Birthday Thanks to My Friends

This year I celebrated one of my milestone birthdays at an outing with some of my friends.  We gathered together for the day and went to Olana, a historical home in Hudson set up on a hill along the river.  We toured the home and grounds and had great day together.  If you live near the Hudson River valley and haven't been there yet, you're in for a treat.  We had a great time!

For the Thank You cards, I took out an old set and mixed it with some new things.  I've been a SU demonstrator for 18 years and I have a LOT of stamp sets.  Bur surprisingly, I don't have a lot with women as friends in them.  

I paired this old stamp with some new Hand Penned papers and added the saying, "Life is better with a friend like you."  Seriously, I love how they came out.  

When I made the cards, I only had some scraps of the Hand Penned designer paper leftover from my class.  So I had to use a secondary color scheme to make all of the my cards with.  This time I added some Peach Parfait cardstock instead of Fresh Freesia to complete the cards.  I used the Hand Penned cards and envelopes for the base of the cards.  

I loved using this old set and making it into something "modern."  

Here I am with some of my friends along one of the the trails at Olana.  What a perfect day to celebrate my birthday!

 

 

More Hand Penned

This card was made using the Hand Penned Memories and More cards & envelopes. They corrdinate so nicely with the Hand Penned suite.  I used the Curvy dies to cut the designer paper and then stamped a flower to add to the card.  I used a Stampin Blend marker to add some highlights to the flowers.  This made them stand out more.  The sentiment is stamped in black ink.

I will have to say that I thought the 6" card length was a weird length, so I cut 1/2" off of the side to make the card a standard 5 1/2" x 4 1/4."  They still fit into the envelope with a little extra room.  Have you used the Memories and More card fronts?  Did you think the size was just a bit too large?

The card idea is from Nicole Stalker.  

Up next is a pretty purple card using the Hand Penned.  I found the idea to use a vase from LeAnn Pugliese.  I cut out a vase shape from silver cardstock and embossed it using the Tasteful Textile folder.  Don't you think it adds so much to the card?

I never used to like making cards with purple, but since we've added the Highland Heather to our cardstock choices, I think I really like the purples now.  I used the background stamp from the Very Versailles set for the right side of the card and added the pretty cardstock to the left side.  

I stamped the flower image and a couple of other smaller flowers for the background.  I think this is my favorite Hand Penned card so far.  For the first card, the edging is cut with the strip in Penned Flowers and in the second card, I used the Scalloped Contours edge.  Which one do you like better?