Monday, June 10, 2013

Cards for Men and Boys 2013

I did this one at a camp in Oregon.  I loved it so much I had to revive it and do it again.  Simple sponging and masking for the green panel, plus markers and "thumping" on the trees make the images stand out.  But one of the most fun parts of this card is the faux button--we actually made it out of paper!

"Faux suede" wallet for Dad.  We brushed the ink pad all over the paper to give it a leatherish look.  Inside, we made pockets for extra love. 



I can't believe my favorite little dinosaur set also got retired.  Waaah.  I won't get to feature him in camps anymore, but I will forever use it to make cute cards for kids and my family's own old dinosaurs :).


Spring Stamp Camps 2013

This card was much easier to make than it looks.  The paper trimmer and my SNAIL adhesive helped me make this card in just about 15-20 minutes once I had the design figured out in my head :).

It was fun to use my regular old pinking sheers again!  Silver embossing and embossed polka dots made with the Big Shot add the pizzazz this card needed.

I really found this set to be a lot of fun.  Maybe someday I'll even put people in my car, but for now, flowers were just what I wanted :).

Wouldn't this be a great solution to the world's smog problem?  Ha ha :).  I love the bright red on this card, which stands out with the help of black and Marina Mist.

Who wouldn't want to open this jar of love?  The Sizzlets that match our jar set (sorry, I don't remember the name at the moment) make the cutting out of the jar parts so super simple!

Flowers coming out of a car, and hearts coming out of an elephant's trunk...I love it!  I also love this technique of stamping line-art images on designer paper and cutting (or punching) them out.  So pretty!
What I loved best about making this card was using the new photopolymer stamp set.  If you haven't heard about that kind of stamps yet, it's brand new from Stampin' Up!--although not exactly new in the craft stores.  Stampin' Up! has been working for years though to develop this type of acrylic-mount stamp image that WON'T yellow or crack in time, and they've finally done it.  Now we have CLEAR images that we can mount on our CLEAR blocks, and that makes the placement of word stamps and any other kind of images easier than ever.  I didn't use anything but my eyeballs to line up the speech bubble and the words inside it.  So easy and fun! 

I'm going to miss this pretty butterfly set, "Kindness Matters."  It just retired.  I used to not like butterfly things, but now I can't get enough of them.  Okay, except for those silly giant ones that people stick on the outside of their houses.  You'll never catch me doing that.
Of all of the colors I tried this card with, orange (Pumpkin Pie) ended up being my favorite for this design.  A little Dazzling Details on the flowers was the finishing touch. 

I hope you enjoyed my Spring designs!  The first two were actually designs that I considered for my "Cards with Men and Boys" stamp camp, but three other designs won the honors of being made at that camp.  I'll showcase those three winning designs in my next post :).