Happy Birthday to Me!

With my birthday having just passed I felt it was a great time to write about my most popular card to date,  the birthday cupcake cards!  I've sold quite a bit of these and have gotten many compliments on how cute they are.

I got the idea for these cards because of the decorative cupcake paper I had purchased (the strip to the left of the card).  It screamed birthday card for sure.  Originally I made all the cards with the pink cupcake but by request I varied the colors.  At first I wasn't too sure how other colors would look against the glittery blue base of the card but once I put the green cupcake and purple cupcake cards together I was quite pleased with the outcome. 

Pretty in Pink

Green Sorbet

Purple Nurple

The base of the cards are made from a glittery blue cardstock.  The cupcakes are attached using pop up squares for a 3D look.  The cupcake wrappers are dry embossed then inked with coordinating colors.  The white frosting on the cards is cut from a shimmery white cardstock.  The cherry on top is also cut from a shimmery cardstock, but red in color (of course).  The "Happy Birthday" captions are stamped in the same color as the ink used on the wrappers then heat embossed for a raised effect.

As of the moment, I have one of these cards still available in my Etsy shop, www.etsy.com/shop/19eighty.

Unfortunately I am only able to make one or two more of these cards since the decorative cupcake paper I have is almost gone.  I tried to find more of it but it was too late.  Its all gone, maybe forever.  I guess that makes these cards "limited editions".

Scrapbook Expo

Today I am heading to the Scrapbook Expo in Anaheim.  I was iffy about going since it's quite a drive due to the nasty traffic we have out here in Southern California but I have made up my mind and plan on braving our extremely congested freeways.  I have been in a creative slump this entire week and need a pick me up.  I am hoping all the new and cool things I see at the Expo will get me excited about making cards this weekend.  I have orders to fill and a shop to stock up!  I need to get moving!    

More cards coming soon

What happens when you go to Vegas for a few days?  Exhaustion happens.  It may be a few more days before I fully recover from a very long (but fun) weekend in Vegas so I don't expect to have any new cards until this weekend.  But then again, it my be a little longer than that since my birthday just so happens to be this coming weekend (not related to my Vegas trip this past weekend).  Until then I may post about my past creations.

I just remembered something.....I better get rested up quickly though seeing that I have a few orders that need to be completed in the next few weeks!

Sunshine on a rainy day

This morning I woke up to a gloomy and rainy day which reflected how sick I felt.  After taking a dose of NyQuil I decided to wait out my time before passing out by making a card.  Feeling yucky definitely didn't hinder my ability to make a cute card.  In fact I made a bright and cheerful card to counter how I felt at the moment.  It's definitely a card that can brighten up someone's day.  

Sunny and cheerful

Pastel flowers add to the cuteness

Perfect way to cheer up a friend

Valentine's Revisited

A few days before Valentine's I had an order for three cards.  These cards were not ones that were premade so that meant *rush* to make them and send them out.  Thankfully my client liked one of the designs I had in my photos on my Facebook page so that made making the cards easier.  I only posted one on the 19Eighty Expressions' Facebook page because the initials of the receivers were on the cards and since one of them is my friend I didn't want her figuring it out before Valentine's.

  As you can see, for all three I used the same design but made each unique by using different paper.  

Sitting In A Tree

An idea came to me while I was looking through a magazine for inspiration, use printed images on cards.  I have seen this before on other cards and other papercrafts but I wasn't sure it's something I wanted to start doing.  I kind of felt like it was cheating since I was using an already made picture rather than me stamping it, coloring it, drawing it, or crafting it out of paper.  I decided to give it a shot anyway just to see what I can create and Sitting in a Tree is it!  Take a gander.

The owls and sentiment are printed onto cardstock
 

Soul Mates

After making this card I realized how printing images onto cardstock opens up a whole new world for my card making.  It's pretty exciting.  So far this is the only card I have made using this technique.  Aside from printing the image another technique I used is embossing.  I dry embossed the brown mat that is behind the image and inked the edges of the white cardstock.   

This is one of the cards featured in my etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/19eighty.

Last minute Valentine's

Oops, I thought I was all set.  It turns out my daughter didn't have enough of the store bought Valentine's to pass out to her class so I either had to go out and buy more or be creative.  I decided to be creative.  Plus I really didn't feel like getting ready to go out.

I used the free Valentine Truffle file that SVG Cuts has posted on their site to make the cute candy truffle.  It kind of makes me want to head out and go to See's looking at all these!

Glittery goodness

Before I added glitter

Looks delicious!

 

I used different colors of glitter on the candy swirl

  A few pictures show the cards before I added the glitter to the candy swirl.  I think the addition of glitter adds more to the card.  I am entering this project in SVG Cuts' Valentine challenge as well.

All set for Valentine's Day

I am so excited to show this to you!  I saw these super cute Valentine mailboxes on www.svgcuts.com and thought it would be perfect for my daughter to have one for her Valentine's party at school so I bought the file.  I have a feeling she'll be the envy of the class when she shows up with the most awesome Valentine holder around.  She chose the color and the type of mailbox she wanted and I did the rest.

The love caption and the cupid bear were from www.svgcuts.com.  The love caption was a free download and I received the Valentine bear kit as a freebie for buying other files. 
 

Valentine Mailbox

I dobbed the bear's body with a hot pink ink so it was slightly darker than the rest of him.  His wings are embossed with a swirly pattern to fancy them up.

Cupid bear

Love caption

 A swirly heart gives the back of the mailbox have some flair.

Back

Back & side view

The front of the mailbox is held closed by a ribbon that is attached to the sides of the box then tied in a bow in the front.  When untied the door opens and all the lovely Valentine cards can be placed inside.

Open

 Closed

I added three jewels to the "V" from the word "Love" for some extra bling.

Love

Did you notice there was a little flag to indicate there was mail in the box?  Isn't that so adorable?  My daughter had the idea to put a brad on it so it can swing up and down/  Now why didn't I think of that?  Too late now though.

This mailbox serves two purposes.  I am entering this on Svg Cuts' Valentine's challenge.  The requirements are to use at least one file from their site.  I used a few and think this can be a top runner.  What do you think?

Where do I start?

I have quite a few cards but where do I start?  I guess I should start with the most recent.

The other day my daughter asked me to make a card for her friend's birthday.  She let me know up front that she wasn't paying me because she is my daughter.  Isn't she so sweet?!  She wanted a card similar to one I have made before but with different colors so last night I worked on the card and blogged (I can multitask pretty well).

The first card is the original card I made with this design.

You Rock greeting card

Cutesy little skull with a bow

You Rock sentiment

Colorful, fun, adorable, modern...this is exactly what I was thinking when I made this card. It rocks!  My husband actually had the idea to put a skull on a Valentine card (don't ask) but instead I tweaked his idea and came up with a colorful and cute card that can be given to either an adult or a child.

And here is the card I made last night for my daughter's friend.

Birthday greeting card

Another cute skull

Happy birthday sentiment

Orange and lime green checkered ribbon

I used all the same techniques as I did on the other card but changed up some of the embossing designs and colors.  I think both of these cards are super cute and I hope the recipient of the birthday one loves it.

Welcome!

I am not new to blogging nor am I new to blogging about the cards I make but I figured it was time to make a separate blog for the purpose of showcasing my creativity.  My "life" blog was getting taken over by cards!

So here we are.  A little about me.  I live in southern California (no it's not always sunny and warm), am married to an amazing guy, and have a beautiful (sometimes too much so...that's terrifying) daughter who I like to refer to as a pre-pre-teen.  I swear they act like teenagers earlier and earlier these days!  We have two adorable little dogs that make life so much more fun with all the laughs they bring.  I am purposely forgetting that they also like to chew up things like my brand new Spot Bot carpet cleaner attachment nozzle.  I work fulltime but manage to make time to be creative.  For some reason I have to always have something going on.  I am not one to be idle too long.       

I like to think I have always been creative.  I just didn't always exhibit my creativeness.  As a child I loved to write short stories and draw but as I got older that changed.  I soon became creative with clothing (I wore some weird stuff for awhile) but then went into the military (yes...little ol' me was in the military) and lost my creativity.  I was into being free, on my own, and living it up instead.  I've been out for quite some time now, life has settled down, and finally I have captured my creativity again but this time in the form of papercrafting.

How did I even start papercrafting?  It always seemed like something older people did.  I always stayed away from it.  Much of my family and some of my friends scrapbook and invited me to participate.  My answer was always, "NO".  For one, I am way too much of a perfectionist when it comes to making things.  Two, if I start something new I jump in with all I have and all the stores have but I knew scrapbooking was expensive.  I finally relented last year.  I don't know why.  Maybe it was my husband hinting at me to preserve our pictures, which I always intended to print and put in a photo album but never did, that did it.

I started with scrapbooking our vacations.  After a few pages of that Christmas started looming over my head so I started making Christmas & birthday cards (just because people's birthdays just happened to be during that time) and there's where I was hooked!  I ended buying every tool I saw that I thought I needed (I knew that would happen).  I spent a lot.  Way way too much but now I feel I have a good stash and can create anything my imagination comes up with.

I love making cards the most.  I recently started selling them on etsy and have gotten a pretty good response both there and from outside sources.  It's something I enjoy and I hope to continue with this new endeavor.

To see my work you can visit my etsy shop at www.etsy.com/shop/19eighty or follow me on Facebook at 19Eighty Expressions.  I am also on Twitter @19EightyExprssn.