One Stamp, Four Ways: Love Birds Anniversary Card

If I may say so myself, I think this idea was pretty brilliant on my part! :-D This is the last of the four cards I made, and it's definitely the most different from the other ones. I shared three very different cards, but on all of them I used a flower stamp set to stamp, well, flowers. On this card, I wanted to think outside the box and really use the stamp in a new and different way.

I think these birds came out so cute! I used the large and small leaf stamps, and they're perfect! For the beaks, I just carefully inked the tip of the stamp in So Saffron ink, then inked up the rest of the stamp in my main color (I used Pool Party and Crisp Cantaloupe... which I realize looks like pink in this photo - sorry). Then I drew in their feet with a Basic Gray marker, and adhered them down with dimensionals. Easy and cute!

I also used the amazing new Hearts and Stars Masks to sponge a few hearts at the bottom of the Smoky Slate panel. I decided to make this an anniversary card, but I think it could be super cute for a baby card, too!

I hope I've inspired you to take another look at some of your stamps and see how you can mix them up. Have fun!

Happy Stampin'! :)

CCC#041: August Card Challenge - Happy Birthday!

August 2014 Challenge

Happy Birthday, CCC! :-D

I can't believe it! Catherine & Cathy Create is celebrating it's First Birthday! I have been so honored to be part of the Design Team, and I've had such fun with the challenges. I hope you have too! So, of course, this month's card challenge is all about birthday cards. I rode with the first birthday theme too, and chose to make a birthday card that would be great for your favorite kiddo!

I love this little Kind Koala stamp! It's a single wood-mount stamp. So cute! I modified the image a little for this card. The koala is holding a flower, and there's a sentiment around him, but I didn't want to use those portions of the image. I stamped the koala on watercolor paper and colored him using Smoky Slate, Basic Gray, and Blushing Bride inks and a water brush. 

I also used Pistachio Pudding, Tangelo Twist, and Crushed Curry inks with the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set to create the look of confetti. This koala sure knows how to party!

Instead of the flower, I decided to make some fun birthday banners for the koala to hold. I used a piece of Confetti Celebration DSP, and a cute sentiment from Something to Say. 

That's it for me for this challenge. But make sure you head on over to Catherine & Cathy Create to see the other Design Team members' cards. Link up your own birthday card and you might win a prize!

Happy Stampin'! :)

One Stamp, Four Ways: Shabby Vintage Get Well Card

Hey - Remember that series I started a while back when I made 4 different cards with one stamp set? Well, I've got number 3 for you today! This one was a request from the guys at the Provincetown Department of Public Works. :-D One of their employees, a fellow stamper and friend of mine, had to have some surgery done. It's funny, because when they need a card for something like this, they usually ask her to make one. But she couldn't very well make her own get well card! LOL :)

Anyhow, she and I have very different styles. I love beachy sherbet-y colors, she loves jewel tones. I like clean and graphic cards, she's into distressing and sponging. So I really tried to work outside my comfort zone on this one. Here's the result...

I pulled out some colors I don't usually use on this one... including 4 out of the 5 new In Colors! The purple flower is Wisteria Wonder and Blackberry Bliss, the blue flower is Marina Mist and Lost Lagoon, the yellow flower is Daffodil Delight and Hello Honey, and the leaves are Old Olive and Mossy Meadow. This card really shows off the two-step stamping that the Flower Patch set is designed for... There are so many ways you can combine and layer the different images to create unique flowers!

I chose to stamp the flowers on a piece of the new Typeset DSP. I am madly in love with this stuff! The designs are gorgeous - text, numbers, ledgers, maps... and it's printed on this lightweight paper so it really behaves like vintage book pages! Hooray for not having to rip up yardsale books anymore! :) I punched the edge with another of my new favorites - the Spiral Border Punch. Then I distressed the whole piece with the Stampin' Distress Tool, and crumpled the edges a little with my fingers.

Other supplies I used on this card... The Hello Honey and Lost Lagoon DSP's are from the Moonlight DSP Stack. The sentiment is from A Dozen Thoughts, stamped in black on Hello Honey cardstock. I used a Very Vintage button and linen thread to create the embellishment on the sentiment. The cardstock layers are Lost Lagoon and Blackberry Bliss.

If you missed my first two cards, make sure you go check them out. I made an almost-one-layer sympathy card and a super fun birthday card I hope you're getting inspired to use your stamps in new and different ways! I've got one more card to share with you, so stay tuned.

Happy Stampin'! :)

Social Media Challenge Reject

Yesterday I shared my social media inspired card for the Catherine & Cathy Create August challenge. What I didn't tell you was that it was actually the second card I'd made for the challenge. :) Wanna see my first attempt? I guess I shouldn't really call it a "reject" because I still think it came out great, but I ended up deciding that I didn't quite use enough social media influence. Check it out...

The original idea behind this card was the juxtaposition between the old-fashioned typewriter and the modern hashtag sentiment. I still think it looks cool on the card, but I chose to make the other card to play up the social media aspect of the challenge. 

The color combination of Blackberry Bliss and Hello Honey was taken from the Moonlight DSP Stack (which also includes Basic Gray, Lost Lagoon, and Sahara Sand), which I also used on the little flags at the bottom of the card. The sentiment is from #hello and the adorable little paperclip is from the Basics Hodgepodge Clips assortment (love it!)

I colored this super cute typewriter (it's from a set called Tap Tap Tap, by the way) with Blackberry Bliss ink and an aqua painter. So cute! I popped it up on a slightly crooked piece of my new favorite thing in the entire world: Typeset DSP. I punched the edge with the Spiral Border Punch (my other new fave!) and tied on some black bakers' twine. Oh, and those awesome polka dots on the Hello Honey panel? That's the Large Polka Dot embossing folder. Love that texture!

Happy Stampin'! :)

CCC#040: August 2014 Challenge: #InstaLove

CCC#040

August 2014 Monthly Challenge

#InstaLove

This month's challenge from Catherine & Cathy Create is to make a project inspired by social media in some way... hashtags, Instagram, Facebook, selfies... You name it - if it's online, it's all good! :)

My first instinct for this challenge was to make some Project Life cards (which I still plan to do, by the way, so stay tuned!). But then I decided to think beyond myself a little bit. It dawned on me that this would be a perfect challenge to make a "boy" project for! So, I decided to think about what a teenage boy would like, and make a birthday card.

I love how this stamped background paper came out! But, let me tell you, it took a long time to make!  I used two different stamp sets - #hello and @SoSocial. They both have awesome "hashtag" style sentiments for a ton of different occasions. I pulled out all the birthday, boy, and generic (#awesomeness, #friendsarethebest, etc.) sentiments and stamped them randomly on the diagonal on Whisper White cardstock. I used Bermuda Bay, Tangelo Twist, and Pear Pizzazz inks. So here's why it took me so long... I can't line anything up for beans. So my Stamp-a-ma-Jig is my bff. But I decided I wanted to use all of the relevant sentiments (I think there were 10) and I wanted to stamp them randomly - not always the same sentiments in the same colors or in the same order. So I had to stamp on the Stamp-a-ma-Jig imaging sheet, then stamp on the cardstock. Every. Single. Time. If I were going to do this again, I'd suck it up, choose 3 or 4 sentiments, and keep them in the same colors so I didn't have to keep re-doing the imaging sheet! If I had enough clear blocks to keep all my stamps mounted, it probably wouldn't have taken quite as long. LOL!

The awesome, huge @ symbol (which, by the way, doesn't seem to have a name in English) is from the #hello set. I heat embossed it with Versamark ink, black embossing powder, and my heat tool on Whisper White cardstock. The sentiment is from Four You, and it's stamped on Tangelo Twist cardstock. I also added a little wood veneer banner from the Wooden Elements Embellishments for some added interest.

So that's it for me for today! Make sure you head over to Catherine & Cathy Create because the other DT members have some awesome projects to share with you, too! And if you share your social media inspired project, you might win some goodies!

#happystampinfriends! LOL :-D