You're a Classic

My son is an avid classic car guy. He owns 2 old pickup trucks that he is restoring. So for his birthday I thought I'd pull out the old Stampin' Up! set Classic Pickups to make his card.

I sponged different inks on the tags before stamping the truck image. I also stamped the saying before dry-embossing the paper:

I did a double version of the truck image to pop it out. And I popped out the tags as well (all with foam tape).

I did a pitiful job on setting the big eyelets inside the card. Even with the Crop-o-Dile it's hard for me. I'm probably not using it properly. Maybe I should use my trusty old eyelet setter.

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

Stamps: SU! Classic Pickups, SU! Birthday Greetings, The Angel Company (inside center saying)

CS: Black, White, Basic Grey Granola papers, white tags

Inks: Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Antique Linen, Vintage, and Black Soot; Memento Tuxedo Black, Stampin' Up! Night of Navy

Other: Cuttlebug Tiny Bubbles embossing folder, Sponge for direct to paper inking, Crop-o-Dile, large, brown eyelets, brown mini-brads, foam tape, brown leather string

Dad's Pickup - CC193 and TECC43

I am in a mad dash to get this done and up before I go in for surgery tomorrow. I tore my rotator cuff several years ago and am finally getting it fixed. I can't wait for this pain to be gone. I've lived with it for far too long. Stamping has even become difficult.

Anywho, I had a couple of cards I needed to do before the surgery since I won't be doing any stamping during my recovery (at least that's what I'm assuming). I got one done yesterday and the other I'm not sure will be done by tonight. Ugh! Nothing like waiting until the last minute. I might end up having to buy a pre-made for that one.

My dad turns 70 on December 11th. He's retired, and he and my mom run a little ranch in Texas with longhorns and donkeys and chickens. Well, when he retired and went into the longhorn business he needed a good pickup truck to haul hay in and take trash to the dump and haul the cattle trailer and...you get the picture. He ended up getting a really nice one that looks kind of like the modern version of the one on this card. So I had fun making up this card just for him.

He was telling me yesterday that he had had to milk one of the longhorns recently when her newborn calf got sick. He penned her up in the shoot they use for vetting purposes and milked her! What a guy! At first, she didn't know what in the world he was doing to her, but the next time she really liked it. lol We women who've breastfed can relate, yes? That relief we felt after the baby nursed was sheer bliss.

Back to the card: I went with Color Challenge 193 on SCS using Real Red, Basic Black and Kraft. Perfect for my dad's card. I used Taylor's TECC43 design sketch, as well.
For the black base I used the corner punch on the corners and then used my paper piercer to add holes along the edges. For the red piece I cut the cs, did direct to paper with Real Red ink, ran it through the Cuttlebug using the Distressed Stripes embossing folder sideways (notice the stripes don't go up and down? I liked it that way) and DTP'd it again with Real Red ink and attached it to the black.

For the Kraft piece I stamped it with the truck from SU Classic Pickups in Basic Black ink, then DTP'd it with Creamy Caramel, punched the corners, did a more spaced-out hole pattern (I put a hole at each end, then one in the middle of those, then one in the middle of those, etc.), and attached it to a piece of black cs.

I stamped the truck again on white cs and colored it first with a Real Red marker, but found that my Prismacolor pencils were superior to the markers for this particular image. I used a Silver pencil and then a Light Umber to do the metal on the truck (the Light Umber softened the Silver a bit). I used Crimson Red to go back over the truck body and used Black for the tires and to highlight some parts of the body. I also used the Light Umber for the windows to recede them a bit. I cut the truck out and then I put Diamond Glaze on the windows to imitate glass. I used Sticky Doos to pop it out on the Kraft piece.

For the word stamping I used the "Happy Birthday" stamp from Taylored Expressions' Sweet Celebration set. But I stamped it crooked! Oops! Do you think he'll notice? The "DAD" part was stamped using CTMH Storytime upper case alphas. Then it was punched out, paper pierced and mounted onto a black punchie. I popped it all up as you can see below and did lots more paper piercing because I can't get enough of it! What is the allure, I wonder? Oh, who cares! I like it!

No pics of the inside, but all I did was DTP some Real Red cs with Real Red ink and punch the corners to keep the theme going. I also paper pierced around the edges of the black back of the card to match the front.

Thanks for looking!

Stamps: SU Classic Pickups, Taylored Expressions Sweet Celebration, CTMH Storytime upper case alphas

CS: Black, Real Red, Kraft, White

Inks: Real Red, Basic Black, Creamy Caramel

Other: Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes embossing folder, Corner punch, 1" and 1.25" circle punches, Paper piercer, Spongy mat from Mat Pack, Sticky Doos, Diamond Glaze, Various Prismacolor pencils, Real Red marker

Hubby's Father's Day card

Recipe:

Stamps: Classic Pickups, Smorgasborders (sentiment)

Paper: Black, Basic Grey Urban Culture designer paper, Chocolate Chip

Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black pigment ink, "Vintage Photo" Distress Ink by Tim Holtz, Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Ruby Red, Only Orange, Summer Sun, Real Red

Accessories: bleach, water brushes, sponges, Detail Black embossing powder, Prismacolor silver and gold pencils, Dimensionals, Diamond Glaze, antique brads, leather strips, 1/16" hole punch, 1/2" circle punch, 1/4" circle punch, sm. oval punch, Cuttlebug

Techniques: Bleaching, heat embossing, cuttlebugging

This is the card I made for my hubby for Father's Day using Beate's sketch challenge #5.

I really loved this simple design. Sometimes the simplest designs are the most satisfying to play with, don't you think?

As you can see, I used the Cuttlebug embossing folder yet again! I can't help it, I love the look, especially on designer paper.

I made this card as a 5.25" square to fit in my 5.5" square envelope. The directions are on Beate's blog (through the above link).

I used black as my background cs. For the inside, I made a square of Chocolate Chip cs to go inside so the sentiment phrase would be visible. I sponged the inside square's edges with Chocolate Chip ink after stamping the sentiments. Then I adhered it inside the card. Sorry for the poor sentence structure. :)

For the outside front, I used pieces of Basic Grey designer paper (Urban Couture, I think) and rubbed them with a vintage distress ink by Tim Holtz. Then I cuttlebugged them using the Mesh embossing folder. It was really tricky trying to line up the holes for the brads as they had to go through a little 1/2 circle piece of cs, the leather strip and the cuttlebugged cs. Very difficult. I won't even try to explain what I did. There's probably an easier way than mine. ;) The look was worth the trouble to me, thankfully.

For the oval sentiment, I used the smaller oval punch and sponged it with Chocolate Chip ink and punched 1/16" holes on either side. Then I punched 1/16" holes in black cs and, turning a 1/4" circle punch upside down, punched to get the smaller holes in the center - like a tiny doughnut. I used antique-finish brads and adhered them as you see. I used a bit of Diamond Glaze (Crystal Effects) on some Dimensionals to adhere the sentiment to the card front. That helps it adhere better to the Cuttlebugged surface.

For the pickup truck feature, I first powdered a piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock with my embossing buddy pillow thingy. Then I stamped the truck using Brilliance Graphite Black pigment ink and heat embossed it with Detail Black ep. Then I bleached the inside design of the truck completely and colored it with a combination of waterbrush/inks and Prismacolor pencils (silver/gold for the chrome portions). I just kept applying color until I got it the way I wanted it. When finished, I sponged the area around the truck with Chocolate Chip ink, then mounted it to black cs. I adhered that piece to one side of the card with Dimensionals.

Thanks to Miz Beate, for the inspiration!

Masculine antiqued car thank you card

Recipe:

Stamps: Canvas, Classic Pickups, Amazing to Zany

Paper: Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, vanilla

Ink: Basic Brown, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, "Vintage Photo" Distress Ink by Tim Holtz, Kaleidacolor "Cappuccino Delight" rainbow pad

Accessories: Cuttlebug "Tiny Bubbles" embossing folder, sponges, waterbrush, Inkworx air art gun, Chocolate Chip marker, Close to Cocoa marker, Dimensionals, Diamond Glaze, leather string, cream ribbon, dark antique brass brads, scissors

Techniques: antiquing

I needed to make a card for one of my hubby's work colleagues who generously loaned us his truck to pick up our new riding mower recently. So this is what I came up with.

Like a lot of stampers, I find it very challenging to do masculine cards. This one was doubly challenging as I chose to do it with the TCL108 coffee with cream challenge in mind: browns and creams and nothing else, and no coffee or chocolate themes. That's right, no black for me! Do you KNOW how hard that is? Well, I'll admit I did at one point use a teensy bit of black via a Micron pen to try to emphasize the truck feature a bit as I was having quite a time trying to bring it out. Unfortunately, the micro lines of black weren't a good addition. So I went over them with the Chocolate Chip marker, which did the trick. I should've tried that in the first place. You'll read more about this further down.

As you can see, I've incorporated the Canvas background stamp mixed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder again, this time stamping Canvas in Chocolate Chip on Close to Cocoa and then running it through the Cuttlebug using the Tiny Bubbles EF. And finally, rubbing the "Vintage Photo" Distress Ink pad (by Tim Holtz) over the Cuttlebugged part and sponging (I think! I'm a bit vague on the color I used here) the lightest color from the Kaleidacolor Cappuccino Delight rainbow pad in the holes. The look is pretty cool, I think.

I began the card by rubbing the same ink just mentioned (Vintage Photo) all over the biggest piece of cardstock (the main "card" portion). It looked awesome, like leather. It proved a bit challenging to glue the Cuttlebugged piece to the main card because the ink was so thick from all that rubbing, it affected the "stickability" of the adhesive. So I had to help things along by using Diamond Glaze (aka Crystal Effects) to adhere them. That took care of it.

The horizontal ribbon feature I used is from SU and comes in a cream color (what is that stuff, basting tape?) and I sponged the lightest color from Cappuccino Delight pad onto it and touched it up a bit with the next darker color on that pad (I was glad to find an excuse to use that pad). I stamped the "thanks" stamp from Amazing to Zany on it and used a 1/16" hole punch to make holes for the brads. I thought the brads kind of kept the circle theme of the Cuttlebugged part pretty nicely. I wanted the ribbon's edges to be a bit frayed to add more texture. I do love texture on a card. I also used Diamond Glaze to help the ribbon adhere. There was definitely a lot of trouble with adhering on this card. Diamond Glaze came to the rescue many times!

The truck feature was the hardest part to deal with and I'm not sure it'd be that easy to duplicate. I did so much layering of color to achieve the final look, it would be hard to describe. But I'll do my best, beginning with a close-up:

The cardstock I worked with for the truck was vanilla. I stamped the truck twice: once for the base, and once for the cut-out part. I stamped them both first in the Vintage Photo ink, then danced the stamp in SU's Basic Brown ink and then stamped it on the vanilla and it gave the trucks a lovely mottled look. But once they dried, the images were kind of blah. So on the base piece, I sponged inks from the Cappuccino Delight pad to give the look lots of warmth, and then spritzed it with the Chocolate Chip and Close to Cocoa markers via my Inkworx air art gun to add a vintage-y look. Then I roughed up the edges with my scissors blade, scraping it across the edges and then sponged some more. I adhered that piece to a piece of Chocolate Chip cs which was well-rubbed with the Vintage Photo ink. I used Dimensionals, but they wouldn't stick. So I put some Diamond Glaze on the Dimensionals and they're good and stuck now.

Once the base was done I worked on the cut-out part. I cut it out and adhered it to the base with Dimensionals, and then I waterbrushed and sponged it with various browns (Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Basic Brown, Cappuccino Delight). Still blah. So I took the aforementioned black Micron pen and tried to very lightly doodle over the truck lines so it would stand out more. It did, but not in a good way. It added a bluish tone. So I doodled over that with the Chocolate Chip marker using both ends of the marker here and there, and that did the trick. Phew!

Once that was finished, I prepared the leather string by tying the ends in knots for more texture and looped and adhered it behind the truck feature. Then I adhered that whole thing to the Cuttlebugged part with Dimensionals and Diamond Glaze.

What a job!