Simple Gift Card Enclosure Cards~

Gift card enclosure cards - check. Another item crossed off the to do list! YAY
These cards will hold office supply gift cards for Morgan's high school teachers, sandwich gift cards to the P and VP (running joke between us) and a juice/smoothie shop gift card for our mail gal.

Super simple to make; they are 4-1/4' x 11", scored at 4-1/4" and 8-1/2", flap border punched and adhered to card with Scor-Tape to make a little pocket to hold the card.

Front is decorated with College Press papers, a Copic colored Kim Hughes snowman, Glossy Accents on the heart and a button embellished Martha Stewart punched snowflake. Gina K Kraft, Chocolate Kiss, Rocket Red and Ivory finish out the paper choices.

Just 2 more small crafting projects by tomorrow and holiday crafting is officially over for 2009!

V.~

The Final Four~

Holiday cards for 2009 to send out to a couple of friends.

Supplies used for coloring and adding sparkle to the Purr-fect Wishes card above.
Baby Blue Sparkly Fluff for the snow, Glossy Accents on the carrot, Glazed pen on the coal, and Copic Markers to color the kitty and snowman.

Stamps: Purr-fect Wishes and Merry Wishes by Our Craft Lounge
Paper: Neenah Natural White, Bazzill
Patterned Paper: Be Jolly by Cosmo Cricket

All I have left to do is create gift card holders of some sort for Staples gift cards for the kids to take to school by the end of the week.

V.~

The Very First GinaK Card Kit Club Blog Hop!~

Welcome to our very first GinaK Card Kit Club blog hop!

For this month's hop, Jessica challenged each of us to design our projects using the same basic sketch and measurements of her class card, but to put our own personal touches on them by adding whatever embellishments, changing card stock choices, patterned papers, etc. to make them a little different than the original cards in the kit.

In keeping with the clean and simple theme the Lovely Shelf Card Kit offers, I kept my cards very clean and simple not only in color, but also layout and embellishments. I also kept them related to each other visually. This fun set by Nina Bracket for Gina K Designs is chock full of wonderful images and sentiments! The "Just for You" card utilizes the original sketch in a square layout with a circular focal point and ribbon instead of the card stock strip. In the "Thanks for the Lovely Gift" card I turned the original layout on its side and cut the black strip, that the kit contains, in half so it would stretch across a landscape format.

For both cards I used GKD Pure Luxury Ocean Mist (love this new color!!), Onyx Black, and Pure White. The leaves on the potted orchid are paper pieced with Green Apple and the pot itself is paper pieced with a scrap of My Mind's Eye patterned paper. Both cards have Cuttlebugged card stock layers - Swiss Dots and Stylished Flowers.

Memento Tuxedo Black ink and Copic markers in the following colors were used for the flowers: Y00, Y13 and the leaves on the orchid: YG95, and for the daisy: G40 and G82. The vase and water are BG000 and BG01, a bit of colorless blender is dotted on the water for a mottled effect.

Flat backed pearls accent the daisy flowers and aqua mini brads anchor the orchid panel. The same black and white gingham checked ribbon, in different treatments, adorns each card. Both image panels are raised up with dimensional foam.

For additional inspiration using this set, be sure to visit the Idea Center: Lovely Shelf

And be sure to visit the other Card Kit designers and see their wonderful card kit creations!

Bev Gerard {Warm and Wonderful}

Colleen Schaan {Life is Good}

Sankari Wegman {Tech Talk}

Suzanne Dean {Warm and Wonderful}

Valerie Stangle {Lovely Shelf}

Jessica Fick {CKDT Team Leader}
Gina K Designs Blog

Thanks for stopping by!

V.~

Trimming the Tree and more~

December chaos continues.....so there's been a lack of posts. We were "forced" to go artificial tree hunting over the weekend when our other tree decided to go into permanent retirement while being stored in our garage. Our search took us many places looking for the right size tree for our low ceiling home, one at the right price for our December budget, and for me wishing for white lights on the tree. I had to compromise on my white lights as the kids wanted colored lights. Overall, I am happy with our new tree. We decorated it and the rest of the house over the weekend. I've been searching for years for the perfect topper, until then, the red bow is what tops our tree. I'll "know" the topper when I find it, you know? Now I hope I can get in to Christmas mood - it's been seriously lacking this year - by now I am usually done shopping and wrapping, not the case this year. We probably have just 25% of our shopping done and nothing wrapped as you can tell!

On another note, I've been asked and accepted a new design team member position with Gina K's newly created Card Kit Design Team and am very excited and thrilled to be working with Gina and her crew!

Gina's K's announcement here

And today, on SCS, you can find the Tag Box tutorial as a featured project. Complete with a video that Morgan, in her very small amount of free time, filmed and edited down for me. Boy, chopping almost 5 minutes off makes for tough editing. Please be kind, this is my first video tutorial with sound - not something that I find comes easy for me. In person, you bet, I can do this easily, but on video, not so much! LOL

Tag Box Tutorial


Thanks for dropping by today!

V.~

Purr-fect tag~

Yesterday's challenge over at SCS was to make a tag. I love to make tags and haven't made one in a while, so I sat (stood actually) today and quickly made this holiday tag using a fun holiday set from OCL called Purr-fect Wishes.

The image is stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink, colored with Copics, and the snowflakes are dusted with Breezy Blue Crafty Sparkles. I trimmed a tag shape out of slate cardstock, added a sentiment banner and a bit of College Press patterned paper, a bit of cranberry hemp through the punched hole and this easy peasy tag is finished!

This is just about the only kind of kitty I can be around, otherwise those Crafty Sparkles would be everywhere if I sneezed!

V.~

Supplies
Stamps: Purr-fect Wishes by OCL, snowflakes from Merry Wishes
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black
Paper: Smokey Slate, Green Apple, Cranberry Tart and White by Gina K Designs
Other: Copic markers, Crafty Sparkles, Cranberry button, linen thread, 1/4" circle punch, Tag corner punch, Cranberry hemp, Dimensional foam

Attn: Renae~

eta: I've "relinked" the hyper link - not sure why it stopped working.

OCL is short for Our Craft Lounge, and the set is called Merry Wishes, click on the link below to see the entire set:

Merry Wishes

HTH,
Val

Elegant Winter Greetings~

Every year I make Jay cards to give his clients and today was as good a day as any to git 'er done. I kept the cards simple, both in layout and embellishments, and love how they turned out. I know he will, too, when he sees them after he gets home from work.

Now you'll rarely see this from me, as it just doesn't fall under quick and easy, but I did gold emboss the snowflake - turns out my Encore Gold pad is a wee bit dry and the snowflake looked so sad. A bit of gold embossing powder while the ink was still damp and that snowflake is brought to life again.

• The snowflake and branch are from A Muse's Elegant Winter set
• Inks are SU! Kiwi Kiss, Encore Gold, and Versafine Vintage Sepia
• Cardstock is Fresh Asparagus and Cranberry Tart by Gina K. Designs, Natural White by Neenah
• The St. Nick Collection by Bo Bunny patterned paper strip has been scallop border punched before adhering to the base.
• Assorted cranberry buttons and linen thread embellish the sentiment banner.
• Banner and image panel are raised up with dimensional foam.
  
• Corner rounded edges and these cards are finished!

Check another task off the holiday to do list, YAY!

V.~