All aboard!

We have an uncle who is a train fanatic there really is no other way to describe him and this is what I came up with for his birthday in April. 

I decided to keep it masculine with the colors even though its a spring birthday day.  I'm pretty certain I used a Kaleidoscope autumnal (don't ask me the name right now) ink pad that I had picked up at Hobby Lobby some time ago.  Of course yet again I colored the main train with my Copics.

Recipe
Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, The Paper Source
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps, Kitchen Sink Stamps
Ink - Memento, Kaleidoscope, Distress
Color - Copics
Accessories - Nestabilities, straight edge

Time flies... well at least when I forget to blog it seems to!

OK you are going to have to bear with me as it has been a few months since I created these. I will tell you from the start I don't have the copic colors I used for these next few posts. Also they are all going to be pretty short, sweet and to the point.

This card is for my Sensei's wife's birthday. My Sensei is pretty highly trained in Okinawan Karate so I thought she was appreciate the thought. She did. She gushed that she loved the colors and they are exactly what she wanted to redecorate one of her rooms in! I love it when things go so right.

Recipe -
Card size - 5.5 in x 8 in
Cardstock - Neenah, DCWV
Ink - Memento
Stamps - Hero Arts, Kitchen Sink Stamps
Color - Copics
Accessories - Nestabilities, Martha Stewart punch, Prima flowers, brads, ribbon

A boy and his catapult/slingshot - for UK Mothering Sunday

Yes, there is definitely a story behind this card. Firstly, this card is for my MIL for Mothering Sunday, March 14th. She is the mother of boys and my husband is her youngest so by the time he came along they had already done it with the eldest. He still has ongoing stories about not having pets, toys, etc because his brother had them. One such item he never had was a catapult until his older brother became an apprentice welder and made him one. The catapult was then worked on by both them and they found a bit of tubing and proper density elastic to make it work. Of course, no self respecting boy would leave his catapult lying around without ensuring it could work. There in lies the story of my husband deciding the best thing to aim at was the neighbour's telly aerial. He had had a few goes and missed, that was until his father came out to see what he was up to. He told his father right away he was aiming at the neighbour's aerial and took another shot. Well as luck would have it he hit and in the same breath his father confiscated his catapult never to be seen again until they were clearing out the garage a couple of years later.

I saw these easel cards on SCS - I didn't really read the directions - I just had a go at my craft table. I like the way it turned out. Again this is another card that I'm trying to use up some of my paper stash - this is from a Basic Grey pad.

Ingredients -

Card Size - 8.5in x 5.5in

Stamps - High Hopes, Kitchen Sink Stamps

Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill

Ink - Memento - Rhubarb, Tuxedo, Rich Cocoa; Ranger - Distress Inks

Paper - Basic Grey Archive

Color - Copics - B000, B93, B95, B97, G21, G28, E02, E04, E08, E31, E33, E35, R35, R37, R46, R59

Accessories - Prima flowers, Making Memories Brads, dimensional tape

Purple Pansy Petal Power!

I love this card - it turned out so much better than my brain imagined it - I just went with the creative flow and it all worked out this time!

I bought this Clear Dollar Stamp sets specifically to use for my MIL's birthday. She is a gardener at heart. She actually worked with disabled gardeners until her retirement and then continued to run a monthly club for them to attend.

If you haven't seen these flower of the month and flower sets at Clear Dollar Stamps then check them out - they have so much punch and variety within them.

I started this card out by using my Pansy set and coloring it with my copics - well actually that's not quite what happened. I started out this card with the intent on using my twinkling H2O's to create a luminous card that I knew my MIL would love. I painstakingly colored my main image and all the while not truly liking how it was turning out... Yikes! This really wasn't speaking to me. So knowing I was up against it and really needed to get this done I changed course and went back to my trusted copics and stamped and colored again - oh, yes! that really is much better. So the flower was colored and a nice sky halo of blue added to help it "pop".

Oh dear, now what. I looked at my Flower of the month set... I want to use the script... hmmm do I mask the image and use it? That doesn't seem quite right for what I am wanting. So I decided to create a background with the set using the script. On thinking it out I thought the script alone would be "too" masculine so I added the flowers, playing about with the placement using the stamps and the projected image in my head (no image available - just clutter in there!) and decided to stamp the image in a row of three and working out that if I turned the stamp 180 that it would fit together in the middle of the page rather nicely. Then I added another row of script stamping. I used the London Fog grey because I just wanted a softened reference to the original image. I colored in the pansies on my background just using the lightest of the colors I had used with my original image. I looked at my background and thought it needed something. There is just something about "script" that always screams antique to me - so I dug out my Distressed Ink inkpads and found Faded Linen and a sponge and just sponged over the entire background.

Afterwards I was playing with a layout idea and thought I would need a sentiment - I decided to use Brilliance Victorian purple and clear embossing on my sentiment to match the mounts of the image and the card. I wanted it to have a different sheen to it to stand out slightly from the background itself. Then I used the Swiss dots embossing folder for the entire background - that took three passes - I was thinking about using another folder but I wasn't certain I could get the pattern to match. I set my background aside to work some more on my main image.

I had stamped and colored my main imaged on a 4.25 in x 5.5 in sheet of cardstock. I wanted to use one of my Nestability sets - so after going through them all! I decided on one and used the next size for the mount...hmmm... I decided to embossing the image layer... now what? It doesn't really pop like I want - so out came the Distress Inks and sponge again and I used the die as a mask. On the mount layer it just seemed to need something to tie it together a bit more so I used the inside of the die as a guide to put down some faux stitching.

I decided to make the effort to match up the inside of the card too -

I decided I wanted to repeat the usage of my stamps again to mirror the front of the card. I first stamped the main image pansy in the center of the back of the card and the the sentiment in purple then I used the FotM pansies for the bottom corner and the script stamp across the bottom. It just felt like it still needed something so I softly colored in the pansies to match the front! It was then I decided to stop.

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Bazzill, Neenah

Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps Pansy and Pansy Flower of the Month; Kitchen Sink Stamps Whole Family

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, London Fog, Grape Jelly; Brilliance Victorian purple; Distress Inks Antique Linen

Copics - BV00, BV02, BV04, BV08, Gooo, Goo, G14, G17, Y11, Y15, Y17

Cuttlebug Swiss Dots

Nestabilities

Owl thank you!

I love this cuttlebug folder - its not new but its such a great way to get a sentiment on a card without it taking over the image. I just embossed the front and then adhered it to the card base and edged the front in a purple ink that matched the mount for the owl image.

The image is from Clear Dollar Stamps colored in with copics. I love their images and have made a vow to use them more (which probably isn't too difficult as they may make up the majority of my stamping collection these days!)

I'm trying to get caught up as I have the disease of procrastination. These are for my children to send thank you's to my DH's aunties who send them gifts at Christmas. Now the hard part - getting them to write them!

Ingredients
Card Size - 4.25 in x 5.5 in

Cardstock - Neenah, Bazzill

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Grape Jelly

Clear Dollar Stamps - What a Hoot

Copics - E31,E33, E35, E37, B000, YR04

Cuttlebug Folder - Thanks

Nestabilities

A 2010 card! but only on the scanner

Sorry I don't have fancy photography for this one - I had camera issues and had to get it sent on its overseas journey - so on the scanner it went.

I covered the entire front in S.E.I. designer paper Alpine Forest (the white around the card is the scanner lid). The image is from Clear Dollar Stamps. I used it for my BIL because it reminded me of the birds that advertise Guiness which is just perfect for my BIL. I chose the cardstock to reflect that history and earthiness of the thick stout. After deciding on a layout I thought I should emboss a greeting but I wanted it unobstrusive, so I decided to use my Kitchen Sink set and Zig white embossing powder so that the "Brother" was there but not glaringly so.

I think the card is a little quirky with the mix of earthiness and cute birds but I think I like it because of that; I could have bought a card that was either or but this combination is truly unique because it is handmade. What do you think? Did I take it too far? Not far enough?

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock/Paper - Neenah, S.E.I.
Ink - Memento, Versamark
Stamps - Clear Dollar Stamps "Hanging Out" , Kitchen Sink Stamps "Whole Family"
Copics - 0, B000, B00, C3, C5, C7, E50, E51, E08, E49, R35, R37, YR02, YR04, YR07,

Hello friend!

Oh dear...

I think I said I had already posted ALL my 2009 cards... well you can understand that I meant my 2009 Christmas cards right?LOL

This is a card I made for a dear friend whose birthday is at Christmas time and I like to send her birthday cards that don't look like Christmas cards with "Happy Birthday" on them.

I really like how simple this was and how it turned out.

Loads of rectangles to compliment one another and a great patterned cardstock from DCWV. I cut apart a Stampendous phrase to keep it short and relevant, and guess what! no stamp police came and hunted me down for doing that! LOL.

Ingredients
Card size - 8.5 in x 5.5 in
Cardstock - Neenah, DCWV
Stamps - High Hopes Stamps, Stampendous (greeting)
Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Canteloupe
Copics - B000, B00, B93, B95, B97, E00, E02, E11, E31,E33,E35, G000, G00, G02, G05, G07, G14, G21, G28, R20, Y11, Y15, Y17, YR02, YR04, YR07