Vintage Journal/Notebook

Earlier this week while I was at CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ), I decided that I needed to find a notebook to use for notes when I am listening to speakers. I have many notebooks/journals, but I never finish using them for the purpose that I originally intended, and for some reason, I do not like to use them for other things, when the first half has already been written in. So while I was shopping at Target today, I saw some composition notebooks that were only $1, and several cute notebooks that were around $8. I decided to get the composition notebook thinking that I could cover it with either fabric or some cute scrapbooking paper.

This is what I came up with:

Here's a close-up:

Boy's Birthday Card

For some reason, I always feel that making a card for a guy's birthday is so much more difficult than making a card for a girl. It must have something to do with the fact that there are so many pretty floral papers in pinks! So I usually just end up making a really basic card whenever I make one for a guy! Today, as I was browsing the Two Peas in a Bucket website, as I occasionally do, I came across the A Year in Card's February Challenge to create a card that contained a gift.

(You can check the class out here and watch the video that goes along with it: http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/cg_display.asp?seed_id=31231&source=NL20100216) Since I already had to make a card for my cousin's birthday, I thought I might as well make it under these guidelines and enter the contest! Since we didn't know what he wanted, we ended up just getting my cousin a giftcard and a gigantic chocolate bar, here's how the card turned out:

Here is the pocket on the inside for the giftcard:

And here's the spot for the chocolate bar:

I'm sure my soon to be 9 year old cousin could care less about what his card looks like, but I think it turned out pretty well!

Making Cards

Making Cards is one of my favorite hobbies. I first started around the age of ten, and it has always been a stress reliever for me. So instead of studying all day today, I made some cards! I used to use a lot of stamps and solid papers in making my cards (like Stampin' Up). But in recent years, I have come to appreciate patterned papers, and the use of different textures to break up the visual plane. These are two of the cards that I made this evening while I was watching Project Runway on my laptop.

For this card I used some brown craft paper for the base, and then some beautiful patterned paper for the background (I don't remember what brand it is). The fabric letters are Thickers' "By the Yard. " I recently got them at Tuesday Morning for only $0.69!!! Talk about a great deal! Usually when I like embellishments so much, I save them forever and ever, but I decided to use some of them since they went with the card so nicely!

For this second card, the background paper is from BoBunny, and then the smaller layered paper and die cut tag are both K&Company (probably my favorite paper designer). I used the same fabric letters from the other cards. And finally the ribbon along the bottom from American Crafts.

Well I have been thinking about starting a blog for a while now, so tonight I decided to sign up for one! Whether or not I actually keep up with posting remains to be seen!