Masculine Birthday!

Seriously - why is is SO hard to come up with masculine birthday cards! Could be because more than 70% of my stamp sets have flowers on them, and almost 1/2 of my paper is some kinds of pink/purple :) Came up with a card for my BIL's birthday to go with the iTunes gift card (always a hit!). This is a very "green" card, as the patterned paper is actually the packing off a blocks toy my son got for Christmas last year. I loved the pattern and held on it it, and finally made a card with it! Matched the Blue and Green from Stampin' Up! colors, and added the embellishments. Scalloped punch on the white, and used my Sizzix Big Shot and a textured plate for the background embossing! Hope you like - made a second one that's for sale on Etsy!

Holiday Stamp Camp - 2011

Had a WONDERFUL stamp camp the other night with two very "old" friends from grammar school! Thanks to the power of social media, we have been able to stay in touch, and these girls have been really getting into our stamp get-togethers!



We made 20 holiday cards with all Stampin' Up! materials - Stamp-a-stack as they call it. I prepared all the supplies, but the girls had a choice of patterned paper, the border punch, and which images they wanted to stamp and decorate. They could also layout the design horizontal or vertical which gave them enough of a variety to make the cards different, but gave me enough uniformity that I could prep all the materials together and still have the class over in 2 hours. (we ran 2.5 mainly due to an exploding glue incident) :)





Supplies:

• Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Whisper White Cardstock
• Patterned Paper: Holly Berry Bouquet
• Swirles cuttlebug embossing folder and my Big Shot
• Rhinestone Bling
• Scallop and Scallop Trim Border punches
• Stampin' Up Watercolor pencils and Markers
• Polar Party Clear Mount Stamps from Stampin' Up!

Scrapbooking Camp!

I have recently resurrecting my Card and Scrapbooking Camps! I love these times to get together with new and experienced scrapbookers, share layouts, patterned papers, embellishments, and desserts!  I had my dear SIL (Sis-in-law) and a neighborhood friend over to have a scrapping night. We made a 1 page layout, and a 2 page spread. For the 1 page layout - I pulled from my trusty source - www.splitcoaststampers.com! I created these two pages for my DS (Dear Son) 1 year scrapbook. SBSC291 and SBSC290. I adore SCS and having them as a creative resource. I scrapped 5 pages on Saturday morning, and going to these challenges help "jump" my creativity!

 These pages are "simple" as they were designed for my scrapbook camp and for quick and easy replication. I did try to add some accents on each and dug out my signo white gel pen which i do NOT use enough :) Did Faux stitching on the top layout, and accented the snowflakes on the bottom layout.

Colors are all Stampin' Up!  - Ruby Red and Old Olive

Thanks for looking!

Flower Fest

Had so much fun making my first card for "Freshly Made Sketches". I've been following this blog for a while now, and happy to finally play along. Loved the simplicity of the sketch, yet how you could take it in any direction!

I coupled this card with Splitcoaststampers Color Challenge this week: CC343: More Soft Tango. Great fall colors, and not ones I would put together myself, which is why I love these challenges!

I used Stampin' Up!'s Flower Fest stamp set, my favorite toy, my Big Shot, and the large scallop punch.

Thanks for looking!

Masculine Birthday

Why is it so difficult to come up with cool masculine birthday cards? It shouldn't be that difficult, but then I look at my stamp collection, and at least 1/2 if not more of the sets have flowers in them... maybe that's why - slimmer pickin's :)

Again, went right to SCS for the challenges which I LOVE to do! I feel like with a little structure I can be more creative if that's possible.

For this card I used Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Real Red, and Cool Caribbean (retired) from Stampin' Up!  The background is a Provo Craft embossing folder, and the punches are all from Stampin' Up! also. (Ive been on a punch kick lately - it's fun!)

I really liked how this card came together - fast and simple, but has enough "stuff" going on to look complete!  I also feel like the "ball" at the bottom looks a lot like the Pixar ball  - which is a fun touch - wrong colors, but correct design.

The stamp set is "eat cake" - also retired Stampin' Up!

This card is for SCS Sketch Challenge #352 and Color Challenge #342 (Altho i had to use "close" colors and I ran out in my stash!)