Friday, May 8, 2009

Floral Mother's Day Card Ideas & a Simple Vase for Flowers

What do you do when you have ten minutes until you need to be running out the door AND you need a quick card? Here's what I came up with on the fly this morning. I used a premade card and envelope, the kind you can get 25 or 50 of all together in a pack. I glue sticked on some neutral patterned paper on the front, neutral so the flowers would stand out but still patterned so it wasn't too plain looking.

I used my decorative edged scissors to make a scalloped border. I considered making some ribbon flowers but that would've taken precious seconds as I'd have needed to break out the needle and thread. So I just added three paper flowers with glue dots. The only other thing in hindsight, I might have added is some ribbon, going from the folded edge to the side of the flowers, but like I said I was in a rush!

On the inside I added a scrap of pretty floral paper so it would show where I'd cut the front. I handwrote the sentiment on the outside. If I'd had more time I'd have stamped or used one of my Sizzix die cut alphabets to "write" the sentiment. Then I quickly wrote Happy Mother's Day on the side. All done, in less than ten minutes and using supplies I already had on hand.
Last night we picked up some beautiful pink carnations, one of my Grandma's favorite flowers, to give her with the card today. Carnations are an especially nice flower to give because they last for a long time, so Grandma will have something bright and fragrant to enjoy for several days.

Now, how to transport them so they survive an hour plus long drive and keep the water from splashing all over the place? Plus Grandma's room is small and there isn't a lot of storage. She doesn't have room to keep a vase.

I read about this tip in a woman's magazine, it's an easy way to give fresh flowers. All you need is an old water bottle, cut the top off, and you have a leak proof travel vase. It travels well because it's the perfect size for your drink holder in the car. Now you can give fresh flowers, in a handy inexpensive vase, and the water won't spill all over your car! How's that for a cheap solution!
Here is another one of my first attempts at card making from when we were still living in CA. It was quick and easy because I already had the materials and the dies for my Sizzix machine, but I think it'd be easy to recreate without them.

The flowers and flower pot are all dies from Sizzix, and I used a little bit of 3-D tape to attach the pot. The leaves are hand cut. The sentiment was printed out on my computer.

My Godmother was very impressed when she got this one in the mail, and it was a snap to put together. This way I could still send them flowers, even though they were in MI and I as in CA.

There are a lot of cute foam flower stickers available at craft stores, and a package (not the gigantic boxes filled to the brim those are more) is pretty inexpensive. We used them at our Mother's Day Tea to decorate our picture frames, our package even came with little rhinestones that you could use for the flower centers instead of buttons. Using foam flower stickers would be a very quick and easy way to make a version of the card without having to invest in a die cut system and die cuts. You could cut out a simple pot shape out of construction paper.Check out some more great ideas at Keeping Up with the Schultz Family's Second Round Robin! I kind of get a kick out of seeing Amy's blog because that's my maiden name, so at one time it would've been an appropriate name for my family blog!

10 comments:

  1. I love your simple yet adorable transformation of that card!

    I'm sooo stealing this idea!

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  2. Katie, Love that you use to be a Schultz. Thanks for sharing such a great idea. I love this one. I hope you come back another time. Have a great Mother's day.

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  3. I am so impressed! I can't wait until I have some time to catch up on your blog and learn more. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. I love the idea to cut a scalloped border with decorative scissors, I would have never thought of that, and it turns out beautiful!

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  5. great card ideas!! happy mothers day to you:)

    noelle ♥

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  6. Wonderful idea! TFS -- They are beautiful.

    Happy Mothers Day

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  7. OK you blow me away! You're way to creative! That is such an amazing idea, I'm going to have to try that.

    Thank you so much for sharing :)

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  8. Lovely card Katie!! Simple yet so elegant. I love it!

    The card you made in CA is cool! I love buttons:)

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  9. Love it & so do lots of others....

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