Thinking of Inking

Hi.  I’m sorry for the lack of posts lately.  I’ve had some blog issues, and it’s been a rather busy month.  But hopefully I’ll get back into a routine of posting on here again.  I’ll include two cards in today’s post in an attempt to make up for lost time, ok?

The beginning of June is always a time for celebration in my family because both of my parents have birthdays then.  This year they have both reached ”milestone” years.  I won’t embarrass them by saying just how old they are, but I hope that I will live as long and happy a life as they have.

This is the card I made for my dad.  The three trees are supposed to be symbolic of his three daughters.  I really like the versatility of this stamp set and think it could be used for lots of different occasions.  The layout is Weekly Sketch #81 at Lizzie Anne Designs, and it’s adaptable for a lot of different situations, too. 

Supplies:
Stamps: Trendy Trees, Birthday Whimsy (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: River Rock, Sage Shadow, Whisper White, Western Sky designer series paper (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: River Rock, Sage Shadow (Stampin’ Up!)
Other: River Rock ribbon (Stampin’ Up!)

Here is Mom’s card.  My mom has always kept her house very tidy and clean - in fact, the only person I’ve met who kept a cleaner house was Mom’s mother!  My dad and sisters and I have often teased her about how frequently she vacuums.  When I saw this stamp image, I just had to get it for a card for Mom.  It makes me giggle every time I see it.  I was able to deliver this to Mom in person, and it made her laugh out loud, too.  The sentiment on the front says “On your birthday…” and on the inside I’d written, “Relax! Take a break from vacuuming!”  The layout for this card is a sketch by my friend Taylor. 

Supplies for this one:
Stamps: Kindred Spirits Sara (Gina K Designs); On Your Birthday (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: Cool Caribbean, Rose Red, Whisper White (Stampin’ Up!); “Bless” from Euphoria 6″ x 6″ pad (Basic Grey)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: petite oval and petite scalloped oval Nestabilities; Prima flower; Making Memories brad; Wonderful Watercolor Crayons and blender pen (Stampin’ Up!)

I hope all my American readers are enjoying the Memorial Day weekend.  Today, I’d like to memorialize some unsung heroes… teachers.  Teachers go through so much to help us learn to be good, responsible citizens, as well as teaching us the usual school subjects.  We’ve all had some excellent teachers and some not-so-great teachers, but I honestly do believe that everyone who goes into the teaching profession does it because they want to help children learn and grow.

Anyway, enough prosey mushy stuff.  The card I’m sharing today is one I made on behalf of the PTA executive board for a teacher who’s retiring at the end of the school year.  I apologize for the poor lighting, but it was the best I could do on a cloudy day.

I got the idea for this card from one I saw posted by Wendy Price in the Lizzie Anne Designs sketchbook.  Thanks for the inspiration, Wendy!  I stamped the pencils on a scrap strip of cardstock and colored them, and then cut them out and adhered them to the card.  It may be difficult to see in the photo, but there are three horizontal scored lines between the pencils and the sentiment.

Stamps: School Days (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Cardstock: white Paper Basics (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: watercolor pencils (Stampin’ Up!), blender pens, Fiskars trimmer for scoring

I know I’ve mentioned that on behalf of the PTA executive board, I send cards to the faculty and staff at my son’s elementary school.  Usually I just send birthday cards, but I’ve also made cards for the retiring teachers and teachers who have had babies.  I recently needed to send a sympathy card to one of our male teachers, but I didn’t have a lot of spare time to make a card.

I had just received the Branch Out stamp set from Stampin’ Up, and it seemed to be calling for some ink.  I had been browsing through the list of color challenges at Splitcoaststampers and particularly liked the look of challenge #53.  So I ended up creating a scene with those colors, added a sentiment, and ta-da… a quick and easy card that doesn’t look feminine was created.

Stamps:  Branch Out, Always in My Thoughts (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, Chocolate Chip (Stampin’ Up!); Paper Basics white (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Bashful Blue, Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery (Stampin’ Up!)

It’s been a very long and tiring week for me.  However, I did manage to make time to create a birthday card for a longtime family friend of ours.  How long is “longtime”?  Well, I knew her parents before they had any children.  I used to babysit her when I was a teenager, and then she used to babysit my boys.  Now she’s married and become just a really delightful adult.  I wish her all the best!

Here’s her birthday card.  I used Lizzie Anne Designs‘ weekly sketch #78 for the layout and their Party Animals set for the stamps.  The “extra twist” to the challenge was to go eclectic - so I used colors that I wouldn’t normally put together, which just happened to be the weekly color challenge at Splitcoaststampers this week!  Also, I used VersaMark to stamp a squiggly design on the green square.  I usually don’t think about stamping on designer paper.

Stamps: Party Animals (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Cardstock: Summer Sun, Only Orange, Whisper White (Stampin’ Up!); Magnifique Moss from French Floral paper pack (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Ink: VersaFine Onyx Black; VersaMark
Other: orange gingham ribbon (Offray); Watercolor Wonder Crayons (Stampin’ Up!); Window & Frame Making dies (Sizzlits)

Birthday wishes are the order of today’s post.  Two of my friends will be celebrating on Friday - Helen at All Things Stampy and Elizabeth at Shadow’s Stamping Spot.  I hope both of them have a wonderful day!

First, here’s the card I made for Helen.  I made this for one of the Mini Virtual Stamp Night Challenges at Splitcoaststampers two weekends ago.  This is a flap card.  The part you see with the polka-dotted paper folds up from the bottom, and the solid pink curved flap folds down from the top.  It’s secured with magnets concealed by the oval panel and the designer paper.  This was a fun one to make! It’s also the first time I’ve attempted doodling a border.

Supplies:
Stamps: Cheers to You (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: Pretty in Pink, Rose Romance, Whisper White, Tea Party designer paper (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: Watercolor pencils, Rose Romance marker (Stampin’ Up); magnets (Basic Grey); mega scalloped oval punch (Marvy); oval die (Sizzix)

The second card in today’s post is what I sent to Elizabeth.  She’s a big fan of Shiner Bock beer so it seemed natural to use a Shiner label as the focal point of her card.  The layout for this card is a slight tweak of Lizzie Anne Designs’ Weekly Sketch Challenge #77.  I changed it to a rectangular format.  This is the least amount of stamping I’ve gotten away with on a card in a long time, but I enjoyed making it because I think E will really like it!

Supplies:
Stamps: Cheers to You (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: More Mustard, Basic Black, Real Red (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: Onyx Black (VersaFine)
Other: label from Shiner Bock beer; circle cutting system (Creative Memories)

That was the name of the game for me the other day.  Splitcoaststampers had a mini Virtual Stamp Night last weekend, where a different challenge is posted every hour.  Anyone who wants to participate in a challenge has 45 minutes to complete a project fitting the requirements of the challenge. 

I didn’t have the chance to play along “live” last weekend, but I had time Monday to work on a few cards.  The one I’m sharing today was my favorite.  The point of this challenge was to embellish your card in no less than three different ways.  I chose Prima flowers, brads, sponging, a corner punch, and hardware to dress up this card.  I haven’t decided yet if I’ll send this to my mom for Mother’s Day, or save it for her birthday coming up before too long.  What do you think?

Stamps: Artfully Asian, Linen (Stampin’ Up!); Tag Lines (Gina K Designs)
Cardstock: Barely Banana, Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: Certainly Celery (Stampin’ Up!)
Other: Certainly Celery marker, blender pen, ticket corner punch, Hodgepodge Hardware (Stampin’ Up!); Prima flowers; celery mini brads (Making Memories); sponge

… for a sweet birthday girl! 

OK, I apologize for the corny-ness.  But the person I made this card for is a very wonderful, smart, beautiful, delightful young lady whom I am proud to call my niece, and I do hope that she enjoyed her 20th birthday recently.

I used Lizzie Anne Designs weekly sketch challenge 73 for the layout.  I’m still not loving the Stampin’ Up color Kiwi Kiss overall, but I really liked this designer paper that uses a lot of that color.  Feel free to tell me what you think!

Supplies:
Stamps: Party Animals (Lizzie Anne Designs)
Cardstock: Pretty in Pink, Riding Hood Red, Whisper White, Raspberry Tart designer paper (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: VersaFine Onyx Black
Other: Watercolor Wonder Crayons (Stampin’ Up!), Red Wagon ribbon (Making Memories), Marvy Giga Scalloped Circle punch, EK Success circle punch

I haven’t done much creating the last few days.  Saturday my husband was sweet enough to let me “take the afternoon off” and go to A.C. Moore, one of the chain craft stores.  That may not sound like much at first, so let me explain… the closest A.C. Moore is about 85 miles away, or about a 90 to 100 minute drive.  Google Maps gave me one set of directions and Mapquest gave a different route.  So I decided to take the Google route there, and the Mapquest route home.  The Google route was more scenic, but the Mapquest route seemed faster. 

I’m lucky to live in a quite picturesque part of my state, in between two mountain ranges.  I had to travel over one mountain range to get to the store and home again.  The route there took me over the mountain on a two-lane state route which was really twisty and curvy, but well worth the trip if you love mountain scenery like I do.  Part of the road followed the James River, and I was able to stop and take the following photo.  I apologize if the quality isn’t very good but the only camera I had with me was the one installed on my cell phone.

Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t do justice in showing just how blue the sky was, or how yellow the wildflowers in the foreground are.  But it was a beautiful view and a gorgeous day, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to capture it.

I’d love to have some feedback about the way I’ve been presenting my photos on here.  I’ve been playing around with pixel size and thumbnail vs. full size image, trying to get the photos to look clearer when you first see them on here.  I know they’ve been rather blurry, and that has really been annoying me.  So please leave me a comment and answer the following questions:

Do you like the current thumbnail-size images with the text wrapped around them?  Would you rather have a larger photo to view?  Do you ever click on the image to see it larger?  Even if I had a larger preview photo, would you click on it for a better view?

Any other opinions or comments you’d like to make would be greatly appreciated!  Brutal honesty isn’t going to hurt my feelings, so say what you mean.  Thanks in advance. 

Now, on to today’s card.  One of the teachers at our elementary school is expecting a little boy any day now.  Here is what I made to send her on behalf of the PTA Executive Board.

I just received Stampin’ Up’s Delicate Dots designer paper and decided to put it to use right away.  The color scheme is taken from Splitcoaststampers’ weekly color challenge #213, and the layout is this week’s sketch challenge, #224.  I wanted to use my scalloped Nestabilities for the mat for the two narrow strips of designer paper, but the largest die I had was still a little too short to reach across the entire width of the card.  I love paper piecing the onesie!

Stamps: By Ones & By Twos, Hugs & Wishes (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, So Saffron, Close to Cocoa, Delicate Dots designer paper (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: Close to Cocoa
Other: Nestabilities scalloped rectangle die; Cutterbee scissors; dimensional adhesive

That’s me.  I’m stuck in a creative rut.  Despite having some new stamps to play with, I just can’t get focused on creating anything with them.  But I did want to post *some*thing. 

I made this card a year ago for one of my longtime friends.  I chose colors that she liked.  I used a Cuttlebug folder to emboss the designer paper, and then I swiped my ink pad over it to make the embossing stand out even more. It’s hard to tell in the photo, but the Chocolate Chip punched circle just underneath the rhinestone brad is crumpled/distressed a bit. I popped the alignment guard off of my corner rounder punch and used the punch to make the scalloped edge at the bottom of the designer paper.

I have to confess that I borrowed the layout idea from a birthday card that another longtime friend made for me.  Dee, if you read this, thank you for the inspiration!

Stamps: Riveting (Stampin’ Up!); Wavy Wishes (Hero Arts)
Cardstock: Blue Bayou, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Fall Flowers designer paper, Spring Showers designer paper (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: Blue Bayou, Chocolate Chip (Stampin’ Up!)
Other: Rhinestone brad, corner rounder punch, and Soft Sky stitched ribbon (Stampin’ Up!); “Harmony” alphabet [for scalloped circle] and “Happy Birthday” embossing folder (Cuttlebug)