A FAN-tastic Card

I am not ashamed to admit I love a good pun. I think someone somewhere once said puns are the lowest form of humour, but I  think they can range from groan-worthy to clever. I am not sure which category this card falls in! It's a card for a guy - which is always a little challenging. 

I stamped the Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous Mini Blueprints 4  sketched fan all over the card front. Using a stamp positioner helped in lining up those fans. I clear embossed the fans and coloured them in with Tim's watercolour Distress Markers. I mounted that panel on black cardstock and then a white 5X7 card.

The greeting is from the Hampton Arts Vintologie Birthday stamp set. I coloured the stamp with markers and kept layering the colours on with repeated stamping (again - a stamp positioner helps) until it was not splotchy and blended well. Then I overstamped with Versamark ink and embossed with sparkly holographic embossing powder. Looks great in real life.

I cut strips of lime green tissue paper to back the sentiment to echo how fans often have a strip of paper ribbon attached so you know they are running. And the pun? That was computer-generated inside:

I am entering this in the Seize The Birthday challenge. Thanks for visiting today.

My Kind of Guy

I am sharing here masculine cards I made using a Dreaming Tree project cut file. This is a fun shutter card that makes a great Father's Day or birthday card for the man in your life.

My first one was for my husband for Father's Day. I used Tim Holtz Paper Stash papers, as well as some other scraps, and an old photo of my husband and daughter for the insert. The photo is revealed as the action of opening the gatefold card opens the heart-shaped aperture. This provides that WOW factor. The bow tie band slides off.

My second card was for a card exchange and so I needed it to be a bit more generic. I used Tim Holtz Paper Stash papers again and instead of a photo inside, I did some rubber stamping. For the eyeglasses, I used silver Silhouette brand printable foil instead of the pearl paper used in the first card, and a textured glossy metallic paper for the bowler hat.

I think the papers really compliment the retro style of the Waltzingmouse rubber stamps used.

I used a rainbow stamp pad to get a gradated effect to the words.

For this second card, I made the bow tie with a magnetic closure so instead of sliding the band off, it comes undone easily by pulling apart. Here's what that looks like.

The recipient gave this card to her husband for his birthday, which was such an honour for me. She said she did not want to give it away so by giving it to him, she still gets to have it around. So I am entering this card in the Male Room Challenge which is for a male birthday card as that challenge is celebrating its fifth year.

Thanks for visiting today. If you have an electronic cutting machine I highly recommend Dreaming Tree files. They have useful videos showing how to put together the cards or 3D paper items. In the case of this file, there are even helpful divots built into the design to help align the various pieces. The hardest part for me was just deciding on which coordinating papers to use!

Farewell, Mojo Monday

It is the last of the weekly Mojo Monday sketches. Sad to see this wonderful resource retire, but needs must. I wanted to play along and with Father's Day tomorrow, it seemed a good idea to combine both.

Here is the sketch. I went horizontal with it.

Sentiment: Digital File from Designer Digitals

I have this neat stamp from the now-defunct Waltzingmouse Stamp company that is nice for commemorating an occasion. Would be good for scrapbooking, too. Decided to mark the date of this Father's Day and placed it under an epoxy circle.

I hope the Mojo Monday sketches stay up on the Internet as a resource. Nice to draw on when stuck for inspiration!

Seize the Birthday - Creatures and Animals

I made this card for a male colleague. He is from Britain and so I thought the bowler hat would be a nice touch.

The challenge blog Seize the Birthday is looking for Creatures or Animals for its Toppings Theme so this fits the bill there. All the stamps used are Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous stamps. I used Copic markers to colour in the images.

Summer of Creativity Week 5

This week's Online Card Classes lessons and challenge from Tim Holtz were all about Distress Paint. I only own a small handful of colours so it was especially challenging. I tried a few techniques using these paints to create a birthday card.

The main image was done using the Stamping Resist Technique: the butterfly was stamped with Chipped Sapphire Distress Paint onto white cardstock and allowed to dry, then I sponged overtop with various Distress Inks. I created a background by embossing silver foil and used the Industrial Technique to antique it. I did not have Black Soot so used the same blue paint. I used the Altered Surface Technique on the Compass Coin by dabbing Broken China and Chipped Sapphire Distress Paints on and selectively wiping off.

The sentiment is a Tim Holtz stamp and I used the same Distress Paint to stamp it. I think it works for a birthday card for a gentleman even though there is a butterfly on it. Thanks for stopping by today.

Summer of Creativity Week 3

Here it is - week 3 in the re-cap of Creative Chemistry 101 lessons. I believe it was 2012 when I first did these lessons and the nice thing about revisiting them now is I have new supplies and more colours to work with.

I created the tags below as a warm up, but my goal is to make a card for each re-cap challenge, so I did that, too.

For the shell tag I used the Perfect Distress technique but did not seem to get as much bleeding action as I would have liked. For the palm tree I used a combo of Perfect Distress Mist and Splatter. I stamped the palm tree with white pigment ink, heat set it, then overstamped with brown and green Distress Inks. 

My finished card is made with the Perfect Distress Splatter technique. I think this will make a nice card for a man. The camera refuses to pick up the pearly sheen on the card. Trust me, it's there!

Blueprints for Masculine Cards

One of the things I like to do is create a welcome card when I hire new staff. As you can see from the date above, I did this card back in March, but am just getting around to sharing it now. This card was for a guy - and so Tim Holtz's blueprint stamps worked well. I used a Waltzingmouse Stamps date stamp for under the clear embellishment.

I thought the corresponding "Admit One" ticket stamp would work well inside, so here's a peek at the inside, too.

Here is a variation on the theme:

I seem to gravitate to these blueprint stamps for male cards. Here is a birthday card where I paired the images with a new sentiment stamp from Waltzingmouse Stamps:

Thanks for peeking in today!

Happy Father's Day!

Here's a quick card. I had the watercolour paper leftover from another project. The stamps are Waltzingmouse and the clouds are Memory Box Dies. Tim Holtz Sizzix Embossing Folder for a background.

My daughter and her dad have automobiles in common. He washes them, changes the oil and checks the tire pressure; she drives them! Thought it was a good theme for today.

WMS Blog Party June 2012

Here's my card for the Waltzingmouse Stamps Blog Party for June 2012. I used the inspiration photo to provide the colour-way.

The Authentique paper did the work, and coordinated nicely with the Big Blooms- Poinsettia stamps from WMS. The sentiment came from the versatile Say it Loud set. An orange Swarovski heat-set crystal and a few teal ones scattered on the background finished this off nicely.

Today was also Father's Day in Canada. I used the Stampendous Changito stamp I picked up on sale recently and coloured with Copics. So appropriate as my daughter used to do this when she was little! I used the WMS stamp "Thanks for being there!" for the inside greeting.

Part of my husband's Father's Day gift was this sock monkey adoption kit. Fun! 

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to go and see all the inspiration on the WMS blog.

Flat Cards

This is a flat card. Canada Post has gotten very sticky about what we mail in plain card envelopes these days. No lumps or bumps allowed. My predilection for Swarovski crystals, pop dot layers and ribbons means most of my cards must be swaddled in bubble wrap and sent parcel post to pass the eagle eye of the postmaster!

This top-fold card is just the white base and two layers. The Spellbinders Labels Ten die cut is stamped with a frame and sentiment from Waltzingmouse Stamps in red dye ink. I traced around the metal die with an Exacto knife to get a deep red mat that is just an eighth inch or so bigger than the stamped white die cut. The corner flourishes are also from Waltzingmouse. It is extremely simple and yet, somehow, I quite like it. I am not a "clean and simple" type card maker - so this is a surprise to me.

This card (below) is also flat, but I did not have to mail it anywhere. It was a Father's Day card for my husband that I made in a Burnished Velvet class with Deanna and Haroldine recently.

All the little white bits you see in the tie are actually reflections of light off the glitter. The gold-embossed sentiment is from the Words of Wisdom stamp set from Waltzingmouse. I thought it worked well with this tie (although I keep thinking of Rodney Dangerfield for some reason). 

I have one more flat card to show you, which I started in my Burnished Velvet class and finished at home. It is a Going Away card for a colleague at work. The word was created by die cutting letters out of cardstock that had double sided tape on both sides. Then I stuck the letters down on the card, removed the top liner, and loaded on the glitter. Burnished this with my finger to adhere it all well, and to bring up the shine. I am enjoying this technique very much.