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Sunday, January 31, 2016

February Family Birthday: Carter

Our first grandson, Carter will be ten on February 16th! Ten already! My how time flies...

Carter is such a blessing... a real joy to watch him grow and develop. His love of baseball is infectious, but mostly it is his love of life! He so reminds me of his dad when he was his age... kind of like going back in time for me sometimes.

Here's my card for him...


I knew as soon as I saw this stamp set what I wanted to make for Carter- His language and his love of fun made me think of this! He's starting to really want to grow up and become even more cool than he is! Just love him so!

PTI Give Me a Hand stamp and die set pulled this together fast. Everyone in their family has Fitbits so I added some on the wrists. The hands are stamped directly on the card base, but the quotation bubbles are added with foam tape to give that dimension. I really wish the dialog die cut also went the other way, so I turned it around. Then using the ink pads around every cut to make them stand out from the white card.

Kids love getting to double digits, which is where most of us spend the rest of our ages! So I cut the digits out of black adhesive fun foam...  Happy birthday Carter! See you in Florida on your birthday!

February Family Birthdays: John

Our son John, is just so amazing! He's the BEST son ever, always thinking of ways to make our lives better. He helps us to plan our finances, our retirement, and is a constant source of pride and... just ... joy! And what a remarkable father!

For his birthday, I wanted to make a card to help show how much we love and appreciate him. I know Sankaty lighthouse on Nantucket is a very special place for him, so I used PTI Guiding Lights for my card...



Using an idea from Pinterest, I watercolored Tim Holtz Watercolor Distress paper with Distress inks after cutting the lighthouse die out. Then I marked on a white card base where the image needed to be stamped to show through the cut.

The image inks with two different stamps, and I changed the image to match the lighthouse that I needed, as you can see below. 

Using the birthday swoosh die, it is attached on the watercolor paper. Although it is hard to see in this picture, the watercolor paper is attached to the card front with fun foam and foam tape, giving a real depth to the lighthouse. The top of the letters on "birthday" are actually floating free. The word "happy" is stamped directly on the watercolor paper. 


This picture shows a little better the dimension it gave... In real life it is amazing!

One of my all time favorite designs, and I made several for other birthdays. The sentiment inside says "Here's to celebrating you!"

What a blessing he is!

February Family Birthdays: Mason


It's that birthday season again for the Wright Family! This year our son John (11th), his two sons- Mason (6th) and Carter (16th) will all celebrate birthdays while we are in Florida! Erica, our daughter with marriage, celebrates her birthday on March 1st, so I think of her birthday along with theirs... Their daughter Avery is the only "unbirthday" because her day is November 6th!

So I had lots of cards to make before we leave for the sunny south on February 1st! Last week we stayed with the kids and helped out while Erica was away. On the weekend, John took us all to 5 Wits, a great activity for kids in Foxboro, MA where as a group you join up to solve a spy mystery, like 007! The kids loved it- so did we! The Patriots were not at the stadium, so we also got to see it and have a great lunch, too!

That led the way for a perfect card for Mason, who is turning 8! Here is his card...


PTI Secret Agent stamp and die set was just the perfect match! I found this example on Pinterest by Laurie Willison and just went with it, changing the name and age... 


The mission is under the decoded message, "Have a spy-ta-cular birthday! It is first stamped in a light blue ink and then the poppy ink covers it, so when you use the magnifying glass, you can "see" it!


The other message says, "Happy 8th Birthday!"  Hope it works better than the Christmas "I Spy" card that I made and everyone had trouble decoding...



The magnifying glass is diecut twice with black cardstock and a red plastic sheet is attached between the layers to make it. Love how it came out!

The envelope looks really cute with the secret agent on the front! Hope Mason likes it as much as I did!

We got a ping pong table for the whole family as our birthday gift. I think it was masterful the way the whole secret came together, with Amazon delivering the table while we were there babysitting! Then we had a great time playing after DH put it together during our babysitting gig!

We could be some great spies ourselves...


Sunday, January 3, 2016

MIM and January Birthdays

It always happens once I switch from Christmas cards to birthdays... I forget to take a picture of the cards! Drives me nuts to have the card mailed and then think "OMG! I didn't record it!" Then with my sieve-like mind, I can't remember what I did.

This year was no different. However- I made four very similar cards! So although a bit different... I should be able to get the idea :)


Using PTI Botanical Blocks III, and with the matching dies for the blocks, this card whips up very quickly. I did get the idea from Lizzie Jones' card that I saw on Pinterest. 

Laurie's MIM Challenge is on adding color to a stamped image, so this fits the requirements. I used Versamark to emboss the image in black, then colored the background, flower center and leaves with Copic Markers. Using the lager die, I backed the block with fun foam before adding a darker layer to the card base. On the white I used a pattern paper for Tropical Teal and for the blue, I used a black back.

The sentiment of both cards is embossed to give it another dimension. I just love the look of this card!

These birthday cards worked well for all four cards that I needed for January. I'm also discovering the more that I color with Copics, the more I am liking them!

Happy birthday to our "baby" who turns 34 today!  And what a gift she has been to us... blessed is what we are for sure!