More stamping creations

June and July are busy months and have needed lots of cards!  My dear friend BA has a birthday coming up next week so I pulled out the stamps again and got to work.  Once again I grabbed my Taylored Expressions paper and Stampin’ Up stamps.  They compliment each other so well!  I played with the idea of using my background paper at a diagonal.  To keep with the diagonal I used a leftover piece of paper to add a little something to the inside. 

BA had come to a stamp camp I did a few months ago where we made 2 cards and 2 non-card items.  One of those non-card items was a bookmark.  She mentioned that she had lost her bookmark and wanted to make another one so I made her a new one.  Inside of using a magnet on this one I used the 5 petal flower punch to make it more like the bookmarks from the store.  I used to love looking through all the different bookmarks at the book fair at school each year.  I would think about the pages that it would mark for me and how I would treasure the opportunity to remove that bookmark and pick my book back up again.  Too bad that I now use a post-it note, magazine ad, or whatever I can grab to keep my place in a book I’m reading! 

To make sure the flowers stayed on, I hot glued them on each side of the ribbon and then added a button to add a little color.  By using a flower on each side it makes the flowers very strong!  This would also be cute with felt flowers!

Last week Taylor finished up swim lessons and I wanted to do something for her two swim instructors since they endured a few days of her whininess and really helped her become more comfortable with swimming.  I figured that any high school/college age kid would enjoy an iTunes gift card, so I need a cute card.  I found these instructions on how to make a gift card holder.  It is super easy and there is even a video to show you how to do it.  I have always loved this fishy stamp set and was excited to pull it out and use it again.  My attempt at the top of the holder looking like bubbles ended up more like snow, but oh well.

Here’s the inside once you open it up.

Then I needed a card for a friend that’s having a hard time finding a job.  I love this monkey, but not sure I will cut him out like this again.  That tail is quite a challenge!(but I love the way it turned out!)

Question for my blog readers:  Is the font too small or the pictures too big?  I’ve started using Live Writer to create my posts(WAY easier to format the pictures and writing), but it seems to make the font look tiny and the pictures huge.  Hopefully nap time will be a good one today so I can clean house and have time to ink some stamps!

I also can’t wait for Big Brother tonight!! Anyone else a fan of this crazy addictive show?  Chris swears he is not going to get sucked into watching it with me again this year, but I know he can’t resist it!