Big Snow!

So I was desperate for a quick idea for a Christmas card for my adult nephew.  I have this 12x 12 Christmas cardstock pad and think - why not just mount part of the big snowflake die cut on the front.  So I cut it down and did.  My DH said it looked too abstract.  Hmm... I really wanted this to work.  So I got out all my accessories and found these mirror snowflakes in my stash.  I hope it helped the overall look. 

Ingredients

Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest, Bazzill, 12x12 DP

Stamps - Inkadinkado

Ink - Memento

Color - Copics (airbrushing)

Accessories - mirror snowflakes, Spellbinders rectangle dies.



All that glitters...

Hmm I guess it is rather subtle for whom I made this card. LOL!  I can't decide whether it looks too simple or not.  Though I have to be really honest and say I am chuffed to bits with how it turned out even if I couldn't get a decent photograph of it. In person is looked plain luxurious.

The tree stamp is a Martha Stewart stamp and truthfully I wasn't expecting a good image.  I had read a lot of stories about how difficult it is to stamp with her clear stamps, so I really worked on the stamp with a white eraser before stamping.  I decided to go for a luxurious look - green and gold, it is almost like Fort Knox on a card.  The cardstock is from open stock at Archiver's.  I rubbed the cardstock all over with a used fabric softener sheet (cheap embossing buddy) to ensure I didn't have any stray embossing powder.  Loaded up my stamp with versamark, stamped and heat embossed with gold embossing powder that I have had forever.  Truthfully I thought it might have gone off/tarnished as I have read some horror stories.  But it seemed fine even if I couldn't photograph it!

Hope they enjoyed their elegant card.  Maybe next year I will go back to cutesy!

Ingredients -

Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest, Archiver's open stock - linen texture

Stamp - Martha Stewart Crafts - Clear Christmas Tree Stamps, Kitchen Sink Stamps - Whole Family

Ink - Versamark

Accessories - gold embossing powder.

Paintball Turkey

Wow what a few weeks it has been - I uploaded my next few entries a few weeks ago and with one thing and another I'm just getting the "words" or back story to go with the photos up. I don't know how to do that flash thing that the lovely Joan B at Paperlicious does that hides part of the blog but I might add all that at the end but probably not.

Anyway here is the backstory to this card! It was for my youngest male cousin who's birthday is the week of Thanksgiving.  He had just recently been with all my lads paintballing, and of course they are yellow.  So although I can't take any credit for the hodge podge of inspiration I think I brought those together in a pretty fun way.

"SPLAT!"

You can feel it can't you?  Especially with that dripping goo punch greeting bar!  Genius I hear you exclaim! Oh yes! I can hear you!

Right - the nitty gritty - looked up loads of paint splats on line.  Planned to just print one and couldn't get my computer to speak to my printer in a way I needed it to do.  On to plan B.  Wing it!  So I cut out my own splat and fussed about and eventually adhered it to the card base.  Decided to color the turkey and paper piece it to the splat.  Googly eye was a must at this point.  Then worked on the greeting bar.  I punched both colors and then layered.  Found out that the black was too narrow so bodged creatively added another bit of cardstock to the upper border to complete the look.  Stamped the greeting.  At that point I decided the splat didn't stand out enough.  I knew I was tempting fate and it wouldn't be "perfect" then I justified that it was riduculous to worry about a splat being perfect.  Ideally I would have outlined it before I had adhered it to the card but by this point needs must and I did my wobbly best.  Yeah, you can see the imperfections but I think that adds to the charm... yeah it adds to the overall charm!

Ingredients
Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Recollections, Georgia Pacific, Wassau
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps, Kitchen Sink Stamps
Ink - Memento, Multiliner pen
Color - Copics
Accessories - Googly eye, Dripping Goo Punch

Cheerful Winter Birthday Wishes

Well someone out there in blogland who I knew I would remember and have now promptly forgot inspired me to get out my versamark and shimmering chalks, so a shoutout to whoever you are!  Now I had to have these chalks and I can probably count on less than one hand how many times I have used them!

This was for my mother's birthday.  I find that people with winter birthday's tend to get "winter" cards whether they like them or not so I try to step out of the norm and give them sometime a bit more bright and cheerful especially if it isn't really their favorite time of the year.

There really isn't anything too new or too unique about this card except it was going to have a white background as it was going to be a CAS card.  Maybe, it might just eek into that category.  I have had all the products stamps/chalks/inkpads and ribbon for years and it was good to break it out and use it - very satisfied feeling using up the stash of procured pretties.

So anyway - I stamped the center and the petals with versamark and then used shimmering chalks on them  I then stamped black outlines over the chalk.  Next I added the stem and leaves in versamark and again out came the chalks.  At this point I looked at the card.  It was white, pink and green with chalk halos around.  I could have stopped at this point, but I decided I wanted MORE! so I made a yellow halo around the flower to make it bright like sunshine and who doesn't need more sunshine this time of year in the northern hemisphere?  I reevaluated and decided that I may as well chalk the entire card and added the blue background.  The rest is pretty straightforward of placing the ribbon, stamping the greeting and added white gel pen for some added texture.

I think it is good to share the process every once in a while as there is no set way of making a card.  Sometimes I do make the card I set out to make but most of the time it is a creative process of adding and subtracting and deciding what would work best.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Smooth, Black from stash - I believe Waussau textured.  It's pretty lightweight.
Stamps -  Kitchen Sink Stamps- Never a Loss 4 Words and Pretty Petals
Ink - Versamark, Memento Tuxedo Black
Color - Shimmering Chalks
Accessories - grosgrain ribbon

PS - if you look for a stamp set name under the wrong manufacturer you aren't too likely to find it... Think it is time to call it quits on the blogging today! Take care!

Blue Christmas Skates

Over at StampTV they hosted a challenge last week (yeah, I got my card posted in time but the challenge itself is closed) for "Blue Christmas" and this is what I came up with.  On top of participating in the challenge I also used GinaK's tutorial for versamark resist.  Now I realize you will have squint, hold your computer at arms' length and possibly stand on your head to see it but there is a versamark resist snowflake background on this card.  The most prominent one is probably right under the main image.  They show up better in person.  Honestly!

What I think I learnt is that maybe the stamp was too delicate to pick up enough versamark for a good resist and maybe the blue I chose was too dark.  The ink itself should have been ok as it was Memento which is the same GinaK used in her tutorial just the next shade dark blue.  Failing that maybe it was a cardstock/moisture issue.  

Maybe I should find some candy have a find the snowflakes competition and the first one that finds all of them wins... like I would be that organized!

Oh and BTW this is One Layer card, I masked the skates and the circle. 

Ingredients-
Card size - 4.25 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Smooth
Stamps - GinaK "School, Sports, Spirit", Inkadinkado "Warm Holiday Wishes"
Ink - Memento Danube Blue, Tuxedo Black
Copics - B000, B000, B00, C1, C3, C5, C7
Accessories - White Grosgrain ribbon, Sakura metallic silver.

Unbee-lievable Birthday!

I decided I wanted to use this image first so I colored it... hmm how to mount and keep it all relevant because I knew this was going to be a "big" card compare to the ones that most cardmakers make.  I decided that I could cut down some cardstock and allude to a beehive.  My first attempt was dire.  I had graduated the cuts and truthfully it looked like a bad pyramid and didn't give the right "feel" so I started again.  This time I made the shape you can see and felt that the image mounted on black could allude to the hole in the beehive where the bees fly in and out.  I didn't want a literal interpretation just the idea.

Got all that done and decided I needed some leaves.  So I cut apart some extra vines (now if you have been following my blog you know I have already used them in another extra project).  I thought to make this all pull together that faux stitching would work.  I then decided to use the greeting out of Stampendous bee set I have.

Ingredients

Cardsize - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Card stock - Neenah Classic Crest, Recollections, Black (unknown)

Stamps - High Hopes Rubber Stamps (image); Stampendous (greeting)

Ink - Memento

Color - Copic, American Crafts (white gel pen)

Accessories - Corner rounder, Spellbinders oval dies.

Such a sweet birthday

Such a sweet treat to wish someone a happy birthday don't you think?  Well, of course sometimes you need more and more an more to share all the delicious goodness and the good thing about these sweet treats is that they are ZERO calories!

This sweet card concoction is for my Sister in Law.  It was all pretty straight forward once I decided I wanted to use these stickers that I picked up earlier in the year at Michaels, on sale nonetheless!  Oh yeah!  You can't really tell but I added some stardust glitter pen to the cupcake and the candle flame.  I thought a card full of sweet confection was the perfect foil for my homemade baker's twine.  I'm a bit iffy on how it turned out but I know the recipient isn't someone that would fret about whether it was fake or not.

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest

Ink - Memento

Stamp - Stampendous (image); Kitchen Sink Stamps (greeting)

Color - Copics, Sakura stardust gel pens

Paper - The Paper Studio

Accessories - Homemade Baker's twine; Recollection cupcake stickers. Rhinestone.



Combining inspiration for a great birthday card!

I would be lying if I didn't say I am rather pleased with the outcome of this card.  It all started with this post fringed-felt-flower-video-tutorial by Julie Ebersole.  I had to make a felt flower - I had all this excess felt off cuts from when I made the fez  .  So I followed her video and fell in love with the whole process of making such a fun embellishment.  I decided I was going to send this to my husband's auntie whose eyesight is failing and would appreciate the texture and dimension.  Now all I needed with the right layout.  I went to Moxie Fab Felt Challenge  got loads of inspiration to continue on my quest but couldn't find quite the right layout that I needed.  Then I happened upon this layout --> at StampTV and the accompanying beautiful inspiration card! Wowzer you should go take a look!  Go on... really go and take a look it is just a beautiful card AND perfect for what I needed. 

I think I fulfilled all my requirements and made a great card thanks to a lot of inspiration from some very talented ladies.  It took a couple of attempts to find the right color Copic to match my red, the first one when applied direct to paper looked a perfect match but when I airbrushed it was way too pink.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest, Recollections
Ink - Memento
Stamps - Gina K Designs The best things in life
Color - copic to match red airbrushed
Accessories - circle and scalloped circles Nestabilities by Spellbinders, White and red with white dotted organza ribbon, adhesive pearls The Paper Studio.

Vroom Vroom Vroom!

I made this card for a dear friend who has recently become a father to a bouncing baby boy.  Our friend owns his own service garage so I know he will appreciate the car on the front.

Not quite a one layer card however it is pretty CAS!  I decided the stamped panel needed some pop so outlined it with a wide nib of my Copic marker that I had used to trim the onesie.

Ingredients

Card size - 4.25 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, DCWV Nana's kids

Ink - Memento

Stamps - GinaKDesigns

Color - Copics; American Crafts white gel pen





Tree of Love - Wedding inspiration

So as with earlier this year we recieved an invite and I used it for my inspiration.  Truthfully the bride had shown me pictures of her wedding dress and the bridesmaids dresses several months ago and I had been mulling over the details on making just the right card for this girlie girl bride.  Any time I spoke with her or her family it was about the pink dressed with black buttons all the way down the back.  I kept trying to make something like that work and just didn't like anything I could think out.  Then the invite arrived: a sillouetted couple with branches (and trees on the envelope and back) and hearts... hmmm....

So I went with the color scheme, and a tree full of hearts, lots of hearts.  I thought the polka dots embossing alluded to the black buttons down the back of the dresses.  Psst. Look closely at the tree trunk.  I "carved" the couple's initials in the trunk!

Truthfully I completed this card without the black heart... and it needed a bit more pop.  Yikes I had already used the largest of my dies to make the aperture.  So I used the negative and attempted to trace around it at 1/4 inch and then hand cut it to make the frame for the aperture. 

This is the inside of the card.  The pink polka dot paper from the paper pack didn't quite match so I went with the black and more hearts which we used to sign the card.

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest, Recollections (pinks)

Paper - The Paper Studio

Stamps - High Hopes (image), Kitchen Sink Stamps (greeting), I Brake for Stamps (Inside)

Ink - Memento

Color - Copics

Accessories - Spellbinders heart dies; Polka dot Embossing folder;  Heart punch unknown.

Sew Much Flowery Fun

OK I know I am late to the sewing party and some people are more than "over it" as a trend.  I think that is why I decided to have a go at it.  I don't really worry about trends.  I do like it when I am inspired by what I see and for this card I was firstly inspirated by all the pleated medallions and I thought they would make a good flower.  I used 2 1/2 Spellbinders classic scallops circles to make the flower and folded it along the scallops.  I think the easiest way to fold was line them up and then unfold and fold another fold and after all the pleats are scored actually pleat the piece for dimension.  I wanted a lot of pleats! 

Does the stem look familiar?  It was left over from when I cut decorations for my cousin's baby shower.  I like that I was able to get such a different look from the shower decorations. 

This card was made for our auntie, she is advid knitter but enjoys handmade items and artwork.  Her eldest son is a graphic designer.  So I try not to do something that would be in the realm of graphic design when I make a card for her. 

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Solar White, Recollections

Paper - K & Co

Stamps - Just Rite Stampers

Ink - Memento

Accessories - white thread and sewing machine.

Ha-ay! Happy Birthday-ay!

So this was the start of a punny birthday card.  My youngest is always telling me "hay - ay" jokes... so when it came time to make a card for him I had to make it a "hay-ay" joke card.  Lots of masking and airbrushing on this card.  I think if I redid this card I might have made the "Hay-Ay" in a speech bubble and maybe add some twine to the bottom to reinforce the grounding of the scene.  Otherwise it is a pretty straight forward stamping and coloring.

What would you have done differently with this card?

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Solar White

Stamps - High Hopes Stamps, Just Rite Stampers

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Versamark

Color - Copics

Accessories - Black embossing powder.

Soccer/Football - A different perspective

Just when you thought I had finished with the soccer/football cards - I put a different spin on it (get it?!)  OK I won't dwell on that I can hear the pun groan from here.

I decided I wanted the perspective of the crowd and goal.  So I stamped the crowd on my 5.5 in x 8.5 in cardstock and randomly spot colored in the crowd.  I didn't want them to be more than the background so I didn't use any loud colors just grays, blues and neutrals.

I then layered the grass green paper over the bottom 2/5ths of the card and cut the slot.  I wish I could say it was meticulous planning.. OH WAIT! With meticulous planning I realized that I could match up the front "grass" stripes with the back of the slot.

At this point I thought the "hard part" was done.  Little did I know! I have had this plastic mesh that came off some duty free for a while thinking it would make a great net.  I ran it through my Xyron... it lifted off the card.  I tried again.  It lifted again.  Thought maybe I could slightly melt it to the card with my heat gun and it started to shrivel. YIKES!  In the end good ol fashioned white glue to the rescue and an acrylic block to hold it down.

I think the rest is pretty self explanatory (or I have already said it in at least 3 of the previous 5 posts). 

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Cardstock- Neenah Solar White

Paper - The Paper Source pack

Stamps - Viva Las Vegastamps (crowd), GinaK (Little Tees, Sporty Accessories), Just Rite Stampers (Shirt lettering & numbers), Stampendous (Flexible Friendship Wishes)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo black, Versamark, Brilliance Victorian Violet (I think)

Color - Copics

Accessories -  White & Clear embossing powder, Pennies, Fun foam (for dimension), Foam Tape square.

A revisit less dimension sans cat, larger circle

At this point I think you could say I have this card nailed down.  Now I know a lot of people would tut tut at recreating different versions of this card for so many people.  Can I just say, do you know how hard it is to make a card that directly appeals to male interests?  I see it all the time on Splitcoaststampers.  Cries of help regarding male cards.  I also made this interactive and tactile.  Simple pleasure of rolling that ball up and down the pitch seems to bring the brightest smiles to the men in my life.  They really seemed to love it.  It is like a card version of a video game! Result!

The only major change is that I had run out of foam tape and started using fun foam from my stash and truthfully it worked better the card was much less springy.  If I make another one of these cards I will definitely be using fun foam.  I did use foam tape square with the ball

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Paper - The Paper Source pack

Stamps - GinaK (Little Tees, Sporty Accessories), Just Rite Stampers (Shirt lettering & numbers), Stampendous (Flexible Friendship Wishes)

Ink - Memento Danube blue Tuxedo black;  Versamark 

Color - Copics to match the Sheffield Wednesday kit.

Accessories -  Black embossing powder, Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities, Pennies, Fun foam (for dimension), Foam Tape square.

Can I get a Tilt with that Spin?

And so the football/soccer card continues to evolve... now I know you can't see that this is that much different than my first card.  Colors are now for my nephew who is an ardent Man United supporter.   I know, I know, we still love him anyway.

You can't really tell but the shirt tilts when the spinner spins!  Oh yeah now we are talking super nerdy card making skills!  Lionel Messi can't even keep up with these moves. LOL!  Thank you Splitcoastampers Resource pages (tilt and/or spinner cards).

This card also has a super save on it.  I cut the slot just a fraction too big.  Now it is pretty fiddly to get to the point of the slot so I decided to double stamp the ball and apply it to the other side of the back penny for stability and it worked like a charm.

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Paper - The Paper Source pack

Stamps - GinaK (Little Tees, Sporty Accessories), Just Rite Stampers (Shirt lettering & numbers), Stampendous (Flexible Friendship Wishes)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo black

Color - Copics (sorry forgot the exact colors but they were in the 20s/30s range and I use Ciao).

Accessories - White embossing powder, Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities, Pennies, Foam tape 

Triple Teamed Birthday

Sorry about blurring the names but it was a bit TMI.  Still numbers of favorite players and last time England won the world cup are on this one.  This card was for the hubs.  He follows at least three different football teams (Liverpool FC, Sheffield Wednesday, and Rochdale) rather religiously.  I had already thought what can I do differently, then I decided that I could spin one of the jersey's.  Now you would think ok, that's the end of this episode. Same but different of the previous incarnation.  The real story about this card is that my hubs turns to me AFTER I have made this card and says.  "You know you should make a card with the shirt as the spinner!" So either this card is pure genius or pure "RutRoh" to quote Scooby. I'm going for great minds thinking alike and genius! LOL wouldn't you?

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Paper - The Paper Source pack

Stamps - GinaK (Little Tees), Just Rite Stampers (Shirt lettering & numbers), Stampendous (Flexible Friendship Wishes)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo black and Danube blue, Versamark

Color - Copics & Multiliner.

Accessories - Clear embossing powder, White embossing powder, Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities, Pennies, Foam tape

World Cardmaking Day lesson on sharing.

I love to share!  I bet just about everyone with a blog loves to share, an idea, a thought a project in progress or completed.  However, I think we should remember that not everything is ours to share.  Letting my friend borrow a stamp is completely different to widely disseminating someone else's art.

Please take a moment today and visit Mo's Digital Pencil too .  I came across a post on SplitcoastStampers and thought the best thing I could do on World Cardmaking Day is support the artists who make my little stamp creations possible.  Please think about it and I hope you will do the same.

Here's another site as well if you really want to give these artists your support.  http://stampoutstamptheft.blogspot.com/

What? Flowers on a Soccer card? What am I thinking?

This card is for the wife of  Uncle Manky from my previous post... her season ticket was right beside his and I got to thinking that I bet she never got "sports" cards because they aren't very feminine.  So I challenged myself to make a feminine sports themed card.  I think I might have just succeeded too!  I decided that I wanted to use my gladiola stamps for the feminine touch alone with the tee shirt and ball... It came to me that the only time I have really ever seen this combination is on the washing line so thus "why" the shirt is on the washing line.  Hopefully in the make believe card world Auntie Gladys didn't have to wash and hang out her shirt to dry on her birthday!

I stamped, colored and embossed the shirt and ball just like I did for Uncle Manky.  I then stamped the gladiola multiple times masking off the butterfly in all but one of the repetitions and staggering the placement to look more natural.  After coloring them in with Copics, I used versamark and clear embossing powder to emboss them.  I used an airbrush to spray the sky (I think that is about the best sky I have done!) and more Copics to make some grass for the garden.  The clothes pegs are from another Clear Dollar Stamps set Hanging Out.  Although I didn't have movement with this design I wanted it to look like it could so I popped the ball and the bottom of the shirt up on dimensionals.  Do you think it makes the shirt look like the breeze has caught it?  As for the blue stripe background that was to mimic the hoops that are on the front of the Reading FC football kit and it does a nice job of tying everygthing together don't you think!

And though you can't see it if you saw my previous post you will know there is a little "manky cat" on the inside of this card too!

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Cardstock & Paper - Neenah Solar White, The Paper Source (black cardstock & blue stripes).

Stamps - GinaK Designs (Little Tees, Sporty Accessories), Clear Dollar Stamps (August Flower of the month, Hanging Out),  Kitchen Sink Stamps (Whole Family), JustRiteStampers

Ink - Memento (Tuxedo Black), Versamark

Color - Copics

Accessories - clear embossing powder, airbrush, foam tape

And when Football (Soccer) Season begins so do the themed cards!

I make no apologies for my blogging - life is too short!  What I will do is warn you that I have a lot of soccer/football cards of a similar ilk coming up.  Hey! I'm an if it ain't broke don't fix it sort of gal.  What I think is good about sharing this is that you will see how I changed things slightly with no two cards exactly alike (the SCS spinner card use is prominent) even though the theme is the same.

This card was for one of our favourite uncle's who is celebrating his 80th birthday and used to be a Reading FC season ticket holder.  Unfortunately he has had a few health problems and had to give up his season ticket a few seasons ago but I know he still supports them. 

The name "Uncle Manky" is a pet name from my husband, it stems from a family party where his uncle asked "Who's manky cat is that?" Well, that just tickled my husband's funny bone and ever since (20+ years) he has been "Uncle Manky".

Of course, I had to add a cat too just to remind him how he got the name!

That second cat.. well I will get to that another day.

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Paper - The Paper Source pack

Stamps - GinaK (Little Tees, Sporty Accessories), Just Rite Stampers (Shirt lettering & numbers), Clear Dollar Stamps (Simon the cat),  Stampendous (Flexible Friendship Wishes)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo black and Danube blue, Versamark

Color - Copics W1,W3, W5 and I can't remember the pink...

Accessories - Clear embossing powder, Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities, Pennies, Foam tape 

Just in case you are interested, I used the small round stamper with the medium sized font - it overhangs the outside but gives me the right curve for the shirts, I just go along and press down with my fingers to ensure the tops and/or bottoms of the letters get enough pressure to ink the paper.

I guess its hard to tell from the photo but I did my best to make it a Reading FC kit with the sleeve trim in blue and accent this with a blue ball.

A Shower for Baby Dillon

So I think I have found my calling decorating for family baby showers.  We use karate studio for these functions as one of my uncles runs a karate dojo and is kind enough to let us use it.  It is a great open space but some times it needs something to be a bit more homey.  I do my best to decorate it to keep my mama cousins happy.

I asked my aunt if she wanted me to decorate a bit for the shower and if anyone was doing a "diaper cake".  I did my now traditional (I guess two showers makes a tradition) baby block baby name.  This time I used two tones of blue as I didn't have enough of either to do the name in full.  I try to do these things out of my more than ample stash!  I'm sure no other paper crafter has these issue having so much cardstock around.  Anyway, I think they are a great hit and fairly easy to do with my electronic die cutting machine.

As my policy to be completely honest about these things you will see with the decorations that are hanging there is a cute not so little umbrella in the center. I have to be honest that I attempted to make a mobile but the string the vines and animals were just too heavy for the cardstock umbrella, so I deconstructed it and used them separately. My wonderful son hung them from the soffet for me and did an excellent job staggering the heights (those animals have fronts and backs decorated). There is an elephant at the far end in case you are wondering - I did the best I could but the shower was staring at this point. LOL!

Alas, the diaper cake. I can't take all the credit. I had my mother roll the diapers. We kept them rolled with clothes pegs and then we put rubber bands around the "layers" and covered the layers with a couple of layers of freezer paper. I then lined some ribbon I had on hand with some double sided tape and placed it around the middle of the layers. The ribbon at the bottom of the layers is wired. Don't you just love that bow! I placed the animals all around to decorate it.

 

Now you are going to have to forgive me for a moment for sending you back up to the first picture to see that giraffe and then point out the one on the cake. Yes that giraffe on with the building blocks is nearly 2 feet tall - just how fun is that! And on the cake what about that double sided monkey on top?!  He is "attached" to a wooden skewer that I fed through the gaps in the layers.  Acutally I fed about three skewers through to help it all hold together.  Did you notice the all the vines on the mirror? There are loads - they are to cover the joins between the mirrors - my uncle even said they could stay up by my cousin wanted them for her baby book.

I enjoyed making these decorations so much but I'm not going to lie there are a lot of decorations and they took me 3 8+ hour sessions to complete and a few heartbreaking attempts that failed. And it definitely is not the "cheap" option. I'm not even going to add up the supplies because the joy I got from doing some special for my cousin was worth it. Thanks for looking.

Apologies for some of the "coding" making the page a bit wonky - I have done my best to clear it up.

Baby Shower crafted gifts - Clothes Dividers

So I told my aunt that I would help decorate for my cousin's shower. My cousin is having a boy and has a jungle animal theme for her baby accessories. I happened across this tutorial http://adreatravis2008.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-second-video.html and just had to make these part of my gift to her.  Please visit the tutorial and leave some appreciation if you like this project.
I used fun foam for the ovals and cut them out on my die cutting machine as I wanted a larger size than the nestabilities I have. I picked colors that went along with the scheme and mostly replicated animals similar to her sets and added a couple more - the bird and the frog.

I decided to use some twine I had for more of a jungle/rustic feel. Did you see how the chick is in an oval (or is it an egg)? And because I had two monkeys I thought they needed to be the next size.

With the cutting I had to re trim the ovals as the fun foam had a bit of a perforated look even using the deep blade housing and a very slow cutting speed.

What I did different from my inspiration is that I used twine instead of ribbon, and I made the oval the entire mat for the piece without having rectangles hanging down as I thought they would be easily damaged. I wanted this to be about making new mom's life easier.

Generally I went with the normal animal sizes for the order. The exception is the frog and I just thought he needed to be on "water" blue!

Truthfully it was a fun project with great impact that the mommy to be loved (once I explained what they are! LOL). All the printing was done on the computer onto card stock.

Apologies for the picture sizes. I didn't want the post to scroll forever just repeating the same project but different color and animal but still wanted to share them all with you.

I was trying to work out how to do some groovy things in my photo editing software and starting losing the will to share so when plain and simple. 

IngredientsFun Foam
Card stock
Cricut Create a Critter
Spellbinders Rectangle Nestabilities
Eyelets
Twine

 

Oopsie "Baby on Board" a little more to the right please.

 This card is fairly CAS in my opinion, but then again what do I know!

In the spirit of telling you the ups the downs and the all arounds this isn't exactly the card I was going to make... I had this vision of a single popped layer with airbrushed shading around the image.  All went well until the mask wanted to permanently attach itself to the t-shirt on the oval.  Sheesh! I'm a time limit here.  Did I forget to say the car was packed and ready to go to the baby shower for set up and everyone was waiting for me!...oh I did? Well the car was packed and I guess you get the idea.  Quickly I decide that there is no saving it.  I stamped another t-shirt and promptly got the letter skewed.  ACK! oh no... I'm just going to have to go with it at this point.  So I color it and mount it and pray that all the decorations and paper gifts I made for her will make up for my skewed "Baby on board".  And yes I will start sharing those with you my next post... I probably will divide it over a few posts in case anyone is inspired by my humble little creations.  Thanks for looking and sharing in my oops!

Ingredients
Card size - 4.25 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah
Stamps - GinaKDesigns
Ink - Memento
Color - Copics
Dies - Spellbinders
Techniques - Airbrushing, Dimensional layering, Masking, dry embossing

From your favorite Aliens...

When you have a dear friend that is a plane buff and pilot you can get some pretty interesting conversations late at night and one of them was if they had ever seen a UFO...

Of course a UFO only means the flying object was unidentified.  Right? LOL!  So logically the way my mind works when it came time to make a birthday card for our friend I had to play on this conversation.  We are definitely a bunch of goofballs so I'm sure it really wasn't any surprise for our friend to receive such a silly card.



So do you think this is Out of this World?  I won't pretend it is a piece of art but I do like how it all turned out.  And yes, I do see that bit of marker bleeding at the bottom.  I got ready to spend loads and loads of time and effort trying to eliminate it and then realized that a nice shiney flying saucer would reflect the sky around it.  That's my excuse and I am sticking with it!

TBH I'm particularly proud of remembering to put a bit of pink in the space.  Though honestly I could have spaced the Aliens better.  A fun set from Clear Dollar Stamps that I can't wait to find an excuse to use again.

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah

Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps

Ink - Memento

Color - Copics

Other - Embossing (yeah there are some twinkly stars on there)

Techniques - Stamping, Masking, Airbrushing.