Birthday Cards for my 'rents!

wooo hooo It's been a while since my last post. OMGosh, life just gets in the way of crafting. But, I'm on some new psych meds now and hopefully will start feeling better soon.
Over the last few months I've been crafting a LOT (as you can see in a blog post, 2 posts back). I've done TONS of cards, more than 50 I'd say. But, this month in April, both my mom, dad and little big brother (he's younger than me, but WAY taller than me. lol) had a birthday.

So, here are 2 of the birthday cards I made, my mom and dad's. follow the link below to see pics!

Here's the card for my dad. I love how it turned out. so fun.

For the little bear guy and sentiment I used the Inkadinkado set Humorous Birthday. It's no secret to anyone in the family that my daddy LOVESSSSSSSSS cakes and ice cream. he likes ice cream so much, he literally eats a big bowl of it every single night. I'm not talking a regular bowl, I'm talking a country crock butter bowl filled with ice cream, cookies, cake etc. basically, whatever sweets he can find in the house. LOL we always tease him, but he's healthy as a horse, for right now, at least!

For his b-day I made a yummmmmy oreo cream cheese layer cake. it was good, but man was it sweet. right up dad's alley!

 for the sentiment flag I used some of that fuzzy fiber stuff. the tall paper was missing something so I used jet black gems. Dad and I have a running joke that some things are just his color. One day many years ago at a thrift store, there were this lonely pair of silver sequin high heels. He picked them up and said "oh these are just my style". lol and every now and then we see a pretty feather boa or a nice purse and he just keeps the joke going. So, I couldn't resist giving him a little "bling" for his birthday. hahahaha

 Here's a pic of the card flat on it's back. I used dimensionals on the image and sentiment flag.

 and this is the inside. another image from the same stamp set. I thought crossing out part of the sentiment and writing my own was funny. Dad got a kick out of it as well. LOL

So anyhow, dad really liked his card. :) it was fun and still 'guy-ish'.

For my mom's b-day card, this one was a really fun one to make! My mom is an avid quilter. she makes some awesome quilts. She has won 1st place and 2nd place in some crafting/quilting boutique shows.
I thought it would be fun to make a quilt card for her. She really loved this card and was surprised I finished it before just giving up. But, really, it wasn't all that difficult to do. just some strips of deco paper and some squares cut in half, and it was done in about 30 mins.

First, I have to give credit to the demo gals over at Photo Scraps Blog. It is one of their older posts of which I saw a card "similar" to this one I made. I just followed the basic layout of it and change up how the card was arranged and the supplies used. so consider this a CASE card (copy and slightly edit).


 I started out by selecting the deco card stock and paper. Paper and Cardstock as follows:
Pink hearts and purple dots : Recollections "All Girl" 6x6 paper Stack
Green flowers: Authentique "Cherish" 6x6 cardstock pad
Blue: Bo Bunny "Country Garden" 6x6 cardstock pad
Tan with purple flowers and green vines: DCWV "The Chateau Lavender" matstack

 then, I did some trimming and some tedious cutting (to be sure I had everything straight when cutting across the blocks).
aren't my scissors cool, too? they are fiskars non-stick. and I LOVE the design on them. :) peace and love, man, peace and love!!! (LOL)

 then came the assembly. lets just say I used LOTS of double sided sticky tape and there are still a few little spots that I didn't get perfectly lined up (due to cutting errors... I didn't cut the lines as straight as I thought, LOL).
a couple of prima pearls in the bottom corner just finished this card off nicely!

The flower is made from some white tulle and uhm, the stuff in back is raffia I think. omgosh, I really don't know. I'm not that much into sewing. anyhow, I replicated this flower from the prima fabric flowers. these things are SOOOOOOO easy to make and it literally took me like 3 minutes to make this. I just added a cuteeeeee pink heart button in the middle. so adorable!

  to try and 'hide' hwere the blocks didn't meet up (and yes, I TOTALLY just did type "meat" instead of meet and had to go back and change it lol) I just used a coordinating Stampin' Write marker and traced around the blocks. I think it kinda helped to hide where things didn't meet up, but it also helped give some dimension to the quilt block

 I used 4 different colors of the fuzzy fiber stuff and tied it in a knot and then attached it with some Glossy accents to the sentiment flag. the sentiment is the Stampin' Up! Itty Bitty Banners (with coordinating dies)

 Here's a side view of the card. I used dimensionals to pop it up off the card base.

 Here's a close up of the cute little knotted fibers. I love how it turned out.

 here for the inside, I used the cute little quilt hugger doll from a VERY VERY old Stampin' Up! set, "Friends are like quilts". I have NO clue what year the set is from. but I stamped her and colored her. though the coloring definitely leaves something to be desired. LOL it was like 3am or so, so give me a break on this one. lol
The sentiments at top is the CTMH set "Wonderful Season" and the celebrate stamp is a studio g stamp.

 a little closer look. also, after coloring her, I realized I probably should have colored in her in a light brown color, like the kraft cs. but I was going for one of those really old doll looks.

 This stamp here says "If it were Hallmark it wouldn't be this good!". LOL I kinda smudged it a little when stamping. but still. I got this stamp from the $1.00 bin at Viva Las Vegas Stamps. it's a HUGEEEEE stamp store here in Vegas. They have some pretty awesome stamps, and they custom make stamps, as well.

So, after giving this card to my mom she did like it, and she was surprised I didn't give up before finishing it. Sometimes I get SO frustrated with stuff, but tihs really was easy and fun to make. I love how MY variation turned out from the CASE of the one the Photo Scraps DT did.

Well, those are the 2 cards I'm sharing for now. I hope you like them, and thank you for stopping by.

Keep on Craftin'
~Melisa Marie

P.S. I have 26 more creations of cards I've done over the last couple of months, so please check back soon, I have a few blog posts already in "draft" progress. Just trying to take care of my home life in between my posts. I REALLY need to get caught up!! :) give me some encouragement...come back to visit me, and please leave me comments!!