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.

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

A Very Dotty Happy 18th!

Can you tell we are absolutely dotty about our neice and she has a special birthday!  Well in England anyway.  They really celebrate 18th and/or 21st birthdays.  The 21st is more traditional but 18th is really popular too especially as they finish secondary school and don't really graduate like we do in the US (They do national exams and get their results a few months later).

I used a couple of Gina K Stamps sets for this.  I stamped the greeting on the white die cut circles with a rainbow of memento colors.  I then stamped the shirt with the lady bug red on scrap paper and before I cleaned it off I added some metallic Tsukineko ink to the stamp and stamped again to keep the color and add a metallic sheen to the lettering on the T shirt.  I cut out the shirt and put foam tape on it.  I then used my Spellbinders dies to cut out circles in both white and black.  I cut and adhered them together adding the shirt to the front and decorating with rhinestones.  Then I made the background layout and decided to go overboard with the dots theme and emboss the background which meant four passes through the folder and machine with some hand embossing to tease out the dots that get smashed in the sides of the folders.

Time to attach the image circle using some more foam tape and of course I just had to add the rainbow dotty ribbon I already had in my stash!  I don't know if it works or not but I like it.  What about you?

Ingredients

Card size -8.5 x 5.5 inches

Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source, Georgia Pacific

Stamps - Gina K - Just So Sporty & Little Tees

Ink - Memento, Tsukineko

Accessories - Embossing Folder, Die cuts, Ribbon, Crystals

Red Hearty Happy Anniversary

So I got creative block and got to trawling Etsy one night, well lets be honest one day & night and got inspired by loads of graphic letterpress cards.  I had wanted to make a Clean & Simple card for my BIL & SIL for their anniversary and this is what I came up with.

I don't know if it completely works.  What do you think?  I like all the components and I really liked it when I sent it.  I think I'm just second guessing myself now.

Anyway at least I used some dies that I have had for a few years and have never used! Oopsie!

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, Archiver's open stock linen texture, The Paper Source

Stamps - Kitchen Sink Stamps

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black

Accessories - Spellbinders Heart Dies, Cuttlebug Male & Female dies, Ribbon, Heart brad.

Rainbow Butterflies

Isn't it amazing how sometimes the simplest cards to make are the most striking cards to view.  I decided that as this was a get well card I wanted it to be cheerful.  What is more cheerful than a rainbow after the rain and better analogy.  So basically I cut out 12 in strips with the butterfly punch in each color of the rainbow.  I then cut them to length for the card.  Next I sent the strips through my sticker maker.  I did then send them through my die cutting machine with an embossing pad to ensure all the glue was adhered. 

With the excess strips I cut out some of the individual butterflies and then adhered them to each color for some movement.

All that was left was to stamp the greeting with my Big Juicy rainbow inkpad.  The sentiment is Inkadinkado.

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah

Paper - The Paper Source

Punch - Martha Stewart

Stamp - Inkadinkado

Ink - Big Juicy

Accessories - sticker maker

Yeah, that didn't work

So the concept was to use my fabby new Hero Arts stamps to make some thank you notes that needed to be sent out already.  The  plan was to use purple for the typewriter, gold for the paper and an orange for the background, stamping in black.  This should work, Right?

So I stamp my typewriter black on purple and all is well... maybe I just should have left it at that but no I didn't.  I decided to put crystal effects on typewriter to make it glossy.  It curled when dry.  I stamped the "thank you" on gold and tried to make it look like paper. Hmm the paper is too big for the typewriter.  Lastly I put my orange paper through my die cutting machine and the embossing folder must have thought it was a die cutting folder...

You know I'm going with it.  I'm not perfect and I am proud!  Who wants to be card making elite?  I just want to get my cards done and sent out on time! LOL! and hopefully they are cute, and no one has ever made a prettier, cuttier, more scrumtious card right?!

Oh well back to the drawing board time!

Ingredients
Card Size - 4.25 x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Georgia Pacific
Paper - The Paper Source
Stamps - Hero Arts
Ink - Memento
Accessories - Crystal Effects

Mother's Day the card was on time.

I made this card as part of Challenge SC331 on SplitcoastStampers

I tried to upload it at the time and couldn't so I thought I would go ahead and post it now though it's been a couple of weeks.  I kept trying to hold off until I got my gallery updated.  Still trying to get that done.  Hopefully tonight if I'm lucky though it may not because it is VSN night there.  One of these days I'm going to have to participate in one however, I keep thinking I need to be a bit more organized before I start and at the moment if you could see my craft space - organized it is not!

I decided to use this High Hopes stamp I have had for a while for a Mother's Day this year especially as it was so close to Easter.  I colored, masked and airbrushed with my Copics.  I really do love the intensity of color I get with little effort.  I did alter the sketch a bit by adding some flowers to make it a little less masculine. 

I think I'm getting better with the airbrush!

Ingredients

Card size - 5.5 x 8.5 inches

Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source

Stamps -  High Hopes

Ink - Memento

Color - Copics

Accessories - Prima Flowers, Rhinestone brads, Airbrush

Technique - Stamping, Masking, Coloring with Copics, Airbrushing



A Class Act!

Classy right?  Well, I know this is kinda generic but it was inspired by a coming together of ideas and comments.  I was reading a thread on Splitcoaststampers about the images from Cricut being too childish.  Now you may disagree but I think this one is pretty simple and ageless, rather than childish.  I made this for my 17 year old as in the last few years he has been exploring his theatrical side and gaining more confidence with each performance.

There is a card cut on the cartridge and I used that to make the base with the black masks over the opening  I then covered those masks with an identical white cut out and another one that I had highlighted and shadowed with copics and popped up from the other white masks with some coasters I had collected.

I didn't like the "gap" around the masks as such.  I decided I would go in behind and add some texture.  I then lined the card with another layer of gold/yellow cardstock. 



Do you get the song reference with this card as well?  "Ah huh, You know what it is?" (another nod to a song that my son seems to be singing all the time at the moment though he's a Colts fan! :S ! LOL!)

Recipe
Card Size  8.5in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - The Paper Source (textured black), Recollection (white/gold)
Cricut Cartridge - Locker Talk
Cuttlebug - dots embossing folder

Color -  Copics (C1,C3)

Accessories - Cricut Expression, Cricut Design Studio

Ye Old Buzzard -that's my BIL

So my brother-in-law turned 50 and what was I to do but rub it in his face.  It wasn't until I was nearly finished with this card that my husband decided to suggest a Hawaii Five-O theme.  Really? You wait until I am nearly finished with a unique card that isn't useful for anyone else we know this year?!  Anyway I stuck with my original plan and will have to try to remember to use the Hawaiian theme in the future!  So here's my attempt at elder humor -

It's a combined stamps project.  What can I say if I like a stamp I use it.  And I really like how these combined.  The image is from High Hopes Stamps and the Large numbers are from Kitchen Sink Stamps.  I love both stamp companies - High Hopes for their whimsy and Kitchen Sink Stamps for their beauty.  I wanted the graphic punch of a cartoon with this card, do you remember the days when we used to get excited about the color in the newspaper and how they used to print the comics in color on Sunday?  I guess I'm showing my age because its a fond memory of mine and that was the sort of feel I was going for with this.  Did I get it right?  The multi-colored line of "50" is the envelope.

Recipe

Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source

Stamps - High Hopes Stamps, Kitchen Sink Stamps, Stampendous (the small 50 on the balloon)

Ink - Memento tuxedo black, Big Juicy Pad (kaleidoscope effect), Versamark

Color - Copics

Accessories - White embossing powder

Vroom! Vroom! Happy Birthday!

I made this card for my son for his birthday over the weekend.  He is 17 and of course like most 17 year olds he dreams of the day he will own a fast car.  Notice I don't share that dream but as long as it's a dream then I can live with it and indulge all the work he is doing to one day afford one!

I ran across this card contest on Clearly iStamp and thought it would make a great layout for a masculine birthday card.

Pretty much everything on this card IS Clear Dollar Stamps - The car image, the greeting, the background, and even those bolts; they are stamped in Memento Tuxedo black, cut out and then a clear glaze over them for some shine and texture.  This is one case where I started with the card sketch, the intended recipient (and chose the appropriate stamps from Clear Dollar Stamps) and ran with it.

So, do you think my card is running fast or running on empty?

Recipe

Card Sketch - CDC #22

Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah (base and image), Recollections (Blue), The Paper Source (Black)

Stamps -  Clear Dollar Stamps - bolt (Wrench & Bolt set), Metal plate (Heavy Metal), Happy Birthday (Cool Ride), Car (Corvette 1968)

Ink - Memento (Tuxedo Black, London Fog)

Color - Copics (sky - B0000, B000, B00; car - B23, B24, B29, B00, C1,C3, C5, W3,W5, E31; ground - C1, C3, C5)

Accessories - Cuttlebug embossing folder (gears), Spellbinders Nestabilities Oval

ETA - to answer the question - yes the diamond plate background is stamped.

Fly by Birthday for future Fly boy.

I made this card expressly for my cousin, his heart's desire is to go to Naval Academy and fly as long as he doesn't get too tall!

So truthfully I bought this set from Clear Dollar Stamps specifically with him in mind because whether or not his dreams come true he will always love airplanes.

I made a tonal background using London Fog and Tuxedo Black in my Memento inks, alternating colors and stamps to get a masculine feel.  I colored the focal image with Copics and plenty of color to ensure it stood out.  I matted it on the black and put it to the background and it just seemed to swim on the page.  I decided I needed to break up the background so I adhered the black strip across.  That really made it much better.  I put the card together adding a bit of masculine bling with the silver brads on the corners of the main image.   It was still a bit blah.  So I decided to use the "Happy Birthday" stamp from another Clear Dollar Stamps set (I think Classic Cruisin) and round them so they were like little message clouds.  Hope you like.

Recipe

Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source

Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps

Ink - Memento - Tuxedo Black & London Fog

Color - Copics

Accessories - corner rounder, silver brads.

The bluebird of happy birthday

Wow I guess I really have been away from my blog for a while what with Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and life in general.  Well hopefully this card will help you cheer up and inspire you to think warm thoughts!

This card was for my Sister in Law.  She loves gardening and although her birthday is at the end of October I thought it would make a change for her to get a card suited to her interests rather than the autumnal season.

What isn't obvious about this card was immediately after stamping "Sister in Law" I lost the stamps.  They are clear and I couldn't find them on my work table anywhere.  I looked and looked and nearly emailed the manufacturer about whether they make replacements after I had exhausted any idea of where they could have fallen when they just turned up right where I had previously looked.  I'm putting it down to pre Christmas stress!

I like the juxtaposition of the formal font for the greeting with the whimsical stamps.  Do you think it works?

I stamped the front panel wanting to keep all the stamping on one layer and make an impact with the white space.  The bird and birdhouse on the inside I did stamp and cut out and apply as I didn't want bleed through to the back of the card.  I also put some scrap cardstock inside an envelope and stamped and colored the envelope with that inside to prevent bleed through to the back of the envelope and to give my Sister in Law a glimpse of what her card was going to be about.

I really like this card - almost too much to send!

Recipe

Card Size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source (black)

Stamps - Kitchen Sink Stamps, High Hopes Stamps

Ink - Memento tuxedo black and blue danube (?)

Color - Copics

What do Wednesday, Rochdale & Macclesfield have in common?

They are all represented on this card.

So my husband asks me to make a football (soccer to the Americans) card for one of his best friends and this is what I came up with.  I really debated how to do this and thought I really wanted to use my GinaK sets.  The problem was the stripes - Yikes! how was I going to make the stripes?  In the end I went with stamping everything on white and free hand coloring of the shirts.  Luckily (after some investigation) I found out that all the clubs are relatively the same color blue.

Then just when I thought I was done, he asks "can you put our names on them"?  What? what do you mean? OMG? I would have done it different?  Oh I don't want to waste what I have already done!  Don't you know I'm on a time limit here?  So I think for a moment and grab my Just Rite circle stamper and go through my alphabets for the one that is nearest.  Thankfully on a whim I had some white embossing powder.  Versamark and white embossing powder and using my letters half off the block and pressing each down with my fingers achieved the names - so nothing remotely awkward there! *snorts* OH NO!  The white doesn't work with the stripes.  Now what... I think they probably number the striped kits in black so I stamp up and color another striped shirt and try it versamark and black fine embossing powder.  IT WORKED!  HUZZAH!  Then to find the right numbers... where I should have some - too big, too small ooooo these GinaK ones are just right!!! I'm now officially in love with Gina, but don't tell my "I can pull random requests out of the air and my wife will make it" husband.  I outlined the number and letters of the main shirt in gold for that extra punch.  All the shirts stamped and embossed I needed to decide how they were going to be on the "field".  Quickly I grabbed my nestabilities and die cut a double circle out of the middle of a green sheet of 8.5in x 5.5 in cardstock and then cut that in half and spread them out to make the lines.  My husband chose the placement of the shirts (I think he did a pretty good job) and I cut up some chipboard to lift the shirts off the field.  I looked at the card and decided it really did need the football (soccer ball) so quickly stamped on out one and adhered it.

Recipe
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source
Stamps - GinaK (Little Tees, Just So Sporty, Sporty Accessories), Justrite
Ink - Memento, Versamark
Color - Copics
Accessories - white embossing powder, black ultrafine embossing powder, gold pen, chipboard

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

Mr & Mrs W

This card was for a couple who were getting married later in life so I wanted to keep it celebratory and light.  What better way than a personalized champagne toast (I used a small W to personalize the bottle).

Recipe
Card size - 8.5in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, Wassau (I think - a pearlized pack), The Paper Source
Stamps - See D's, Kitchen Sink Stamps, Just Rite Stamp
Ink - Memento - tuxedo black
Color - Copics
Accessories - Nestabilities, Scor-Pal, Cuttlebug Paisley embossing folder, lavender and white sheer ribbon, prima flowers, clear rhinestone brads.

Flying High Snoopy.

I make no apologies - I LOVE SNOOPY. I bought this stamp ages ago and kept forgetting to use it. I guess I deserve the cone of shame for that (yes, an "Up" reference - great movie if you haven't seen it). I took all the color cues from the stamp mount.

And do look close so you can avoid my mistake - my red hadn't bled into the circles until I thought I would put some grey shading in there after I had colored the red. Lesson learnt I won't put red down on my card until last again when using copics!

Don't know if you can actually tell but Snoopy is the lightest of greys with a liberal use of the blender pen.

To make Snoopy pop even more I matched the embossed greeting to the horizon of blue around the plane. I think it works, I hope you do too.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source, Michael's
Stamps - Stampabilities
Ink - Memento tuxedo black
Color - Copics - 0, W1, W3, W5, W7, E35, E37, R46, R59, B000
Cuttlebug birthday embossing folder

What a pane!

I'm not feeling this card - it turned out exactly how I thought it would and its part of my experimentation with CAS but I don't know, its just not speaking to me. Any ideas?
This card is my standard 8.5 x 5.5 in and maybe that's where I went wrong - maybe the proportion of the stamp can't support the size of the card.

I really wanted to use this set and let the pink girlie icing on the cake pop out from the dark shadows of the inside of the home. The trim actually mimics the trim of my mother's house as this was a card for her. I colored the ribbon with the copics to get a match. I decided to anchor the image with black mounted background to give the image some weight on the card. If you look closely you can see that I scored the card either side of the ribbon just to give a little more simple texture to the card.

Ingredients:
Card size - 8.5in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black
Color - Copics - hopefully I will sort out my list soon - I wrote them down somewhere!
Accessories - Sakura clear glaze pen, white grosgrain ribbon.

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

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