Surprise!

I just turned 40.  Hard to believe but also pretty exciting.  I always thought I'd have life totally figured out by 40, apparently not.

What I did learn, though, is that I have an amazing husband and awesome friends and family.   My husband began planning my party back in January and he worked hard to make sure no circle of friends was left out.   I was BLOWN AWAY by the number of people who helped with the plan, or came to the party.

Here's the AWESOME invite he made... This. Man. Gets. Me.

I could never thank everyone enough for coming, but I want to show my appreciation!  That means it's time to get crafty.

I know there are amazing examples of beautifully detailed cards out there...  Just look at the detail in the card my friend Karyn made for me:

She is so talented!

My cards were a little more simple, It's the only way I could roll because I wanted to get a bunch made in a short period of time so I don't have a HUGE crafty mess around all the time :)

I'd really love to be the type of girl who gets birthday cards, thinking of you notes and the like out for occasions.  So far, I appear to NOT be that girl.  I'm thinking THIS is my year (although I've said the same thing to my elliptical machine in the basement ;)

Hopefully these little cuties will get me motivated...

These are Essentials No. 9's paper flower embellishments attached with brads.  I used two flowers on each flower.

For these, I used my circle punch and attached some super cute stickers - I believe they were K and Company brand.

Ok, I am not a Close To My Heart consultant, but I am in a CTMH club, so I use a lot of their products...

This is Martha Stewart's Custom Stamp Setting Kit used with CTMH Garden Green and Hollyhock Inks.  Love the quality of these inks and know I'll be able to use this simple card for many occasions.

To make these cards, I found some really cute paper tape at Hobby Lobby and used my CTMH Bohemian alphabet stamps.  Love that font!

Oh, here's a better shot!

For this card I used my mini daubers and all the inks from my Garden set, then stamped the letters with the same colors.  I used some Liquid Glass to up the shine on the word "you".

I adore these circles, you'll see I used this concept a bunch... same garden inks... CTMH Connections Stamps...

ooohhhhh!  My Martha Stewart set also allowed me to make this adorable return address stamp!  I could not stop looking at it, and may have pet it a little.

This one was my husband's favorite...It's a glitter sticker border - I got it at a great scrapbook store north of here, but tossed the spool before checking out the brand.  I love the little blink by "thanks".

I adore the cakes in this CTMH Piece of Cake set.  I stamped the image in black and use my brush tip markers to fill them in... I made a TON of these, but here are a couple of pics:

oops, blurry, but such a cute stamp!

I have a LOT of boys in my family, so I needed some boy-ish cards  I used the same concept as the circle cards above with the addition of the birthday stamp

I love the blue and grey and ADORE the yellow and grey combination.

I made some more generic cards the same way...

Only a touch of bling was needed for these simple cards.

We all appreciate cards, even more in our digital age. Now I've got to sit down and try to express my heart in words.   My address labels, on the other hand are mostly done ( I put my addresses into a MS Access document and can now print them to my heart's desire!  Woo Hoo!)

Hope your day is an awesome one - full of surprises (You just have to know where to look :)