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!

Pacman Punch Art!

Ok - this card was just too fun to make! Promised my brother an "equally cool card" to my Angry Birds Card, and I had seen several PacMan cards out on SCS and others, and took a stab. Using all Stampin' Up Punches, used the Owl Punch and cut off the legs for the ghosts, the eyes are also the Owl eyes. Also, the white pellets are also the back of the eyes from the same punch. Pacman was made with a 1 3/8" punch and then a square punch to cut out the mouth :) The hardest part was getting the pupils on the eyes- I used a pin from the Toolkit to carefully place them on. This was a blast, and I'll definitely make it again!

Thanks for looking!

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!

Embossing Birthdays!

Another card for my stamp camp - this one utilizing and showcasing the "Big Shot" embossing machine! I was never totally happy with my cuttlebug - it never did what i wanted it to do, i had to fight with it too often, i even went as far as to believe that i got a bum one, and returned and replaced it once, but no... it was the machine itself that i didn't love.

I had the big shot on my wish list for a while, and then my SIL got me a thank you present and lo and behold! My BIG SHOT! And EMBOSSING FOLDERS! (which i used on the background of this card). I have fallen in LOVE! Use this machine on almost every card and project now, and sold my Cuttlebug on eBay to get me more cash for more embossing folders!

This card uses Not Quite Navy, and the coordinating paper, ink and buttons. My favorite selling point about Stampin' up! - EVERYTHING MATCHES!!! :)

Thanks for looking!

Pink and Brown Scallops!

Another quick card for my stamp camp - I have fallen in LOVE with my scallop punches and coordinating stamp sets from Stampin' Up! I use them ALL the time, and I love the effect they give to a card. For this i went to my old faithful Pink and Brown combo. Pulled out my old Au Chocolat Patterned paper, and used some Pink Brads that i got on Stampin' Up!'s clearance rack! (Gotta love a great deal!).

Thanks for looking!

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

As we approach this fun holiday in Central Jersey - we were met with 3-4 inches of SNOW! I vaguely remember on Halloween as a kid there being snow on the ground, but it's still crazy! There have been years where we haven't gotten snow until January! Anyway - still in the spirit of the holiday, pulled together this super quick and adorable card for my stamp camp last week - Basic Black, Gray, and using the Stampin' Up! Owl Punch upside down to make the Ghost and the goggly eyes! Camp LOVED this card and was super fun to put together!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

Angry Birds!

Who is NOT obsessed with angry birds - raise your hand!  (Mine is not raised as you can imagine). :) Love this game, kids LOVE this game, and when i cam across www.stampwithtami.com and her post on Angry Birds - I had a kitten! (not literally)

I had a BLAST making this card - and foresee many others like it in the future! Punch art at it's finest! Check out Tami's site for the instructions - I cannot take ANY credit for this at all - just had fun duplicating the design! ANd my kids are obsessing over the card and want me to make many more! Maybe i'll try to pig next time! :)

Go Angry Birds!

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!)

Simple Cupcakes

Clean and Simple cards are harder to make then one might think. I have a very hard time putting together very few elements, and keeping the lines "clean", without it coming out looking rushed or "missing something" in my opinion.

The SCS Clean and Simple Challenge this week was a sketch challenge as well - copying the simple lines and layout of another designers card. My addition to this challenge was a card which I made for my nephew's first birthday this weekend. I also used the Color Challenge from SCS this week as well; gotta love 2 for 1 challenge submissions!

The Cupcake is from the adorable Cupcake Punch from Stampin' Up! The phrase is from the Birthday Bakery set. I added the eyelets just cause I felt it needed something else :) I used my crop-a-dile so it was super fast, and hope that wasn't "too much" for the clean and simple concept!

Thanks for looking!
Mancy

Try a New Technique Challenge

I could spend all day just going on stamping websites and getting ideas from all the insanely creative people out there! My card making and scrapbooking tends to come in waves, but Im trying to make it more consistent, which is why I love doing "challenges". Challenges give me some framework so I don't have to be 100% creative all the time, but only 80% and follow the 20% laid out in the challenge.

I needed a card for a wedding of a dear friend of mine this weekend, and so I went to SCS and chose to participate in the "Try a New Technique" challenge. The challenge this week was to "Embossed Kiss".

In short, you take a solid stamp, ink it up, and then "kiss" it to an embossing folder so that some of the ink comes off and you are left with the pattern from the embossing folder on the stamp - and then press to your paper.

I don't have many embossing folders, as I JUST got a Big Shot about a week ago - but I had some SU textured folders. The result was a little more muted and slightly blurry then I would have liked, but in the end I feel that the result was quite nice.

The background flowers is another Stampin'Up! embossing folder which I LOVE, and the "Bold Butterflies" are stamping and kissed in Close to Cocoa.

Thanks for looking!
Mancy

Halloween Punch Art

Was "surfing the web" (is that phrase even cool anymore?) and came across this adorable card from Stamping Peg with the most adorable ghosts on it. Of course - I had to CASE it (Copy And Steal/Share Everything). I decided to also combine SCS's Color Combo this week of Tempting Pumpkin Olive.

Here's another spin on the ghost using the owl punch from Stampin' Up! from Robin's Blog. 

I did my own tonight - using the Splitcoast Color Challenge - CC341, and I just had a lot of fun putting this Halloween scene together. I recently got a Big Shot, so I have been having a blast with embossing, and these ghost's are just too adorable!

The pumpkins are from the Stampin' Up! Happy Blessings set, and the haunted mansion is a Michaels dollar stamp. The ghosts were made using the SU Owl Punch, and the card stock and patterned paper is all SU.

To make the fence I used a square punch, and just lined it up really carefully :)

Thanks for looking!
Mancy