Quick and Cute Invitations

It's 10pm the night before an event I'm attending where I would like to hand deliver invitations to some of my friends... I hadn't planned what they would look like but knew that I would like them to have at least a little handmade flair. After several attempts and a huge mess made by pulling out all my ribbons, paper, embellishments and stamps, I still had nothing acceptable. 11:30pm and getting desperate, I remembered a boxed set of stationary I had put in my "repurpose" pile a while back. Well, their time had come...

On the vellum pocket, I stamped the adorable sewing machine from http://www.lawnfawn.com/ with VersaMark, sprinkled it with gold embossing tinsel and heat set it. I had no problems with the vellum curling or melting and no problem with stray bits of powder/tinsel sticking where I didn't want it. The vellum was actually the friendliest surface I have heat embossed on so far. Also, this was my first experience with the Lawn Fawn stamps and I was impressed! Very high quality stamp and image!

The little green branch is a punch from Stampin' Up! called Two Step Bird. This has turned out to be a much more versatile punch than I would have thought. For adhering tiny pieces like the stem on this, I use Zig Fine Tip Two Way Glue. Add to the branch a few tiny red glass beads adhered with Aleene's Tacky Glue and done! Once I got going, these went together quickly and they were a hit the next day. The dimension and texture that made these feel extra special is hard to see here but definitely made the difference.

A set of Hand Made Thank You Cards

This set of cards was created as part of a wedding gift. All cards are done in the wedding colors of black, white and silver. The card on the right is my card to the bride and groom. I used an embossing folder from Cuttlebug, an EK Success edge punch on the lower edge of the black mat, a la mode black embossing powder on the corner stamps and the Mr and Mrs (from a Close To My Heart set) and 7/8" black grosgrain ribbon.

These next few cards were inspired by the floral stamp, which I stamped in silver metallic chalk ink. It stays wet quite a while and is easy to smudge so let it dry for a bit or heat set it. More embossing folders from Cuttlebug used on these along with ribbons, rhinestones and brads...

A double layer of ribbon was used on this one along with a little butterfly from a Stampin' Up! embosslit called Beautiful Wings. The sentiment has been stamped on the inside in this case. Also, those are flat backed pearls on this one.

Though hard to see in these photos, the floral stamped piece is raised with a few little pieces of 3M foam tape. Gives a great 3D affect in person and brings the focus to that piece.

Black rhinestones on this one. Also, on the above cards, I enjoyed making an extra narrow border edge by cutting the back piece only 1/8" bigger than the piece on top. Usually I do 1/4" like the below cards but for some reason I was in a narrow mood and really liked the outcome.

This card features the Spellbinders "Labels Three" and is spritzed with Smooch Spritz (which you can't really see in this pic), one of my new favorite things as of this project!

More butterfly's from the Stampin' Up! embosslit. They are cut in solid black and spritzed as well.

Usually when I buy the rhinestone shapes, I just cut them up and use the individual stones but this time, I couldn't bear to ruin that shape so someone gets all those rhinestones on one card! Hope they feel special ;-).

The card (above) and the next few are a bit simpler as far as embellishments go. I used some glitter card stock from a mat stack and tried to do designs that used exactly 1/2 or 1/3 of the mat sized piece so I could completely use the 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" paper and have 2 or 3 cards from it. Turns out these mat stacks are great!! Most of the time I have bought 12x12" paper and that is alto of paper! (Great for using on the full sized Cricut) But these small sized pieces are awesome for card making. Another of my new favorite things!

On this card, I dry embossed just the lower edge of a card.

Also, on these cards, my thrifty streak continued as I used narrow black paper scraps for the band across front.

This card was inspired by my "Little Sister" Rhia (from Big Brothers Big Sisters). She designed one very much like it and it was only her second card ever! On the black scrap band, I stamped the Thanks! which shows up just fine in person. Also, on this card I accentuated one of the argyle diamonds with 4 rhinestones (hard to see).

A quick shout out to my friend Stephanie at http://dawsondesigns.wordpress.com/. She is an inspiration and such a sweetheart! Many of the embossed white and silver papers in these cards were embossed by her and given to me a while back before I had an embossing tool of my own. Thanks Stephanie!