Eight Shades of Purple Bithday Card

This is a birthday card I made for my friend Susan whose birthday was October 3rd. (I know, that was forever ago! I am sort of working randomly with actually sharing things I make these days.)

She loves purple, so I made it completely purple-centric. On just the card, there are eight different shades of purple. (Though you may not be able to see all of the shades in the picture due to light, trust me, they are there.) If you add in the envelope (that I also hand made), there are twelve different shades of purple.

A funny story about this card: Susan had been over to my place to make cards several weeks before my birthday in August, and she made a totally random card with my supplies....then gave me the card for my birthday because she felt it was very me. (And it was.) That wasn't her intention when making it, but it just worked out that way.  A few weeks after my birthday, she came over for some other crafting to work on a costume element for her Princess Bubblegum costume, she gave me some heart buttons that she had bought that she didn't feel worked and she didn't need. When making her card, I needed something to finish it off and remembered the buttons and that there was a sparkly purple one. Perfect! And a perfect nod/joke to the fact that she gave me a card made with my supplies.

Here's the card. What do you think?

A little closer.

To show the inside of the envelope and the confetti I included in the card.

Have Yourself a Wreathy Little Christmas

This is a Christmas/Holiday Wreath I made today. After making a Halloween wreath (I'll post in another post, I am working backwards at this point), I knew I wanted to make a Christmas wreath too, I just didn't know what. A friend and I went to Michaels for some inspiration and I decided I would make a red and silver/white themed one after finding some cute red/white sparkly baubles.

This took me about 3 hours (or even less) today, and I just LOVE how it turned out! Overall, I spent less than $10 on this wreath as well. The baubles were $7.99 at Michaels, but I had a 20% off everything coupon yesterday, which made it about $6.40; the wreath form, flowers, and red/silver sprigs all came from the Dollar Tree, and I had the ribbon at home already. Gorgeous wreath for $10 or less? Score!

For how beautiful it turned out, you'd think I'd been designing and making wreaths for years, not that this was the second wreath I'd ever made...

What do you think?

Without flash to show colors.

A closeup of how shiny the decorations are. I love Shiny!

A fun CARD-is

This year, for our friend Ken's Birthday (who got this card last year), we thought it would be fun to send him a Doctor Who card. We thought about it for a while and hubby said to make the Tardis, but I didn't have ideas on how to do that.

Then one day, it hit me: Literally, MAKE THE TARDIS, so I made it as a gatefold card so you can open it, and it will be "Bigger on the inside".

I even found a Doctor Who font that was the same as the font used for the logo in the beginning of the show, for the inside sentiment. How's that for attention to detail?

Unfortunately, we learned Ken never received the card, so he only gets to see it this way, too, which just breaks my heart, but hopefully it can at least be admired. :)

I even hand made the envelope, and wrote in the flap "Yep, even envelope is handmade--Red, Just for you."

Here's the card and envelope-as always, click for larger images:

2014 Christmas Cards

Now that they've been given out/mailed and likely received, I can share the Christmas cards I made  this year. I did make several more of the Kitty ones like I made last year, but made quite a bit of cards that were different. I really like that I found some ideas that can be recreated if necessary, and that's what I was aiming for since you never know when you'll need to have a card in a pinch. Here they are:

The Kitties and Doggies before I colored them

 This Santa one came about because I had made a card like this with a stencil, but did not like the way it turned out, so hubby, being much more artistically inclined for drawing than I am, drew me a Santa face, so I recreated the concept card I had made and it turned out so much nicer. I really like it! And, it's one I can recreate over and over if needed.

 This was a card I made specially for our friends who love cats. Since I liked the Santa so much, I asked hubby to draw me a kitty and he came up with this one, and I turned it into this card. I love it, I think it's so cute.

 I came up with this way of saying Merry Christmas randomly and of course had to use it with a kitty themed card! :)

What do you think? Do you have a favorite? :)

5th Anniversary Ornament

After looking all over stores and Amazon for a special ornament to commemorate mine and hubby's 5th Anniversary throughout this year and not finding anything, I decided to make something-I just didn't know what.

I was thinking that I wanted to make a heart-shaped version of either the Glitter Ornaments or Paint Ornaments, but I was unable to find any heart-shaped glass ornaments to fill, so that plan was out the window as quickly as it was in my head. I did, however, find a cardboard base ornament that could be decorated, so decided to make something with that. So I made this cute little ornament- a sweet memory and decoration for a sweet price of less than $5:

Isn't it adorable? Even though it's not a complicated thing, hubs and I really love it!

Here it is on the tree:

I love that you can see it clearly from even across the room. :)

(And yes, we have stockings for our stuffed animals....)

And I learned some useful information as I was experimenting while working on this: when painting things made out of cardboard base like this, Paint by itself takes forever to cover the surface without streaks or cardboard showing through. But paint + clear glue (which is what I had, I'm sure white glue that dries clear works, too) = magic. I did it as an experiment just because, but it drastically reduced the number of coats needed and the time spent working on it versus paint alone.  So, if you're ever painting cardboard, maybe this trick will work for you, too.

Painted Skully Floral Decoration

One day when shopping at Michaels for something else, I found this skull floral pick (always find things at Michaels that you didn't go for...) for 0.99 and, me being me and loving skulls, had to have it-despite not having an idea for it.

When I got home, I decided to decorate it like a sugar skull, since I do love how those look. Here's some pictures of the process to see how I did it:

Painted White with a foam brush

Here's one finished side of it

I remembered to take an "in progress" picture for this one, heh. I just outlined the design in pencil (keeping it simple since I am not really artistically inclined) and then colored in with markers.

The other side finished

Fall Centerpieces for Under $15

At the end of September, hubby and I renewed our vows for our 5th wedding anniversary (a bit early). We had a very casual, picnic-style renewal, but I still wanted to make it look nice, and we decided on a theme of "Autumn" and got plates, cups, etc. in fall colors.

I also had an idea to make some centerpieces that fit the theme, but didn't want to spend a lot of money. Luckily, I didn't have to. I made these centerpieces for less than $15 total for all 4 of them.

So how did I do it?

The vases are bottles from our recycling bin: Free
The ribbon was $0.50 each so x2: $1.00
Acrylic paint was on sale at Michaels for 6/$2, so I got 6 since you can always use paints: $2.00
Vase fill rocks were also on sale at Michaels, for about $1.25/bag and I got three of them, so: $3.75.
And the flowers/leaves were at the dollar store, and I got 8 of them to make sure the 4 vases were filled nicely, so $8.
Total for 4 centerpieces: $14.75

I knew I wanted to add some color to the vases themselves, so experimented with things like polka dots, stripes, etc., but didn't like the way it looked because then the colored rocks couldn't be seen very well, but there were ridges on the bottle, so I painted those in a pattern and really liked it. When that was dry, I connected the colored ribbons at the ends and crisscrossed them to create the multiple pattern, and then tied a bow and glued it down with a bit of hot glue. Add the rocks and the leaves, et voila! Easy, pretty center pieces that get a lot of attention. I currently have one vase on my desk work as Thanksgiving decorations and people love it-and usually comment that it looks way more expensive than it was. Hooray. :)