birthday

This was obviously done the same day as Mona Lisa.  Another "cheater's" card as far as I'm concerned, as there is very little stamping.  I quite like using the die-cut posies.

Mona Lisa

My mom sent me this Mona Lisa stamp (from Cherry Pie) and I couldn't wait to use it, but it ended up taking me a long time to find a way to make it stand out, because it's a rather small stamp.  I ended up using it with a bunch of scraps I had lying around (the blue is gift wrap paper).  Layering vellum on top toned down the excess brightness.  I saw card artist Teri Anderson use staples in her cards in Stamper's Sampler, and I like the simplicity of it.  My only regret is photographing the card on top of a pine table -- it looks yellow-y

Easter cards

These are some simplistic Easter cards.  I sort of feel that I "cheated" because I used some little wooden ornaments I found in a hardware store.   The rubber stamps (flower and harlequin pattern) are from Stampin' Up.

Virgin blogger

This is my first attempt to create a blog.  I want to create a little record of some of my card creations before I send them out to friends.  I've been making cards (with varying levels of success) since the early 1990s, mainly with rubber stamps and collage.  Here are some Christmas cards from 2007-ish.  I sent in one like the last one to Take Ten magazine and it was accepted, which was a confidence booster.  I really like the look of sewing stitches on cards, but I'm too lazy most of the time to do it.  I also like sewing (not glueing) buttons to cards, and incorporating vellum.

I have 2 general philosophies in my card making:

(1) the simpler, the better (5 minute cards are awesome!)

(2) waste not, want not -- i.e., don't throw anything away if it could be a useful scrap later.