Happy Father's Day

I hope all the fathers in my life have a beautiful day today. Thanks for being the strong, kind, generous, patient, funny and clever men you are.

And here are a couple of new cards just for them!

Stamps:  World's Greatest (NEW); For My Family;
Paper:  Soft Suede, Gumball Green Core'dinations (NEW from Mini), Very Vanilla;
Ink:  Midnight Muse (NEW), Soft Suede;
Other:  Antique Brads, Oval Accent Bigz Clear Die (NEW),  Apothecary Accents Framelits Dies (NEW), Bitty banners Framelits (NEW),  Woodgrain Textured Impressions Folder (NEW from Mini) Big Shot, Stampin' Sanding System (NEW).

Stamps:  World's Greatest (New), For My Family
Paper:  Midnight Muse (New), pool Party, Very Vanilla,  First Edition Speciality DSP
Ink:  Soft Suede, Midnight Muse;
Other:  Labels Collection Framelits, Bitty Banners Framelits (New)

Stamps:  It's Your Day (retired, sorry!),  The Open Sea;
Paper:  Crumb Cake, Not Quite Navy, Very Vanilla;
Ink:  Not Quite Navy, Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake
Other:  hemp twine (retired), Word Window Punch, Circle Punch, Mini silver Brads, Big Shot,  Square Lattice Embossing Folder.

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I Dig You!

It is my twelfth wedding anniversary today, and I made a card for my beloved (which I will steal back from him to put on my sample board, LOL) with a very masculine tone.

My hubby works in the oil &gas industry, so this industrial "Big Boys Toys" stamp set is perfect for him.

This is the other stamp set I played with when I was at Amanda's last week. It is one that is on my wish list as I not only have two little boys, I think it will be useful for Big Boys too!

Here are the other cards I made:

As you can see, I used the same colour combinations for all the cards, which is an efficient way to make a batch of cards for future use, as well as make maximum use of the cardstock with the least amount of wastage.

My Darling Husband's 40th

Whoops, almost forgot to post a pic of the card I made my husband for his 40th birthday this week.  Not a brilliant pic, as I just took it now at night (so organised!).  The base card is Kraft, and I used chocolate chip and very vanilla cardstock there too.  The background woodgrain stamp is not SU - it is an old one from my stash, Hero Arts, I think.  The Beer mugs are from Cheers to You, and I coloured them with a More Mustard marker after stamping in Black Stazon.  See the "foam?"  That is liquid appliqué,  which you heat with a heat gun to make it all puffy.  Such a fun effect, and perfect for the beer!
The eyelets are again the retired Earth Elements eyelets by SU.    I used the Word Window punch for the Sentiment (On Your Birthday).

Inside the card was an iTunes Gift Card, and a Gift Voucher for.......3 laps in a Lotus Sports Car!  I find my husband very difficult to buy for, so I think this "Experience" gift was the perfect solution.

More recycling!

Some friends came over last night for some stamping therapy - hi girls! - and I decided to re-purpose some more leftover M&T packets.

This M&T was originally supposed to look like this:

And this is what I did instead, as I need some more birthday cards.

I coloured each party hat with a blender pen dipped in ink from the lid of the ink pad directly to the rubber, and "huffed" as I would if I were using a marker.  That's because we don't have in-colour markers, and I wanted to use Kiwi Kiss, Baja Breeze, and Riding Hood Red.  A bit of glitter applied with 2 way glue and I was done.  I think this could be used for either a male or a female.

I love my monthly Stamp Nights!  I was having a grouchy day yesterday, but after a little stamp therapy and conversation, I felt so much better.
 :-D

And I've just invested in Photoshop Elements 6 - which explains my photos.  I'm playing with Photoshop but haven't worked out how to use it properly yet!

Sweet Baby Girl

An old friend recently had her first baby - I'm so pleased for her!  LOL after four babies of my own you'd think I would have had enough, but no, I love new babies!

I made her a card, of course:

Stamps:  Nursery Necessities
Paper:  Sweet Always DSP, Pink Pirouette, Regal Rose, Whisper White
Ink: Pumpkin Pie, Regal Rose, chocolate chip
Other:  white grosgrain, soft subtles brads, scallop edge punch


I also forgot to show you the bag and gift tag I made for my Dad on Father's Day, so here it is:

a close up of the tag:

Stamps: Circle Circus, Best Yet

Paper:  Kiwi Kiss, Kraft, White Paper Bag (non SU)

Ink:  Tangerine Tango, Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss

Other:  Scallop Circle Punch, 13/8 inch circle punch, jumbo pewter eyelet, Crop-A-Dile, hemp twine, tangerine tango ribbon

It was very quick and easy to make, and used up some scraps I had lying around.  Looks effective though, don't you think?

Father's Day is coming soon

...so I got me a head start with these cards! I am playing around with some ideas for my upcoming Stamp-A-Stack, and thought I'd do something other than the traditional blue or brown card that one usually associates with a Father's Day card.

While I was at it, I used the scraps to make a birthday card for a lovely young man who will be 8 years old shortly.

I LOVE Circle Circus; I think it is one of the most versatile sets in the entire catalogue.

Materials used:

Paper: Kraft, Pumpkin Pie, Kiwi Kiss, Real Red cardstock

Ink: Versamark, Kiwi Kiss, Pumpkin Pie, Real Red

Stamps: Occasional Greetings, Circle Circus

Other: Twine, Spiral punch, Earth Elements Eyelets (retired), Bold Bright Eyelets (retired), Crop-A-Dile

I'm sad about the eyelets being retired; but I had a stack of them that I needed to use up since I can't use them in workshops anymore. I like the look! I can see a scrapbook page featuring the eyelets....hmmmm.

Another Spring Mini tease!

Here's a cute set for anyone out there with a little boy - it's called Choo Choo:

It also has a new stamp used on it - Birthday Wish, which you can purchase individually! Bargain!

And this card has 3 new things on it: my current new fave stamp set Great Friend, the scallop oval punch, and matching stamp set Oval All. Swooon. I've mentioned already how much I love that everything matches, haven't I?

The Ultimate Aussie Male Card????

I'll let you be the judge.

I used Cheers to You and I die cut the "40" and the red splodgey thing with my Cricut Expressions. I coloured the beer with my blender pen and More Mustard ink.

More Boy Cards

Forgot to show you this card I made today - for my Dad's birthday (next month). I made another very similar to this one for a little boy in my son's class at school. I used Circle Circus, similar layout to my earlier card, but with Pacific Point and Riding Hood Red as the main colours. What do you think?

Another little boy's birthday card

along the same lines as the one I showed you the other day:  I just flipped it to the horizontal and made it slightly different with punched stars and a strip of retiring DSP.  Not that my son noticed; he thought it was exactly the same as the other card!  Hmm, men and the attention to detail gene!

Here's the other card for the sake of comparison:

Which card do you prefer?  Drop me a comment and let me know.  :-)

I'm on a roll.....

Here is a Christmas card I made using my beloved Cuttlebug with the Christmas Tree embossing folder - When I posted it on my Splitcoast Gallery (I'm Gemini Mum over there, if anyone wants to look) I realised it looked rather plain and boring.  So I added a liberal dose of Kindyglitz  (thanks for the suggestion Linda) and voila!  It looks much better!

This is another card I turned around after a disaster.  I initially embossed poinsettia flowers all over the metallic bronze cardstock and brayered over some darker ink to try to get an the Metallic Brayering effect I saw over on Linda's blog , but sadly it just looked ugly.  So I flipped it over and left it plain.   As usual, the card stock is Stampin' Up! and so is this stamp set:  Season of Joy from the Spring Mini Catalogue.  

......and here it is again!

Ok, this one is a birthday card made for my son's prep teacher (Happy Birthday Mr B!).  I know I'm not the only one who struggles with masculine cards.  I "manned it up" by using Old Olive with a splash of bright colour.  I can't recall the manufacturer of this paper - I'll have to check and come back to edit when I find it.  The letters were cut with the trusty Cricut Expressions machine.   The sentiment is from a clear Hero Arts set.

And finally, a birthday card for one of my daughter's friends who turned 8 yesterday. 

This one used one of my favourite stamp sets, Garden Whimsy again, SU!  I also used one of my fave Cuttlebug embossing folders on the green layer - Swiss dots.    

Haven't I been productive?    Of course, my house looks like a cyclone hit it, and washing is still on the line from yesterday......ooops.  Better do something about that now!