Custom order 50th anniversary

Lately, I have been super busy working on my favorite kinds of projects. Custom orders! I know how frustrating it can be to make a trip to the drug store to find that perfect card that says just the right thing, in just the right way, for that very special someone, only to be utterly let down when what you were thinking of doesn't exist. (I'm pretty sure that was a run on sentence, but because I'm not being graded on my blog, I'm gonna let it slide. Ok? Ok!)

A customer needed a 50th anniversary card and a cookie cutter, mass produced card just wasn't going to cut it. Fifty years together is sadly, practically unheard of these days. It's an amazing accomplishment and the occasion needed a very special, one of a kind, card. To make it 50 years, a couple needs lots and lots of love (and elbow grease), so I decided to use (yup, you guessed it!) Perfectly Preserved! Are you sick of this stamp set yet? Hearts overflowing and spilling out of a jar feels like fifty years of love to me. 

Of course a card celebrating a golden anniversary needed a golden touch! So I heat embossed some gold embossing powder onto card stock and used a circle punch. A subtle, classy touch!

Happy stamping!

Custom order canning tags

Goody, goody! Another custom order! A friend has been canning her little heart out, bless her soul. She's a better woman than me. I don't enjoy the process of canning, but I totally enjoy the spoils! My friend has been canning gifts to give away at Christmas and wanted some tags to tie onto the mason jars. So I got right to work!

We talked about what she wanted inside the jars, how many tags she needed, and  how big the tags should be. 

I pulled out my Big Shot, current favorite stamp set, Perfectly Preserved, their matching Framelits, my inks and papers and hunkered down for some serious stamping and die cutting! Each tag has at least ten little pieces to create, assemble, and adhere. Whew!

But I have to say, that when I was all done and lined them all up, they are just wonderful! I think they are my favorite special order to date. 

And they make me want to drag out my canning gear. Well, almost...

Happy stamping!

Indian summer

My favorite part of the tail end of summer, here in the northeast, is the corn harvest! Stanton's Farm grows the sweetest corn I have ever experienced. Corn that pops with juicy freshness when you bite into an ear! So I made them a card this year to tuck into their "on your honor" box when I buy my last baker's dozen of the year. 

I had fun making two ears sugar and butter corn. But I had a blast making an ear of Indian corn! The blue kernels, the red kernels, the brown. 

Don't forget to support your local farm stands! Squash and pumpkins, and apples! Oh my! 

Happy stamping!

Alternative canning

I used to can. Applesauce mostly. I used to pretend that I loved it. But really, it's a pain in the neck. All the sterilization. Crazy hot kitchen. Lots of washing, scrubbing, boiling, bubbling, hissing. Hot sweaty mess. Maybe that's why I love the Perfectly Preserved stamp set so much! Canning without the hassle. Of course, there's no applesauce when I'm done, but there sure is an adorable card!

Again, I used vellum for the mason jar. To me, it's the perfect vehicle for making the mason jars look a bit more real.

Of course, I had to try a mason jar without the vellum, and it's cute too. This time I concentrated on the pears. After you cook them during the canning process, they are lighter in color than when they started, so I made my canned pears with markers, and stamped the raw pears with classic ink pads. I'm pretty tricky!

I love using hemp twine, or linen thread on the jar covers. Again, it just adds that little bit of detail that makes cards so interesting!

Happy stamping!

Mason jar love

You'll be seeing a lot of mason jars for awhile here. That's because I borrowed Perfectly Preserved and Cannery Framelits from a friend. I am in love with this coordinating set! It's perfect for this time of year.

I love using vellum for the mason jars! On this jar, I sponged some Marina Mist on the Crumb Cake card stock underneath the jar hoping it would look like water. I also used vellum for the flowers, with white embossing powder. I love how they turned out!

I sandwiched some Chocolate Chip grosgrain ribbon between the layers of card stock for some contrast of color.

These cute little flowers were just begging to be gathered up and put into a bouquet! So that's just what I did, gluing them onto Old Olive stems. The background paper was ripped from an old gardening book and I sponged Old Olive and Soft Suede onto it to age and soften it.

I sliced through the mason jar vellum so that the stems looked as if they were inside the jar. Clever, huh?

Happy stamping!

Baby shower custom order

Another custom order! I have to be honest, I LOVE working with people on custom orders! There is something so satisfying about working together to create the perfect card. Hallmark offers a dizzying array of greeting cards, but sometimes they just don't have exactly what you had in mind.

Such is the case here. My best friend, who is an amazing paper crafter herself, just returned to her full time job, after a month off. Her kids have started back to school, and she has been planning and crafting, and cooking for her niece's baby shower. Phew! I'm tired from just typing all of that! Being the wonderful, creative woman that she is, a store bought baby shower card wasn't going to cut it. So, she turned to me for a bit of crafting help. 

The shower has a country theme. Lots of mason jars are involved! So she wanted to incorporate that in a card. There's also a bit of Duck Dynasty thrown in for good measure! So we started brainstorming ideas for a card. We discussed a little camouflage, but thankfully, it got left on the cutting room floor. Here's what we settled on.

It's a gift card holder! I have made these for my family, and when they are opened up, everyone gasped, and oohed, and ahhed! Truly they did! Even my brother-in-law was impressed. To open the card, you pull the polka dotted band out from under the bee on the back of the card.

When you open it up, it's a pop up that holds a gift card! I wish I had taken this picture with a gift card inserted between the polka dot rectangles, but I didn't. You'll have to use your imagination! Or you could check out the gift card holders I made for my family in this post.

I cant wait to hear from my friend after the shower! I hope that her family gasps, and oohs and ahhs too!

Happy stamping!