Before I post, would you look at these apples growing right outside my front door! I can not wait to eat these!!

I’ve made my first few cards, finally. It’s been fun getting to find alternate ways to put my existing supplies to use. I learned Prisma Color markers work on Studio G stamps, but not on Papertrey Ink stamps (Thank you, so so so much, Alli Miles for my beautiful set of stamps!). Luckily I figured that out quick and only stained one stamp from the Wedding Day set. Unfortunately I only have a few of my gray scale markers left over from art school so what I did stamp with them is an 80% gray instead of pure black. I ordered some Hybrid Palette Ink from PTI… can’t wait for that to get here!

I am working with a cellphone camera here until we can afford a simple point & shoot, sorry about the quality.

Card 1:

I cut the inchies with my CM personal trimmer, and drew on them with Sanford Colored Pencils, then mounted them on some paper I got in my birthday box from Mary Dawn. The card base is actually bristol board I found in my portfolio bag from college. I’m glad I kept the majority of my supplies most of it really comes in handy. I can make mistakes without feeling guilty about wasting supplies I bought recently. I also used my CM tape runner to adhere the pieces. The ribbon is Off-ray Grosgrain White, and the dew drops are from Jessica.

Card 2:

The card base is again bristol board, all the paper is from what Mary Dawn sent me, it’s the same ribbon as the first card, and the letters are brown & red stickers I colored with a sharpie. I also colored the rhinestones with a Sharpie, they are black but don’t show well… I made this card for my husband using my Cm cutting system. Inside it says “You’ll always be my number one”… he built me a desk just for my crafting, and helped me paint it and a few things I found at garage sales for organization. I tried to create shadows with my Prisma gray scale markers but ended up just making a mess. Oh well.

Card 3:

Bristol board, paper from Mary Dawn, and the ribbon is American Crafts Elements, it’s actually light pink with stripes, so I turned it around and the back is that lovely purple… which happens to my sister’s favorite color. The stamps are Studio G, inked up with my 80% gray marker… the flower was originally stamped on an oval piece of bristol board but I got ink on it and cut it down. This card looked really nice until I got “creative” and messed with some things… what you can’t see in this picture is the shading I did on the brown paper with a few different colors of Sanford pencils (which is what I colored the cake with btw) to tie the colors together. This is going in the mail to my sister as a late card. It’s not the prettiest but she’ll love it.

Card 4:

This card is for my Mom’s birthday (hi Mom!), I saw an inchies card in the SCS gallery using an elephant stamp and knew right away I wanted to make my Mom something with an elephant. I don’t have any animal stamps though! So I googled elephants and found one I liked, then drew it on bristol board. It took me forever, between sketching it with pencil and getting the lines just right, then going over it with the fine end of my marker, and coloring… i used a gray pencil, a dark gray/turquoise pencil, an aqua pencil, and some goo gone knock off on a q-tip to blend. And to help it coordinate with the ribbon (which is from Wal-Mart, I LOVE LOVE LOVE it and wish I had bought more than one roll) I added in some highlights with a silver gel pen, and a gold gel pen on the tusk and toes… I cut it into an oval with my CM cutting system, and distressed the edges with an exacto knife… I dabbed some gold and silver pen on the edges for a bit of shading… then adhered it to cardboard to get a “pop dot” look… the black paper is a leftover from college, the pink paper is from Mary Dawn, and the “hardware” is really a die cut (also from MD) that I colored and “attachted” with clear rhinestones. I obviously wrote Happy Birthday myself…. inside I wrote “Gray elephants are special and so are you!”… my Mom is already almost complete gray at nearly 45 (and she passed this gene to me, I have a large visible gray steak at 24!)… it’s sort of an inside joke with us I guess. Oooh, and I used my corner rounder from Cm for the first time. I’m going to need another one of these, as this one sort of limits just what you can do with it : (