What a beautiful January we have - all that snow outside (I was freezing my butt on the bus stop yesterday) and new polished Euros we can use now (try to pay for a bus ticket, the machine spit out all my new shiny coins 3 times in the row!). This is the way how it starts in Slovakia this year! Not sure if I like it:(
So, my first week of January 2009 started with new currency headache and couple Birthday cards that I need to finish as soon as possible but later about that. As one of the EU countries also Slovakia got the honor to use the Euro this year for the first time. I can say that I miss our old money and I am kinda sad just because I bought this wonderful green leather wallet on Nuntucket Island existing with no wallet at all for 7 years (you can imagine me looking for any money through my pockets and in my purse before) and now I can't even use it because I don't have space for all that annoying tiny heavy cents. Now, I should probably get a big money bag and carry it on my back:))
It is really weird to get use to new money again (when we split with Czech Rep. both countries got new money) but this time it is more complex I guess. Recently, I was in a coffee shop with my friends and it was pretty funny to pay for our bill by leaving all the towers of coins on the table. I wonder who had the great idea to make us carry more metal in our wallets!!! Did anybody hear about paper money??? I guess I have to get used to it or maybe start to swipe my plastic more often:))) Did I tell you I hate credit cards too, haha.
Our addition to the Euro coins family with official symbols of Slovakia...

But, enough about money talk and let's get back to my Birthday boy and girl. This week project is to finish two fancy cards for two really important people. One is for Darren who is having birthday on Friday and I won't be able to be with him on his special day (he went back home, sad I know) - therefore, the card needs to be really special:)). The other one is for my college friend who is having her birthday tomorrow. I can show you the card for my friend as she gets her card next day. Darren's card will be shown to you little bit later as this card needs to be send and I don't want to spoil the surprise:)))
Sunflower card with ice frosting
Found the artificial flower laying around in our flower store. There was no use for it as it was a missing piece from a bouquet that was already gone, so I cut the stem to get the bottom more flat and glue it to the square of red paper I used as a base.
I also made the ice frosting around the edge (it's true we still have January) using a white stamp color and a square stamp sprinkling some white shimmer on the wet color.
And, here we go - frozen sunflower card!!! Let me know how do you like it:))

Pine cone flower card
Here is another flower card I made today ( I really miss spring!). I used pine cone for the flower petals and put a silver gem in the middle.
I used white shimmer again (I am starting to like this stuff more and more) on the edge of the top green square paper and allowed myself this time to apply one of the treasured adhesive ribbons from Martha Stewart that I bought last summer in the US. I love Martha:)))
And here is the full view. Still having feeling that something is missing and the card seems to be undone. I might update the card and add some writing later:)))