Using a prize for a Happy Anniversary!

A little while ago I entered a challenge on CASology for "word" and won on Week 20 for "word".  The prize was a wonderful set of stamps from A-muse.  I always think that the best compliment is to use a gift/prize and that was the inspiration for this ombre card for my Brother-in-law and Sister-in-law's anniversary.  I think the effect is more subtle in person especially on that second heart!  

The first thing I did was to punch the border.  After that I stamped the hearts and followed that with the sentiment.  To tie it all together I added ribbon under the punched border.  What you can't see is that I used the softest pink to continue the heart theme on the inside of the card and the envelope.

Thought I would share this last picture so you could see the difference between showing this card upright and laying down so that the ribbon would show.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 inches x 5.5 inches
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Smooth Solar White;
Stamps - Amuse Studio: hearts a'plenty (couldn't find online so may be retired); Kitchen Sink Stamps: 3 Step Roses & Hearts;
Ink - Memento: Angel Pink, RoseBud, Rhubard Stalk;
Accessories - EK Success (don't have exact name); American Craft Ribbon;

Train-mendous!

This is a card for my husband's very punny uncle.  It took quite a while to do because I decided not to use my Copics and instead use my Prismacolor pencils.  So after a bit of stamping, coloring in, fussy and die cutting, and doing that part fussy/part die cut thing for the first time this is what resulted.  Oh and just to prove I could I threw on a bit of ribbon on this masculine card! LOL!

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Smooth Solar White; Recollections Black;
Stamps - Viva LasVegastamps: Train;  Gina K Designs: Ticket Trio;
Ink - Ranger Archival Ink: Black;
Color - Prismacolor Pencils;
Accessories - Ribbon; Brads; Spellbinders Nestabilities: Ovals; Dimensional tape

Superman - Dad of Steel! Exactly as I have planned it.

Oh how I wish I could say I was the most organized crafter ever and that I completely planned to make a superman card for my husband for Father's Day because I knew it would correspond with going to the movie with the family later that day...

The truth is I lost my mojo and remembered I had the stamp and had an "aha" moment and thinking I could do a gatefold card to make the cape and was at a loss for anything else to do.  What? Father's Day was the opening weekend for the movie too? well of course I planned it all!!! *knowing wink* 

The second picture shows the card standing.  Thinking about it now I could have adhered the blue to come over the top instead of inside of sandwiching the gate.  I think I might re-visit this card and try out those changes.

I also stamped the inside but the kids got hold of the card and added their own decorations and sentiments before I could photograph it to share it.  Oh well, you will have to take my word that it is cute as it has Superman flying through "Happy Father's Day".

I keep wondering if the stamp is lost, but I keep thinking if it were larger then I would have had issues with the gate fold... 

Ingredients
Card Size - 8.5 x 5.5 inches
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Smooth Solar White; Recollections: Red, Blue; 
Stamps - Viva LasVegastamps: Logo 1; Inside - Viva LasVegastamps: Superman Flying; Kitchen Sink Stamps: Whole Family;
Ink - Versamark; Memento: Danube Blue, Tuxedo Black;
Accessories - Zing! Gold Glitter Embossing Powder

A truly Golden Anniversary

I raided my stash and embellished it to make this card.  I will be honest with you I really wanted to make a different card by downloading a die and making multiple roses etc.... and I think my subconscious was secretly saying "Girl! You have got to be kidding!" so this is what my "oh I don't really have time to do all that so what am I going to do with what I already have because it would be really silly to go shopping when I could supply one" brain told me to do. 

I will be honest, I'm not certain that the gold glitter embossing on the thick metallic gold paper really worked or added that much compared to how much time it took to run the static pad over it, stamp the image with Versamark and add the embossing powder and heat so I wouldn't mess up the image when I did the next one.

So as I shopped my stash I'm a bit sketchy as to from where some things actually came.  The flowers and thick gold paper date back to my stash collecting when we lived in England! Wowzer! And back home they went to the happy couple, my husband's Auntie and Uncle.  And I just adore the punched border.  I will be honest with you it reminds me of the Double Wedding Ring quilt my parents used to have on their bed when I was growing up that my grandmother had made.  I didn't really set out to use pearls on a golden anniversary card but all my other bling didn't look right.

I really like this last shot of the card for showing the dimension and the reflection of the embossing.

I hope they thought it was a special as they are.

And yeah, I am still squeeing for joy at my successful heat embossing on vellum attempt! Bet you can see my happy dance if you look real close! 

Thanks for looking.  Now to get back to my table and get some more cards done!

Ingredients
Cardstock - Neenah Classic Crest Smooth Solar White, Gold unknown, Gold Iridescent Vellum: The Paper Source;
Stamps - Kitchen Sink Stamps:3-step Hearts and Roses (Happy Anniversary); Recollections: Big One Double ; Clear Dollar Stamps June Flower of the Month;
Ink - Versamark;
Accessories - Embossing Power: Zing White, Zing Gold Glitter ; Paper Roses: Unknown; Pearls: The Paper Source ; Martha Stewart Border & Corner Punch: Modern Garland; Dimensional tape; Nestabilities: Hearts, Scalloped Hearts;



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