One sketch, two Birthday cards

I'm making an effort to send out more cards, so I decided to make a couple of birthday cards for friends for this week's sketch challenge at Card Positioning Systems. I should have just added "belated" to the sentiment, since one birthday was yesterday and the other is tomorrow, and neither card is in the mail!

I designed the border rectangles in SCAL, so I may use this sketch again since it's easy to cut the pieces. I was surprised at how versatile it ended up being.
The second one is a penny slider/spinner card, which was inspired by my husband. Ooh, can you make them move across the card? he said when I showed him my coloring. Like I said, this sketch is really versatile!

I whipped up some sentiments in InDesign and made matching backgrounds in SCAL (although I did hand-cut the text circles). Later that evening, I was looking online for a "Happy Birthday" sentiment stamp to replace the one stolen by the gnomes in my craft space, and much to my surprise I saw that great minds think alike: the Penny Black Flourish Birthday rubber stamp uses the exact same font as I did, Scriptina. Groovy! I think I'll save my pennies and just use my digital version for now, all things considered (it's free font too).


Update 3/26/11: Wow, I won the CPS Sketch Challenge #210. It' chosen randomly, but hey I'll take it! I think these two cards counted as one entry too. Looking forward to playing with the Ippity stamps I won...More birthday cards!

"You Make My Heart" Pop-Out

Ah Valentine's Day, when pink and glitter seem like good ideas. My favorite part about this holiday is that it gives us an excuse to tell people we love them...plus, make them cards. I've seen some really fun Valentines online, from punny Patent Illustration Valentines to SuperFriends Action Valentines from the 1980s, to ninja-themed Kawaii Mini Valentines. Many, including these, are free to print at home!

But I'm low on printer ink, so I decided to make another hand-made Valentine, inspired by the Aud Sentiments Corny Sayings challenge and the "slider pop-out card" tutorial I found yesterday at SCS. I'm also entering this card into the Cards for Men Valentine Challenge, because I think it keeps a classic Valentine feeling without being too girly. I'd give it to my sweetheart (but he'll read about it here first)!

This card features this Friday's PaperFacesDesign Freebie, Lovebirds 2.

The card design is quite simple (if you follow the directions, which only took me twice), and once you have the base together, you can decorate to your heart's desire. I stamped a heart-and-star border from a Christmas set onto the "sliding wrap" with Antique Linen distress ink, for a wood-block, vintage feel. Then I got a little funky and "distressed" the white side of a light green paper with red, yellow, and linen inks. I was inspired by Stamping 411's Technique Thursday / Reinker Background post, but I don't have the right tools so I just used a damp paper towel. After it dried, I stamped the flowering vine stamps onto the green side, for the garland, and made a backing piece for the Lovebirds. I even ran the ribbon over the Antique Linen ink to tone it down. The garland is affixed with heart brads; I hid the backs with a couple of the vine stamps.

Sliding Pop-Out Card Tutorial: Kim Score for Splitcoaststampers
Digi stamp: Lovebirds 2 by PaperFacesDesigns

Inspiration:
Aud Sentiments Challenge #21: Corny Valentine
Cards for Men Challenge #3: Valentines/Love

Supplies: decorative papers by Paper Studio, MS detailing scissors, ZipDry glue, Sentiment stamp by gstudio, HP printer & ink, Cricut + SCAL, Fiskars papercutter and deckle scissors, Copic Ciao markers, Tim Holtz distress inks (fired brick, antique linen, mustard seed), silicon stamps from gstudio and Scrappy Cat, stash eyelet & heart brads, Crop-O-Dile II, Offray ribbon

Poets vs Dragon

While shopping during the Holidays, we saw this cute dragon dog toy and thought we'd entertain ourselves by watching our dogs chew out the 11 squeakers. What we didn't expect was our dogs taking so long to disembowel it; our Walt (the dark one) can destroy a toy in under a minute if he's feeling like it. It was a bit pricey, but I said Ooh, wouldn't that make a great scrapbooking project! and so we brought it home. The dogs are used to having their picture taken by now, and I was able to get some great shots over the past few weeks.


The stuffed dragon also gave me a great excuse to use the Stampin' Up! Chinese-y stamps I haven't had occasion to use yet. I couldn't believe how great the fortune cookies came out after I colored them with copics! And yes, that's an actual fortune from a cookie we got from carry-out: "Don't put off till tomorrow what can be enjoyed today."

The base paper is a lovely, pre-glittered piece Mom sent me that I've been saving for such a project; I cut the frames and circles on my Cricut. The round stamps were lovely on their own, but for fun I embossed with them with gold.

I whipped together the title piece in SCAL, and "printed" and cut it on the Cricut. The layout sketch is courtesy of SplitCoastStampers' weekly scrapbook layout sketch challenge, which really brought all the elements together.

Inspiration: SBSC269

Supplies: HP Brochure paper, Recollections cardstock, stash decorative paper, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL software, Tim Holtz scissors, ZipDry glue, 09 KutUps dingbat font by Clever Someday, Memento ink, MeltArt embossing powder, Marvy heat tool, rubber stamps from Stampin' Up!

Blacked-Eyed Susans' Dream

Card Update 1/7/11
I had so much fun taking artsy photos of the card I made yesterday that I never really finished making it a card. I've already received some lovely comments on it, but since I'm in easel-card mode this morning I whipped up a base for it.

I had originally planned to make a standard 5.5x4.25 card, but due to the size of the image I changed the final dimensions to 6x5.25, so having to cut an odd size for the base wasn't much of an issue with the easel card. For the inside I used a white butterfly that was in my workspace from my mom's punch, which is now back at home in Arizona, and sprayed it with my favorite glimmer mist.

It snowed last night and now is a sunny morning, so I felt inspired to take the card outside. Those who know me best will understand the enormity of this. The photos from the back porch were absolutely worth the whole project.

Additional supplies: Core'dinations cardstock, Martha Stewart Butterfly punch, Tattered Angels glimmer mist (Jack Frost)

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Original Post 1/6/11

It's a chilly yet sunny day, so I thought I'd make something with the sunshiny butterfly I colored on Christmas night with my new Copics.

I've been saving this for a special occasion, and this week's ColourQ and SCS Sketch challenges fit the bill.

Since the ColourQ challenges are based on Stampin' Up! colors, I was happy to be able to use some of my Stampin' Up! paper. It's so yummy I hate to use it for just anything, but I had colors that matched this week's combo So Saffron, Daffodil Delight and Soft Sky. Just by chance, I had met the "basic black" criteria already by making the daisies Black-eyed Susans in a nod to my now-home State of Maryland. I added a glitter border to the "dream" sentiment to offset the black.

Inspiration:
colourQ Challenge #66: so saffron, daffodil delight, soft sky, basic black + white
SplitcoastStampers Sketch Challenge #314

Supplies:
Dream Butterfly rubber stamp cling by Impression Obsession, Stampin' UP paper (Subtles Patterns 2010), Recollections white cardstock, StazOn ink (I know I know, that's a big no-no for copic markers, but I didn't know that at the time & it's the only ink I had. I've mended my ways!), Martha Stewart border punch, Fiskars papercutter, ZipDry glue, Sakura gelly roll pen, Copic Ciao B color set

Fisk-a-Fall

So I walked away, briefly, from my new favorite plastic stamp and had some fun mixing two challenges to make this little Thanksgiving card.
I really liked this month's CDAC color combo and its free digis — altho I decided to pair the lovely sentiment with my go-to-gal, Angel Stacie from paperfacesdesign — and chose the handsome sketch at Paper Pretties Wednesday Challenge. I used copic markers for the digi's background ... I think I like it!
And yes, the main circle spins.

Paper Pretties Sketch Challenge PWC126
CDAC Color Challenge CDACCC10
Word art: Tlc Creations
Digi stamp: Angel Stacie by Therese Travis / paperfacesdesign
Supplies: Recollections, Core-dinations and ColorBok cardstocks, ZipDry glue, Tim Holtz scissors, Fiskars papercutter, circle punch, decorative scissors and punch/embosser, HP printer & ink, Adobe InDesign, Sakura Gelly Roll pens, Marvy LePlumeII pens, Copic E33& 0 (blender), stash brad

This card is also a celebration of my recent Fisk-a-teer status (#7522). I was so pleased to discover that all the fancy scissors and punches in my stash are Fiskars brand. Way to represent!

3 stamps, 3 challenges

I wanted to try out more stamps from my Christmas stash, and had so much fun with my first try that I decided to go all-out and try 3 Splitcoast Stampers challenges with the same 3 stamps: a child looking out a window on snow, an ornament leaf and a sentiment. I made my first tag with scraps from the first card. I liked the result of the 2nd card's color combination so much that I decided to make a matching tag for that one as well.

Tag #1: SplitCoastStampers MFT Wednesday Stamp Club challenge #MFTWSC10272010: Tag You're It! Supplies: Polar White Flowersoft & glue, Recollections cardstock, Cricut personal cutter, Walk in My Garden Cricut cartridge, Tim Holtz scissors, Fiskars papercutter & corner punch, silicon stamps from my Christmas stash, StazOn ink
Card #1: SplitCoastStampers sketch challenge #SC303 Supplies: Polar White Flowersoft & glue, Recollections cardstock, Cricut personal cutter, SCAL2 software, Tim Holtz scissors, Fiskars papercutter & corner punch, silicon stamps from my Christmas stash, StazOn ink




Tag #2: SplitCoastStampers MFT Wednesday Stamp Club challenge #MFTWSC10272010: Tag You're It!
Supplies: Polar White Flowersoft & glue, Core'dinations & Recollections cardstock, Cricut personal cutter, Walk in My Garden Cricut cartridge, Tim Holtz scissors, Fiskars papercutter, silicon stamps from my Christmas stash
Card #2: SplitCoastStampers Color Combo challenge #CC294: light pink, light aqua blue, kraft, black + Lace Supplies: Polar White Flowersoft & glue, Core'dinations & Recollections cardstock, DCWV Christmas stack paper, Cricut personal cutter, Tim Holtz scissors, Fiskars papercutter, silicon stamps from my Christmas stash, StazOn ink, chalks from Pebbles, Inc.