Birthday cards

Here are two birthday cards I made recently - the yellow one for my dear friend, Bonnie and the other one for my son's girlfriend (which sounds weird to say still). I forgot to rotate the photos before I downloaded them. Sorry. The pattern is from one of the CTMH books, but I forgot to look and see which one. I do love this card though, and will probably use it again. The stems are hand-sewn. It's the first time I have done something like that -- but I love how it turned out.

Altered Picture Frame

I made this altered picture frame for a very good friend of mine's birthday. It started as unfinished wood. First I painted it with acrylic paint in a green color. Then I decided that I wanted it to have an 'antique' look so I used some Tim Holtz Crackle Paint. After that was dried, I used some distressing ink to go over the crackle paint and turn it a shade of green.




I cut the word "friends" out of some Tim Holtz grungeboard using my Cricut. Then I used distressing ink in Peeled Paint and then topped it off with some Peeled Paint Distress Stickles.



I used a CTMH stamp to make the sentiment. I added some Itty Bitty Sparkes to give it some bling. Then I made three rolled paper roses to give it more flair. I used the CTMH opaque pearls as the center of each flower.



And here is the finished product - minus the picture. I put a picture of my friend Bonnie, Amy and I at the Twins game earlier this year in the frame before I gave it to her.

Olivia Workshop on the Go

We had our club night tonight for the Olivia Workshop on the Go. It was a small group - we had an ice storm here in Minnesota today, and a couple of girls didn't make it here. I was also trying to include my sister-in-law in Memphis by using Skype, but I think I need a better laptop or a faster internet connection. I will have to work on that. Anyway, here are pictures of the layouts, girls, if you need this for reference. Call me if you have any questions on how to put these together.



This is the layout that was featured in the WOTG brochure. I am not sure my girls like the sanding, but I think it looks great.



This was our second layout. I used the Creative Team layout found in our Imagine book. I added a few extra embellishments, like the buttons threaded with hemp and the squares of leftover paper.



This is the first page of our third layout. I didn't put any embellishments, or a title, on this layout yet. I also found this layout in the Imagine book. It is called Understudy.


Here is page two from the third layout.



And here is both pages of the layout.

I made this card using the October Stamp of the Month. I should have posted this last month, but I just can't seem to get in a regular habit of posting things to my blog. I need to try much harder. Maybe it will be one of my New Years' resolutions.... Anyway, all products used were Close to my Heart. On the tree, I used some Twinkle Brads to add a little bling. The hat and scarf were colored with our markers. The B&T paper was from some leftover Jingle paper I had in my drawer.

I made this picture frame and card for a good friend at work. On the card, the stamps, buttons, ribbon and card base are Close to my Heart products, but the patterned paper is not. I don't recall right now which brand they were. I made the picture frame from a $1 frame at Michaels and painted it with brown acrylic paint. I then cut 1" squares from chipboard and distressed them with Ranger distressing ink. I then covered some of them with distress stickles, distress embossing powder or crackle paint. All were Tim Holtz products. I made another frame similar to this for a different friend previously. I have also made one for myself.