Amy's Birthday 2006

Well, we celebrated Amy's 14th birthday in grand style this weekend. There was cake and presents and hamsters and all sorts of stuff. Here's Amy, blowing out the candles on her cake (don't pay attention to the boxes all over, as we were in the middle of setting up the Christmas tree and decorating):



Naturally, I made a card for her. She loves the Bananaphone song that's been making the rounds of the internet, so I went to the website and did a couple of ctrl + print screens and printed them out at work. I cut them out and put it all in a card, as seen below:





While I was making Christmas cards last weekend, Amy made a Christmas card of her own and I thought I'd share it here. She drew the tree freehand, picked out the paper at the store and put it all together:



I did mention hamsters.... we decided to get Kitty a hamster for Christmas. We thought she'd enjoy watching it, but she seems to be more scared of it than anything else. Maybe she'll get used to it. Anyway, the hamster's here and she's really cute. There's an ongoing fight over her name. I suggested Nutmeg and everyone thought it was fine (the inside joke there is that when I asked what kind of Christmas cookies everyone wanted, Onil yelled "NUTMEG!"), but then Onil and Anna saw the Omen 2 and wanted to name her Bugenhagen. So we have me and Amy calling the hamster Nutmeg and Onil and Anna calling her Bugenhagen. I figure if I stick to my guns and keep calling her Nutmeg it will stick. Here's a picture of Nutmeg in her cage, and of Anna helping to set the cage up:

The Intrepid Is on the Move!

I know this is really a card blog, but I'm so excited about these pictures that I just can't resist posting a few here. The Intrepid, after being entrenched in the mud of the Hudson River for decades, is finally on her way to a makeover in New Jersey. They tried to move her a month or so ago and they weren't able to budge her. After several weeks of having 40 cubic tons of mud dug out around her, she was finally ready to go. I took these pictures from the window of my department which overlooks the Hudson, and the final two pictures were taken from my office window.

2006 Christmas Card

Finally, I'm posting our Christmas card. This one was labor-intensive; I'm not sure why. There really wasn't all that much to it and I only made 15 cards. I had a really hard time coming up with this design, though, so maybe that's why it feels like it took forever.

I put a pocket on the front of the card and inserted a tag with our picture on it. I really hate having my picture taken, but a digital camera with a delete button that is under my control is a wonderful thing, my friends. Here's the front of the card with the tag:



Here's the front of the card without the tag:



Here's the tag:



And here's the inside of the card:

No New Updates :o(

Gosh, it has just been way too long since I've updated here. I haven't forgotten about it, really -- I've just been too busy to make cards or scrapbook pages. I've been in the process of painting our salt & pepper shaker cabinet and man, is it a bear. It's this old hutch that must have been painted with auto paint because the stuff is just not coming off. So I scratched it all up as best I could and have been painting Killz over top of it (after first using an acrylic primer, which turned out just as well as you're thinking). I'm in the finishing-the-Killz stage right now and eventually will paint it with a red outside, white inside. It's going to look boss awesome when it's done, but it's just taking a whole lot longer than I thought it would.

There have also been a million minor things going on as well -- a child's birthday party, movies, financial juggling, cleaning -- that have really put a hurting on my card-making time. Every weekend I say I'm going to make some cards and I never get around to it. No putting it off this weekend, though. It's Christmas card season, and I've got to get on the stick.

So, apologies for not updating more often. I'll have some new cards soon, and after the holidays I'll have more time to stay in and get some stuff done.

Taking a Break from the Card Action....

To bring you this exciting news! My goldfish plant that I entered in the Manheim Farm Show won first place in its category! I'm elated! Here's a picture of my little prize-winner:



Also, just for fun, here are a couple of pictures of Amy and Onil hamming it up. First up we have Amy gazing at a plateful of lima beans:



Also, Amy giving the thumbs up to Spider-Man:



Finally, we have Onil being a grumpy lamb:

Old Cards, New Post

I found these cards when I was getting something out of my overhead bin at work and thought I'd throw them up here. I like the goose card, not so much the other card.

Dad's Birthday

My dad's birthday is this coming Monday, so I made a card for him this past weekend. I hope he doesn't get offended at the "Aged to Perfection" sticker! I started with the envelope, which I bought at Kate's Paperie in Manhattan. It's a big card and opens where the gold fibers are. I drew a pear template on chipboard and cut it out, then traced it twice on light green paper. I then smudged yellow, green and brown inks on the pears and drew detail with a black pen. I took the same template and traced it on cardboard to use as a stencil on the envelope, and I used the same yellow, green and brown inks.

Birthday, Valentine, Thanks & General

I made two cards this weekend. This first card is a take on a card I saw in Card Maker magazine. It was a Happy Hannukah card but I liked the shape and made it into a birthday card. Both Amy and Onil asked why I made a tombstone card. Not what I had in mind. And not at all what you want for a birthday card. So I probably won't be making this kind of card again. I guess I'll save it to send to someone I don't really like very much.



I also made this card just for kicks. I've actually had it in my head for a little while and have just gotten around to making the card.



The next two cards are cards that I made a while ago and found over the weekend while doing some cleaning. The first one is a Valentine that I made back in February:



And this is a card I made a few months ago. The "Tank You" sticker really says Thank You but I cut the h out.

Post-It Note Holders

This one's Onil's; I have to finish Amy's and Anna's this weekend. When I do I'll publish them here.

Tags

Gaby's first day of school ever was last week! To celebrate, I made some tags for her bookbag and lunchbox. We have these laminating tags just lying in a drawer here at work. They've been there for about three years and no one has ever used them, so I made up a couple of business card-sized ID tags and laminated them and attached ribbons and fibers to them. This is the first tag:






Here is the second tag I made for her:

Other Cards

This card was made for my niece's baby shower. The baby was a premie and already born by the time the shower rolled around, but we knew he was going to be a boy anyway.



This next card is for a very sad occasion. I made it for a co-worker whose wife was expecting. They went into the hospital and the baby died in birth. The inside of the card says, "May the hope that comes with trusting in God comfort you during this time of sorrow." (My co-worker is also a pastor.) I set the verse in lavender ink and used a photo that my husband took of some lavender in the Lititz Springs Park. I printed the photo out on white linen card stock and adhered the verse (after blocking it) with foam-mount tape.



The following cards are just a couple of cards made for no particular reason.

Birthday Cards

I'm posting whatever cards I have done now. In later posts I'll update when I've made new cards.

I made this card for Anna's birthday:



This is a birthday card for my husband's former boss and his family (they all have birthdays at the end of August so we knocked them all out with one stone -- not literally). I actually stole this idea from a card in the craft store. It's all made with stickers. I stuck the roller coaster on a separate piece of black card stock and adhered it to the front of the card with foam-mount tape.



The next two cards aren't for anyone's birthday in particular. I just made them to have on hand.

Scrapbook Pages of Gabriella Thus Far

Here are two layouts I did of my niece, Gaby.

Scrapbook Pages of Amy & Anna Thus Far

Here are pages of Amy and Anna, my two daughters. Also thrown in for good measure is my husband, Onil.

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Hi. Welcome to my card/scrapbook blog. My name is Faith and I've been making cards for several years now. I started with rubber stamps but felt limited by them, so now I just use whatever when I want to make a new card. I'll post my updates.

My first love is cards, but I've also tried scrapbooking. I've never done a layout that's gone in a photo album. The main reason I scrapbook is for displaying photos in some way other than just a boring picture frame. I like to attach magnets to the back and stick them on the fridge or on my filing cabinet at work.

The name Cooties Cards comes from this rubber stamp put out by All Night Media. I bought this stamp very early on in my stamping career, when I wasn't so discriminating about the stamps I bought. Had I seen this stamp later on I would have thought, Oh, that's cute, and moved on because really... what can you do with it? But at the time I only had a few stamps so I bought it because I thought it was cute. I wound up using it as a signature stamp because I couldn't think of anything else to do with it. I eventually stopped using it as my signature but I kept the name, Cooties Cards.

I do sell my cards on occasion; if you're interested, drop me a line.