Thank you Creative Friends!

Sending a huge SHOUT OUT and THANK YOU to all of the creative friends who sent me such beautiful handmade birthday cards recently!! I really do know some of the most talented people. Cards shown here were made by Daisy Rivera (top Left), Linda Howe (top Right), Joanie Stanclift (bottom Left), Nicole Frazier (Center), Miyuki Noon-Farley (bottom Center), and Starr Nelson (bottom Right). Funny story about Starr’s card...My husband found it in my stash of swap cards I’ve been keeping. Starr made that card probably five or more years ago, lol, but Jose decided to use it! He wrote the sweetest message inside and then wrote, “P.S.-Thanks to Starr Nelson for making this card for me to use.” Resourcefulness is definitely one of his strengths! Thanks again everyone for thinking of me and making me feel special. You’ve motivated me even more to keep on paying it forward and mail out more cards more often.

January's Card Class rocked!

THANK YOU to the 13 lovely ladies who attended my Card Class last night and filled up two rooms of my house!!

I had a great time and I hope you all did too!

My crafty friends are THE BEST!!

These are the cards we made:

Our next Card Class will be Friday, February 7th (6pm-9pm).

I'll post the February cards here on my blog as soon as I have them designed and ready to share!

I hope you all can join us again! I'd love to see this class grow even more and fill up three rooms of my house! :)

Thank You Cards (with a favorite color combo)!

The Heart 2 Heart Blog challenge this week was to create something using our favorite color combination. For me, that is much easier said than done, simply because I have so many different favorite color combos (it's almost impossible to pick just one)!! So I decided to show you one of the latest color schemes that I truly loved using the now retired Veranda papers that I find myself going back to again and again. The colors I used here include Cocoa, Colonial White, Creme Brulee, Juniper, and Olive. The stamp sets I used to create these two cards (above) include Unscripted C1465, Hooray Bouquet D1491 (to stamp the daisy that I cut using my Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge, "flower6" cut on colonial white cardstock at 1" and then stamped with Hooray Bouquet and Creme Brulee ink), and also Thank You D1361 for the sentiments.

Below you will see a few variations on this card that some of my card-making students came up with this week! On Thursday 9/8 I taught my friend Gloria's teen mother class (high-school age girls) to create these thank you cards with me. For most of them, this was the very first time they have ever picked up a stamp, and...just as I expected...these girls definitely have a knack for creativity! I loved how so many of the girls used the pre-cut paper pieces I provided in a completely different way and created their own original works of art! Beautiful work girls!! I really enjoyed my time with you teaching you how to stamp. Your thank you cards all turned out so lovely!

Congratulations Penny and Roberta!!

Those of you who came to my Autumn/Winter Product Preview Workshop last September 4th may remember that I issued a challenge to all who attended. Two of the cards we created at the workshop that day were designs that were inspired by the Magnifique Workshops-on-the-go brochure (see brochure and the cards we made below). I challenged each of you in attendance to create another card using that same pattern with any CTMH stamps, papers, and embellishments you have to use. This challenge was to be our first ever customer card contest!! I was hoping to have lots and lots of contest entries and even sent out a few e-mail reminders to attendees, but alas, I ended up with just TWO beautiful card contest entries. None the less, these two cards are absolutely fabulous so therefore...I decided to give the grand prize to both contestants!
A big Congratulations goes out to Penny Gallegos and Roberta Clark who created the lovely cards you see posted above! Each of them is receiving a $12.50 credit from me (splitting the $25 grand prize) to reward them for their awesome efforts! They can use their credit towards any workshop, class, or purchase of their choice. Your cards were both so equally excellent, I just didn't want to have to choose between the two of you. Well done ladies, well done!!!