Happy Birthday Uncle Jim - Inspired by Stampin' Pretty

October 1st was my Uncle Jim's birthday and I was fortunate enough to give him his card personally.  That's a rarity since he lives almost two days' drive from us, but he was here for my parents' 50th anniversary.  Yay!  When it came time to make his card, I opened up my card layout board on Pinterest and was drawn immediately to this card that was featured on the Stampin' Pretty blog here.  Although the card started as the inspiration, I knew I would do a standard A2 size.  I also immediately knew I wanted to use one of my favorite Technique Tuesday stamps called "Swanky Sentiments.  A while back I turned the frame stamp into a cut file for the Cameo courtesy of my scanner, Photoshop and Inkscape, so I cut one for the sentiment and another, slightly larger version, as a mat.  I inked out the sentiment from that stamp set with some Faded Jeans Distress Ink and the frame in Tea Dye Distress Ink.  Then it was just a matter of cutting the paper from the Fancy Pants Swagger 6x6 pad for the background, mat for the background, and then a few banner strips.  I just love the Swagger paper for a card for a man.  With a little tape from my ATG gun and a bit of pop dots on the back of the sentiment piece, it was done. 

Denver - Day Four

Oops - I thought I had this post ready to go for Thursday of my trip, but apparently I goofed up the process.  I just have to laugh though because it's ironic that the grey skies card stayed up on Thursday night.  The skies of Denver were very grey (the picture below does not do the sky justice - it was soo much darker than that) that night as it was the worst night of thunderstorms while I was there and they left me sick as a dog (or perhaps it was food poisoning), and I really wished that the hubster was there with me...

I loved this bird card uploaded by Silli when I saw it in the Splitcoaststampers Gallery.    I don't have the die she used, but I found a birdie in the Silhouette shapes I had that would work and branch in the Silhouette store that I liked (Design ID 1679).  Then it was just a matter of cutting the birdies from some scraps from my bin (I'm pretty sure they are DCWV card stock) and the branch from paper from the Swagger 6x6 pad from Fancy Pants.  I used another piece from that pad and my 1 inch punch to cut some circles.  Then it was just cut my white card stock for the background, round the corners with my Fiskars corner rounder and build the layers of the card.  For the glue, I used Glossy Accents and finished the card with a sentiments from the All Year Greetings from Fiskars stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink.

Happy Father's Day

Before I show the card I made, I've been lucky to have a fabulous father and I'm grateful for everything he has done for me over the years and the memories we've gotten to make together.  Happy Father's Day Dad!   I want to take a moment to wish my father-in-law a happy Father's Day.  We're grateful that he's still with us and finally out of the hospital!  Also, happy Father's Day to my Uncle Jim, Uncle Louis, Uncle Gordon, Cousin Pat, and Brother-in-Law Mike.  Finally, to my wonderful husband, I'm sorry you never got to the be the fabulous father I know you would have been, but we have four great fur babies who are awfully lucky to have you. 

So now on to the card of the day.  A while back I found this cute card from The Sweetest Thing pinned on Pinterest.  It wasn't a Father's Day card per se, but I loved the masculine look of the card and decided I would scraplift it into a Father's Day card.  I used kraft card stock and some white linen paper for the sentiment and mat, but everything else was from the Swagger 6x6 pad from Fancy Pants.  It's the perfect paper set for a masculine card.  It simply cut two 1 1/2 inch strips and one 1 1/4 inch strips from paper selected from the pad.  I cut the edges into a banner then taped them together offsetting a little.  I cut a background piece to 4 inch square and poked holes all the way around it using my handy Stampin' Up paper piercer and eyelet placing tool.  I hardly ever stitch on my layouts cards.  I love the look but never take the time, so thing time I didn't a faux stitching with a white pen. I then adhered that to a mat cut from the linen paper at 4 1/8. 

I used my Cameo to cut the linen paper for my sentiment and then stamped in Vintage Photo Distress Ink using the Swanky Sentiments set from Technique Tuesday.  I added some Martha Stewart baker's twine then used pop dots to adhere the sentiment.  I found a button from my stash, tied it off with a scrap of baker's twine and glued it to the edge of my sentiment.

All that was left was to cut a 4 1/2 by 8 1/2 chunk of kraft card stock to make my card base and tape it all together.  I love how it all turned out. 

 

Happy Birthday Card Inspired by the Artistic Avenger

Last week was a week filled with birthdays and I had tons of fun making cards.  For this card for my cousin's husband, I was completely inspired by the Artistic Avenger.  I simply loved this card.  I loved the colors and style.  For my version, I wanted to a little more masculine so I went right to the Swagger collection from Fancy Pants.  I really love this paper pad for masculine cards.  The brown background and the candles are all from the Swagger paper.  I used some of the Snap line from Simple Stories for the centers of the flame and the yellow paper from the Park Bench pad from Fancy Pants that was on my desk from the last card for the base of the flame.  The sentiment is from Fiskars and I stamped it with Momento Espresso Truffle on some twill ribbon in my stash.  I just love how this card turned out.  Nice and masculine.

Happy Father's Day Card Inspired by I Create

I found this fabulous card on the I Create blog.  I just loved the colors, the layout and the whole look.  It was just so wonderful I knew I had to create my own version and it was the perfect time to pull out the Swagger 6x6 paper pad by Fancy Pants I picked up during the National Scrapbooking Day sale at Craft Warehouse.  I love these masculine prints and I haven't had the opportunity to put them to use yet.  So I teamed it up with a Technique Tuesday stamp set I love called Swanky Sentiments and the Four Petal Flower embossing folder from Sizzix then finished it off with a few eyelets from my stash.  It was such a fun card to make even though it sat on pieces on my desk for days while I didn't have time to play in my craft room.