Autumnal Birthday greetings

This is one of the cards I made for my mother's birthday in November. I think it is kind of unisex and doesn't automatically scream that the recipient is male or female.

I was hoping that the ink would bead (and it did) for the tree trunk just to create some bark texture. I think just played with the leaf stamps from the set and kept over stamping in different autumnal Memento inks.

The one thing I would absolutely change on this card is that I would have had the exact match memento ink pen for the brown lines on the kraft card base.

The layers are done so that the brown echoes the size of the image and the green the dimensions of the card base.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5in x 5.5in
Cardstock - Archivers Kraft, Bazzill, Neenah
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps
Ink - Versamark, Memento - Summer Sky, Canteloupe, Desert Sand, New Sprout, Bamboo Leaves, Rhubard Stalk, Rich Cocoa.

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.

New House, Eh?

So a dear cyberfriend decides to imigrate from the English Midlands to Canada and this is what I came up with.

I'm doing my best to experiment toward being more CAS (or clean and simple) and I hope this qualifies. I liked the idea of a bright red welcoming door and it also echo'ed the red in the Canadian flag (yeah I really do think things like that!). Plus, I remember when I was looking to sell my own home and how the home improvement shows in England said that red is a welcoming color for a front door!

With moving to a new country, new neighbourhood and new house, I imagine everything is bright and new for my dear friends family even if she is still too far north! makes me shiver just to think about it. LOL That was the thinking behind making the neighborhood nice and colorful.

So here is the finished card, what do you think?

Too much? too little? Truthfully on looking at it now, I'm thinking I should have divided the sentiment and just had one line to keep it cleaner.

Ingredients
Card size - 4.25 x 5.5 inches (Gasp! Shock! Horror! its a small card!)
Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black
Stamps - Stampendous "House and Home"
Copics - R20, R22, R27, R29, Y02, Y06, Y28, B000, B00, B23, B24, C1,C3,C5, BV02, BV04, G14,G17, YR04, YR07

I think it is kinda funny that such a simple looking card used so many color variations!

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.