Mom's Birthday

I try to do something different & special for my Mom's cards. She appreciates them & is a very forgiving critic - lol! 

For this card, I started with the 7x10 card stock (cut down from 12x12). I was inspired by the floral design paper, but wanted a special texture so I ran it through the Cuddlebug embossing folder. 

Instead of layering up from the card front, I cut a window with my paper trimmer; leaving a 3/8 in. boarder and enough for the bottom sentiment. 

Since the other side of the paper wasn't in keeping with the look of the card, I covered that by adhering the dp to another piece of the same stock used for the card itself. Then, I used dimensional adhesives to attach the dp from the inside.

The flower is made using Fiskar Ultra ShapeXpress & 2 different templates - I love that I am doing the cutting, even if its with a template (fancy name for a stencil).  I sandwiched two identical with the different layer between. Then topped with a 2 inch scallop circle punch, a smaller scallop circle & a snowflake. Finally, finished with the pink pearl embellishment.

 

The bird was a bit tricky, didn't want it to take over, so had to be careful on ink color, etc. I ended up stamping & then adding some glitter to soften the look, a bit of fussy cutting, popped it up & it was good to go.

Last but not least, the sentiment...

I found a nice font on MS Word, so I printed on plain white cs. Trimmed and framed, but it needed something.....didn't really want to use a ribbon, so I took my MS border punch, punched a strip, trimmed it off straight about 1/8-1/4 inch on the opposite side. Then very carefully (took a couple of tries) I re punched from the straight side to get the effect. Added a couple of flowers made from excess punch cuts to finish it off.

Thanks for looking.

A Day in the Garden

 

So when I was growing up, I couldn't stand going into the garden to pick peas, beans, etc. I inevitably stumbled across very large spiders and didn't understand why I had to be the one doing this. 

Well, now I'm grown & really enjoy fresh produce from our backyard.  Still not crazy about working in the garden, but hey I have kids now!

I figured it was time to thank Dad for giving me an appreciation for home grown goodness and the efforts that go into each piece of produce.

For his birthday, I found a wonderful Free digital print "Girl in the Garden" from http://lineartdigitalstamps.com that I couldn't pass up. Life was too busy around Father's Day, so this had to be a special card.

As it so happens, there's also a challenge on Stampin Sisters in Christ to follow a plan....with a circle or oval element - here we go, time to get making the card.  Unfortunately, I didn't use any embellishments, so I won't be entering the challenge...oh well, maybe next time. I don't think it needs anything else.

Now to the card:

I colored the image using my watercolor pencils then cut around the thick black line. How to hide the imperfect cutting? Black background!

I used a Swiss dot Cuddlebug embossing folder on some inexpensive black card stock. Turns out, the pressure is too much for the stock and the white core came through. 

Now what? I've heard about inking the sides of stamps when you don't want the white layer to show, so I figured inking over this would be very similar. Some paper towel, black ink & a few circle movements later....voila, fixed!

 I left some undone on this piece, the right side is inked, the left not...doesn't come through much on the picture, but it makes a big difference!

 

 

 

So the gingham DP cried out farmer, but the black keeps it more stately...gentlemanly farmer, if you will.

 

Printed the Happy Birthday from the computer & layered it on. It seemed a bit stark being plain white, so I took my chalk pastels & did a faint cross hatch to mimic the gingham DP.

Thanks for looking!

Scuba Diver - June 2012

For this card, I needed to incorporate Scuba somehow...not an easy task with the stamps, clipart & digis out there. I finally found a digital stamp at www.digidarladesigns.com. I colored it using water color pencils to match my son's tastes. 

The designer paper in the background is a sky scene from DCWV Endless Summer stack. The card itself is DCWV Robin #1. 

I added the shells stamp from Inkadinkadoo's Coastal/marine set. Using a copper and a black ink at the same time, masked and turned it to give a varied sea floor.

The diver is colored, fussy cut, and popped up with dimensionals as well as the fish (stamped from Fiskars Flip n' flop set) 

I couldn't find seaweed I liked, so I cut my own from My Big Ideas Sunshine paper pad.

Finally, I added a variety of gold and tan colored glitter to the bottom along with the air bubbles being dots of glue with a blue green glitter mixture. 

Just goes to show, if what you want isn't out there, you can make it!