Prepare thyself ...

for the mother of all posts. I have much to share so grab something to drink and get comfy. I hope you enjoy! First, a couple of minor bits of unimportance ... I hope no one minds the frequent altering of my blog. I'm searching for the perfect layout. It's like the living room arrangement, perfection is elusive and whatever you come up with is good only for a little while. AND B) I'd like to point out this post. I don't know if anyone saw it before it got pulled (failed DT attempt) but I want to make sure you all see it now. I am rather pleased with how the card turned out.

OK, now onto the stamping. Here's that trifold card with some changes. I just wasn't happy with the sentiment's arrangement so I added the key tag punch and the brads. I think it looks a lot better.

I also decorated the envelope. The alphabet is whimsical lower (ret) by Stampin' Up!, the swirl (behind her name) is from the Priceless set, also SU! The stork is by A Muse. The colors are bashful and brocade blue. There's a little rhinestone sticky over the "i" in the congratulations. The bashful blue brads are SU! I punched the brocade key tag out and cut it in half and then glued them onto the back of the white key tag -- I just eyeballed it for symmetry. The whole deal is up on dimensionals. I am much happier with this overall than I was before.See this post for all the rest of the deets on this card.

For the shower gift, I did ten thank you cards, five blue and five green. As seen here ...

There's a little bit of stardust gel pen (I am addicted!) on the images. I tried to keep the bling factor subdued since it's for a boy. I packed everything up into these clear boxes from Impress. They utterly rock. I added a ribbon for ... well ... because everything looks better with ribbon.

Here's the front ...

Here's the back ...

Deets: All materials by Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted. Stamps: All images by A Muse. Ink: brocade blue, wild wasabi; Paper: bashful blue, brocade blue, wild wasabi, certainly celery, whisper white; Misc: ribbon mfr unknown, sakura stardust gel pen.

Here's a card I did a few weeks ago (though it's not worth going into why I held back on posting it ... bor-ring story).

This one is really over-the-top sparkly. I stamped the big flower (camellia??? what kind is it?) twice each in rose red and groovy guava. I cut them all out differently and then did the whole versamark/iridescent ice embossing powder thing on them. They're all held together by a rhinestone brad. There's a little rhinestone sticky over the "i" in "kind" and I used stardust gel pen all over the place here. I also used my stamp-ma-jig to make sure the swirls went AROUND the sentiment instead of over it. So purdy!

Deets: All materials by Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted. Stamps: flower from Fabulous flowers, linen bg and swirls from Priceless, sentiment by A Muse; Ink: groovy guava, rose red, versamark and brown stazon; Paper: rose red, groovy guava, chocolate chip and whisper white; Misc: iridescent ice EP, sakura stardust gel pen, edge distressing tool, chocolate chip grosgrain (ret), making memories rhinestone brad, and dimensionals.

You'll have to forgive me if I don't remember every detail about these. They were Christmas gifts I made last year.

I bought the CD tins at Archiver's (speedily going down my list as good craft stores). I stamped them with versamark ink and then embossed them with silver EP. It looks SO cool in real life. I took some scrap card stock and did a template for where to score the "belly bands" then did them for real in cocoa card stock. The patterned paper (etc) doesn't go all the way around it's just for the front. The letters were covered with regal paper then embossed with IIEP.

Deets: All materials by Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted. Stamps: Big and Little Pieces, Small Sayings; Ink: versamark, regal rose, and pretty in pink; Paper: close to cocoa, regal rose, whisper white and loves me DP (ret); Misc: flirty ribbon originals (ret), making memories chipboard alphabet letters, IIEP, silver EP, cd tin (archivers--boo!).

OK. I think I'm going to end this post here. I hope you have enjoyed all these projects and don't forget to check out this post. I'm really proud of that tiers of treats card. COME BACK TOMORROW, I want to share the card I made for my goddaughter's baptism. It really is so FLIPPIN' awesome that I about want it back. So I'll post all that tomorrow.

Happy Sunday everyone!