Christmas in July Card Gallery 2009

Donna and Emily have again given us sixteen very different cards. A few were simple to make, several were complex! The one I liked the best was the tenth one down, then the nineth or maybe it's the fifth one, no, I think it's the last one. Well, they're all beautiful cards and are very different. (Sorry for the blur on some of them; even with my elbows on the table, I still can't shoot photos up close!)

Eyelash Yarn

Because I will be going to a Christmas Card Gallery hosted by Donna and Emily with Stampin' Up in about two weeks, I decided to see if I could use up some of my supplies to make room for new stock which I know I will want when I see the new catalog.
The Stampin' Up products used here are Perfect Plum and Pale Plum cardstock, Perfect Plum ink pad, and the scallop punch. The coordinating eyelash yarn was given to me by my cousin, Barbara, who knits neck scarves as gifts. The layout idea is from the Sheet Load of Cards website.

Black & White & Red All Over

After my sister, Janice (Arts & Craps), showed me the anniversary cards she has been making using black and white paper with red accents, I had to try it for myself. Not being as creative as she is (I copy other people's designs with very few original ideas of my own), I came up with two versions shown here. The paper is from Making Memories Black Tie paper pack, the ribbons from Offray, the red hearts from Creative Living Network, and the metal dots from Colorbok. The 'flowers' are from various packs of discontinued stackable prepunched kits. I also dotted the top swirls in several places using Stickles Candy Cane from Ranger.

All Occasion Card Gallery 2009

These are the cards we made yesterday at Donna's and Emily's Spring All Occasion Card Gallery. This year we had a choice of sentiment stamps to use; i.e., I used birthday and sympathy stamps instead of Mother's Day or Father's Day. I butchered a couple of the cards (I find it hard to make 'clean' powered embossing using a heat gun, especially when I don't have any waxpaper to prewipe the cardstock)so I threw that one away. The first two cards here were suppose to be two similar cards using a different sentiment each time but I had messed up the grass on the first one.

Another Kleenex Card

While going through the piles of scraps on top of my work table today, I rediscovered the Kleenex 'paper'. This is one card I made using a light teal card with a dark brown strip with rounded corners, then rounding the corners of a 3x4.5" piece cut from the side of the small tissue box. The ribbon is from a spool I had purchased for $1 at Big Lots some time ago.

Hannah's Cathedral Windows Quilt

These photos are of the quilt I began working on in 2004 for my eldest granddaughter, Hannah. So far I have cut out about 1024 (I haven't really counted them!) 7-inch squares, turned 480 -so far- of them into 3-inch squares which were then sewn into 12 strips of 32 squares each. I only need 32 strips to make a queen size quilt. Then I have to sew 2-inch squares of various printed cotton squares (left over fabric from some of the many clothes I have made for her until a couple years ago) onto the 3-inch squares. I guesstamated that I would need about 1002 of those little 2-inch squares. A friend talked me into making this quilt as it is suppose to be very easy for a beginner and it involves no batting or backing; once the last square is stitched onto the quilt, it will be finished. At the rate I'm going, that will probably be in about 35 years as I only have 8 of the 63 rows of little squares done. I also have high hopes of making similar quilts for my other two granddaughters, Hope and Morgan. So I cannot die until 2114!

Seven Years, Five Months, One Week, Six Days Later

It's finally done! I've worked and worked on this tablecloth for my eldest granddaughter since October 1, 2001. She will be ten in April.