Oh What a Knight!

Our valiant knight graduated and he had to be rewarded with a special card!  Well, I hope he thought it was special.  Again I do what I do, I started off my design with school colors and mascot.  So Maroon and Silver and a Knight (they also use navy but I didn't know how much so just went with what I know). 

I stamped the background with my stamp positioner and Memento ink so I could get deep coverage.  Then I lined up tape and foiled the silver lines by burnishing the foil into the tape.  All that sounds easy but took long enough to do.

Then I decided to take a leap of faith and learn to use my Silhouette Cameo.  I stamped my graduation hat and knight and a diploma on cardstock and scanned them into my computer and then used the Silhouette software to combine the mortar board and the knight into one image to make a cut file.  I never seem to start with the easy things!  I managed it with the help of YouTube and a bit of patience and love how it turned out.  I used my stamp positioner to line up the diecut with the stamped images starting with the mortar board which I stamped and masked to stamp the knight in.

I colored the knight with Copics and then die cut the circle with Nestabilities and stamped the "you did it!" in Versamark and clear embossed.  I think if I had to do it over I would have gone with white embossing to make it pop a little more.  After that I layered the circles under the graduating knight.  The last bit is that I decided to decorate the envelope to match in an ombre effect of gray to maroon.

Ingredients
Card Size - 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 in;
Cardstock - Recollections 110lb: white; Bazzill Maroon; Foil Paper;
Stamps - High Hopes Stamps: Knight, Grad Cap; Stampendous: School Years; Kitchen Sink Stamps: Playful Numbers;
Ink - Memento: Tuxedo Black; Rhubarb Stalk; Gray Flannel;
Accessories - Silver foil; Dimensional tape.

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.

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





Perfectly Pink Girlie birthday

I do so many masculine, boyish cards that sometimes it's really good to let myself go and really go for it with the girlie ones!  There is lots on this card but supplies-wise its fairly straight-forward 3 cardstock choices, two inks, 4 stamp sets, markers, nestabilities, circle cutter and a bit of bling... hmm maybe there is more to it than I thought!  I guess it just goes to prove when you are in the zone with a card it flows.

To be honest I colored this image last year.  I always have trouble at the beginning of the year switching from Christmas and winter blahs to getting cards done and as my Brother in Law and dear, youngest cousin have birthdays 4 weeks after Christmas I just can't afford to lose my mojo like that.  It's the first time I have tried to do that and I have to say I really enjoyed the process.  I picked this image for my cousin because she has this little black cat that honestly follows her around like a dog and pines for her when she is at school by sitting by her bedroom door and crying for her loudly. 

 I chose the pinks from what I had left over from a Recollections paper pack that I bought a couple of years ago and decided I wanted to stamp tone on tone and just see how that turned out.  The base is Neenah and I stamped "9 Today" repeatedly to create a background.  I then used the same ink to continue with the greetings on the pale pink cardstock.  The large circle was cut before stamping and the small circles after.  I wanted the greetings to stand out a bit more so one I highlighted with white dots and the other with white faux stitching.  After cutting and matting the image with nestabilities I felt the whole card needed a bit of bling so I adhered three rhinestones in each corner of the mat.

Recipe

Card size -  8.5in x 5.5in

Card Stock - Neenah, Recollections

Stamps - Kitchen Sink Stamps, High Hopes stamps

Ink - Memento Tuxedo black, Rose bud

Color-  Copics, American Craft white gel pen

Accessories - Nestabilities, Martha Stewart Circle Cutter, Rhinestones

"Two little ducks" "Quack! Quack!"

This is what I sent our nephew.  At larger family gatherings over the holidays our uncle used to play lots of games and one of them was a home bingo set and we would play and laugh loudly.  I don't know how much my nephew remembers about these gatherings because the larger family gatherings in the winter stopped some time ago because of space constraints.  But when this birthday came up I thought I might just remind him of how he used to be a champion at home bingo when he was only a single digit.

I'm now wondering how many people will get the reference and know how old our nephew is?  Should I just tell you or let you guess?  This is a card based on British Bingo calling.  "David's Den, number 10" a reference to the Prime Minister at Downing Street.  "Legs! *catcall* eleven!"  "Two fat ladies.  88".  So given the background do you know how old the recipient of this card is?

Recipe
Card size - 8.5in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, Recollections
Stamps - Stampendous
Ink - Memento
Color - permanent markers, American craft white pen
Accessories - duck punch, nestabilities.

Totally Tiger

I made this card for a tiger lover.  I bet you never would have guessed!  I attempted to use flocking on the background... I know its kinda faded but I like it.  I think it looks more realistic that way.

Recipe
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source, Bazzill
Stamps - High Hopes, Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink - Memento, Versamark
Color - Copic, American Craft
Accessories - Nestabilities,  Fun Flock

2009 Christmas nephew

Drum roll please! this is the last card from 2009! So what do you think? I sent it to our nephew. I managed to continue to use up some of my designer paper stash too!

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock/Paper - Neenah, Archiver's open stock, Provocraft Rob & Bob stack
Stamp - High Hopes
Ink - Memento
Color - Copics - 0, E00, E02, R20, R22, R27, R29, C1, C3, W1, Booo, American Craft white gel pen
Embellishments - Liquid Applique, Nestabilities