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.

Can I get a Tilt with that Spin?

And so the football/soccer card continues to evolve... now I know you can't see that this is that much different than my first card.  Colors are now for my nephew who is an ardent Man United supporter.   I know, I know, we still love him anyway.

You can't really tell but the shirt tilts when the spinner spins!  Oh yeah now we are talking super nerdy card making skills!  Lionel Messi can't even keep up with these moves. LOL!  Thank you Splitcoastampers Resource pages (tilt and/or spinner cards).

This card also has a super save on it.  I cut the slot just a fraction too big.  Now it is pretty fiddly to get to the point of the slot so I decided to double stamp the ball and apply it to the other side of the back penny for stability and it worked like a charm.

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 Tuxedo black

Color - Copics (sorry forgot the exact colors but they were in the 20s/30s range and I use Ciao).

Accessories - White embossing powder, Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities, Pennies, Foam tape 

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

World Cardmaking Day lesson on sharing.

I love to share!  I bet just about everyone with a blog loves to share, an idea, a thought a project in progress or completed.  However, I think we should remember that not everything is ours to share.  Letting my friend borrow a stamp is completely different to widely disseminating someone else's art.

Please take a moment today and visit Mo's Digital Pencil too .  I came across a post on SplitcoastStampers and thought the best thing I could do on World Cardmaking Day is support the artists who make my little stamp creations possible.  Please think about it and I hope you will do the same.

Here's another site as well if you really want to give these artists your support.  http://stampoutstamptheft.blogspot.com/

What? Flowers on a Soccer card? What am I thinking?

This card is for the wife of  Uncle Manky from my previous post... her season ticket was right beside his and I got to thinking that I bet she never got "sports" cards because they aren't very feminine.  So I challenged myself to make a feminine sports themed card.  I think I might have just succeeded too!  I decided that I wanted to use my gladiola stamps for the feminine touch alone with the tee shirt and ball... It came to me that the only time I have really ever seen this combination is on the washing line so thus "why" the shirt is on the washing line.  Hopefully in the make believe card world Auntie Gladys didn't have to wash and hang out her shirt to dry on her birthday!

I stamped, colored and embossed the shirt and ball just like I did for Uncle Manky.  I then stamped the gladiola multiple times masking off the butterfly in all but one of the repetitions and staggering the placement to look more natural.  After coloring them in with Copics, I used versamark and clear embossing powder to emboss them.  I used an airbrush to spray the sky (I think that is about the best sky I have done!) and more Copics to make some grass for the garden.  The clothes pegs are from another Clear Dollar Stamps set Hanging Out.  Although I didn't have movement with this design I wanted it to look like it could so I popped the ball and the bottom of the shirt up on dimensionals.  Do you think it makes the shirt look like the breeze has caught it?  As for the blue stripe background that was to mimic the hoops that are on the front of the Reading FC football kit and it does a nice job of tying everygthing together don't you think!

And though you can't see it if you saw my previous post you will know there is a little "manky cat" on the inside of this card too!

Ingredients

Card Size - 8.5 x 5.5 in

Cardstock & Paper - Neenah Solar White, The Paper Source (black cardstock & blue stripes).

Stamps - GinaK Designs (Little Tees, Sporty Accessories), Clear Dollar Stamps (August Flower of the month, Hanging Out),  Kitchen Sink Stamps (Whole Family), JustRiteStampers

Ink - Memento (Tuxedo Black), Versamark

Color - Copics

Accessories - clear embossing powder, airbrush, foam tape

And when Football (Soccer) Season begins so do the themed cards!

I make no apologies for my blogging - life is too short!  What I will do is warn you that I have a lot of soccer/football cards of a similar ilk coming up.  Hey! I'm an if it ain't broke don't fix it sort of gal.  What I think is good about sharing this is that you will see how I changed things slightly with no two cards exactly alike (the SCS spinner card use is prominent) even though the theme is the same.

This card was for one of our favourite uncle's who is celebrating his 80th birthday and used to be a Reading FC season ticket holder.  Unfortunately he has had a few health problems and had to give up his season ticket a few seasons ago but I know he still supports them. 

The name "Uncle Manky" is a pet name from my husband, it stems from a family party where his uncle asked "Who's manky cat is that?" Well, that just tickled my husband's funny bone and ever since (20+ years) he has been "Uncle Manky".

Of course, I had to add a cat too just to remind him how he got the name!

That second cat.. well I will get to that another day.

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), Clear Dollar Stamps (Simon the cat),  Stampendous (Flexible Friendship Wishes)

Ink - Memento Tuxedo black and Danube blue, Versamark

Color - Copics W1,W3, W5 and I can't remember the pink...

Accessories - Clear embossing powder, Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities, Pennies, Foam tape 

Just in case you are interested, I used the small round stamper with the medium sized font - it overhangs the outside but gives me the right curve for the shirts, I just go along and press down with my fingers to ensure the tops and/or bottoms of the letters get enough pressure to ink the paper.

I guess its hard to tell from the photo but I did my best to make it a Reading FC kit with the sleeve trim in blue and accent this with a blue ball.

A Shower for Baby Dillon

So I think I have found my calling decorating for family baby showers.  We use karate studio for these functions as one of my uncles runs a karate dojo and is kind enough to let us use it.  It is a great open space but some times it needs something to be a bit more homey.  I do my best to decorate it to keep my mama cousins happy.

I asked my aunt if she wanted me to decorate a bit for the shower and if anyone was doing a "diaper cake".  I did my now traditional (I guess two showers makes a tradition) baby block baby name.  This time I used two tones of blue as I didn't have enough of either to do the name in full.  I try to do these things out of my more than ample stash!  I'm sure no other paper crafter has these issue having so much cardstock around.  Anyway, I think they are a great hit and fairly easy to do with my electronic die cutting machine.

As my policy to be completely honest about these things you will see with the decorations that are hanging there is a cute not so little umbrella in the center. I have to be honest that I attempted to make a mobile but the string the vines and animals were just too heavy for the cardstock umbrella, so I deconstructed it and used them separately. My wonderful son hung them from the soffet for me and did an excellent job staggering the heights (those animals have fronts and backs decorated). There is an elephant at the far end in case you are wondering - I did the best I could but the shower was staring at this point. LOL!

Alas, the diaper cake. I can't take all the credit. I had my mother roll the diapers. We kept them rolled with clothes pegs and then we put rubber bands around the "layers" and covered the layers with a couple of layers of freezer paper. I then lined some ribbon I had on hand with some double sided tape and placed it around the middle of the layers. The ribbon at the bottom of the layers is wired. Don't you just love that bow! I placed the animals all around to decorate it.

 

Now you are going to have to forgive me for a moment for sending you back up to the first picture to see that giraffe and then point out the one on the cake. Yes that giraffe on with the building blocks is nearly 2 feet tall - just how fun is that! And on the cake what about that double sided monkey on top?!  He is "attached" to a wooden skewer that I fed through the gaps in the layers.  Acutally I fed about three skewers through to help it all hold together.  Did you notice the all the vines on the mirror? There are loads - they are to cover the joins between the mirrors - my uncle even said they could stay up by my cousin wanted them for her baby book.

I enjoyed making these decorations so much but I'm not going to lie there are a lot of decorations and they took me 3 8+ hour sessions to complete and a few heartbreaking attempts that failed. And it definitely is not the "cheap" option. I'm not even going to add up the supplies because the joy I got from doing some special for my cousin was worth it. Thanks for looking.

Apologies for some of the "coding" making the page a bit wonky - I have done my best to clear it up.