Natotela

A friend of mine just graduated from nursing school.  Born and raised in Zambia, she became a U.S. citizen this last December.  At her graduation party, I knew there would be others from Zambia presenting her with gifts.  I wanted to give her something special to honor her accomplishment and heritage.

A set of "thank you" cards seemed natural enough.  But, why not incorporate the language of her home, too?  Natotela is Zambian for "thank you". 

You may also recognize another theme to this set...  Pink!  Her favorite colors are pink and red.  So, I picked out some of the best paper and color combinations and paired the pinks and reds with brown and light olive green. 

I picked out different fonts for the lettering of "natotela" and "thank you".  I used the Silhouette to merge the letters and created the offset shadows.  When it seemed appropriate, I used the same paper for the letters on different cards where the base and top sheet were also different. 

The top piece is chosen to coordinate with the base, then torn at an angle and the exposed edge inked in matching ink.

I will be using this design again.  Would be great to include other languages, too. 

Natotela sa na.  Thank you so much for looking at my site!

Hello, again!!

I have been away way too long from this blog. I had fantastic plans for last weekend - remember? - Memorial Day? - 3-day weekend? - Sure, I was home. But with a soar throat that led to sniffles! I even got a box of goodies I had ordered from Mom, and I couldn't play. :(

Well, I had overnight travel this week - 1st time in almost three months. Wow!! Checking my email, I noticed I had a sale on etsy! Cute card with an elephant. So exciting!

So, finally feeling better this weekend, I had to finish a card-making project I began a few weeks ago. I made this set of one dozen cards for a friend from work. This is an original design I created using ribbon, Quickutz, and Stampin Up products.

I bought the envelopes for the cards at Paper Source in Brookline, MA. While there, I saw an awesome chocolate brown color, so bought a set of those envelopes, too. That brown color inspired these two sets of six cards showing two different color-coordinating approaches. These are now posted on etsy.

I hope to post again soon with the result from a special request for a graduation card.

Stay well.

Bug me anytime

I was creative this weekend - woo hoo. I had made some cards months ago while traveling for work, but wasn't thrilled with the results. I fixed them up yesterday.

This first one I had used a wonderful paperclip in the shape of a speech bubble. It was too bulky, though, so I dipped into Bill's toolbox for his needlenose pliers to clip off the inside part of the embellishment. The phrase piece I recreated onto a new piece oh-so-carefully cutting it out using the Coluzzle blade.

The base of the card is Bazzil paper with an awesome textured pattern. I have used the same Bazzil paper in beige to look like pages in a book from a Quickutz die. The second layer is rounded off using Creative Memories corner rounder. (I have a new Stampin Up corner rounder on order with my mom. Can't wait to get it.) For flair, I included one final gold, swirly, vellum layer to the card before embellishing - rounding the corners again.

The "Bug me anytime" stamp is one in the same with the ladybug. The Prima flowers are centered with Candy Cane stickles. I used the Stamp-a-ma-jig for proper placement. The ladybug I colored in with the Stampin Up watercolor pencils and blender pens.

This ribbon was just too sweet to let it go, even as a remnant. I've used it in other projects, including the balloon card you can see in my first blog entry and available on etsy.

Check back tomorrow for the other fixer upper.