Dad...My Guide, My Compass

Hey there! Thanks for joining us for our second reveal of our 2011 Father's Day card designs. When designing our line, we gave serious thought to what we wanted each card design to represent. We wanted each of them to be more than just a card that goes in a drawer. We wanted each one to speak to its recipient and convey a special message from each cardgiver.

Today's card speaks to the stalwart. Not only is this dad dependable and steadfast but he is an ever-present compass and moral guide on his child's journey of life. We felt like the Viva la Verve sketch from Week 3 really reinforced this simple yet effective message. We took a few liberties with the sketch, but if you study the card, you will see that each element is firmly in place - just not in the form that you may have expected. Simple but oh-so effective! Wouldn't you say? The color scheme is one of our tried and true masculine favorites. What better way to reinforce dependable and steadfast than with a favorite color scheme? I love the effect of the white craft ink on the chocolate - aged, worn, like dad's favorite shirt.

What do you think? Have we achieved what we set out to convey in our design?

Thanks for stopping by!

Steadfast and True...Dad

Well, yesterday's little soap elicited some responses from you, dear readers. And honestly, I'm quite glad for that. Sometimes one wonders if there's any validity to the ideas that go floating across the ol' noggin. So it's nice to get some commentary.

As I mentioned, when Whitney and I designed this year's line of Father's Day cards, we really gave each some serious thought. We wanted them to speak, not only to the cardgiver, but also to each intended recipient.

Today's card design speaks to all of those dads we see as the mighty oaks of the family. They are steadfast, true, strong, an ever-present shelter in both fair and foul weather. This week's Color Splash Challenge over at The Playdate Cafe was absolutely perfect for this card, particularly since we were able to use a neutral, like kraft. The splash of green is perfect for our sheltering tree. The sketch is straight from Saturday's Sweet Stop Sketch. Turn it on its side and *voila* the perfect design!

Thanks for dropping by today. We hope that you've enjoyed the second of three Father's Day card designs!

Faithful, Dependable, Comfortable ... Dad

Hey, everyone! Are you enjoying your holiday weekend? I heard an interesting observation about Memorial Day that really made me stop and think. So often we take the true meaning of the holiday for granted and merely view it as a means to a long weekend when instead we should be both remembering and celebrating those who have believed that "some things really are worth fighting for." So thank you to the fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles, cousins, and friends who have believed and still believe that this great nation and its ideals are worth fighting for!

Oddly enough, this same notion made me reflect upon Father's Day. I know you may be thinking: Susan, you've rocked OUT of your rocker! But follow me for a second. So often we become desensitized to the meaning behind a holiday and merely focus on the celebration itself. Don't get me wrong, celebrating is important. But I think that consumerism has led us away from true intent. So in designing our Father's Day cards, we asked ourselves: what does Father's Day really mean; what messages do we want our cards to convey?

Today's card is for those fathers who we view as great protectors with soft hearts and comfy hugs. They're much like their favorite chair - faithful, dependable, trustworthy, comfortable, comforting, safe. That's why we chose a stamp from On My Couch (Papertrey Ink) as our focal image. It truly wrapped up this message in one convenient package. Our masculine color scheme and eye-catching addition of text is from this week's Embellish Color Trends Challenge. I really loved how the soft color palette reinforced the feelings of calm, comfort, and serenity that so many of us think of when describing our dads. The CAS layout is straight from the Viva La Verve Sketch May Week 1. The sketch was ideal in its simplicity, which really allows the image and imagery to take center stage.

When all was said and done, both Whitney and I stood back and gave ourselves big ol' pats on the back for how well this design was formed and executed. I'd like to tell you it's my favorite design of all of our 2011 Father's Day card designs, but let me tell you, when you see some of the others, you'll see why I'm not so quick to commit! But this one ranks right at the top for sure!

Thanks for dropping in today - I hope my little step up on the holiday soap box doesn't scare you away from the other terrific designs we have to share with you!

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A big THANK YOU to Paige for choosing this card as 1 of 26 featured in the Create: Blog! Father's Day Challenge. If you've come here from the Create: Blog, welcome! And thanks for stopping by.

CONGRATS!

Hello All,

It is about that time in the year, when graduates are making their way through finals, papers, and across the stage. What better way to tell them what a magnificent or amazing job they did (whether expected or not) than a fun and cheery Congratulations card! I know when I graduated, it was super exciting to see how many people were truly excited and congratulatory about my hard work and success. It really makes you feel appreciated after all those late nights in the library. So with that as my inspiration, I threw together the idea of STARS! and I love the simplicity of this card. It is definitely CAS with Kraft as a beautiful and complimentary backdrop to my bright and bold stars, and add a simple sentiment...TA-DA! I was stoked to decide that I would pop up the stars on 3, you heard it...3 different levels. It really gives it good dimension in real life, even though it is not SOO dramatic in the picture! I promise, it looks awesome! This worked out perfectly for the Pop It Up! challenge over at Paper Sundaes. It is my new favorite card, which I say often, but still!

Thanks for stopping by! May your stamps stay inky!!

Special Delivery

Hello, ladies! (And my apologies if we have any gents. Hello to you, too! *waving*) And happy Tuesday to everyone. Having been out of the swing of things for so long, I'm feeling a little rusty but am SO loving be back in the craft room and back in good graces with my card-making mojo!

Today, I'm sharing the second card that I made last night. This card will complete our custom order for a 21-card variety pack for our customer's grandmother. So without further adieu, let's get to it.

To finish out the pack, I needed a baby card design. Whitney did a fantastic job of keeping all of the baby designs fairly gender-neutral. And my choice of color scheme (a la this week's CR84FN Color Challenge 29) kind-of teeters on the edge. I really liked this week's Mojo Monday Sketch 192, and so that is the inspiration behind the layout.

I had great fun sorting through our stash of patterned papers for this design. To me, the sketch really allowed for larger patterns. I was thrilled to find two very fun patterns in the stash. I mean, who doesn't love cheetah print? *grin* And the large polka dot worked perfectly to give the eye a rest from all of that wild cheetah print and it also made a perfect grounding for the sentiment.

You'll notice I adapted the sketch in several ways. Since our aim for this custom order was to keep all of the designs light enough to mail with a standard first-class postage stamp, I opted to eliminate the bottom layer (shown in black) of matting beneath the patterned paper. Instead, I cut the patterned paper just a wee bit smaller than the kraft background I was using and allowed that to peek from behind and serve as my mat. Secondly, in lieu of the ribbon in the center, I opted to use a larger sentiment stamp as the center element and matted it in a plum color just a shade darker than the plum I stamped the sentiment on to give it just enough dimension to be the all-important focal point. I loved the scallop circle element in the sketch and chose to keep it by punching my own scalloped circle from a sheet of cork. I was so excited to finally have the opportunity to use cork on a card! I added a threaded button in the center and popped it all up to give the allusion of a flower. You'll notice that I did not completely eliminate the tag element from the sketch. Instead, I left long tails on the threading, allowing the bottom tail to drape across the sentiment panel.

When all was said and done, I was elated with the finished result. I must admit that I doubted myself just a wee bit on my combination of patterns. But as I suspected when I got started, the sketch was the key to making them all work together in harmony! I hope you agree!

Thanks for visiting today - have a great day!

Congrats, You're a Star

Hey, everyone! Thanks for stopping in this evening. It's shaped up to be a beautiful day here, which made it kinda hard to come home and go to "work" again. *grin* But I'm glad I did b/c I'm pleased as punch with the two cards I made tonight.

While on vacation, I left Whitney with the lion's share of the work on a custom order that I took before I left. The customer is looking for a wide variety of cards to give to her grandmother as a birthday gift - a total of 21 cards in all! Since our variety packs have been our biggest sellers (by the pack anyway), it actually turned out to be a great opportunity to develop more designs. I must say that Whitney did an AWESOME job while I was gone and made some really, really FANTASTIC cards - 19 in all!

So tonight, I'm sharing with you one of two that I am contributing to the pack: a congratulations design. Since we haven't had much time to participate in many challenges lately, I thought it would be a terrific opportunity to go searching for one or two for inspiration for this design. And I had no trouble finding a few to spur the creative juices.

I began with the layout, where I turned to this week's Sweet Stop Saturday Sketch 109 (w/ a spin!). The simple design made it easy to have the sentiment take center stage. Next, I needed a color scheme, and when I saw this week's Embellish Color Trends Tag Challenge, I knew that it would be absolutely perfect for what I had in mind.

With both sketch and color scheme firmly in hand, I set about trying to figure out how to make it all work. For me, the hardest part was figuring out how to make the pale, dusty pink work with such an overall masculine color scheme. And that's when it hit me: make it a small accent color. And *voila* that also solved the dilemma of how to make the center tag w/ its cute star punchout not disappear into the background. Two birds, one stone - me likey!

The other elements just fell into place. I knew I wanted the darkest color to serve as the backdrop for the whole design. And I liked the lighter blue as just the *pop* of color in the center. To draw one's eye to the focal panel, I chose to pop it up. Getting those lovely little tags to line up was no easy fete, but I managed to make it work ... somehow. (Now I know why I generally only use one of those at a time!) HINT: it never hurts to use a pop dot or two if you want tags to both pop out & stay put! When I was all finished, I felt like the card was still missing a little something. So I lightly misted it with GlimmerMist. Perfecto!

You wanna hear a funny confession?? I didn't even see "the spin" on the sketch until after I was composing this post! Awesome how it accidentally I totally intended to make it a masculine card and that it just so happened to give me the "spin" I needed! *snicker*

Thanks for stopping in this evening. Drop back in tomorrow for my second card!

Anniversary Bling!

Happy Sunday Morning to Everyone!

It is still overcast here in North Texas, but that doesn't darken my mood at all! It has been a great week, AND I get to start a new job tomorrow! I am sooo excited. I am also excited to share with you a sweet anniversary card I made this week. With CAS-ual Friday's challenge being Bring on the Bling, AND Simon Say's Stamp - Sparkle and Shine, I took it to heart and added bling to almost all the cards I made. It really does jazz things up! And I decided to try and incorporate "blingy-ness" in ways other than purely gems, and on this card, I decided to heat emboss the image and sentiment in silver. I think silver is such a nice formal color and I like how it turned out on the gray paper. Romantic and sophisticated all in one. Of course I added some real bling with my gem, and I think the simplicity of the card really works. I also love doing tone on tone cards and I don't have too many chances to use my fancy 3 in 1 corner punch from fiskars. I then popped up the tone on tone panel so you could see the shadows through the cute corners! I love it! This is a perfect way to use Paper Sundaes Pop It Up challenge! So this card is using many new techniques and styles that I haven't used recently, and I am loving it! Simple and muted but elegant and sweet at the same time.

Hope you like it! Have a happy Sunday!!

Graduation is just WEEKS away!

Howdy, everyone! I've returned from my vacation in the Bahamas and am ready to get back to work. But with laundry to be done and details to take care of for a party tomorrow, crafty work for me will have to wait until Monday. =( BUT ... I'm coming to you today with an important reminder!


Do you know a graduate? Do you still need to send a card and/or gift? Let High Notes Ink customize a card just for your graduate. We offer both a traditional card and a money envelope - both of which are completely customizable to your graduate's school and school colors!

Our traditional card can double as a gift card / money holder. See the black panel underneath "Wishing you ..." on the right-hand photo? It's actually a pocket - perfect for sliding in a little green!

Our money mailer is perfect for a gift card or check. And we've even included a panel on the back of the envelope perfect for a personal message to your grad!

With graduation just around the corner, don't delay in ordering if you want guaranteed delivery before the big day! Each card is just $5 plus shipping. To place an order for your graduation card, simply send us an email at highnotesink (at) gmail (dot) com. Please specify which school your grad hails from, graduation date (if known), along with any other personalized details you wish to add to your card.

Thanks!

Good Morning Ladies!

It is quite overcast here in North Texas today, which made it the perfect day to sleep in...til 9! Wow! I feel so rested. I thought I would post a quick post before we head out the door to take the dogs on a walk, and I wanted to bring you this SUPER CUTE Thank You card I made yesterday! As you know, (and I always say), I LOVE Lawn Fawn! Their stamps just float my boat! So, I decided to work my water color pencil magic on this little baby... I, unlike many people, am a SUPER FAN of white space. Whenever those challenges arise, I am so excited. I feel like for me, less is more most of the time, and I think that this is a perfect example of that! It is such a charming scene and would also work insanely well for a Miss You card (I just didn't need a Miss You in this particular pack). Well, just wanted share with you all! Thank you so much for stopping by!!

Happy Friday!

Hello All,
I hope you are having a wonderful day. I have spent a WEEK now buried in the craft room, and although I love it, it can get to be a little much! Although, when I look at the cards I have made over this week, I am truly proud of myself! I made a pack of 25 NEW DESIGNS for a customer, and then made 2 - 5 card duplicate packs for another customer! It has been a whirl-wind week, but WOW!! It is definitely harder when there isn't someone to bounce your ideas off...let's just say there was plenty of trial and error!

Well, without any more jibber jabber, today I bring you a super adorable get well card AND a CAS new baby card! TWO CARDS!! Oh my! This must be a good day!

First is the Get Well card. This card was inspired by Pattie's cute card here. I LOVE the bicycle, and I had a different one, but it still worked! I also knew I had to add in this super fun ribbon that goes with chevron chic challenge by Moxie Fab! I decided to bust out the water color pencils AND the brushes, and tried my hand at water coloring the flowers and little bits of the bike! I actually got pretty decent in one day, and I will post another of those fun creations later on this weekend!!

Now on to the baby card, which is also adorable and definitely CAS!! I got the sketch here from Waltzing Mouse blogspot! What a great layout, it really is perfect for so many things! I originally wanted to make it a Congratulations card with fireworks instead of flowers, but I don't have a fireworks stamp! lol. So I brainstormed a bit, and I came up with this! Added a couple gems to the sentiment and I think it is fabulous! I love monochromatic colors if you didn't notice already, and I think that the yellow is so perfects for that baby card you just need to have on hand and is not specifically for a boy or girl! It is just so sweet too!!!




Thanks for stopping by everyone!! Oh, and BOTH of these cards will be entered into CAS-ual Friday's challenge for this week, which is Bring On The Bling! I cannot tell you how many cards I added gems to TODAY! It was amazing and liberating all at the same time! Have a GREAT weekend, see you back here tomorrow!

What, Whitney? It's your birthday??

**If You are here to see the Teacher Thank You card for PES, please scroll down or go here.**

and yes it is my birthday! 

Today is my birthday, and I will be turning a whole 23 years old! Yes, you heard it, 23!! There is nothing exciting about this, but I DID get to spend all week in the craft room, and that was fun enough for me!! While I have been hiding out in here all week, I actually have gotten TONS accomplished. Today I wanna bring you another birthday card that we are using for a new assortment pack. It it great to get some new stamps all inky! It is so fun! So, without further ado, I bring you this fun and happy birthday card based on CR84FN's most recent color challenge, and also tailored expressions challenge! I love the bright and bold colors for any birthday card, and this layout worked perfectly for this party hat stamp! I added some gems on the point of each hat and it makes we smile to look at them! I hope you enjoy them as much as I do, and I would personally love to receive a cute card like this! (not to toot my own horn or anything. lol.)

Thank you all for stopping by! Check back tomorrow for more fun cards I have whipped up this week!!

Teachers...Summer is days away!!!

Good Evening Everyone!

I promised the teachers at the school where my father works, that I would post about a special offer I have going on for them. Soooo if this is your first time here, thanks for stopping by, and you are in the right place! As many of you do, knowing my father (who teaches pre-K through 2nd grade and seems to forget important things he needs until the night before [sound familiar to anyone?] hehe) is a pleasure!  Now, I being his daughter know that he is going to come to me the day before the last day of school, if not THE last day of school, and ask me for some Thank You cards he can give to the students who bring him end of the year gifts. With this in mind, I decided to send a little flyer to the school so that other teachers could be JUST as "prepared" as my dad would be! Now my dad is an enrichment teacher and has a bazillion students, but I am under the impression that most of the other teachers have much smaller classes!

So High Notes Ink is offering a GREAT deal to those teachers, which is 15 identical Thank You cards for just $15. We know how teachers are on a budget, trust me (my Dad always asks me to make the cheapest cards I can for him because he has to save up his milk money to buy them ;) teehee! ) so we thought of a way to make fun and cute school themed thank you cards, and this is what I created in the craft room yesterday! This cute but simple card reminds me a lot of elementary school. I love the serif font that the THANKS stamp is in, and I LOVE my Lawn Fawn apple. I thought it needed a little something more, so the red paper is embossed with little polka-dots (you can see better if you click on it). It really turned out great I think! The inside is blank so you can write whatever you wish, and also so if you end up with a few extras, you can use them throughout the year for other things.

Now Teachers, you have until THIS FRIDAY 5/20 to place your order by emailing us at highnotesink at gmail dot com. We will have your cards hand delivered to you ASAP and definitely before the last day of school. 




Thanks for stopping by today! You might see this card in another one of our packs sometime soon!!!

This card is made with the Lawnscaping Challenge for polka-dots and the white space challenge over at 365 Cards in mind. Thanks for the inspiration ladies!

Thank You Card number 13040606...Just Kidding!

Happy Monday everyone!

Sometimes it seems like I have made that many Thank You cards! Anyways, I am coming to you today from the craft room with a card we made a few days ago. We were so crazy in our regular lives (Susan was preparing for the CRUISE she is on this week [lucky] and I was working as usual) that we did not get it posted when we planned. We used the layout from iheart2stamp and the color scheme from last weeks CR84FN color challenge, and when I couldn't fine the right patterned paper, I decided to use the challenge at 365 Cards and just make my own. I really love flowers this time of year, they just seem to work for almost any kind of card. This one will be in our new Thank You pack and might also appear in a new Variety Pack that we are working on at the moment! Well, I will be in the craft room ALL week dreaming up new ideas! Thanks to all those lovely ladies out there who offer such inspiring challenges on their blogs! It really makes our job easier! :) Thanks for stopping by. The weather here in North Texas is to dye for. Cool in the shade, warm in the sun, and crystal blue skies as far as you can see! Pure heaven! Now it is time to get started on those teacher thank you cards everyone will be needing soon! Come back tomorrow to see what I come up with! Something CAS more than likely. ;D

Twins???

Hello All,
Wow, I have such luck that blogger went down RIGHT as I hit Publish on this very post, which it did not save or post! So I am writing it again! :) Anyways, we have a SUPER cute card for you all that was supposed to be for yesterday, but I will post it today! I love having reasons to make cards, and this is a good one. Susan's cousin is expecting TWINS! Yes I said it, TWO babies! One boy and one girl, and when I heard that, I knew I had to use this adorable Verve stamp! I had recently seen the color challenge at Inkspirations and chose to use the layout from The Sweet Stop. I had so much fun with this one because it is not as CAS as I usually make. I did some coloring with colored pencils, embossing, inking with a sponge... It was quite entailed for my kinda card!
Anyways, happy Friday to you all!

Birthday Blast

Hey, everyone! Our April showers have waited to fall in May. So I guess we'll have June flowers?! *snicker* We've gotten lots of rain over the last week or so. My grass is growing like crazy!

Today's card is the first in a new series called Birthday Boy. Up until now, I believe that we've had a great assortment of birthday cards good for all ages and sexes. But when you really get down to it, none of them were perfect for the kiddos. With the addition of a number of new stamp sets, a new line of cards is born! Over the next several weeks, you'll designs geared towards all those little girls and boys in your life.

Let's get to it, shall we? Today's card is based on this week's Mojo Monday sketch. Whitney used a super cute new stamp set we found on sale at Michael's. And I love, love, LOVE how she framed the focal image with the stars, which is our creative take on the 365 Cards Day 61 challenge to use a frame anywhere on a card. (It may not be exactly what they had in mind, but I think it totally works. *wink*) I love how the stars give the effect that the rocket is flying through space. And I love how Whitney then reinforced the journey into space theme by embossing stars in silver on the bottom panel.

One thing you may not have noticed at first glance is the rivet detail on the rocket. Just a small strip of silver beads there at the nose. That one element really shows you that you don't have to color an image to make it work. In fact, sometimes it works better to leave an image nekked (in the words of HRR Julie Ebersole). And this is certainly one of those times IMHO. All of the little details in combination with the simple, yet stunning, color scheme really makes the whole thing *pop*! We thought that the sentiment on the outside might be a little too distracting so it's inside and it reads, "I hope you have a BLAST on your birthday!"

Thanks for popping in today. I hope you've enjoyed your visit! Hop back by this afternoon for a special BONUS post.

The best form of flattery

Happy Wednesday, everyone! We've made it to the hump this week and are well on our way to the weekend. What are your plans?

While I've been at my dayjob this week, Whitney has been working away on lots of new product designs. Today, I have the pleasure of sharing with you the second card in our Difficult Anniversary pack.

When Whitney and I saw this week's TCP Tuesday (#158) color combo, we knew exactly where and how we would use it. The soft, muted colors lend themselves perfectly to a sympathy or thinking of you card. So naturally, we knew they would be perfect for the Difficult Anniversary pack. With a color scheme firmly in hand, we went on a quest for the perfect layout, so we went to our Pinterest pinboards and started browsing. (Have I mentioned Pinterest before? Oh my, this is such a wonderful site. And it's particularly handy for us. We're able to bookmark great layouts and ideas and know exactly how to get back to the posts where we first saw them. So much easier than our old system for bookmarking inspiration!) I found this wonderful card on the Hero Arts blog on one of my recent surfings.

We adapted the card design to incorporate the TCP colors and substituted images from our stash of stamps. Adaptation is the best form of flattery, no? *wink* We didn't have a flower stamp that filled up enough white space, so Whitney opted to incorporate the butterflies to fill in. I love how they seem to be flitting about on the card. I also love the text behind it on the main panel. It gives a nice elegant feel to the card and also incorporates text for the challenge over at CAS-ual Fridays, which is a perfect site for Whitney's CAS cards! Nothing sends a little cheer like butterflies flying by, don't you think?? I think this just might be one of my favorite cards from this pack!

Thanks for stopping by today. We'll have more inspiration for you tomorrow. We hope you'll come back by for a visit.

for those Difficult Anniversaries...

Hello all,

It is quite gloomy here in North Texas today. Rain is in the forecast and I am in the craft room. Susan is working today, so I thought I could get some things knocked out today and for some reason, I am moving quite slowly. It must be the weather. :) Anywho, I was able to get some things done, and now I am finally getting to posting them. It isn't that we haven't been working, but that we have yet to post anything!

We have a great new pack coming out that is geared towards difficult anniversaries. We have had a customer request something like this since they are so difficult to find on store shelves. Today I have one of my favorites of the bunch, inspired by Joan over here at her blog Paperlicious. I loved the color scheme and the simplistic look. You all know me and my CAS cards, and this is one of them!!!

This card is also great for the challenge over at 365 Cards Day 59 using Kraft and Nature.

I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do!!

Now it is time to cozy up with my pup and enjoy the dreary afternoon inside!

Thanks for stopping by!