Last night my husband asked if we had any "Get Well" cards in house so he could send one to a male co-worker.  I am sure we did, as I am a hoarder and tend to hold onto everything.  Many times I've purchased a card with the intent to send it out right away, but then the moment has passed and the unsent card ends up in a pile on our desk or, if I felt organized that day, put into a special card box that I bought years ago which has dividers for each month and type of occasion.  This box has gotten pretty full.

But, since I've been in a crafty mood lately I decided to make one for him.  My inspirations tend to lean towards the feminine side (fabric embellishments in the shape of dresses and hats, embroidered flowers, whimsical party hats, etc) so I didn't have much in stock that would be appropriate for a man who just had gall bladder surgery.  I pulled out my Cricut cutting machine, which I admit hasn't seen much action since I got it as a gift almost three years ago, and got to work.  I don't have a lot of cartridges so it took a lot of time to pick something out that I thought was appropriate, but this is what I came up with.  Very basic and simple. 

On the inside I printed a simple "Best wishes on a speedy recovery"

I liked the texture of the paper that I used and I think I'll make more of these tonight, but do some that are blank inside so they are suited for any occasion.

Once I got started with the Cricut I wanted to play around with some other ideas that I had.  I ended up with something that has become my favorite and I think I'll be doing many more like it.

First here are all of the cards together:


These cards are using two different papers and I interchanged pieces of the flowers on each to create a striped and solid affect.  The flower also "pops" off the page and has a faux rhinestone in the center.
  
For this one, the "V" heart is raised from the page
 

And here is my favorite!
The "V" heart is also raised on this one, plus the four hearts at the bottom are actually peeking out from the inside of the card through cutouts that I made.
 

I'm going to experiment a lot with this tonight.  I have images of little babies crawling across the bottom of the card in pink and blue.  I've always wanted to try cards in this way but never thought of how to do it.

I was up until 1 am (on a work night!!) and still didn't want to put everything away since I was having so much fun.  I can't wait to get back to them tonight.