Here's a simple birthday card I made for my sister-in-law.  Their wedding was a dark grey and yellow theme, and she loves birds.  So I tried to carry that theme through this card.  The bird I believe is cut from the Heritage cartridge and so is the flourish.  Border punch is Martha Stewart and just added a strip of yellow to bring out the pattern.  I tried to stamp the happy birthday (from the dollar bin at Michaels), but it didn't come out all that well.  I decided to trace over it with a Sakura gelly roll silver pen and I was happier with the result.  I also included two little birdie magnets I made but sadly I forgot to take a pic before sending them! 

Topher's teammate, Jay got engaged this offseason and his fiancee flew down to Arizona to spend a couple days out here for spring training.  We were able to get together with them for dinner, so I decided to whip up a card for them to to say congratulations.  Once again I tried to be creative with my color combinations, but ultimately I wasn't all too crazy with the green, purple, pink one I settled on.  Too Barney for me.  I definitely need to work on my proportions, alignment and folding skills!!

The silhouette was cut from the Sweetheart cartridge.  Totally don't remember where the pattern paper came from.  Stamp was a dollar bin stamp and the border punch was martha stewart!

Not my finest card, but hey, I hope Jenny and Jay appreciated it.

Here's a little quick card I made for Coach Mike Roberts.  I was his athletic trainer for his team in the Cape Cod League, and he was nice gentleman who gave me the opportunity to work here at Athletes' Performance.  He also helped acquire a position for Topher to work out there for free in return for catching some pens (not a bad deal since it costs 6000 a week to work out there!!!).  So this is a little thank you card I made depicting us (Topher in his Angels uniform and me decked out like an athletic trainer!).

I used the Everyday Paperdoll cartridge for the people and the thank you was from Sweethearts I believe!

I loved making those magnets so much that I decided to make a whole garden's worth of lil' bugs! 

Most of these critters are from the Paisley cartridge but the caterpiller and cricut are from the stretch your imagination cartridge!  All I did was cut them out, stickle the antennae for some bling, and slap some magnets on the back!  Now our black fridge doesn't look so blank now, Topher loves em.

Here's the birthday card I made for Topher's mother.  This has definitely been my most "ambitious" card for my lil ol' inexperienced self.  The card has some raw edges here and there, but I'm trying!  So here's my attempt at a "window" card.  Topher's mom's favorite color is a deep purple so here we go again on trying to expand my color palette.  

The purple frame is cut from the Stretch Your Imagination Cartridge.  

  

 The inside sentiment is cut from the Jasmine cartridge.  cake is from the Stretch your Imagination cartidge.  The two little people are cut from the Everyday Paper doll Cartridge.  The two people are to depict Topher in his baseball uniform (too bad they didn't have catchers gear!  And me as a future housewife (note the barefoot nature of my doll!  A girl can dream!!).  

As a little gift I sent her little snail magnets depicting the Rosenbaum clan!

Big brown snail is Mr. Rosenbaum, the purple snail is Mrs. R, and yellow snail is Topher,

the blue snail is his lil bro Dan, and the pink snail is his girly lil sister Jacquie!  

I loved making these little magnets and probably will make more in the future!

I made this card for Topher's old teammate at the University of Tampa.  Kurt and his wifey Kami just gave birth to a little boy Kannon, so we made them a little card to congratulate them. 

The penguins are cut from the Cartridge, Joys of the Season cartridge and a Martha Stewart punch.  Paper is from a DCWV stack (kitchen something), and a solid color DCWV stack (sorry I dont' remember the names!  I broke down the stacks to arrange them by color and no longer remember which is which!).  

The inside sentiment is cut from the Sweethearts cartridge!  I loved how the lil baby penguin came out!  My favorite card yet!

  

Another thank you card for my second oldest sister to show my appreciation for my birthday surprise.  She has three children, two little girls and a little boy, and so I decided to go with a little monkey theme.  

I was really trying to make a card out of the ribbon that I had found in the dollar bin at Michaels.  The paper background is from the DCVW green earth paper stack.  The sentiment is cut from Beyond Birthdays cartridge and the monkeys are cut from the Paisley cartridge.  Note to self....tiny little cuts like those (i believe 1 1/2" inches or 2") are unbelievably hard and frustrating to do.  

I tried gluing down the ribbon with my zig 2 way pen, and it left a stain, so note to self, buy glue dots or a tape runner!

This card isn't my favorite, but it helped use up some of the mounds of patterned paper I decided to impulsively buy and stretch my "creative boundaries".