We're birds of a feather...

I made this card for my darling and long suffering husband.  He loves birds.  I decided I wanted to be very clean and simple and focused.  And yeah, that is ribbon on a guy card - that is how I roll (so 2008! Bwahaha)... ok I think I need less caffeine when I blog because it is getting a bit random in here... so I will just list the supplies as I think it is pretty self explanatory and yeah he liked his card *wink*

And yeah, I have the Memento markers and used them on the image and sentiment and the pad to stamp the texture on the row and the heart to ensure it "matched" the rest of the card.

Ingredients
Card size 8.5 x 5.5 inches
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Smooth, Recollections Red;
Stamps - Gina K Designs: Heartily Yours, You Say Goodbye, and I Say Ello;
Ink - Memento: Tuxedo Black; Lady Bug Red; Cottage Ivy; Angel Pink; Dandelion;
Accessories - Spellbinders: Hearts Nestabilities; Brads; Dimensional tape; Ribbon;

Sparkly Owl of course...

So this card started out as a technique challenge for me.  I saw this card by uber talented Julie Ebersole.  Now I did do the covering the cardstock in glitter part, um and I was rather sparkly for a while.  You have been warned if you use this technique.  I decided that I would risk using a rainbow Big Juicy pad as I wanted to use this owl image for the card.  Nothing ventured nothing gained right?  So I stamped and would have crossed my fingers but was afraid that would affect my stamping.  

Then I wanted to create a panel with these rounded squares from Gina K Designs, Lots of Letters set.  I stamped and embossed them with clear embossing power to add another texture to the card.  Yeah, the stamping isn't perfect, but I kinda like it like that.  It seems mosaic-y (a good ol made up word by me).

I really like color with black and white.  Maybe I should have been a cartoonist.  But it always makes me smile in a grabbing the Sunday "Funnies" out of the paper before handing it to dad sort of way.  Am I the only one that used to do that? 

It was about at this point that it struck me that this would be a good card without the main image and a great masculine card so I should snap a picture when I assemble it.  And yeah, I did contemplate just not using the image, but the whole point of the card is that my mom like's owls... 

So then I got to thinking... this would probably make a great Masculine card.... so I decided to take a couple of pictures of the card assembled without the main image.  So here is the card without the owl image:

And here is the card with the main image as I completed it.  I think it could have worked either way.

Ingredients

Card size - 8.5 x 5.5 inches

Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Solar White Smooth, Wassau Textured paper black

Stamps - Gina K Designs: Lots of Letters; Kitchen Sink Stamps: Ready 4 any Holiday; Inkadinkado: Birds Galore;

Ink - Big & Juicy rainbow pad

Accessories - clear embossing powder, adhesive sheet, glitter, brads.

The card that sparked a conversation AKA Procrastination, CAS and Masculine cards.

 
So if you follow my blog (or wish to take a quick look) you can see I do a wide variety of cards.  Lately I have been coveting (there really is no other word) white space and CAS.  I was even thinking these are the "Perfect Masculine" cards.  So imagine my surprise when I collected my eldest from university (which is a 3 day event, two of those being travel) and the conversation goes a bit like this...

"Petal, have you been really busy?"

"a bit, why?"

"I can tell"

"How?" (me racking my brains to wonder how he can tell when he is so far away and I know I have dropped everything at a moment's notice like every supermom is supposed to in order to ensure he would have a relatively uneventful run into finals and no worries about home... oh my... my insecurities are running rampant... how did I fail this time... and yes this is a stream of conscious run on sentence in my brain)...

"well, its your cards"

"what?!"

"they are really plain"

well knock me over with a feather...."oh I thought you would like them really clean"

all is quiet queue tumbleweed..."I like every card from you"

Nice save there kid, cancel the tumbleweed, you know who is still funding your life! *wink*

So what does this have to do with procrastination - it really isn't that obvious except that I didn't want to blog about the card until I knew he received it and then life got in the way etc.  So procrastination meant I wrote a completely different post about this card than I would have written even just a week ago.

So CAS and Masculine - I love both.  I love CAS and Masculine because I do masculine all the time and I adore the white space of CAS.  I think however, I have to find a comfort level so my son doesn't read anything into my one layer stamped card with few embellishments and doesn't take that to mean that that card took me less time to make than one dripping with embellishments.
 

Oh and BTW I was completely inspired by this post Taheerah for the inside image- however unlike her I just colored the flag in on the stamp itself rather than using a kissing technique.  With all the empty space of the phone box it was pretty forgiving to just wing it.

 
Ingredients
Card size - 4.25 x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Solar White;
Stamps - Gina K Designs: You Say Goodbye. and I say Ello;
Ink - Memento: Lady Bug Red, Danube Blue, Bahama Blue, Summer Sky;
Color - Marvy Le Plume Markers

Happy "Derby-Mom-Memorial-Flag-4th-Labor" Wreaths

So Tuesday night before Derby my mother asks for Red Derby wreaths that she can change the decorations on.  I told her that they won't hold up because the decorations really need to be glued.  So our plans evolved as we went shopping on Wednesday and talked...

On the trip our plans evolved into we don't want to change the wreath (nor store them) every couple of weeks and once we saw a mesh wreath made up with this stripe mesh and the stars and foil (those sticky out bits) and another beautiful white wreath with red roses the creative juices started flowing.  The striped wreath had a dense red bow which we both agreed was too "heavy" for the wreath so I got white organza ribbon with silver dots.

We discussed a blue based wreath but felt it would look odd on the door color (yeah that needs to be considered).

I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out considering my first and second attempts at these wreaths.  My Easter wreaths, which were ok but not great, really taught me that deco mesh needs to be "regimented messy" color needs to appear regularly but not in such a way that it creates a life of its own. 

Ingredients

• Wire frame
• Chenille wires
• 21 inch red, white, blue metallic striped Deco Mesh
• 6 inch red deco mesh
• 6 inch white with silver dots organza
• foil and stars table decoration
• Red silk roses.
• Floral tape.
• Hot Glue gun.