Once again, I have been remiss in keeping up here.  I have been very busy creating things out of paper since the holidays.  I got a special order for an altered book on the topic of faith and encouragement.  It was very interesting and challenging to do.  Along with that and my regular card making, I invested in a Silhoutette Cameo cutting machine and I am having a fabulous time learning how to use it.  Here are a couple of my first cuttings:

 

 

I also did some silhouettes of scottie dogs that I filled in with iris folds.  I am really going to like this tool!

One of my new Christmas cards has been a great success--I sold 9 the first day I had them.  They have over 30 parts!  But they are fun to do during a craftshow or sometime when I have time to work that does not require too much thought.  Here are 2 versions of it.:

The most difficult part is the lights--getting them to look tangled but recognizable.

I just uploaded a few journals to my shops on etsy, ebay, and artfire.  Here are some of them:

 

I make lots of themed journals or guestbooks for special occasions, special events, retirements, graduations, showers, etc.  They are especially nice for guests to give good wishes to the honoree.  You can see more journals and cards at CardsByCarlos at Etsy.com, Ebay.com or ArtFire.com.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/CardsByCarlos or http://stores.ebay.com/cardsbycarlos or http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/CardsByCarlos

I just completed greeting cards in a new design area for me:  Southwestern Influences.  Here are some examples of my new line.

You can see these cards and a hundred of my other cards on line at CardsByCarlos on EBay, Etsy, or Artfire.com

Here are a few more pictures from our Hawaii trip.

Scrapbooking with Recipes - Free Background Papers

I have been wandering about in the internet and have found some delightful sites to help with my quest of a family recipe book using scrapbooking materials and techniques. The following site has dozens of downloadable scrapbook papers free for your use. If you really like them and use a lot of them, you can make a contribution to them on their site.

I have pretty much decided to use an 8.5 x 11" format so we can all download it and put it in plastic sleeves in 3-ring binders. So these pages will be the perfect size for this format.

http://www.scrapbookscrapbook.com/recipe-scrapbook-free-sample.html

I just got back from a 2 week vacation to Hawaii.  I am really excited about the great pictures I was able to take.  I know they will look great in scrapbooks and on some newly designed greeting cards.  Here are a few of them: