a bunch of cards...

and a few other details, but first, the cards:

I'm teaching a birthday card class this evening and I wanted to try something a little different than your "standard" card fold - this type of card fold is called an easel card, and there is a whole gallery of easel card inspiration over at SCS. I used SU! Cottage Wall DSP, and kind of CASE'd myself from an earlier Mother's Day card I'd made.


I don't know about you guys, but I struggle constantly with masculine cards - here's a simple masculine birthday card. I've used something similar for a sympathy card as well - Lovely As A Tree is just such a versatile set and it is my "go-to" set for masculine cards! Contrary to what it looks in the photo, the ribbon is Always Artichoke (not Old Olive!) and does, in fact, match the card base!


I've only done a couple of acetate cards before, but I love how they look, and when I saw this card by Michelle H., I knew I'd have to CASE it! I just love the blue, black & white combo, and the filigree brad is the perfect embellishment! Thanks for the inspiration, Michelle!


According to my mother, my cards are "beautiful, but bulky" and she wanted some non-bulky Christmas cards to mail out this year. I struggle with that because that limits my use of my favourite embellishments - ribbon tied in bows (yes, I know you can make a flatter bow, but I don't like it the same!) & rhinestone brads! I mean, it hardly seems like a Christmas card without bows and a little bling, right?!? I don't mind this one - the divine flocked paper sort of makes up for the plainness of the card overall, maybe?


This card is another complete CASE... this time from this gorgeous card by Jaydee. It is just so elegant in its simplicity!


This SU! paper was a favourite the moment I saw it (I love all things snowflake!) - it's slightly shimmery and it's in more of a non-traditional, neutral colour. I stamped the snowflake from Patterned Pines in Sahara Sand and then outlined it with my glue pen and added some bling with Dazzling Diamonds. I just love this one - I think this will be our card for this year!


Finally, a card I did with my Stampers Group this month, featuring the Split Negative technique that I learned about on SCS.

In other news, I got a little happy mail from Angie L. yesterday, saying that she'd like to feature not 1, but 2 of the cards I submitted on the Ella Publishing Co. blog on Monday! Woot!!!! How totally cool is that?!?!?