[Okay, these are definitely "homemade" cards, but I have to put them in because, maybe I'll look back at them someday and get ideas for other cards.]
My oldest son turned 15 on Saturday, and we made b-day cards for him. He doesn't really "get" cards. Since he's blind, the cards are just folded pieces of paper and someone reads to him what's written on them and describes any pictures on them...
This year, the kids and I decided to make him cards that might appeal to him:
Anastasia wanted to make a card with an image of one of Ziggy's favorite pastimes: computers! Found this cute Jolee's dimensional sticker at Michael's, then she put braille "15" on the screen.
Peter made a stack-of-squares sculpture that appealed to Ziggy's love of math.( I am so glad I have a large supply of dimensionals at our house!). 
Sophia made a calculator card that appeals to Z's love of calculators. She did a fabulous job with layout and labeling.
I made a card that appeals to his love of 
radios. This one is tuned to 99.5, his favorite station. The words on it are from his favorite Kenny Chesney song, "Summertime":
Perfect song on the radio,
sing along cause it's one we know,
it's a smile, it's a kiss, it's a
"Happy Birthday, dear Ziggy,
happy birthday to you!"
Happy Birthday, Big Guy!!!
(You are So "The Man")...
Don't know if this happens to anyone else, but it seems my daughter gets inspired by seeing me get inspired by Kristina Werner's weekly Color Inspirations. This is the second week that Anastasia has been inspired, so here we go. This week, she made a small daffodil card with the sentiment "It's the little moments that make life big"
SUPPLIES: Marvy star punch, EK flower punches, stem & leaf stamp, versamark ink, stem stamp (studio G), leaf stamp (Fiskars "thank you" set), vellum sentiments (Colorbok)
...I'd use them on every card I make for my Mom & Dad. Today's card is for my Dad, who has been given another chance at life, but still needs the butterfly of happiness to land on his shoulder.
So, I thought I'd make him a Springtime CheerUp card using the Color Inspiration #6 colors (so saffron, pumpkin pie, sahara sand and wild wasabi).
I was trying to make the card look like one of those glass-covered butterfly display cases, with one butterfly coming back to life, ready to fly away...
So...my husband got a new job and had to go out of town for a few days to company headquarters for orientation, signing papers and stuff.
He comes back tonight, so I thought I'd make him a "Congratulations on Your New Job/Welcome Home, Sweetie" card...he's a guy, so I didn't need bling or bows (rats!), and color is really optional, so here's what I ended up with (and a big "Thanks" to my son for loaning me his toy truck that I used to make the tire-track border):
This material is so cute (heart eyes in the skulls...how sweet!?!) and it really suits my daughter: she used to be soft, fluffy, pink, kitty. Now she's still pink, but with camo and skulls and black added (kind of "Gothic Hello Kitty").
Grandma found this material at Joann's a couple of months ago, and wanted me to make pajama pants for Sophia. Finally finished them today!!! Yay, I actually started and finished a project within 6 months! 
Seems like this year is going by too quickly for me...I don't remember doing Easter, but it must have come and gone already. Yeah, I vaguely recall baskets and eggs all over the house. It was almost a busier time of year for us than Christmas. We had guests stay at our house, then it was Spring Break so we went on a road trip, then it was 5 of us catching The Cold That Would Not Go Away...anybody else feel this way?
Anyways, I started putting away the Easter decorations today. These guys have been sitting on my kitchen counter for a while; they are so happy, so I think I'll miss them (but enjoy the extra counter space)...Bye Bunnies!
I'm very new to papercrafting, but have been enjoying learning about new techniques and gadgets these past few months. Sometimes I look at someone else's blog and get inspired, or there is a sketch or color challenge which pushes me to think of new ideas...and that is neat.But I found something equally, if not more, satisfying than making my own "creation," and that is seeing inspiration spark in someone else and watching her create. Awesome.My 12 year-old daughter was peeking over my shoulder while I was reading a couple of blogs: Dawn's and Stamp Happy. Something about those blogs inspired her, and she went off and made these two cards. No sketch challenge or pressure, just pure inspired creativity. I just had to post her cards, because (in my unbiased Mommy opinion) they are so cute.Here's the one inspired by Dawn McVey's blog:
And I think this one was inspired by Stamp Happy (if I was a better photographer, you could see the layers better)
Anyways, I had to post them for posterity, because it was a cool moment and I got to see it happen...Awesome!
I made this card to accompany a gift for my good friend. For some reason, every January, I knit wash rags (It's what I do...I don't know why). This year I found some happy colors of yarn and knit a bunch of rags, and decided to send one of each color to my friend (sort of a "Fiesta in a Box").
Of course, I needed a card to go with. I knew that I wanted to put crochet flowers on the card, but when I went to order the flowers online, they were OUT OF STOCK! So then I had to make them myself...which is a riot, because I don't know how to crochet. I found a few patterns on some other blogs that I used for this card, but none were exactly what I was looking for, so if anyone has a good pattern, please let me know! 
This was for my dad's birthday in March. It's actually a group card: I stamped and taped, Peter colored, Sophia helped with layout and Anastasia did some lettering on the inside. I like it when we design cards together.
Okay, this is the last of the old card color challenges. This is from April 8 on Kristina Werner's blog:
Okay another submission with a horizontal layout... but I have to explain this one, because it didn't start out this way: I was doing a vertical one with lots of circles, and my daughter walked by and said, "Why don't you do it the 'regular' way, then it would look more like the beach picture." That's when I switched it to horizontal. I also had a funky ribbon on it, then was goofing around and picked up the skinny satin ribbon and tied it on for fun. Husband walks by and says, "Hey, cute card!" So there you go, a very committee-based designed card. I think that since my husband liked the card, it must be a masculine card...
Another color challenge from Kristina Werner's blog on March 18:
Here's my submission:
This was a thank you card for a guy, that I did in December. I took this photo before I knew how to focus, but it's all about learning along the journey, at least that's what I tell my kids in school every day...
So I needed a space to post cards and other crafts and wanted it to be separate from our homeschool blog, so this is it...It may take a few posts to backtrack and take photos and stuff from the kids' blog to here, but it'll get done eventually.First post photo will be the very first card I made, back in November 2007, when I first got interested in/addicted to card-making. This is one of the most awful card photos I've ever seen, and it's not even focused, but I had a lot of fun making that card (I even remember who I made it for, and that's a nice memory, too):
Peter made a stack-of-squares sculpture that appealed to Ziggy's love of math.( I am so glad I have a large supply of dimensionals at our house!). 
radios. This one is tuned to 99.5, his favorite station. The words on it are from his favorite Kenny Chesney song, "Summertime": 
