Jake's birthday card

Hello!  No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I have just had a bit of a dry spell in the stamp room.  I've done some knitting, and reading, and some Bible art journalling, but not a lot of stamping.  However, when a special boy turns 10, I had to get inky!

I used the My Favorite Things combination set of letters and cutting die (Vanity License Plate) to make the focal panel.  It's stamped in Deep Lagoon Fluid Chalk Ink and I added the top and bottom words with some snap-together letter stamps. I also edged the license plate with some coordinating Copic marker (BG97 I think) I inked it with versamark (should have heat set first - it smudged - grr) and embossed with several layers of ultra think embossing enamel (UTEE).  It's very shiny and looks like a brand new license plate.  The various accent layers are from the Wander collection (BasicGrey) and all the papers are edged in Memories Art Print Brown. I used my corner rounding punch (small) to round the edges of the main panel to go with the rounded edges of the license plate.  The card base is Crushed Curry (Stampin' Up).  I felt the card needed an accent of some sort, so I fussy-cut some little cars and a bus from a scrap of paper and popped them up, and brushed them with clear Wink of Stella.  I don't think it made the card too girly for Jake.

It was fun to get back into the stamp room.  I will have to clean it up and get back there more regularly.  I felt a bit rusty making this and I miss my ink and rubber! I think what it is is that my job has gotten very interesting in the last year and I have been really engaged and interested there, which has meant that I am more tired when I get home and needing less to "fill up" my "contentedness reservoir" with stamping.  Not a bad reason, I suppose!  It's nice to feel like I enjoy my job.

The other thing that happened in our household that has taken priority in a good way is this little fellow.  Introducing Finnegan!  He's a shih tzu-cocker spaniel mix and we got him on Labour Day weekend when he was 11 months old.  He's a full-time cutie and part-time criminal mastermind, specializing in aerial acrobatics and petty thievery. He has stolen all our hearts and we can't imagine how we ever got by without him. This is a picture of him from the fall, when he really loved roaring around the backyard and jumping in and out of leaf piles.  He would do big laps and sail off the top step of the deck (top of three shallow steps, don't worry) into an enormous pile of maple leaves.

Birthday butterflies

Hello!  It's been a while - sorry for the absence.  I have been quilting lately more than stamping and I've also been knitting up a storm.  I've discovered the tremendous pleasures of knitting socks, and the even greater pleasure of wearing them.

Here is a card I made recently for a birthday celebration this week.  It's an Artful Stamper image, stamped and embossed in gold.  There is a bit Art Institute Glitter in the embossing powder, which gives it an extra twinkle.  Not too much, but just enough.  The butterflies are coloured with Tombows and blended with a paintbrush.  I've accented with Stickles (speaking of - there are new colours coming out!  so exciting!). The image is matted on brushed gold (should have used my perfect layers tool - doh!) and elegant eggplant.  The blue accent strip is one that was lying on my desk, waiting for this card to be created.  The card base is a 5 1/2" square in cherry cobbler.  The accent dots are Stream Adirondack liquid pearls.  I've placed the leaf so that it will be guaranteed to fold in a card (doh!) or require an enormously oversized card. These are things that could be avoided with some advance planning, but I don't stamp that way.  I normally just pick a stamp, and start there, building the card as I go.  I tend not to have a final "vision" in mind.  How about you?  How do you approach designing your cards?

Thanks for stopping by.

Birthday Bird

 Hello!  Here's a card I made for my dad's birthday.  I had been mulling over different card options (masculine cards are so tricky, aren't they) and nothing was really coming to mind. I did a few trials of a stamped image on inky paper and it wasn't really "coming together".  Then, that wonderful mysterious creative inspiration came into my head - what about a blobby bird card?  Hmm...what about a karate bird!  So I sketched one on my scrap paper and it was so cute.  Probably the cutest one - that's always how it is - the first sketch is the best. Anyway, that bird was just standing there and karate is really about the movement, isn't it.  So I thought, what about the bird breaking a board (pretty impressive to see your dad breaking a board with his bare hands).  So I drew the bird breaking a board.  Then more of that wonderful mysterious creative inspiration came into my head - the bird shouldn't be breaking a board, he should be karate chopping a birthday cake!  So I redrew it again, this time with a birthday cake.  Like usual, I watercoloured the image with Tombow markers and accented the picture with Stickles (Cranberry for the icing, Yellow for the flames, and some Black Diamond for the belt -ssh probably not regulation Shotokan black!)

I mounted the image on Night of Navy paper, then matted it on some citron (precious hoarded citron, only for special occasions like a father's birthday), then arranged some Basic Grey patterned paper (from the June Bug collection).  The sentiment (Papertrey Ink) is stamped in Blue Iris Color Box Fluid Chalk ink.  The paper is all edged in Hero Arts Wet cement (sentiment also edged in Blue Iris).

The second picture is the inside of the card, with some scraps of the paper from the outside on it.  I added an inside panel so that the writing would be easier to contend with on a navy card.  The sentiment on the inside is one of Heather's Stamping Haven stamps (should be available from Frog's Whiskers Ink if you are looking for it), and is stamped in Blue Iris ink too.  I liked this for a birthday stamp - and it's very suitable for this particular recipient (and probably sender too!).

Thank you for stopping by!  Hope you got some time to stamp this weekend too!

January Challenge #12 Happy Bird-day!

Hello!  Here's my latest January challenge card, another custom blobby bird.  (You can find a great tutorial on how to draw blobby birds here.)  As for turning the blobby bird into a Jedi, well, all I can say is, may the Force be with you.  The Force is not that strong with me, I think, as for a significant portion of the drafting process, my bird resembled Miss Clavel more than Obiwan Kenobi.  In the end, it turned out ok, though, despite using the wrong colour for the sabre.  (Who knew the red ones were for the bad guys?  My mother, that's who - full of surprises, she is.  And thanks to a friend for pointing me to the right chronicles in Star Wars lore to confirm it.).  I maintain that a red light sabre was the right design choice for this card.  I guess I should say also add that this birdie was inspired by Star Wars, to avoid the full wrath of the galactic empire raining down upon me.

This card is for my nephew, the second generation of Star Wars fans in the family.  I hope he likes it!

A note about the illustration - I drafted it with pencil first, then went over it with Copic Multiliner, and coloured with Tombow markers.  I deliberately let the red sabre run out of the lines to get the glowing effect.  It's better in real life.  Sauron the Scanner is a bit uncooperative.  I've added some glitter pen to the sabre, but I think I will add some stickles too.  Somehow Tombows need stickles like cookies need milk.  


I'll try to get my January challenge back on the rails - it's sort of falling apart, isn't it.  The latest lapse is because hubby and I started watching Homeland and we have been doing a Homeland marathon most evenings.  Not much of an excuse, I know, but there you have it. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

January Challenge #10 "Rock-a-birdie"

Hello!  Here's a card I made today, and am going to say it's for the challenge, but the only scraps I used were the watercolour and black paper.  The card base is crushed curry (textured) from Stampin' Up. 

I needed a 40th birthday card for a drummer and was fresh out of 40th birthday drum stamps so I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I drafted a quick picture on scrap paper (I usually skip this step, regret it, and waste a lot of paper).  This resulted in the initial pencil-on-scrap being the best of the versions, so there you go.  I can't win for losing here!  Lol.  Anyway, I drew a little birdie (with his homage to Neil Peart hat) drumming his little heart out.  You can click on the picture for a larger image, but I wrote on the drums "The Top 40 Band" in honour of the milestone birthday being celebrated.  Once I had sketched it in pencil, I went over it with a black Copic microliner, and then watercoloured the image with Tombow markers.  When I was done that, I went over some of the lines to corral some of the stray ink from watercolouring and to emphasize the lines a bit more.  Lastly, I accented the drums, cymbals, and hat with stickles (lagoon, gold, burgundy, respectively).  On the inside is a stamp that says, "old enough to know better...too old to care!"  hee hee hee.   The "happy birthday" stamp is from A Muse and is one of my favourites.  It's perfect for this layout, which I get a lot of mileage out of. 

Here you have it - the perfect solution to a gap in your stamp collection - draw your own picture!

Artichoke Birthday Card

Hi!  Here's a card I made recently for my husband's birthday.  I needed a quick and easy masculine card, so I cast  my eye over my stamps and cards on-hand and threw out that notion.  It was 11 pm and a long day and I really just needed some stamping therapy, not a "requirement".  My eye lit upon a Stampin' Up stamp set called Homegrown, with beautiful line art vegetables. Instantly I knew I needed to colour some artichokes, so I stamped them on a card base (naturals ivory) in India Ink and coloured them with my Bryunzeel pencil crayons in lots of different shades (green, yellow, brown, red, blue and purple).  I also added a bit of shadow with a soft grey.  I didn't blend with anything, just the pencils.  I find if I don't get too carried away, they blend well together, and if I do get a line, I can cover it up with something darker or assist it with my finger and some firm rubbing.  Besides, I wanted the variegation of the different colours to make them look more lifelike.  I needed a birthday message, and once again, my eye lit upon just the thing, a wonderful script stamp by josephinekimberling for Impress Rubber Stamps.  That got stamped in India Ink too, and then it made my card lopsided, so I trimmed off some "white space" at the top to get the proportions I wanted and I was away to the races.  I normally like to make a card with the person in mind, and in this case I don't really have any cause to associate DH with artichokes.  Instead, this card was all about just following what felt right and taking the chance that I could give it to someone who would appreciate that aspect.  And failing that, not really mind if he got an artichoke card for his birthday. 

Well, I'm off on holidays now, and my wenting is done for the morning.  I went to my daughter's class to help them sew felt ornaments for a little bit, then I went to an electronics store to return something, then I went to get groceries.   Now I'm home and about to the fruit I soaked overnight in rum into fruitcake and then do some wrapping and maybe make some peppermint bark.  We'll see how long the other things take me.  I'm taking two days off before Christmas to do my baking and wrapping and general getting ready. 

Thanks for stopping by!  Have yourself a merry little artichoke!

Gorgeous birthday card!

I'm off work today (yay!) to be home with DD2 to work on toilet training her. I guess as reasons to be home go, it's one of the less glamourous, still it's better than being at work! She's doing really well. I'm so proud! We're just working on waking-hour training right now, but she's making great progress.


She's napping now, so I'm stealing a few minutes for a post.

This is the birthday card my mother made me. Isn't it stunning! She's a stamper too, and we have spent many happy hours together stamping. Here's a virtual {hug} for my mother, who could use a real one :-)

Anyway, back to the card. She inked up the bird image (Local King Rubber Stamps) with markers and stamped it on glossy. It's hard to see in the photo, but she's overstamped it with woodgrain (also Local King). Some pretty background paper and embellishments later, and you have the best, purdiest, wonderfullest birthday card ever! Thanks Mum! I love it!

Let me forestall any errant birthday wishes. My birthday was this summer, it's just taken a while to get the pictures uploaded off my camera onto the computer for posting. It's just a task that never made it high up the list of priorities. It got done recently because DD1 needed some recent pictures printed off for a school project.

I'm off to do some stamping now - dear Heather (Heather's Stamping Haven) lent me the famous and much-coveted Santa Collage (Rubber Stampede) stamp. I have been having a blast playing with that and will have more to post soon.

Supply list: Ask me mudd'r!

Dinosaur Birthday Card

My 5-year-old was invited to a classmate's birthday party this weekend and the invitation featured a dinosaur scene. I like to make cards for these occasions. (It bolsters the argument that there's a reason for all these purchases. I think I'm way past the point of being able to argue that it saves us money, but at least if I make cards then I'm not buying cards too!)

In keeping with the dinosaur theme, I used my new dinosaur set, ostensibly bought for my daughter to play with, but to be honest, I'm having a lot of fun with this set too, even though it's outside of my stamping comfort zone.

I stamped the scene on white paper and layered it with some patterned paper scraps from another project. I knew I'd be using that paper so I coordinated the colours as best I could. The paper has a ribbon pattern on it, so I used another scrap, cut just to have a ribbon showing and used it as a ribbon horizontally across the card. The birthday sentiment is punched out and mounted on a designer label punch. I couldn't quite bring myself to use a new frame in that shape from the Occasions mini hardware kit. I know I'm supposed to be using, not hoarding, but this card is for a 5-year-old so I am granting myself special dispensation.

Back to the card. I felt it needed something else that was blue to make the visual triangle and colouring my little knock-off-dew-drops with chalk ink didn't work. (This is the first time I've wished I had Copic markers, but I suspect if I'd had coloured Sharpies they would have worked too. Or I could have used the blue ones I had, and lived with the fact that they were slightly the wrong shade.) As it turned out, I was able to get the look without the Copics and without having to deal with a card with mismatched shades of blue. I just used my 1/4" hole punch to make a circle from the blue paper and layered it under the k-o-d-d! I felt rather pleased with myself, if I may say so.

Anyway, that's the card. I got my daughter to write the message inside and together we used this stamp set to stamp wrapping paper for the present (a dinosaur floor puzzle). I let my daughter make the paper and she made lovely patterns of pteranodons and stegosauruses and apatosauruses all over the place. All the T-rexes had a pteranodon flying nearby to eat and she coloured in some shrubs here and there for the plant-eaters to eat. It was quite a scene. And she got quite experimental mixing colours on the stamps for some really fabulous dinosaurs. She loves the rock 'n' roll technique with those solid stamps and she has her own inkpads so I don't mind if the colours get mixed up a bit. I'd rather she learned how much fun it is to make something than how stressful it is to keep your inkpads looking brand new.

Well, must dash and get that girl to her birthday party!

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Back now from my trip to the party and the adventure of backing down a long driveway through high snowbanks with an audience. I hate reversing and I hate it even more when people are watching. Let's just say that it's a good thing snowbanks are soft. Hope those kids have a good time! They looked like they were all from the same class and a good bunch of kids so it should be a good party. Now I'm off to get my class supplies packed up, have some lunch, get dolled up and head into town for an afternoon of stamping :-)

Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies: Stamps: Prehistoric Pals, Circle of Friendship (Stampin' Up); Ink: Aspen Blue chalk ink (Versamagic), Groovy Guava, Certainly Celery, So Saffron; Paper: Certainly Celery, Blue Bayou, PTI white, Dream Street Papers - Forget-me-not Rachel's Ribbons; Other: ticket corner punch, designer label punch, 1" circle punch, knock-off-dew-drops, 1/4" circle punch.