As soon as my mother-in-law saw the animal silhouettes that I had made, she thought that I should make more to sell at the senior center bazaar. That got me to thinking, these are relatively easy to make and I could do all sorts of different themes. Since I am a mother to nothing but boys, I tried to think about what a young boy might like. Dinosaurs! But let’s be honest, pastels just weren’t going to cut it. So, I went for something a bit brighter.

And since I had to make a match for it:

I asked my youngest, who really is a bit too old for these, about what colors I should use. I said that I wanted to use green for the dinosaurs and he immediately said volcano orange for the background. BTW, he loves these. What do you think?

 

Before anyone gets any ideas, no, I am not having a baby. However, as I mentioned in my last post, I fell in love with the animal silhouettes in the June issue of Scrapbooks, etc. I loved them so much, I decided to try my hand at making some. Here are the results.

And another set:

I just love how easy they are and how adorable they look when done. Now, I just need to find some deserving pregnant women to give them to.

Okay, I haven’t posted anything in forever but I am playing with the idea of reviving this blog by posting a single card each week. If I do that, I would probably start during the first week of July. In the meantime, if you have card themes that you would like to see me create for, just post it in the comments.

To get myself back into the swing of things, I thought I would make a fairly simple baby card.

 

I took my inspiration from a sketch over at Mojo Monday for the layout. Of course, it was last week’s challenge, not this week’s. And for the image, I drew my inspiration from an article in the June issue of Scrapbooks, etc. I loved the silhouettes of the animals against the printed background and thought that it would be fun to try it on a card. What do you think? Does it work?

In addition to making a retirement card for Skip for all of the Sea Scouts to sign, we need to have a birthday card for everyone to sign too.

As soon as I saw this darling digi over at Beccy’s Place, I just knew it would be perfect for a card for Skip. Both of my boys agree with me that this is something about this bear’s face that really reminds us all of Skip. Hopefully both cards (scroll down to see the other one) will be hits.

Last spring, my older son joined Sea Scouts. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it is a venturing crew within Boy Scouts of America that focuses on sailing and sea safety. Well, the adult leader of his Ship is retiring from his career in nursing and we wanted to have a card for all of the Scouts to sign. I made this card drawing inspiration from the latest sketch over at 2 Sketches 4 You.

And, the inside looks like this:

Of course, I just realized that 2 Sketches 4 You is on a bit of hiatus for the holidays. Hopefully, I’m not too late to participate in the challenge fun. Hopefully Skip likes this card. Now, off to make a birthday card for him.

Over the holidays, it seems that my creativity simply went on vacation (and didn’t bother to take me). Yes, things have been busy and then our dog passed away, but I haven’t even really been motivated to go into my craft room for a couple of weeks. Today, that all changes. One of my new year’s resolutions is to reclaim my lost creativity and to get back into my scrapbooks and cardmaking. Next weekend should really kick-start the scrapbooking component since I am going on my annual scrapbooking retreat, but for the cards, I had to take matters into my own hands.

For my first foray back, I kept things pretty simple. I used the latest sketch from The Sweetest Thing (#98) as my starting point. After I printed it out and took a look at it, the scalloped portion on the sketch made me think that it would make a good easel card, so I turned the sketch on its side.  I also drew motivation from the latest challenge over at the Secret Crafter Saturday Challenge (#115) – Buttons and Bows. I will admit that I have knots more than bows, but I think that you get the idea.

I don’t know exactly why I chose to make a Christmas card to start the new year, but for whatever reason a Christmas card is what came together for me. I guess when I looked at my stash of buttons and ribbons, the reds and greens just jumped out at me. The image is a stamp that my dear friend Laura had and I begged her to let me have it. It is just so simple, but I love it.

So, what do you think of my first attempt to find my lost creativity? Do you think I am on the right track?

You may have noticed that I have been rather absent of late. With preparing for the holiday, my crafting time has been rather limited. However, I did want to take a quick moment to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas (or happy holiday to those who celebrate anything other than Christmas) and a Happy New Year.

The latest challenge over at House Mouse and Friends is “Oh Charming Christmas Tree.” What could be more charming than two darling little mice trying to get their Christmas tree home (but not making much progress)?

Have I mentioned lately how happy I am that Hobby Lobby opened up close to me and carries House Mouse stamps? I didn’t get this one there, but having easy access to new ones has brought new life to my older House Mouse stamps as well. I used the latest sketch from Mojo Monday as the inspiration for the layout. All of the papers were from the “A Country Christmas” pack from the Paper Studio. Even the little tree that I used to embellish the oval was cut from one of the papers in that pack. I got this pack of paper from Hobby Lobby a couple of weeks ago, but this was my first real chance to use any of the papers from it.

It seems like lately I have either not had time to craft, or when I have had time, I have had specific projects to work on. Yesterday, I finished up some Christmas cards. This morning, I have had a very peaceful house. The other early riser in the house spent the night with his God-parents and the other son and my DH are still sleeping. So, I did what any good crafter would do. I checked out the new challenges for this weekend and got to work. I decided to use the latest sketch from Our Creative Corner since it seemed to provide the perfect opportunity to use some of the darling cupcake embellishments that I got last night and the House Mouse Make a Wish stamp that I bought a couple of weeks ago but had yet to ink.

I chose my color scheme based on the colors in the cupcake embellishment. The card is super girlie which isn’t my usual style, but, overall, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. What do you think?

Okay, not really. I am really starting to get into the Christmas spirit and am looking forward to spending the time with my family. In the meantime, the latest challenge over at Papertake Weekly is to make a Christmas card without using any red or green – Red and Green Must Not be Seen. No problem! Here is what I came up with:

I just adore this little drummer boy stamp that I got last year and thought he would work so well on a card with no red or green.

I paired it with this sweet sentiment stamp that I got this year and I think they make a perfect match. In case you can’t read it, the sentiment says, “In the eyes of children we find the joy of Christmas. In their hearts we find its meaning.”

I actually made several of these and am planning to give them to all of the members of my team at work. I hope they like them.