Thank You Gift Card Set

Every year it seems like there's a constant stream of birthdays, weddings and baby showers April through July. A handmade card gift set makes a great small gift or adds a personal touch to a store-bought item. I've made gift sets in the past and often they would similar cards with slightly different sentiments or color variations of a card. This time around I made a set of Thank You cards based on the CAS(E) This Sketch 176.

Here's my take on it:

I know the card doesn't look like a clean and simple card at first glance because of the colors, but it's just a single sheet of patterned paper so it's very simple and quick to make. I added sentiment from Avery Elle Oh Happy Day set and added a touch of gold washi tape. That's it! The inside of each card and corner of the envelopes are stamped with the flowers from the same set to coordinate with the colors of the paper. The inside of the envelopes are lined with paper from the same collection.

In this set the cards are all the same so my friend can send them to her baby shower guests. I put the set in a clear box I bought from PapertrayInk and finished it off with coordinating ribbon. I used the paper from the same set as wrapping paper and added a coordinating tag.

What kind of card sets do you like to make?

Supplies:

• Stamps: Avery Elle Oh Happy Day
• Paper: Paper Studio Hello Darling
• Accessories: PTI gift boxes
• Tools: MFT Stitched Fishtail Flag Dienamics  

~Olga

Half Days and Happy Hours

Instead of a card this week I wanted to share a little notepad cover. The Bellarific challenge this week was to use paper piercing technique. Both of the dresses on the image are cut out from patterned paper. For some extra pizzas I added jewelry with liquid pearls and glasses are covered in Glossy Accents. I've accumulated a number of funny wine and drinking related stamps and this one from Unity seemed the most fitting here: "Life needs more half days and happy hours."

I initially made it as a gift, but then had to make another one so I could keep one myself :).

Supplies:

• Stamps: Stamping Bella Uptown Girls Victoria and Juliette's Night Out, Unity Stamp Half Days, Happy Hours
• Paper: Basic Grey and some scraps

~Olga

Secret Santa Swap

Jennie organized a really fun Designer Secret Santa Swap this year to make a chipboard album, a card, an ornament and a tag in time for Christmas. I used a lot of Basic Grey papers on my album, tag and ornament and the card was featured in an earlier post .

Here's the same picture showing the back of the ornament. It's the fist time I've ever made one and I was a bit at a loss so kept it simple and decorated the Basic Grey ornament template with rhinestones on one side and cut out some some Christmas DP and rub ons for the other.

My Secret Santa was Novell and I got an absolutely stunning album and gifts from her! Check them out on her blog.

~Olgy

Card Blues: Gift Set and Snowbunnybella

I've grown very dependent on technology over the years. I never had a land-line (just a cell) and I think I go through withdraws if I spend a day without checking email. Well, I had quite a shock this weekend. First, I got locked out of my AIM account because my password was reset and a reminder was sent to an email account from 15 years ago that no longer exists. Ironically, to get any help from AOL you need to log into the account to post a question. Then my cell gave out and I lost all my contacts. I felt so detached from the world... The one good thing that came out of all of this is that I got a new phone - Google's own G1. I'm still a little angry having lost a lot of numbers I'm not sure I'll get back, but the new "toy" is softening the blow. This is the first phone I own with a data plan and now I can get email and browse the web right on my cell! Talk about feeding my technology addiction.

I do take occasional breaks from my PC and since my last post I made a few things I wanted to share. The first is the SnowBunnyBella card for SCS FS98 Challenge last weekend.
The card that inspired me was Christmas Cats by Paula Tracy and I recreated the same sparkling background look with Stickles, but the layout just didn't seem to come together. This is one of those cards when the time it takes to make the card greatly exceeds the outcome. I did, however, have fun with this Bella image, which I got form my DSS sister last year. The “fur” on the coat is flocked. I used flocking for the first time this summer and love it for animal and Bella images. I also want to try it on some alphabet stamps and chipboard. That may be a good tutorial for me to do in the upcoming week - I'll show some flocking basics and then experiment with different materials. Stay tuned.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Snowbunnybella by Stamping Bella, Warm Wards
  
• Paper: Bashful blue, chocolate chip, bashful blue DP
  
• Ink: Chocolate chip, bashful blue, Versamark
  
• Accessories: Stickles, embossing powder, Holiday House plastic winter snowflakes by American Crafts, brads, white flocking
  
• Tools: punch, Priceless embossing template, paper piercer
  

The second thing I wanted to share with you was a card gift set I made for my mom. (Mom, if you're reading then I guess you know what you'll be getting in the mail next week. If you want it to be a surprise don't read any further). I saw blue gift boxes on sale at Borders and couldn't pass them up. When I got home and realized the color matched to the “t” to the Baja Breeze paper, I was thrilled and just had to make this set.

As beautiful as elaborate cards can be, most of the time I still love clean and simple designs the most. They're also easier to make for gift sets. For this set I have two designs, 5 of each card. Both use a white base and one color. I used Cuttlebug swiss dot folder to add depth to the paper. The white card is decorated with paper bow (you can use ribbon too), Prima flower and rhinestone. The blue card is stamped and embossed with thick embossing powder. You can also use Crystal Effects, but in this case I wanted some more randomness and droplet effect so i used the powder and let some of it fly off the image when embossing.

For the top of the box I just cut out same size circles for the top and bottom of the "tag", embossed one side in white EP and carefully glued them back to back with the ribbon in between. Let me know if you're interested in a complete tutorial and I can post one next time.

Supplies (All supplies are Stampin'Up! unless otherwise noted) :

• Stamps: Oh So Lovely
  
• Paper: Baja breeze, whisper white, Startburst Translucent DP by Paper Company
  
• Ink: Baja breeze, Versmark
  
• Accessories: Prima flowers, rhinestones, thick clear embossing powder, white embossing power, ribbon
  
• Tools: Cuttlebug, Nestabilities
  

~Olgy