I decided to make a winter card for a little boy at my church since  his birthday is in January and I have so many winter/snowman images.  It turned out sooooo cute!  
This is what I call a panel card.  The front actually has two panels.  
Where I have the big snowflake on the right side of the left panel, you can put any image and actually tuck the right panel under it to keep it closed.
In the photo, the panel on the right is actually part of the front.  To make this card, take a piece of card stock 8 1/2" x 5 1/2" and place it on your scoreboard left to right from 0" to 8 1/2".  Score at the 1 1/2" mark and again at the 5 1/2" mark, and then fold the card on the score lines.  On the left panel I glued some snowflake background paper.  On the right panel all I did was score it with my scoreboard vertically every 1/8"  There is room for six vertical score lines on the right panel.  If you click on the photo it will enlarge and you you will have a better view of  the vertical score lines on the right panel.  In my card program  

I added a saying on a piece of card stock, punched it with the Martha Stewart icicle punch, then added some glitter to the icicles, and some blue snowflakes to it.  I also added some more snowflakes, along with one large layered one.  The snowman is a free online image that I colored in Gimp (Gimp is similar to Photoshop.  It is a free program that you can download from online and you can do sooooo much with it.)  I cut out and raised up his hat, nose, and scarf.  I also added glitter to the large snowflake and to the snowman.  And last, but not least, I added some little wiggly eyes to the snowman's face.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATHANIEL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SKYLER!!!

This card is for my grandson, Skyler.  Skyler just turned 13 years old!!!  I can't believe he's a teenager already!  Wow!
Many, many months ago Skyler told me he wanted a San Francisco Giants card in orange and black and he wanted it embossed with an embossing folder, so this is what I came up with.
The "2012 World Champions" was done as a water mark in my Printshop 6 card program, and the "San Francisco Giants 2012" was printed over that in the same program.  I then glued on the baseball at the bottom which was a free online image, and then I did the embedded embossing technique with a Sizzix diamond embossing folder.  I typed out the Happy "13th" Birthday Champ! in my card program and cut and then embossed it with a Spellbinder's oval die, and raised it up with foam tape.
Skyler was VERY happy with the card!  :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARRY!!!

I play cards once a week with three of my neighbors and we have a lot of fun and a lot of laughs.  I made this card for Larry's birthday.  
The Happy Birthday background was done in my Printshop 6 card program.  The decorative border below that was done with a Fiscars border punch. and the embossed diamond background was done with a Sizzix embossing folder.  The cards (Aces) were a free online image that I printed out, cut out, and raised up with foam tape.  The little Game On tag was made with a Provo Craft die.  I added a little baker's twine, and walla!!! it was done!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DILLON!!!

Just a simple, but cute card this time.  I'm happy with the way it turned out.  

The top and bottom images were free-online images.  

Dillon in the middle was done in my card program.  

The balls on the bottom were cut out and raised up twice to give the card a little dimension.

This card is made with a free online image from Dearie Dolls Digi Stamps:  http://deariedollsdigis.blog.com .  I really LOVE her site.  She has some AWESOME images and they're all free.  This particular image is called Dearie-Dolls-Boy-with-Frogs.png. 
 For me, I found that the best way to color my online images is with the Koh-I-Noor Woodless Colour Pencils (Available at Michaels Craft Store).  The first time I colored an online image, I noticed the black lines that make up the image faded a little.  So after I color the image I put it back through the printer a second time and the image just pops!  Then I cut the image down to the size I need for the card.
The saying "Have a Hoppin' Happy Birthday..." around the edge was done in my Print Shop 6.0 card program (Love it!).  The red background paper is embossed with an embossing folder.  The little boy image is mounted on a piece of blue and white gingham background paper.  The large frog is a sticker that I purchased at a craft store.

I just love this image of a little boy climbing up into his tree house. I was raised with mostly boys in my family, and mostly boys in my neighborhood, so I did all the things the boys did too, so this image takes me back a few years.  Oh the joys of childhood!
This is a free online image from http://www.activity-sheets.com.
There are tons of wonderful images on this site.
I always color online images with my Koh-I-Noor colored pencils.  If you use markers on these images the printer ink tends to bleed.  These are the BEST colored pencils I've ever seen, as they have a very soft lead and color very nicely.
The HAPPY BIRTHDAY on the right side of the card was done in my Printshop 6.0 card program.

Here's the site for this free image:
http://www.my-coloring-pages.com/summer-coloring-pages/gallery/image/boy-in-his-treehouse/

I wanted to get this post in before the day is over.  I made this card for a little 8 year old girl at my church.
From the background up, this was a free-online decoupage sheet.  I raised up the saying, the flower and the two little bows.
The Happy Birthday is a "1995 Annette Allen Watkins #A1129 Happy Birthday" stamp.  It is one of my favorite Happy Birthday stamps because it is cute, little, and it fits into smaller areas than a lot of other HB stamps.

EMBEDDED EMBOSSING:

This is the first time I've used this particular technique and I LOVE the way it turned out.  I glued the circles onto my yellow card stock and then ran it through my Cuddlebug Birthday Embossing Folder.  It is very important that you bring the glue to the very edge of each circle, or it will lift and won't look as nice.  

My friend Sue is a quilter, so I made this card for her birthday.  
The sewing machine is a free online image.  I added some quilt background paper on the left, some Spellbinder die layers, a saying, and some ribbon.

This is the inside of Sue's birthday card.

Oh, by the way, Sammy was beloved dog!  

I just finished this card today for another little girl at church.
I used my "Scrap Layering" technique on the bottom layer.  My base card is a dark blue.  I glued small pieces of scrap floral background paper onto the base card all around the edges, and then added the blue floral background on top of that.  The blue floral background was run through a Sizzix embossing folder and then I ran some sand paper over the flowers which brought out the light blue core color of the paper.  The ovals were cut with Spellbinder's dies, as was the Happy Birthday ribbon banner.  The angel is a free decoupage from online which has four layers to it.

This is a card I made for a little boy at my church.

I used a free online image that I colored with my markers.  I drew in the sidewalk and added dots on it.  The grass has been punched with a Martha Stewart's grass punch.  The clouds were hand cut, inked on the edges, and then run through my Spellbinder's Swiss Dots embossing folder.

Another card for a little girl at my church.  I simply punched out several heart shapes and made flowers with them.  I also cut a couple of the hearts in half to make the leaves on the stems.  I had cut and crimped the stems.  
The center of the flower contains another little punched flower and a green bling.
I always keep an unused pencil eraser on hand, which I used to make polka dots with.  Then I added some glitter to the center of each dot.
A small Happy Birthday was added to the bottom right.

My friend Sue's little dog, Sammy, just passed away.  Sammy was a sweet little dog and he will be missed!

I wish I had taken a photo of the back of this card as there is a little dog with this huge bone in his mouth.  Sammy was a Maltese and was not a very big dog - he only weighed a few pounds.  I was at Sue's house one day when Sammy came into the room with this BIG bone he had found outside in the back yard.  Sue doesn't even know where the bone came from.  Sammy was just prancing around the house with this huge bone in his mouth.  He was sooooo proud of that bone!  It was such a cute thing to see!

This is the inside of the "Sammy Sympathy Card".

This is the birthday card I made for my son Corey's 39th birthday.  
Wow I can't believe he's 39 already - where did all the years go?????

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, COREY - I LOVE YOU!!!

I tucked a gift card in the pocket!

A little girl from my church just turned 11 and I made this card for her.  
The awning is done with little pieces of paper that I cut and glued on top.  I added some little cut-out cupcakes that were from a clear-stamp set from Michaels Craft Store.  Unfortunately I don't keep the names of everything as I don't have room to store all the extra pieces of paper - I have a very small stamp room and it is pretty packed in!  I am blessed, though, to have just enough room for two people to make cards, which is nice!  I have a box that I store my clear stamps in and it's almost full now too.  Oh what to do!
I added another piece of paper at the bottom which I trimmed with my edge trimmer.  I believe the trimmer is made by EK Success.  It doesn't actually have a name on it, but it looks like all the other EK Success trimmers I have.
The "Happy Birthday Hailey!" was done in my Printshop 6.0 card program and the font is LuvCountryArt.  After cutting the piece of paper for the saying I ran it through my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug Folder and colored each dot pink.
As a last thought, I added some little purple dots behind the cupcakes and a little purple ribbon to the bottom of the card.

My sweet little granddaughter just turned 15!  I can't believe it!  She's such a beautiful young lady - inside and out!  
She wanted me to make her a card with zebra and leopard animal prints, lots of bling, and glitter.  I thought: wow, what in the world will I make with zebra and leopard animal prints on the same card???  Well, this is what I came up with.  She loved it and I was pretty pleased with it myself!  :)
The flowers were from a clear-stamp set from Michael's Craft Store.  I stamped the images onto leopard and zebra BG paper, colored the pink ones, cut them all out, glittered around the edges of each one, and added a little clear bling to each center.  The white background (BG) was done with my Swiss Dot Cuttlebug Folder and I colored each dot pink.
The stem in the BG is actually stamped with 3 clear stamps from Close to My Heart #C1397.  This is a very cute set.  There are 9 flowers, 4 stems, several leaves, and two sayings in the set.  

Here are a couple that I've been working on for the kids at church:

And this one went to my friend Phyllis for her birthday...I call her the "Big Pill"...Don't know why, other than she's a pill...LOL!  Actually, she's an AWESOME friend! I'm blessed to have her in my life!  
This little card I tri-folded, added some Spellbinders hearts, a couple of EK Success butterflies, some BG  paper, and a bow.  Pretty simple card.  Also, after I photographed this card I rounded the corners on the two inner flaps that meet under the heart as it softened the look of the card.

A cute little crown card for a sweet little girl!  I simply drew out the crown on a piece of card stock, cut out a card, covered it with BG paper and added some little flowers and a saying.

I made this card for a friend of mine who just lost one of her very best friends.  They were friends for something like 40+ years!  Long time!
And, guess what her favorite color is...you guessed it...GREEN!!!

And, another card for a girl in my church who is turning 16 this month.  The BG paper is from the Floral Prints Mat Stacks.  The flower is in my stash without a name on it, but you could use any flower you have on hand.  I stamped it, colored it with colored pencils, cut it out, distressed the petals with a stylus, and raised it up with double sided foam tape.  I made the leaves with a cut die: Marianne Design Creatables Stencil - Flower & Leaves LR0156.  The tag punch is from EK Success.  I made the butterfly at the bottom from two 1" pieces of crepe paper, folded, and then glued onto a dragonfly punched piece of paper.  I raised it up with foam tape also.  I added a little glitter and called it a card! 

Another little card I made for a little girl at my church.  I drew out the cupcake template by hand, added a few buttons, a ribbon, and a little free online image.  It actually looks much cuter in person than here in the photo.  The background papers are from the Brenda Walton Designer Mat Pad by K&Company.

A little folded card I made with background paper, a little Spellbinder's die cut heart, a Martha Stewart butterfly, a pink bow, and some greenery.  The card is made so the flap on the right tucks between the left flap and the heart for mailing/closure.

Here's something new I'm trying.  It's called doodling, Zentangles, Zenspirations, Zendoodles, etc.  On the internet I've seen it called many things.  Zentangles are actual copy written patterns (or tangles) that you can use for doodling.  Just read their rules if you want to use any of their tangles on cards you might want to sell.

I actually started out with this very plain online free image (see next image down) and added some tangles to it!  Isn't it cool!!!  I am sooooo fascinated by this technique!  I just recently found this media online and couldn't wait to try it.  Well, here's my first real attempt!  I did practice a little first on scraps of paper, and just a couple of days ago decided to give it a try.  In the very center of the flower I did add some yellow glitter which is a little hard to see in this photo.   This is a really fun way to decorate your stamped images and/or stencils.  Online there are LOTS of examples of how you can doodle in rubber stamps, stencils, and/or make your own frames to doodle in.  Even the lines on the frames don't have to be straight - they actually look better crooked, so there's no intimidation about doing it.  The cool thing about this is that there really are no mistakes...because no one's really going to notice it.  The ideas are endless and it's sooooo fun and relaxing.  It's really quite easy...If I can do it, anyone can!

This is the free online image I started with.

A cute little cupcake card for a little girl at church...I made this with a few cupcake stamps and a Martha Stewart cupcake punch.  Added a little glitter and a background made with the Cuddlebug Swiss dot embossing folder.  I added a little bit of glitter and a few punched flowers.

Here are three of my beautiful and handsome grandsons.  Jake is 3, Skyler is 12 (He broke his arm riding his motorcycle!), and Brayden is 7.  WoW!  They grow so fast.  I have always taken pictures of my grandchildren (6 of them!) in my rocking chair.  These three are almost too big to fit in it!!!  (All three at once, that is!)  But, I'm glad they still do.  I LOVE you little guys - you are AWESOME grandchildren!!!  You make my heart melt!!!

SMILE, Jake!!! 

Happy Birthday Brayden!  Seven years old already!!!  That should be illegal!!!

Here's another card I decoupaged with a free decoupage set from online.  I LOVE the way this card turned out.  It is sooooo cute!  For the wood background I started out with a free online image of a piece of wood.  I printed it out, cut it to the size I wanted, and then ran it through my "looks-like-wood" Cuddlebug embossing folder (It's not really called that!).  Then I distressed it with some distressing ink.  The little image on the bottom right was another free image from online.  I did the "Happy Birthday" in my card program, punched it out with my oval punch, distressed it, and added some little red brads.

* I wish the dies and the embossing folders had the names on them, but they don't and I haven't kept all the papers that came with them...too much "stuff" to keep!

I've recently gotten into decoupage.  How fun is that!  I'm having a blast!  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the look of decoupage on a card.  The raised up effect just makes your card POP!  This is a free decoupage set I found online.  There are TONS of free decoupage sets online! 

* A special thank you to all you wonderful people who provide so much for us card makers online!  The possibilities are endless!

The background of this was cut with a Spellbinder's die...I didn't keep the name of it...I'm bad!  The birdhouse is from Spellbinder's "Bird Sanctuary" and it is the small birdhouse in the set.  The bird on top is another die by Marianne Design Creatables called "Bird on a Branch Small LR0137".  I colored the bird, added some little punched flowers, and a little bow.

When I get a chance I'll try and search out the names of my dies, because - inquiring minds want to know!!!

This stamp is made by Stampendous called "W003 Three Home Nest".  I love this stamp...one of my favorite!  I water colored the image, added a little bird, and some raised up punched flowers. The little bird is from "Bird On a Branch Small LR0137" die (You can see the whole die in my next post.) by Marianne Design Creatables which I don't have the name of.  I usually take my dies out of their original packaging and store them in a 4" x 6" photo album and I don't think to write down the name of the dies.  I will try to do better in the future. 

Note: I used to store my dies loose in a little 4" x 6" photo album and if there were several pieces in one set, sometimes it was hard to get them out, or they would fall out when I didn't want them to.  Well I've gotten organized with my dies!  Now I use a little piece of drafting tape to adhere each die to either a piece of card stock, or a piece of clear acetate, that is cut just a little smaller than the 4" x 6" so that it slides easily out of the sleeve of the photo album.  The drafting tape is wonderful because it doesn't stick tightly when you want to use your die and the tape is reusable.  For an example, Spellbinder's Floral Flourishes is a seven-piece set and some of the pieces are small.  With my organized way of storing my dies, I can now see at a glance exactly what is in each sleeve of the album!

Well, I had a dilemma!  I purchased this Fanciful Flourish die from Cheery Lynn Designs and I could not get it to cut  through the center of the die.  I called Cheery Lynn Designs and they actually sent me another die and still the same problem.  I LOVE this die and I was so disappointed.  I have the Spellbinders Wizard and I suspect that is the problem.  I added 'shims' and did everything I could think of to get it to cut to no avail!  A friend of mine has the new Spellbinders Grand Calibur and I'm anxious to see if it will cut on that machine - I'm assuming it probably will.  Well, they say, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade!"....

WALLA!!!  I decided to try and do SOMETHING with that silly die!  I LOVE IT!  Mistakes can become masterpieces!

Happy Birthday Shirley!
This is a birthday card I recently gave to a friend of mine and I told her that originally this was a mistake!  She said, "I wouldn't call THIS a mistake!"  She loved it! 
In this card I made the flowers out of light-weight vellum paper and ran them through Cuddlebug's Swiss Dots embossing  folder.

Note: The bling in the center of each flower.  These were plain/clear and I colored them with alcohol ink.  So much cheaper to purchase non-colored bling and color it yourself!

Another rectified 'mistake' done with purple background paper.  

Well, I haven't posted for a while, so thought I'd just add my cards that have been waiting to get posted for ohhhhh sooooo long!  My latest thing in stamping is making handmade flowers with crepe paper.  In the next few posts you will see my creations of crepe paper flowers.  I really like the way they turn out.  They look so feminine and delicate.  The only problem with them is if you put them in an envelope for mailing, they will go flat.  So I usually save these and just put them into a gift bag along with a gift and forget the envelope.  As you will see, I've made different shapes for the petals.  The way I make the flowers is to simply draw out a single petal shape, cut several of the shapes out of crepe paper and layer them - two layers of five each on the bottom, then a layer of four, and then a layer of three.  Of course you can layer them however you think looks nice.  Try them; they're a lot of fun!