Big thank you!

Here's a fun little card I made for Mother's Day, but am only just now getting around to posting it. I fell in love with this image (Four Little Birds, by Stamps Happen) and it was perfect for painting with my Twinkling H20s. I pretty much followed the colouring style on the stamp itself, I liked it so much. Ornithologists might beg to differ, but I think of these as pretty little Eastern Bluebirds. We had a pair nesting down the road from us at our old place. They're really lovely, though not as vibrantly blue as the Mountain Bluebirds that nested at my childhood home in the West.

My mother loves birds, has lots of feeders, and a pair of binoculars next to practically every window in case she needs to watch a bird at short notice. I thought she'd like this card, and indeed she did.

This image had a lot going on and a beautiful shimmer from the twinklings, so I kept the layout pretty simple, and sized it to go in a small open ended envelope (SU). Inside I stamped "Happy Mother's Day". There are a couple of embellishments (sheer ribbon and Adirondack acrylics in Lettuce), image on black and brocade blue and that's it! I really liked this card and it was one where I used the stamp right after I got it. (I normally like to let them age, or cure, for some time.)

Thanks for stopping by!

PS. To Nimmy: thank you so much for your lovely comments on my blog. They always make my day! Yes, this is really me, thought I don't know how proud I should be about ranting on about B&E Fairies, etc. I'm just grateful you think I'm real and not crazy! lol Thank you once again for all your kind and supportive words - they really mean a lot. If you were my neighbour, I'd have you over for colouring all the time, and as a special favour, I would labour hard and make you a great card the next time you went for poutine. BTW, thanks for the chip wagon referral - I will have to google it and see if we're anywhere close to the fabled fries.

A Musing little card

I was cruising through blogland and stopped at Paper Trufflez, one of my favourite blogs. I followed the links to this challenge leading up to A-MUSE-APALOOZA, which was to make a card with ribbon as the inspiration.

I've had these A Muse stamps for a while, just waiting for a good time to ink them up. I really love this little stamp store, and the image struck a chord with me ;-)

I really like the A Muse style of stamping, which keeps things simple, lots of open space, and a little glitz here or there, a ribbon and some nice pattern. I tried to do that here, with the ribbon (wide grosgrain) as my starting point. I picked this nice stripe, which was languishing on my desk, rejected from a previous project. I trimmed it to fit here, added a lime scalloped stripe for the sentiment, added a bit of shadow and red glitter pen for accent (will probably go back in with stickles but I didn't want to wait for it to dry and it would have gotten my scanner messy).

This was fun to make. I've been doing a lot of manly cards lately so it was fun to just get out my stamps and play. It's also a bit of a change of pace for me, since my brayer didn't get involved and no chalk inks touched this paper. Anywhere. I couldn't resist the teensiest bit of colouring though. It was fun! I think I could get A Ddicted to this kind of thing!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Stamps: A Muse; Paper: BasicGrey (Gypsy - stripe and lime), Memory Box duplex cardstock (I believe it's Forget-me-not); Ink: Van Dyke Brown (Nick Bantock line, Ranger); Other: Stampin' Up wide grosgrain ribbon in Real Red, Fiskars scallop edge scissors, Prismacolor pencil crayons.

Bon voyage

First of all, please accept my apologies for the terrible scan! (Do I say that every time or what!) I will have to break down and get a photo tent, or a photographer. I had a hard time scanning the colours and still picking up the letters on the brads (which spell "dream"). In real life it's quite rich. In fact, DH first saw it and said with some feeling that it was really nice. His usual observations are not normally so positive, tending to focus more on crooked pieces and cards that don't open (which by the way was the intended design feature, as anyone who has made a pocket card knows...). If this gets a gush (relatively speaking of course) from DH, it must be a good one (despite the total lack of stamping!).

Here I am attempting the "detail inset", used to great effect by more accomplished photographers and bloggers than I. So this is what it feels like to ape one's betters....

This card is the living proof that I have almost enough stuff in my stash to make any possible card (lacking only aeronautical flight charts). The two hours I spent last night looking for this collage sheet is proof that I need a better organizing system (maybe I will add this to the photographer's job description!). I usually go by the system "I know where I put it", which failed me in this case. I only have a few collage sheets, so they don't get their own "spot". I hunted high and low (literally) and finally gave up, hoping that sleeping on it would trigger a memory. No luck. I decided tonight (card needed tomorrow) that I would have to look in every single spot (again) and it worked. I found them (mysteriously) in a stamp drawer. Hmmm. I blame this on fairies who come in and mess up my house at night. Apparently they also rearrange my stamping stuff (give me back my clear ruler please!). I am waiting for them to make dinner while I'm at work.

Back to my card. One of the people on my team is leaving on Friday for a big trip he's been planning for a few years. It's very ambitious. He's a pilot and they are flying a small aircraft over 3000 km. He's very excited about this, needless to say. When I saw the aircraft image on this collage sheet (Crafty Secrets), I realized it would be perfect. I also used the tag and post card elements, and the words "trip of a lifetime", "far off places", and "enjoy the journey" are on the inside. The brads are letters that spell out dream. The background is an aeronautical flight chart. (Sidenote here with kudos to DH who was dispatched at last minute for printer ink and it took him 3 stores, and then he even printed it for me. When I called him a Prince Among Men, he said, "Well I prints, anyway." Not just princely, but funny too!) Thanks to DH, I was able to print the flight chart (which I found free! Yay NavCan sample page!!! Usually they are at least $16.50 to buy - yikes! - and didn't I swear off atrocious punctuation and run-on sentences???) and use it for the background. I'm assuming the recipient will recognize it for what it is. He must have a zillion of these things for his trip.

He'll be flying over some wilderness areas and so I will also make him a kit: bear repellent (bottle of barbecue sauce with new label), a mosquito swatter (piece of 2x4), and face cream (Watkins bug bite ointment). I'll do a bit of a presentation tomorrow at lunch. We're sending him off in style, going out for lunch at the chip wagon across the road. Yummy poutine, here we come! (For those non-Canucks, and possibly Canucks outside central Canada, poutine is a tasty concoction of french fries, gravy and cheese curds. If you can stand the guilt, it's delicious!)

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Adventures & Travel collage sheet (Crafty Secrets), fibres (Making Memories), Concho letter brads (Colorbok); Ink - Memories Artprint Brown (edging); Paper: Really Rust, Basic Black, Bordering Blue.

Card for farewell

Hello! It's been a long time since my last post! Things are whirling along here, busy busy busy. I haven't been doing nearly as much stamping as I'd like, and haven't had time to post anything.

I thought I'd post this one, but the photo didn't turn out great. It's hard to take pictures of black cards!

I stamped this with my mother, who's visiting. We'd hoped for more stamping time, but we've been having fun doing other stuff. (Yes, I will grudgingly admit that other stuff can be fun too....)

A colleague asked me to make a farewell/congratulations card for someone leaving for a promotion. I will make a sentiment to that effect for the inside. I left the outside all-purpose since I didn't have a "Farewell and Congratulations on Your Promotion" stamp. (Must be the one stamp I don't have.....)

The focal image was stamped in stazon on very vanilla, twice, and coloured with prismacolor crayons. I cut out a few squares and popped them up. The image is mounted on some lovely gold metallic navy, and black. The image behind is black treated with Perfect Pearls and embossed in my Cuttlebug. (Tip: don't use the Perfect Pearls cube direct to paper....) The cardbase is black, stamped with some good background stamps from Australia (Stamp It). They are those nice images that aren't really images but look good in the background. There's a sort of mesh with key, and a flourish. They were stamped in chalk ink to show up on the black.

I know I say it every time, but this looks better in real life. It's a bit shimmery, but not too shimmery, and will be just the perfect thing for us to wish this fellow well. We'll really miss him. He's one of those top notch guys to work with.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies: Stamps: Stampers Anonymous, Stamp It; Ink: black stazon, French Blue and Alabaster fluid chalk ink; paper: very vanilla, basic black, navy gold metallic, brushed silver; other: perfect pearls and perfect pearls ink, mister, pewter brads (Making Memories), Cuttlebug textiles folder.