Susan's Birthday Set

I am linking this post to:

1) Make It Monday #63!

2) http://cateredcrop.com/

I have two Quotes for today, and they are for my Sister Susan in honor of her birthday...

AND...




This was before the celebration....





And this was after....

Aren't her shoes just gorgeous!

For my Special sister, Susan

I wanted to make my sister, Susan a nice set of cards for her 60th birthday. I didn't have a lot of time (although you might argue that I have had a full year, lol). But unfortunately, I don't operate like that these days.

And lately I have been consumed by a situation that is occuring at my son's school. This is his senior year (hooray!) and he has had a rough three years prior. He mostly got in trouble for being outspoken and not turning in all of his assignments. The "outspoken" part is pretty much what "did him in", but unfortunately, he just didn't "get it"- and the school being equally, if not more culpable in their actions, reactions made for three very difficult years. But here we are, the last one. One of my favorite poems is one by Helen Steiner Rice where she talks about "And this too shall Pass away." It has, and it does. Nothing lasts forever. You do not stay in any one place forever. What has been happening at my son's school...It makes no sense to me. I went to public school and had a pretty good 4 years there. We had a great Principal, Dr. Ruth Klein. Maybe it starts there. I wanted the same for him. He had prior spent 9 years in private school, but with the end of my marriage came the end of that. I guess it was a rough transition for us both.

Anyway, that was a long explanation to tell you why I sorta "lunched" on my sisters cards. (I was super distracted?) But in the end I was quite happy with them, and she appeared to be also. She is a little harder for me to make cards for because last year she spoke the unspeakable revelation that she actually "hated" flowers on her cards! Flowers, you said?!? I was horrified! Why, flowers is my absolute specialty! lol Whatever can I put on a card for you, make it fabulous- if not flowers?!? (The same way I feel when I am challenged to make a card for a male). Thank you lovely sister for this challenge. : D

So, the reason why I say "lunched" is because I wanted to make her a small coordinating set in a matter of a few days. I have thousands of sheets of paper. How will I find the time to coordinate it all into something special for such a wonderful, supportive, caring person?

Well, lucky for me the first cube I started looking through thankfully!, thankfully!- (there are about 20 in my craft room? Yikes! In my only defense I will say they are NOT all full. I could probably condense them down to 18)- held the key to my success! A 360 sheet pack of paper called the Best of K and Company! Yes!! I found 8 sheets that would mostly coordinate and a sheet of quotes! How sweet was that? OK, you be the judge...

Once again, I am no Helen!

Now this is a link to her small purses entry on her blog,

but she is very versatile. Check her out!

However, this is the little box I came up with to hold the card set.

I made 4.75X4.75 cards. The actual birthday card was 6X6.

I decided to go with a square set to change it up a little.

(You don't have to tell me that this box looks familiar. smile

It is the only kind I know how to make with a short deadline

(and who am I kidding, for real...with or without a deadline...)

I actually had another shot of it with the card, but I loaded it 3X's and although it was the correct orientation in my folder, it kept turning sideways on the load. Does anyone know how I could correct that in the future? (If you have actually read this far? lol) I would appreciate the insight.

And while I'm at it. I haven't been able to load any cards to my SplitCoast Stamper Gallery. Each time I try to load, I get a message that tells me the files are too large (something like that). How do I make the correction on my camera so I can put some more cards in my gallery? Thanking you in advance!

The Gift Box:

The birthday card.

Inside:

The card set: "Pearls"....

"Rhinestones"...

Brown and Orange bling...

General supplies: Paper: Patterned/K & Company; Solid cardstock/The Paper Shop, Glitter paper by DCWV, Pearls by Coredinations (the box); The bling: Want to scrap and The Bridal Collection by David Tutura, Recollections by Michaels (dark flourishes and dragonfly), Making memories (gold 60); prefolded cardstock: Paperbilities and DCWV; Embellishments: Ribbon *(pink lame) JoAnne's, Butterfly by K& Co, Heart by K & Co; Stamps: Stampin Up, Computer generated inside message, Tools: wizard; Spelbinders diecuts, envelope template by The Paper Source, Gelly Roll gold marker; border punch by EK Success, my handy dandy "I don't go anywhere without them" Tim Holtz by Tonics Studios and Fiskars coated scissors for cutting glue dots and lots of score tape.

As always, thanks for checking in. If you left me a comment, thank you very much!

And until next time....

HUGS!