i love birthdays

Yes, it's quite true: I love birthdays!*

(* = anyone else's birthday except for my own!)

I think birthdays are my favorite holiday, yes, sometimes more than Christmas. I think it's the best time to celebrate someone's existence, and it provides the best excuse for showering someone with gifts and sugary sweets like cupcakes. :)

I also find that I am faced with an unusually huge amount of birthdays during the summertime. I found myself needing 6 birthday cards around mid-June for some very dear coworkers and friends, so I decided to raid my stash of card making supplies and create some fun cards. The biggest find was a pile of alphabet stickers that I had been meaning to use on scrapbook layouts, but I bought them before I was hit with "scrapper's block" (think writer's block) so they've just been collecting dust in my crafting room. So here are the six cards I put together for some very special friends:

The first one was created for Antoinette, my carpool buddy. I know, I didn't end up using alphabet stickers on the card itself but I found a chipboard letter to use instead. I did end up using the alphabet stickers on the envelope and man, her name took up all my t's!

I put a restaurant gift card on the inside of the card and thought my A Muse stamp that says "have a delicious day!" was the perfect sentiment for it. The funny thing is that I traced the outside of the gift card and tried to do a mock version underneath the real thing, but my drawing skills suck and I botched that idea. Oh well. (LOL)

This card was for my stepmom, Debbie, and as you can see I did use some fun letter stickers here. These are by American Crafts and have a leathery feel to them. And of course, I love the green color!

Again, I didn't use the stickers on this card but I was having fun using them on the envelopes. I used a bee theme with Jess's card because she wants to be a beekeeper. Yes, she really does! :)

And then on the flipside, I used the letter stickers on both the card and envelope for my friend Kathleen's husband, Matt. I love those puffy stickers for some reason. They just glow with cheeriness.

This was a fun "look who's turning 30" card for my coworker, Nathan. (Duh, you can read the envelope, huh? Sorry about that.)

And last (but definitely not least) is this little one I put together for my friend Jennifer who - can you guess it? - is a fellow Cancer baby. I used my crab and cupcake punches for this one. I forgot to take a photo of the envelope before I gave it to her but I used the pink alphabet stickers on it. I ran out of e's before I realized it and resorted to using a number 3 the wrong way instead.

I just received a huge order of stamps that I bought after Papertrey Ink's July release so I hope to get back into the swing of things with cardmaking. There are so many ideas swimming through my mind these days but it's been a struggle to actually get the mojo enough to make these ideas happen. Stay tuned ... more crafting posts will hopefully come soon!

knitting: striped scarf

I know it has been a while since I've posted anything really craft related on this blog but truth be told, I've been in quite a rut. It's also been a while since I've posted anything about the going ons within my knitting group at work. So hopefully this post will satiate both and get me back on the crafting radar.

My friend Jess is like one of the best knitters I know. And I mean, seriously, she is a really good knitter. Not only is she good at it, she actually completes projects. (I have so many WIP's -- in the knitting world that translates to "works in progress" -- it's pretty shameful.) Anyway, she brought in this scarf to our knitting group one day and I just knew the instant that I saw it that I had to make one too. I just love it when inspiration jumps at me like that.

It's a pattern that Jared Flood blogged about and she used Noro yarn like he did. I love how her stripes turned out, don't you?

I had some Manos del Uruguay yarn in my stash and of course, I need to use the yarn I have before I buy any more, so I decided to try making the scarf with it instead of buying new stuff. I tried to pair a skein of multi-colored dark blue and gold tones with a really bright turquoise skein I have, but it just looked awful. So I caved in and made a drive out to Windsor Button in downtown Boston one afternoon and found a skein in a more golden brown and orange colorway that I thought would provide enough contrast.

I started working on it while flying out to Chicago and it was the perfect project to bring along on the plane ride because it's a simple knit one, purl one rib where you do two rows in each color. The only tricky part is remembering to slip the first and last stitches purl-wise on the second row. (I still think it's odd how they will allow me take bring knitting needles -- the metal ones even!-- onto a plane and past security, yet we still can't bring water on board.)

It's my "do at work during my lunch break project", so I don't bring it home (I have the hubby's sweater to work on at home ... yes, that will take a long time) and as a result, I usually only get in about 4 rows each time I sit down to work on it. Needless to say, it's slowly coming together but I intend to give it to someone (won't say who here even though I know he doesn't read my blog) for Christmas so I have plenty of time to complete it.

The striping is very subtle and at first I was quite disappointed, but over time I have started to really like the coloring. I hope the person I am making it for likes it, which is most important, and I think the colors are masculine enough.

Stay tuned. Hopefully I can get this one complete before the summer ends!

feelin' crafty

What do you buy a young lady who is turning 7? (Note: I'm posting this now that I know Rachel has seen my blog on her birthday and I'm assuming that she won't see it again before tomorrow when we give her her birthday gift. Crossing my fingers here, peeps.) I guess the better question that I always struggle with when it comes to kids' birthday gifts is what should we give to them that is not a toy or clothes? I like to aim for useful things, or things that are functional yet fun.

I bought Rachel a bunch of stickers while I was at a store one day, so I came up with the idea of making her this sticker book so that she'd actually have some place to stick them to. You know, some place other than on our body parts, the refrigerator, or in a random coloring book. I used an 8" circle chipboard album (by 7 Gypsies I think) that I picked up at Right at Home Scrapbooking a while ago, then covered each side with colorful paper. It came on the silver ring so I tied some pretty ribbon on it and added some shiny rhinestone stickers. Voila! A sticker book hopefully worthy of stickers.

Also in prep for our trip out to Williamstown for the weekend, I decided to stick with the brown paper that the framed photo we were giving to Tony's parents came in instead of fishing around for something else to use. So I whipped out my Fontwerks clear "George Outline" stamps and stamped directly onto the package. I like how it turned out - very simple, plain, and to the point.

And lastly, I had put together a baby card for our friends Jen and Brian before I went to meet their new addition, Adam, last week. I really like how the design turned out so I made a more generic version (the one I gave them had an "a" on it) using an "It's a boy" stamp.

The cover reveals the top half of the inside of the card.

girls night out

Renee, Liz, Amy, Kathy, and I went to the Girls Night Out event at the Paper Source in Porter Square on Thursday night. It was a sold-out event and I think there were about 25 people there altogether. The cost of the workshop was $25 and during the 2+ hours we were there, we made three different craft projects while enjoying some wine and snacks.

At the first station, we made a travel portfolio out of two 5"x7" envelopes and some of their large circle stickers. At the second station, we made collage postcards which were scanned and then printed out for us later. We got five of our own images, so the five of us swapped with each other and went home with five different designs. At the third station, we used rubber stamps and clear embossing powder to decorate our own tote bags.

On top of the craft projects, we also received a 10% off coupon for our purchases that evening. There was a raffle drawing and I won a stationery set. It was a fun time and neat way to spend time with the girls. We also saw Stephanie, Tara, and Katie there so it was like we made up half the party. :) After we registered for the class, each of us received a confirmation paper invitation in the mail. All the little details - like the personalized plastic wine cups - were just so sweet and cute. I can totally see why this event sells out each time they do it!