Masculine Birthday Card

I made this card for one of my grandsons who turned 19 recently. I really need to increase my collection of masculine stamps, not to mention, birthday sayings! I keep reusing them and it's kind of embarrassing!

But one thing I didn't reuse for the umpteenth time is the Tim Holtz Steampunk embossing folder. Why I don't use it more, I don't know.

I feel like so much of what I use is obsolete now. So many stampers with blogs work for stamp companies, so they're always getting new stuff. I imagine new stuff is a lot more interesting than old stuff, but I refuse to go into debt just to always be using "the latest thing". And I have no interest in being a salesman for stamp companies. This is a hobby after all. For pleasure only, in my case.

Regardless of how old and obsolete my stuff is (Basic Grey paper, anyone?), it's all still useful to me. So even if I'm only posting obsolete stuff here and talking to myself because I fell out of the stamping loop, so be it. I do like having a place to say what I want about each card I make.

I used some of the new Papertrey Ink cardstock I bought to prop up my poor old cardstock collection. When I took all of my stamping stuff out of storage, I realized that cardstock does not do well with temperature fluctuations. The Papertrey Ink cardstock is pretty decent, but it's easily damaged, despite being pretty thick. I'm hoping to find an even better quality paper in the future.

The color I used was Scarlett Jewel. It reminds me of the old Stampin' Up! color, Cranberry Crisp. In fact, I used some Cranberry Crisp ink on the Happy Birthday background with the old SU! background stamp, Canvas.

I had not pulled out my SU! Artifacts set in a long time and figured it was a good masculine set to work with. I only used the clock image, but I like how it turned out. Makes me think of a Tim Holtz design and kind of mimics the cog shapes in the embossing folder. The designer paper came from the Basic Grey Recess 6x6 pad.

I used the SU! Spiral punch along the edge of the decorator paper for extra interest. And I still keep trying to use brads and eyelets despite my inability to set them in a straight line. I just used some black brads along the bottom of the main piece to oomph it up a bit more.

The Happy Birthday saying is from CTMH's Spunky Greetings. The "19" was from Purple Onion Design's Girls Are Weird numerals.

Well, that's it! Take care.

Stamps: SU! Canvas, SU! Artifacts, CTMH Spunky Greetings, Purple Onion Designs Girls Are Weird numerals

CS: Black, Papertrey Ink Scarlett Jewel, Basic Grey Recess designer paper, White

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU! Cranberry Crisp

Other: Tim Holtz Steampunk embossing folder, SU! Spiral punch, Black hemp twine, Foam tape, Black mini brads

The cutest snail stamp ever!

I've been a stamper for over 10 years and have gotten pretty jaded about the stamping world. It's hard for me to get excited about most stamps these days. But there are occasions when I get that old thrill coming over me when I see a new stamp or set of stamps that just have that special something about them. Well I found some of those stamps recently when visiting Marilyn's Flickr pics and ran across these 3 cards of hers. I knew that I had to have those stamps! But I did hold back for a little while, wondering if I should spend the money. But heck, I've been so good not buying any stamping stuff for so long that I thought I'd go ahead and splurge.

Sooooo, I bought them and I love them! They are sold by Purple Onion Designs using Stacey Yacula's adorable images. Oh. my. goodness. These are just the sweetest, most whimsical images I've seen in a long time! I hope Stacey continues to allow her adorable characters and images to be made into stamps. I will surely buy them! And Purple Onion Designs makes the images nice and deep and crisp. The images look splendid when you stamp them.

Here is a card I made over the weekend using the Toadstool stamp and Tucker the snail from Stacey's The Sweetest Day set.



Oh, were these fun to color! A Copic lover's dream come true. Do you buy stamps only if they can be colored with Copics? I've been thinking that way meself ever since I first got into Copics.

I did direct to paper on SU Always Artichoke cardstock with the Always Artichoke ink pad and set it aside to dry.

I had already colored the images, so my colors were already chosen for the card. I looked through my pad of Tim Holtz's Paper Stash - Lost and Found papers for a background paper and picked the medium-sized piece with tape measures all over it. No significance to that; just thought it went well with the stamps. Then I ran the paper through the Cuttlebug using Tim Holtz's Steampunk embossing folder made by Sizzix. And then I did direct to paper over that with Antique Linen Distress Ink. Boy, this is turning into a Tim Holtz card, isn't it?? The reason I did the dtp on the TH paper was actually to fix some tears in the paper that occurred during the embossing. But I love the look and do this all the time on my cards for this same reason. Sometimes a fix turns into a preference.

I sewed around the edge with red thread to tie it in later with the red gingham bow and the red in the images.

I did some paper piercing around the main image and the Inspire piece and sponged Antique Linen ink around the edges with a sponge dauber. I used some tiny red gems in the upper right corner.

I can't even begin to tell you how I got this translucent look for Tucker's head. All I remember is using a LOT of Copics on him. I used colors you would not expect, like lavender, reds, purples and pinks. I used some yellow and lots of muted greens. I just played around and did a lot of blending. I also used some warm grays. Somehow it came out that way. Then I used the colorless marker to get the speckled look.



I've got another card in the works with Stacey's stamps. Will post that once it's finished.

Have a lovely Monday evening!

Recipe:

Stamps: Purple Onion Design The Sweetest Day by Stacey Yacula - Tucker the snail and Toadstool, CTMH Geometric Thoughts word stamp

CS: SU Always Artichoke, black, Tim Holtz Idea-ology Paper Stash: Lost and Found, white

Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black, Versafine Onyx Black, SU Always Artichoke, Antique Linen Distress Ink

Other: Tim Holtz (by Sizzix) Steampunk embossing folder, Nestabilities oval and scalloped oval dies, SU oval punches, sewing machine (red thread), paper piercer, red gingham ribbon, Copic markers, red mini gems, pop dots, sponge dauber