The Men in my life,,,,

This is my second post for the day,,,,,,,,please scroll down for my Party Time Tuesday DT post!

so almost 24 years ago, on my 23 birthday, I gave birth to one of the most important men in my life,,,,,my darling son, of whom I am SO PROUD.  He dropped out of high school, and then went back a few years later, to get his HS degree, then went on to college and is graduating in June (but finishing in 2 weeks!) number one in his class!

He will be 24 this friday, and I wanted to make him a very special birthday card to let him know how very proud of him I am.

One of the OTHER most important men in my life is my husband, Jaime, whom I love more than you can imagine. It seems to me that whatever I have wanted to do in my life, he has only asked what he could do to make it happen. Not everyone receives such wonderful support,,,and I love him very much for all that and more. He celebrates his 53rd birthday in two weeks.

Obviously,,,,,,,I had some cards to make!  My sweet husband went out and bought me the Spellbinders Grand Calibur yesterday,,,,,,I got it early, because we are all going to Disney World together on Friday to celebrate, and there's no way to carry one of those around to give at the dinner celebration LOL. so Lucky ME!!! I got to play with it yesterday! And so, I made some birthday cards using all my new dies too!

The black and white one is for my DH and the blue and cream with a touch of black is for my DS.  Both of them use the new Moroccan Motifs dies and the nested hearts dies,,,,,,,

My husband's (black and white) center focal point is made from the following dies, bottom to top

postage stamps
Parisian Motifs
Moroccan Motifs
and  2 layers of nested hearts, the last layer inked with black while still in the die


My son's is a bit simpler,,,,

2 layers of the largest Moroccan Motifs
1 layer of the smaller moroccan motifs in black
2 layers of nested crowns.

And let me tell you, the difference in embossing with the Grand Calibur is amazing! I had previously made the center piece for the blue card,,,,,it was just sitting waiting to be attached to a card,,,,,,but I had not previously made the focal point for the black and white card,,,,,,,and the difference in the embossing is amazing. That Grand Calibur was surely worth the money spent!

Maybe you can tell the difference in the close ups of each card!

Thanks for looking, and I hope you enjoyed the cards!!

a CASE for CASING!

Afternoon AGAIN everyone :) I spent the afternoon blog hopping. Love blog hopping! And I saw the most elegant gorgeous card on my friend Renee's blog. You can see her elegant card HERE!

It was so lovely, I had to give it a go! And voila! My not so clean and simple CASE of her card. It's not a complete "steal",,,,,but I was definitely strongly influenced by her card, and therefore, I'm giving her credit for it.

I don't have the embossing folder nor the dies she used,,,,NOR the stamp she used,,,but I wanted to have a similar feel. I poured on a bit more than she, but still,,,,,I like it :)

Believe it or not,,,,,no challenge, no contest. Just a card :)

Thanks for looking, and I hope you enjoyed!

Up On the Housetop!

Good Morning everyone! I have yet another card for the Sugar Hollow challenge--dots and stripes-- this week,,,,

I tell you what, I can NOT stay away from that challenge. I think I SQUEALED when I found it online LOL. Vintage is probably my favorite style. I love tons of styles, but vintage is what my heart goes to over and over again. Please consider stopping by and participating if you love vintage, shabby chic or primative cards and paper crafts! Here is the link!

Now, on with the card. I used Recollections Christmas Traditions paper pack for this one (I am seriously in love with their paper this year!),,,,,,the red is rich, deep and vibrant! It's just stunningly gorgeous all on it's own!

first I matted with the red, green and gold plaid (stripes) paper onto Kraft card stock, then cut a smaller mat out of the "Up on the House Top" paper and cut the top with a fancy border punch. I then used my Banners 2 to cut some kraft cs into the fancy border shape I've adhered to the top,,,,,but first, I embossed the entire thing in gold embossing powder. I tell you, if you've never tried gold embossing powder RUN, do not walk, to the store and buy some! it's messy as heck, but OH BOY, the sparkle. Unfortunately, I do not think my camera did the sparkle justice!

Then I adhered the negative cut of the border punch on top of that and gemmed it up (bling bling!), coloring my gem dots with copic markers.

next, I embossed (again with gold!) some snow flakes, and set more gems (dots!) in the centers of all the snow flakes and embossed the SEASONS GREETINGS stamp (both the sentiment and the snow flakes are Crafty Secrets stamps).

I printed this gorgeous vintage santa and colored him with copics cut him out with classic circles Large and antiqued it with sepia ink. I embossed some gorgeous branch punch outs with more gold, a fancy gold button and a North Pole ticket, and she's done!

I just LOVE it! It sparkles so much, and nothing is more classy than red and gold for Christmas, I think.

I hope you enjoyed, and REALLY, pop over to the challenge and try your hand at some vintage goodness!

Another challenge at Sassy Cheryl's!

I so enjoyed the last challenge that I did at Sassy Cheryl's, that I just HAVE TO do another! and LUCKY ME, my card was chosen at random to receive a 5.00 store credit! So I was able to buy some Sassy Cheryl digis! YAY ME! Love her digis! SOOO this time, I have some sassy cheryl digis to use on my card,,,,,it was tough choosing, believe me, but this little HO HO HO stamp just called to me,,,,,

the minute I saw it, I KNEW what I was going to do with it, and what paper I was going to use,,,,,,,,I wanted to create a card that was sort of country Cristmas-ish, and I hope I've done that!

The challenge at SC's is to use embossing on your card,,,,either dry or wet. I've chosen dry embossing here, and embossed the cream and burgundy paper with a Tim Holtz "snow flurries" embossing folder. I inked everything, colored the image with copics in what I HOPE are complimentary, country Christmas-ish colors, cut it out with long rectangles large, nested over long rectangles scalloped large, wrapped some twine around it, popped on a checked ribbon, tied on a sleigh bell, a hand made stick pin, some fancy gold corner embellishments, and a quick sentiment (Merry Christmas!) from JustRite stampers,,,,I used my HAPPY EVERYTHING tag making kit to cut that out, and it's done!

and I LOVE it,,,,,,it's exactly what I was thinking in my head,,,,and that doesn't happen too often!

Admittedly, this card won't mail easily,,,,either I'll hand deliver it to my neighbor across the street,,,,or I'll use a flexible clear plastic envie and pay the extra postage for being too thick.

But that sleigh bell was calling to me,,,,,and I still have SEVEN LEFT! (dollar store!)

Paper is Recollections Holiday Traditions,,,,,,really, check out Michael's,,,,Recollections has some gorgeous paper out there this holiday season!

Now if someone would just make GORGEOUS HANUKKAH PAPER, I'd be in Heaven :)

Stop over and give Sassy Cheryl's challenge a try,,,,,and you just might win a 5.00 store credit to get you some new digis!

Check it out HERE!

Oh and to get yourself one of these adorable HO HO HO stamps,,,,,or any of her other adorable stamps,,,,,,check out her store HERE!


Oooooooooooooooo, I have to enter this into the BAH HUMBUG! challenge as well!!! such cute snowmen AND WOMEN they have over there! why not give it a try? you can find their blog HERE!

They have an AWESOME prize pack!