Masculine cards are hard to do

I think it's a widespread problem - cards for men are difficult.  I recently bought a few things specifically with male cards in mind - this cars background from Hero Arts, and a Cosmo Cricket Mini Deck of patterned paper, called "the boyfriend".  Here's a card I made using both of these, for my dad's birthday on the weekend. 

Birthday girls

These are the cards I made for my nieces:  Lauren, who turns 9 on the 31st of May, and Samantha, who turns 5 on the 1st of June.  Happy birthday, beautiful girls!!

Yep, there's my favourite background stamp again!

Stamp party cards

My niece, Lauren, is turning 9 this week, and she is having a party with some of her friends from school.  A cardmaking party!!  And guess who has been asked to be guest teacher at this party - yes, yours truly.

I made these cards today as demonstration cards.  Most of the girls at the party attended Lauren's birthday party a few years ago, when we made some very simple cards - this time, we'll be using some things that they didn't use last time, like Versamark ink for a watermark background, and embossing folders with the Big Shot machine.

This one has diamond Stickles on the flower, and Crystal Effects on the cupcake icing, but I think we'll leave out the Crystal Effects tomorrow - it will take too long to dry.

Wow, were we stupid!

Here is another card made from stamps from Hambo stamps.

Japanese adhesive material

A little while ago (last year), one of my very best friends, Sharyne, and her partner, Andrew, went on a trip to Japan.  When they returned, they had bought me a Japanese good luck charm, as well as some absolutely beautiful Japanese papers and papercrafting goodies! (including a roll of papers in one of those cardboard cylinders that they carried all around Japan with them! I felt very special!).

One of the things in the stash was a roll of beautiful printed material with adhesive on the back, so that all you need to do is cut it to size, remove the backing paper, and stick!  So easy, and so gorgeous.  Here's a card I made on the weekend using this lovely product.

I kept the card simple - to let the material shine :)

I will have to ration the rest - not much left :(  But I still have plenty of the handmade paper Sharyne bought for me - will have to use some more of that soon.  It's one of those things that I think is common amongst papercrafters - you have some product that you love so much that you just don't want to use it, because then it will be gone! (I have a few handmade papers in that category.........)

Stamping only

When I made this card, I had this card by the very talented Julie Ebersole in the back of my mind.

Here is Julie's card, reproduced here with permission.

I wanted to do a simple, one layer card, no patterned paper or ribbon or embellishments, just stamping.  Here's my card:

Didn't get the placement exactly how I wanted - will have to try again....

I sent an email to Julie to ask her permission to include her card and a link to her blog here, and she is just as lovely as she appears to be on her blog!  Thanks for being so generous to a complete stranger from the other side of the world, Julie!  Mwwaa!

Variation on a theme

This card is a variation on a theme - it is pretty much the same as this card, just in two different colour schemes (although one is very similar to the previous one posted).

 

Which do you prefer??  I can't decide.  I like the variety and contrast of colours in the teal one, but I like the mostly monochromatic nature of the red one, too.

PS isn't it funny how cameras and photoshop work - these two photos were taken on the same day with the same camera with the same lighting, then I adjusted the colour balance in Photoshop (not the individual colours, just the white balance).  The card colours look OK, but the background colour looks grey/white in one, and cream/white in the other!

Another Birthday?

I recently bought some wood mounted stamps from Hambo Stamps in the US.  I love their fractured funnies - I bought a few sets.  Here's one of them .

 

And on the inside........

The cakes stamp on the frontis from a SU set.  I stamped it over and over in Versamark to create a background, and clear embossd it.  I then coloured in some of the cherries/strawberries/hearts on top in a red Tombow marker. 

Old mother's day card

Just to clarify, it's an old card for Mother's Day, not a card for an old mother ;)

Firstly, I apologise for the quality of the photo - it was taken a couple of years ago.

This uses one of my favourite SU stamp sets - the background is done with Stem Silhouettes,  in Versamark ink.  This was also made before I bought the word window punch - have made good use of that one since I bought it :)

Joelle and Stuart are getting married!

My ex-workmates and friends, Joelle and Stuart, are getting married this weekend.  I made this card to celebrate the occasion.

It looks black in the photo, but it is actually navy blue.  I stamped the Hero Arts flourish in Versamark, then clear embossed it.  The congratulations is from a SU set. 

Congrats, Joelle and Stuart!   Wishing you a long and happy life together!

Copper shim

I love the look of metal shim that has been embossed.  It just looks so opulent.  For that reason, I tend to keep the rest of the card very simple when including metal shim in the design. 

Masculine cards

I find it SO hard to make cards for men.  I was recently told by a male friend that he doesn't like the idea of greeting cards - doesn't like giving or receiving them.  Part of me was upset that he doesn't like what I like to spend my spare time doing, but a tiny little bit of me thought "well, that's one masculine card I don't have to worry about any more!" 

When I do make masculine cards, I try to make a batch of them all the same, so I don't have to think about it again for a while ;)

I was inspired to pull out a couple of old leaf impression stamps of mine after seeing this post by Sue Madex.  I used Versamark for the leaves on the base card, and various colours of Tombow markers, stamped off once on scrap paper, on the white card.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day, Mum!!

And Happy Mother's Day to any other mums who visit here today :)

Thomas has turned 1!

My nephew, Thomas, had his birthday party today - his birthday was on Wednesday.

I made another last minute card this morning for my sister and brother-in-law to give to him with their gift - here it is.

Please don't look to close at my fussy cutting - I was in a hurry, so there was not much fussy about it!

International visitors update

The last time I posted about international visitors, I'd had visitors from Australia, USA, Canada, Germany, Russia, China, Norway, Spain and France.  Since then, I've also had visitors from Iran, the UK, Luxembourg, Phillippines, Malaysia and Poland!  Thankyou for visiting my blog!

A colour I find tricky to work with, and the problem with American background stamps

Sometimes, when I'm in a rut, or have lost my mojo, I randomly pick about 10 or 15 different coloured A5 sheets of card, and tell myself that I have to use these colours as base cards before I use anything else.   This teal green colour was the last one I used - it has been sitting there for so long, through at least one cheat (when I add more colours to the pile of 10-15 before finishing all of them).  For some reason, I just didn't know what to do with it.  Each patterned paper I tried with it seemed to be not quite right. 

Until I pulled out this scrap of Cristina Re patterned paper (I think it is discontinued - I can't find it on her website, and I bought a bundle of it at her last factory sale).  Even though none of the colours in the patterned paper match the card, I still think it works.

I also love the background stamp - it is a "cover a card" unmouted stamp from Impression Obsession called "vines". Love it! (unfortunately, it covers a standard card if you are in America, not in Australia.  Our cards are A6 (1/4 of A4, or 148mm X 105mm), their cards are 5 1/2 X 4 1/4 inches (approx 140mm X 108mm), which means that a lot of background stamps from US companies are just that leeetle bit too small (the 4 1/2 bit is OK - its a teeny bit wider than A6 - but the 5 1/2 bit is just not long enough).  So I covered the join in the 2 spamp impressions with the patterned paper - problem solved!

Another failed background

I tried out my new bottle of Smooch Spritz on this card.   I wanted a blotchy silver background, like I have seen on some samples using Smooch Spritz, but it came out as a very even coverage of silvery sheen on the black card.  Quite nice, but not the look I was going for - I wanted something more definite, not so sheer.

I therefore sponged the Hero Arts Fabulous Flourish stamp with Frost White Shimmer paint so that it had a simlar kind of shimmer to the Smooch Spritz, but was a bit more intense. 

Failed background

I wanted a subtle script background on this card, and sponging around the edges. In order to match the card, I used Versacolor Paprika pigment ink.  I think I should have used Versamark instead - you can hardly see the background in the flesh, let alone in the photo!  I've even made the photo extra large, but you can still barely see it!