A Masculine Birthday Card

Today we celebrate our brother, Jordan on his 31st Birthday! Jordan is a smart geologist, currently working on getting his PhD. He loves all things rocks and gems. Last year, for his 30th birthday, I made a card in the shape of a rock and on the inside put little 'gems' (rhinestones). Unfortunately, I can't find the picture of it! This year, I had a bit of a tough time thinking of a new design, but knowing that he also loves nature, I pulled out my "Lovely as a Tree" stamp set and made this card:

Masculine cards are not always the easiest to design, but I just love how this one turned out! I used a past sketch from "My Favourite Things" as a guide.

I first coloured the stamp with Chocolate Chip and Old Olive markers, stamped it and cut the image into 3 panels. The background is embossed with a square lattice pattern and cardstock and DSP is layered on top of it. I completed the card with a simple birthday sentiment.

Thanks for visiting! Stop by tomorrow for a new KCRR challenge!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, All Holidays (ret.)
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Neutrals DSP
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive
Tools: Square Lattice embossing folder

A Belated Father's Day Card

I wanted to share with you a father's day card I made for my father-in-law. (I would have also liked to share the card I made for my dad, but unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it before I sent it to him!). Ok, so I'm a couple weeks late, but better late than never, right? :)

This card is probably one of my favourites. I'm starting to use the collage technique in a lot of my card designs. As you already know I love lots of layers and embellishments. Just add some distressing, embossing and stamped images and you have a collage card!

I used a new Stampin Up hostess set that I was able to pre-order and I absolutely love it! It's called Simply Sketched. My father-in-law loves nature, wildlife and bird watching so I thought this card would be perfect for him! I created a birds nest from hemp twine and used pearls for the eggs. The edges of the card front are distressed and sponged with Crumb Cake ink. The burlap ribbon and the wood-embossed cardstock add to the collage design. I stamped "happy father's day" and popped them up to give the card some dimension.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Simply Sketched, Teeny Tiny Wishes, French Foliage

Paper: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Soft Suede

Ink: Soft Suede

Tools: Frame Embossing Folder, Woodgrain Embossing Folder, Distress Tool

Accessories: Burlap Ribbon (CTMH), hemp twine, pearls (Michael's), Linen Thread 



100th Blog Post and a 'By the Tide' Masculine Card

Just realized this is my 100th blog post! Wow! Crazy how fast time flies... I love blogging. It has become a great addition to my hobby. Some days it can be hard to keep up with a daily blog (so this may change in the future to every other day, or something like that), but for now it works out great. I love participating in card challenges and blogging is a great way to do that. It really motivates me to build up my stock of cards/projects. Thanks to all my followers for reading my blurbs everyday! Hope you have been, and continue to be, inspired by my cards/projects! If you'd like to follow me on Pinterest, click here. I've created a board for all the cards I've posted in this blog.


For today's post, I created a masculine card using the new Sweet Sunday sketch. It's a great sketch with lots of layers!

 

I pulled out a new stamp set called "By the Tide". I love anything to do with the beach/ocean, so I just had to get this stamp set! I stamped the coral image in Crumb Cake and popped up a stamped fish that I cut out. Striped navy ribbon layers the bottom half of the card. I'm starting to love Midnight Muse -- it's a nice deep blue and is perfect for masculine cards!

 



I love how detailed the fish stamp is! It really stands out against the light Crumb Cake.

 

 

 



Thanks for stopping by! Make sure to come back tomorrow for a new KCRR challenge!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: By the Tide, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Midnight Muse, Baja Breeze, Very Vanilla, Neutrals DSP

Ink: Midnight Muse, Crumb Cake

Tools: Circles Nestabilities, Owl Builder punch, Word Window punch

Accessories: Not Quite Navy striped grosgrain ribbon

Seize the Birthday #13: A Masculine Birthday Card

It's been a great weekend so far. Yesterday I crafted almost all day! I stayed motivated and got a lot of papercraft projects completed and ready to go for the craft fair. I took a little break in the middle of the afternoon and went shopping with my hubby. We went to his favourite store - Costco - ate some samples, did some browsing, and managed to walk out of the store without buying anything (that's a first), unless you count the hot dog that Kevin bought... We then headed over to Winners where I found an awesome pair of navy shorts! Looking forward to the day when it's hot enough to wear them! It seems like Spring is taking it's sweet time to get here (we had another snowfall yesterday morning!).

I noticed that I have very few masculine greeting cards, so I took advantage of the Seize the Birthday challenge this week.

This is a nice, clean and simple sketch, but still has just the right amount of layers. I pulled out one of my favourite stamp sets - Lovely as a Tree - and used one of the tree stamps as the central focus of the card. I paired it with woodgrain embossed paper and a touch of Old Olive to tie it all together. Here's how it turned out:

 

The part that took the longest was fussy-cutting the tree. But I love the look of a cut-out stamped image! I popped it up to give the card some dimension and completed the card with a simple sentiment.

 



 

Thanks for stopping by!

Card Ingredients:
Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Paper: Crumb Cake, Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, Old Olive, Natural Composition DSP
Ink: Early Espresso, Old Olive marker, Early Espresso marker
Tools: Ovals nestabilities, Word Window punch, Scallop Border punch

PP#138 {Happy Father's Day}

1 day down, 3 more to go! Looking forward to a relaxing long weekend!
Last night I made some delicious ribs for dinner. We are making a point of going through our freezer and finishing up frozen foods that we didn't even know we had :) I followed this recipe for oven-baked ribs and they turned out great! So delicious! After boiling the ribs, I used the boiling, seasoned water to cook my potatoes in. The only thing I would change is to use less salt than what the recipe calls for. The potatoes turned out to be really salty! But, I would definitely cook ribs again using this recipe!

Today's card is clean and simple. I love the sketch at The Paper Players this week, so I thought I'd play along!

I've been wanting to get a headstart on my Father's Day cards, and this was a perfect opportunity! Here's my card:

 

I kept the layout quite simple with no added embellishments. I stamped a tree from "Lovely as a Tree" stamp set (one of my favourites!). This stamp set is perfect for masculine cards. I found some retired designer paper with a woodgrain design on it and thought it matched perfectly with the stamped tree image. I fussy cut the tree and popped it up to give it some dimension. The flag sentiment is also popped up. You can see it better in these photos:

 

 

Thanks for stopping by!

 

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Lovely as a Tree, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Paper: Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, Neutrals DSP, ? DSP (ret.)

Ink: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive marker, Chocolate Chip marker

Tools: Circles Nestabilities, Scallop Edge Border punch

Simply Masculine

Good morning!

It's a chilly one! Thermometer reads -18 deg C this morning. Brrr! In looking at the Sunday forecast for St. Catharines, Ontario (my hometown), they are having spring-like temperatures! Really missing home right now... Although, I shouldn't really complain. We have had a pretty mild winter for the most part.

As I was crafting last night, I decided to combine two different challenges -- The Colour Q challenge and the Retro Sketches challenge.

In looking at the inspirational photo and colour combos, I right away thought 'masculine'. And the sketch, being quite clean and simple, made it easy to come up with a design. Here's my card:

I used Natural Composition DSP for the card base. This designer paper is a great collection - each sheet has an embossed pattern on it and the paper is a little thicker than other designer paper, almost like cardstock. I thought it would be perfect to add a bit of texture to this simple card design.



At first, I wasn't too sure I liked how it turned out. Maybe it's because it is so simple. (I like using lots of layers on my cards). But, every once in a while, simplicity is a nice change. :)

Card Ingredients:

Stamps: Loved Ones

Paper: Natural Composition DSP, Night of Navy, Basic Gray, Summer Smooches DSP

Ink: Night of Navy

Accessories: Framelits Die, Daffodil Delight button, Linen Thread, Rhinestones

Thanks for looking! Have a blessed Sunday!