakingly cut out circles from a golden colored cardstock, and then cut out slightly smaller circles from a dark brown cardstock, stuck all those circles onto the card, and then used a silver gel pen to write in the "THANKS"