Belated birthday "sweet" friend

I just love these images from High Hopes stamps and was determined to use them for a dear friend's very belated birthday card. I hated it being late but knew just that I was thinking of her would brighten her day whenever it arrived!

I colored in the little girl with the melon first and decided that the three main colors should be the pinky reds, greens and yellows of the melon. That made me decide the little girl would have brown hair and the sky would be a nice blue - I carried all these colors through the project but the main ones moreso.

I also wanted to use stitching on my card but I didn't want to ruin it so I went with faux stitching to keep the card fresh and clean.

I created the background paper with a nod to a checked picnic blanket but by using the main colors of the image the pinks and green and the chisel ends of my copics. For the sentiment image I just quickly colored in the rind and inside of the watermelon - and used one of my newly aquired punchesI thought this punch really picked up on the lace of the dress of the image. What do you think? and truthfully the cut around was a "save". I had stamped the two watermelon images for the inside and outside of the card on the same 1/4 sheet of cardstock and with the edging I had to either cut through the image or around it. I like the way my mistake turned out.

Now the nitty gritty -

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 inches
Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill
Ink - Memento tuxedo black
Stamps - High Hopes Stamps
Copics - 0, B000, B00, E00, E02, E31,E33, E35, G000, G14, G17, R20, R22, R32, R35, R37, Y11, Y15, Y17, C5, C7
Accessories - EK success punch, Nestabilities, Sakura gel pen

Happy Birthday Fossil Chops!

What else do you say to a prim and proper 81 year old lady on her birthday?

This is a long standing joke between us and Auntie M. Nearly 20 years ago (pre-cardmaking) we found this rather jokey card about how wonderful the person was etc and then inside it said "Happy Birthday Fossil Chops!". Well we mischieviously thought we would send this card to our Auntie M. The thing is Auntie M is the typical little proper little lady (think Laura Ashley, tea, crumpets and you start to get the idea) and most people send her appropriate cards with scenic landscapes and beautiful flowers... We knew she had a sense of humour, after all she was married to Uncle D, anyone that survived being married to Uncle D had to have a sense of humour. So alas, we plotted to send her the highly inappropriate card and Auntie Fossil-chops was born! She loved the card and had to show it to everyone she came into contact in her daily life.

When I set out to make this card I was reminded of the fun of that time. Auntie M is alone now, Uncle D died a couple of years ago now, after a brave battle with Leukaemia. Our hope is that this version of the "inappropriate" card will become a new source of entertainment and spark fond memories of that time.

Ingredients

Stamps - High Hopes Stamps

Paper - DCWV, Neenah, The Paper Source

Copics - G00, G00, G02, G05, G07, Y00, Y02, Y08, B000, B00, B02, B05, YR02, YR04, YR07, R22, R27, R29, C1, C3, 0

Muted butterflies...

This card is a CASE of these beautiful cards so please go give them some much deserved love -

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1226299

and

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1311815

and

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1273358

I loved the rainbow of the first, the vibrancy of the second and the flow of the butterflies of the third.
When I set out to do this card I knew that I had to use Neenah for the base to give that crisp white flair. I then decided to have the duller colors of my paper choices at the bottom to give a lift to the flow of the butterflies. I used the single butterfly punch and the triple butterfly punch from Martha Steward on the K&Co paper. Instead of giving the butterflies black bodies I wanted to keep it light and airy so when with clear stardust glitter pen.

I hope you like my interpretation of a theme that has already been done brilliant by some really talented ladies.

Ingredients
Card Size - 8.5in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Neenah
Stamps - Kitchen Sink Stamps
Ink - Palette noir
Designer Paper - K & Co
Punches - Martha Stewart
Pens - Sakura Stardust clear

Hi! Ho! Sheffield Wednesday Superstar!

Another guy card but truthfully I think it is more important that it is a football (soccer) card for a friend of ours. He supports Sheffield Wednesday or The Owls for those not in the know. The secondary theme is that my family call our friend "Superstar" . So you see between football, Owls, stars and team colors I had a lot to work with.

I used my Clear Dollar Stamps for my owl and coloured him in with my Copics and then put glossy accents on his eyes. (and one of these days I will get a good close up picture I promise!!!)


I think the idea of the background almost worked but didn't quite. I didn't want it so regimented but I wonder if that would have been better.

Ingredients
Card Size - 8.5in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps, See D's, Stampology
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Summer Sky
Copics - 0, 110, B000, B00, YR20, YR23, W1, W3, W5, W7, E31, E33, E35, E37
Accessories - Nestabilities

Just in case you wondered what the Hi Ho is about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6PXSRsaloo&feature=related Please be warned that it is not my posting on youtube and I can't be accountable for comments people make on such footage.

You Rock!

Well you know you do! And so does the recipient of this card too!

I stamped the Stampendous image and went with blues - I tend toward red guitars but I wanted to be slightly less predictable. I colored both the base image and the second popped image with Copics. I then stamped the sentiment and adhered the second guitar on top of the first and matted the image in black. I put the three brads on it to echo the silver of the background image.

As you can see, because of the foiled paper it was a bit of bear to photograph. I went for a clear picture with a close up to show off the foil!

Ingredients
Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, Georgia Pacific, DCWV, The Paper Source
Ink - Memento
Stamps - Stampendous, See D's
Copics - C1, C3, C5, B23, B24, B29
Accessories - 3 silver brads

Hipp O'Birthday!

I love this image I got from High Hopes! I never thought of myself as cutesy but I guess I am. I tend toward young images rather than overt realism. I guess I like the fun fantasy of them and the kick toward being young at heart. I do love the effects I get with my copics in coloring in our purple hippo. I decided to take a nod from the High Hopes Stamps though made my hippo more purple than theirs. Theirs has more pink tones but I shyed away from the pink tones as this is for a boy.

I also like the color combo of orange and blue and wanted to use up some of my patterned cardstock stash - so pretty but I struggle to use it!

With my critical eye I think there are two things I could have changed about this to just make it pop that much more. Use a co-ordinating green in the image itself and vary the grounding color from the shadow.

Ingredients
Card Size - 5.5 in x 8.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill, DCWV
Stamps - High Hopes Stamps, Stampendous
Ink - Palette Noir
Color - Copics - BV00, BV02, BV04, BV06, BV08, YR02, YR04, YR07, B000, B00, B02, B05, R27, R29

Grungy 21st Birthday.

Hate to admit this but I think this card ranks up there with my last year Christmas cards as fun concept but...

Is it wrong to send a card you don't like? Well I have in this case. I had this concept of cutting out a large card with my Cricut - worked it all out on the Design Studio and was pleased enough with it but it needed more. So I used my Clear Dollar Stamps and Kitchen Sink Stamps to stamp guy things related to carpentry to make an insert card to the die cut card. I think attempted to personalize it and that is where it started to go all wrong. I stamp on the "R" and it doesn't stamp completely... Yikes! - so to save it I decided to shadow stamp the name and emboss it for texture. I still didn't like the look so I grunged it up so that front would stand out against the background.

Why do I have so many "guy" relatives in my life? ACK!!!!

Anyway - you honestly won't hurt my feelings if you comment that you don't like it because I'm not certain I like it either.

Ingredients
Size - 8.5in x 5.5 in
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps, Kitchen Sink Stamps, See D's
Ink - Memento
Accessories - Cricut