~Birthday Cards during Thanksgiving week

My son's girlfriend and my son-in-law have birthdays just before Thanksgiving.  I already knew what I wanted to do for my son-in-law, but the girlfriend wasn't even on the radar until my son called last week and said - "oh by the way Mom, in case you were thinking about making a card, she likes green and purple and tigers - and just nature in general".  hmmmmm - ok.   The green and the purple were easy.  Now how to incorporate a tiger into all that???  Winnie the Pooh to the rescue!  I started with a 4 x 6 card base and then made another layer out of lime green cardstock for on top at 3.5 x 5.5   I cut an oval into the center.  I cut a second piece of the same size from pattern paper and snipped off the top half and added to the green piece.  I zig zag stitched the seams.  I printed the sentiment on my Explore and embossed a couple of butterflies.  I lifted this layer from the purple (embossed) layer with foam squares.  Then I cut Tigger at 4" and lifted him above the top layer with foam dots.  They'll be here for Thanksgiving this year, so I really hope she likes it!

My son-in-law likes trains, so his card was a no-brainer.  After an unsuccessful search through the cricut carts for a suitable train, I turned to google and found this wonderful blog with digi stamps.  
Vintage Digi Stamps.  I think this vintage train is just awesome.  I did apply some filters in Photoshop before printing.  The card came together really quickly.  It is also a 6 x 4 base with a navy blue and coordinating pattern paper mat.  He really liked it.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Calling Card (ATC) Mini Album

When I got back from Mania 2014 in September, I stuffed all of the calling cards
I received into a ziploc bag so I wouldn't lose any.  I decided that I really needed a
way to showcase them and have them easily accessible so I could pull them out
and look at them.  They are AMAZING little pieces of artwork!  Anyway, I started
with a vertical paper bag mini album (you can find a tutorial starting here at My Sisters Scrapper).
I went with a Halloween themed mini since Mania was Fall/Halloween themed.  I think
that made it come together much more quickly and ALSO put a BIG dent into my
Halloween paper stash.  Double bonus!

Then I designed both a vertical and horizontal waterfall to hold four ATCs each that
I placed on the OUTSIDE pages.  The INSIDE pages were reserved for the flat stuff
like pictures.  There are also some non 3x3 goodies I got and I put those on the oversized
tags that fit into the paper bags.  I even saved my place setting and Name badge!  I did
learn one lesson though.  Next time, instead of making the pages 3/8" apart, go with 5/8"
for calling cards.  Some of those little buggers have alot of dimension!  This book is stuffed!

So without further ado, here are all the pics.  And now maybe I can figure out what to do
with my 2012 Mania calling cards????