Weekend Market Cards

I'm not usually a fan of pre-designed card kits, but this Bo Bunny kit caught my eye and so it came home with me. I liked the masculine feel to most of the cards, and needed a couple of {mostly} self-contained projects I could bring on the road with me. This kit was a lifesaver when I needed to vent some creativity while visiting Hubby at work in Calgary and living out of a hotel room.

Of course, I had to add a few of my own touches - distressing, inking, ribbon, jewels, or pearls - to each of the cards. I was very pleased with the final results and hope you enjoy them too.

The Beach... in December

We visited our stretch of sand during December 2010, but it took me almost two years to scrapbook the photos and another year to take photos of the layouts to share with you. It's tough to find a wintery paper collection that also has sandy colours in it, but Bo Bunny came out with the perfect paper - Snowfall. I scrapbooked these photos {finally} at the Great Scrapbook Carnival in 2012, and now you finally get to see them too! Remember how I wrote that I was so very far behind in sharing my projects? This is a rare peek into my finished scrapbook pages so please tell me what you think.

Some snowflakes were fussy cut from the papers in the collection, and others were cut with Spellbinders dies. Fussy cutting doesn't happen very often at my craft table - believe me! - but the effect was well worth the effort. I used chipboard from the set and Dusty Attic, and some inks and glitter. The detail in the Dusty Attic chipboard used as the title shown here is so delicate.

Quickie Cameo Baby Boy Cards

It's a boy... and another boy!! Congrats to two different sets of new parents, and thanks for giving me an excuse to try Lori Whitlock's baby onesie card designs (available through the Silhoutte Online Store). I'm at the age where most of my friends have teenagers so there are very few opportunities to welcome new little ones into the world in my circle. That is, most moms I know are more concerned about hot flashes than diapers and raised their kids in a way as to not make them grandmas anytime soon. Maybe if some of those younger married cousins...

The three little onesies on the laundry line were glued onto Twinery twine instead of the paper clothesline in the design, and then the middle one was embellished with "JK" for the new one's initials. The base of the card and the little stars were inked with Colorbox ink to coordinate with the wee dots on the middle onesie, cut from an uber-old piece of cardstock (I suspect Bazzill) in my stash. This cute little quarter-fold card was a complete cinch to make!

The big onesie card was pretty simple too. The paper was the same as the little onesie from the first card so I planned my Cameo cuts accordingly (you can see the size difference by looking at the dots). The neckline, arm trim and leg trim started out as white cardstock until they were inked with the same Colorbox pad as I used above. The baby carriage was from a box of really old embellishments. It was so old that I had to add adhesive to the back because the original had hardened and was no longer sticky. This was a much bigger card (approx 5' x 7") and so the front and back are joined at the very top.

There ya go - two very simple baby cards made in under half an hour. It almost took longer to select the paper, twine and ink than it did to actually assemble these cards!

Celebration and Remembrance

On a happy note, Canada celebrated its 145th birthday today. Happy Canada Day to all Canadians, home and abroad, actual and hopeful. My boy and I checked out the celebration at CFB Edmonton, and then came home and vegged. It doesn't get dark here until 11 pm at this time of year so we skipped the fireworks (it had been raining on and off all day) in favour of the hopes of a good night's sleep. Needless to say, he's in bed and I'm sitting here typing. Bad Mommy!

On a more sober note, I took time to craft the sympathy card for the family of my son's 15 year old classmate today. The death of someone so young didn't fit any of the sympathy card designs I had previously used so it was a challenge coming up with something that balanced the tragedy of his far-too-soon death with the knowledge that, as a Christian, he was now in the arms of his Saviour. The funeral is tomorrow so I couldn't procratinate any longer over finding the appropriate words or creating a design. Here is the front: