January 2013 Card Swap

It is hard for me to believe that we are headed into our 3rd year of our monthly card swaps.  We’ve seen some people leave (sad) and welcomed new friends in (yay) and I am still loving it.  I’ve got a wonderful stock of cards that I am being good and actually using and they’re all always adorable.  I get a guaranteed at least one night a month to just hang out with my friends and have fun.

We changed the rules this year a little bit.  We decided to include tags, bags, boxes, and more to our cards to help keep everyone on their toes and getting to do new things they might be wanting to try.  We also decided to not set a theme for every month.  We know that we want to have 4 months with a theme (Christmas, Thank You, Child Birthday, and Adult Birthday) because those are the cards we all always find ourselves needing but other than those months we can do whatever we want.  I am excited to see what everyone comes up with this year.

Our wonderful friend Nikki hosted the first swap of the year for us and I feel like I am not doing her justice because I didn’t take any pictures of the adorable treats she had set up for us.  Few people I know can put together such cuteness (especially on such short notice because she wasn’t initially scheduled to host 1st).  Her house is also amazing and makes me wish for at least a few more bedrooms in mine.

So, are you excited to see what everyone did this month?  Here we go……..

We’ll start with Nikki since she hosted for us.

She made this adorable little pillow box and then decorated it with natural colors.  I love kraft, burlap, beads, and neutrals.  The little “for you” tag is dressed up with a sweet little heart punch to attach it.  I also love how even though it has a flower, heart, and beads on it I wouldn’t be at all concerned about giving it to a guy.  She’s got talent for sure!  

Next up we have Kelly.

She made this sweet pink (well, mine is pink, there were other colors to pick from) Happy Birthday card.  I can sure tell she’s loving her new silhouette machine.  I can’t wait to see what other cards she creates with it.  I am glad for pink, we are never lacking in girl parties around here.

Amanda sure never disappoints.

As her her little I love you card wasn’t cute enough from the outside.

It’s even cuter when you open it up and I love you pops right up to see you.

She cut the pop-out part out by hand for all 12 of us.  She’s a pretty dedicated friend.

Kristin’s cards always kill me.  I always seem to love her color combinations and they’re always one of my favorites.

Of course she didn’t disappoint me.  She also used a silhouette to cut out all her scallop shapes and her cute Happy Birthday lettering.  The bright green tiny clothes pin is my favorite I think.

What’s also great is that she made sure we could really use the card for whatever we needed.

Here I just flipped the Happy Birthday over, when I actually use it (if not for a birthday) I will use the center white part as a template to cut out a new piece and I can write whatever I need on it.  Brilliant!

Marianne told us that her theme for the year is going to be washi-tape.

All I have to say about that is YAY!  I love this cute little owl and I am loving all the fun prints her tape stash includes.  I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next month.

Housewife Gena heard my plea for more valentine’s that were kid friendly.

I was trying to count how many layers this beehive has on it.  I think I figured out it has 5 but if you count the white actual card we have 6.  I love it, she’s sure not going to let the silhouettes get all the points.  That lady knows how to work a cricut!

 I think Housewife Lisa always gets credit for best use of texture.

I am really not sure how she does it (because I can’t at all) but she can take just regular printed and solid papers and turn them into a work of art.  I always want to frame them and put them in my house.

Housewife Paula has accepted her love of ribbon and buttons and always puts them to good use.

She made this adorable over sized tag (also using her cricut) that can be used for any occasion   She was sweet and included an envelope for us in case we want to use it as a card as well.  I love the colors she picked and am giving her major points for using her cricut. (I think it was one of her new years resolutions!)

Since I’ve done the other housewives I’ll share mine here as well.

I shared a tutorial here on how I put the whole thing together and if you want to know how I made those cute strawberry boxes you can click here!  I sure had fun putting mine together this month.

 Next up we have Alisha.  She’s been our friend for quite a while but has only been in card swap for a short time.  She didn’t waste any time showing us how creative she is!

Her darling love card can be used for all sorts of occasions.  The music sheet paper is very 3 dimensional and then she added the final touch of perfection by blasting the whole thing with a spray glitter.  I am going to get the name of it and share it with you because it was amazing and since you put it on after the fact you can do all the gluing and printing you want to the paper without having to worry about it not working (I love the glitter paper they have but it isn’t very easy to work with).  I am pretty sure I am going to need a few cans of this awesomeness.

Next up is Michelle.  She’s new to our group.  This is only her 1st month but we are so excited to have her.  I hope she had fun because we all thought she was darling.

Her card starts off by just being adorable as it is.  I love the polkadots and the scalloped edge.  Then she upped the cute but rolling adorable different printed papers to make candles and using another printed paper to make the flame.  She tied them all up with my favorite bakers twine and added a Happy Birthday stamp for finished adorableness.  I love it.

Lastly I am going to share Angela’s card.  Sadly card swap was also on the night that Winter Storm Gandolf came through.  While we didn’t see much winter storming down here in the Salt Lake area they were getting hammered further north and there was no chance of it stopping, so she stayed home (and watched Downton Abbey) like a smart girl.  She was nice enough to send me a picture of her card though so I can still include it in this post.

She made a cute little robot Happy Birthday card..  He’s got cute accordion arms and legs and a most delicious chocolate candy body.  I am pretty sure I am going to need to give him away rather quickly or I may be tempted to gobble him up.

So there it is.  We’re back on our monthly rotation and can’t wait to share all the fun with you this year!

Have a wonderful Sunday.  We’ll be spending time still trying to get healthy.  With temperatures hanging out between a low of negative 3 and a high of 13 we’re going to be staying indoors as much as possible!

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