Thanks, Chickie!

Edit: If you are looking into purchasing Copic Sketch markers, a few places you can do your shopping are Eclectic Paperie and Ellen Hutson's online stores. Their links are under my shopping links at the left. There you will find their prices and different color sets. You can also visit the Copic website and Marianne Walker's blog to find out more about Copics (links at the left). If you go to my *Labels* links on the left, you can also click on Copics to bring up more projects I've done with the Sketch markers.

Whew, what a whirlwind the last week has been. Subbing almost every day, family in the hospital, kids with the flu, 4 basketball games yesterday, 3 basketball games today, trying to diet(3 pounds down, no time to eat), trying to stamp and blog, cleaning house for company.....and tomorrow I start off the first of 3 more sub days in a row. It's life in the fast lane and I can't wait for Thursday because I'm taking a break from it all!!

In the midst of all the chaos lately, I did find some time to stamp while Jordan was home sick. She was feeling better Friday and was getting bored, so I set her up a little stamping station beside me. I put her to work making little thank yous for our friends and family that purchased Girl Scout cookies from her. She used some AMuse tags, a Papertrey thank you sentiment, a circle punch and some ribbon to make quick work of some little thank you cards. I always think a hand written note is a nice touch, so she took extra time to write on each one. I think she did a good job, don't you?I needed some little thank yous of my own, so set out to make some cards too. I like to make smaller cards for thank yous and little notes sometimes. They come together quicker and I can mass produce them easily. I thought you might like to see my process.

Start out by cutting out the basic cards. I used one sheet of 8-1/2" x 11" Papertrey Summer Sunrise card stock, scored in half lengthwise and cut into 2-3/4" strips....enough to make 4 cards that measure 2-3/4" x 4-1/4". I cut my October Afternoon paper from a full sheet of 12" x 12" paper. The finished pieces measure 2-1/2" x 3". I also stamped 4 of Karen Lockhart's cute Buttermilk Hen image onto PTI Vintage Cream card stock.

I then added the patterned paper to the card bases and stamped the Papertrey sentiment on the bottom. (Sentiment is from the Papertrey Handwritten Notes stamp set, Dawn McVey's handwriting). I colored the hens in with Copic Sketch markers.

I punched out the hen images with a Stampin' Up! punch and backed them with pop dots, and added some PTI Aqua Mist ribbon across the card fronts. As an extra accent, I grabbed some coordinating October Afternoon patterned paper and punched some circles. I cut off a portion of the circle using my paper trimmer and then adhered to the card front. Notice how I left a portion of the circles hanging off the left edge. Simply turn the card over and trim off the excess with scissors to look like the card on the very right side.

Then it's assembly time, my favorite part. I adhered the hen images front and center and added some colorful buttons at the last minute. No time for threading them all this time, they'll have to be naked.

Here's a close up shot of the card details. These went right into my own personal stash basket. I'll use these for quick little thank you notes instead of full size cards. No need for envelopes either, I just tuck them inside customer sacks, place on a desk, etc.

Okay, I'm off to the next round of basketball games with some laundry and vacuuming in between. Later, chickies!