The Open Sea Masculine Card - CCMC-SUM01

One of the great new sets in the Summer Occasions Mini is The Open Sea!  This set comes at just the right time of the year when we are preparing to make our Father's Day cards, graduation cards or birthday cards for the men in our lives.  This one just fits the bill for those projects!  Strong, sturdy, direction, adventurous... are some of the ideas that come to mind with this set.  This was a Make & Take for my workshop this past Thursday too!

I so like this Nautical Expedition Designer Paper and the color scheme of Cherry Cobbler, Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso and Basic Grey!  The stripe from that collection is the basis of the color scheme for my card today;  I did add Sahara Sand and Whisper White cardstocks to the mix as a neutral colors for my composition too.  I am also posting this card to Create with Connie and Mary Summer weekly challenge CCMC-SUM01 today as these are the colors for the Challenge this week!

Love the compass; I added just a touch of color with my Blender Pen and Cherry Cobbler inkpad to make it pop;  an antique pewter mini brad in the center makes a fitting accent.

You can see the layers from this angle; also notice the new Baker's Twine in Cherry Cobbler and White!  It also comes in Early Espresso/White and solid White;  this is a great new accessory and is a very inexpensive way to accent your projects!

All these products can be ordered online through my Stampin' Up! store right HERE!  Be sure to order through my store and not directly through the Stampin' Up! website in order to get preferential pricing and also be able to earn Hostess Benefits on qualifying orders of $150. or more!

Don't forget the 30% Off Specials for the month of May and National Scrapbooking Month!!  There are some wonderful and wonderfully useful stamp sets on sale!  My very favorite is Word Play (can you ever have enough words/sentiments for your cards & projects?  I can't!).  Another favorite is the Printed Petals; Grunge Rock if you have tweens, teens or grandchildren,... you get the idea!  These sets are all good for stamping cards and projects, scrapbooking, 3-D projects et all!  Order through me (contact me here) or my online store before the end of May!

Check out the My Digital Studio (for digital scrapbooking, card-making, printing, the list is endliess..!!) Specials while you're there!  And 30% Off Printing!!  The My Digital Studio downloads must be ordered through my online store and you will be able to immediately download them to your computer!  No shipping cost either!!  What a deal!

Thanks for visiting today!  Have a great weekend!

Margaret

Father's Day Card BC155

Today's Blogger's Challenge is for a Father's Day card.  I used one of my favorite Dad sayings from the very useful All Holidays Stamp Set.  The well-loved but retiring colors of Handsome Hunter, Ruby Red and Creamy Caramel are my color scheme, highlighted by Silver.  A rectangle of aluminum-foil wrapped cardstock was run through the Big Shot with the Harlequin Texturz Plate to give it that great pattern.

The card base is Ruby Red with a layer of Handsome Hunter that has been texturized with the Big Shot and the Distressed Texturz Plate; the corners were treated with the Ticket Corner Punch which is also retiring.  Silver Mini Brads are the final touch!

You may check out the other Blogger Challengers by clicking here to see the list of participants.

Thanks for visiting today!  Have a great weekend!

Margaret

Retro Distressed Tropical Party - Red, Teal, Curry

This being Friday, it's time for another Blogger's Challenge!  Wow, it WAS a challenge today to use Red, Teal and Curry!  They actually are a nice color combo and they are bright!  :)  In thinking about this challenge, I realized that this would be a great color scheme to use with my new Tropical Party set from Stampin' Up!'s Summer Mini Catalog!

To handle all that intense color, I wanted to use a lot of white to break it up.  So I mounted my set and proceeded to stamp a background on white using the smaller tropical flower from the set and the three challenge colors.  I stamped diagonal rows of each color flower.  Next I swiped my Distressed Texturz Plate with Sahara Sand Ink, placed the background cardstock face down on it and ran it through the Big Shot.  This gave it not only a distressed texture but a visually distressed appearance.  The edges were distressed with the tool from the Cutter Kit.  I ran Natural Hemp Twine around it and knotted it in front to enhance the outdoorsy rustic look.  This was adhered to a Crushed Curry card that had been "swiped" with a Soft Suede inkpad.

The Happy Father's Day stamp is from the All Holidays set, which has lots of good sentiments in it for, ahem, all holidays, lol!  I inked it partially with markers and also ink pads to get good coverage.  The curry color was added with the Crushed Curry Marker.  This layer was distressed,  adhered to a Taken With Teal layer then adhered to the front of the card.

Next I stamped the coconut drink with Soft Suede on a piece of white cardstock that had also been through the Big Shot with the Distressed Texturz Plate.  It was colored with markers, adding Sahara Sand to the coconut also, punched out and layered onto Real Red and a Vintage Brad added at the top.  This was adhered with Dimensionals to the lower right of the sentiment to complete the card.  All products are from Stampin' Up!

This reminds me so much of a magazine article I saw recently where they featured 50's and 60's Hawaiian tourist memorabilia!  The colors were so similar to these!  lol!  Does it remind you of that too?

To see what the other very talented Blogger's Challengers made this week, click here which will take you to a list of the members.  Click on a name to go to their blog.

Thanks for visiting my blog today!  I hope you've enjoyed my card and will return soon!  I have another cool project to post tomorrow.  :)

Margaret

Elements of Style Mother's Day Card

Today's card uses a fabulous new set from the Summer Mini Catalog, Elements of Style.  It is vintage style and has these wonderful flowers that look like antique or wild roses, a gorgeous swirly flourish, a hummingbird and words.  Love it!

First I cut a Top Note Die out of Kraft cardstock then stamped the large flower stamp with Close to Cocoa.  I colored it with Stampin' Pastels (chalks) and cotton-tip swabs.  Then I spritzed it with the new Smooch Spritz in Log Cabin color for a wonderful aged look.  I trimmed the diecut off at the stitch line then layered it onto another Top Note die in Old Olive. 

The card base of Pretty in Pink was stamped with the swirl stamp in Sahara Sand Ink, sponged, distressed then spritzed with the same Log Cabin Smooch Spritz.

The greeting from the Well Scripted set (Occasions Mini Catalog) is not currently available but I'm hoping that it makes it into the next catalog...the script is just beautiful.  I

used Basic Brown Ink on Sahara Sand cardstock and punched it out with the Wide Oval Punch then sponged and distressed it.  This was layered onto an Old Olive layer die cut with one of the dies from the Lots of Tags Sizzlet set of 4.  You may notice that most all the edges were sponged with cocoa ink then distressed with the Distressing Tool in the Cutter Kit for the vintage look.

Pink Taffeta Ribbon was sponged lightly with Close to Cocoa ink, tied around the top note layers then I used the Heat Tool to crinkle it just a little to age it (more noticeable IRL).

The greeting was adhered with Dimensionals.  More roses were stamped, colored, cut out then layered on the side of the greeting.  An ivory pearl from the Pretties Kit was adhered with a Mini Glue Dot to the "o" in mother for a final vintage touch.

Today is Blogger's Challenge Day and the challenge is Mother's Day.  I hope you enjoyed my card; you can visit the blogs of the other talented stampers to see what they presented for today.  Just click here for a link to a list of the BC participants then click on their name to go to their blog to see their work.

Have a wonderful weekend and a lovely celebration of mothers.  If your mom is no longer with us, as is my case, we can celebrate their memory and their legacy in the lives of others and ourselves.  Be blessed.

Margaret

Mother's Day Cards

Have you made your Mother's Day cards yet?  Yes, if you don't hand deliver them, they've probably already been mailed.  I have a couple of cards to share with you today that I received in a swap with the Ink the Beginning demonstrators at a monthly meeting; they're so pretty and even if you've already made your cards for this special day, I'm sure you can adapt these lovely ideas to other occasions and projects!

This first card was made by Pam Jones.  Pam used the Scalloped Heart of Hearts Embosslit to emboss and die cut the heart in one pass through the Big Shot.  She then sponged on some Rose Red ink for definition.

The card was die cut with the Scalloped Square die in the Big Shot.  The Extra Large Two Step Bird Punch was used to punch out the bird and also the little stems.  Isn't it just amazing?!  The little heart was punched out with the Small Heart Punch. Two more punches, the Modern Label Punch and the Word Window Punch, were used to frame the mother's day greeting.

What a pretty color scheme of Whisper White, Pretty in Pink and Bashful Blue with a touch of moss taffeta ribbon!  Beautiful card, Pam!  Love it!

All of these punches, dies and embosslits are available for order from your Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.  Even though several of these items were in the Occasions Mini Catalog which expired April 30, they have been added to our catalog "write-ins" list with the same item number.

The second card was made by Alison Anderson.  I love this color scheme too!

The focal point of the is undoubtedly the pink flowers which were cut and embossed simultaneously by the Big Shot using the Simple Flower Embosslit.  Some rose ink sponged over them accents the embossing.  The leaves and stems were cut with the Little Leaves Sizzlit (this is a must-have; I use mine SO much!)

The greeting was stamped with the Well Scripted set from the Occasions Mini and was punched out with the Wide Oval Punch then sponged with green ink.

The bottom of the card front was treated with the Scallop Trim Border Punch which was a Sale-A-Bration bonus; however, it will be available in the new annual catalog thatwill make it's debut on July 1st of this year!

On the left you'll see another view showing a better view of how this card is constructed.  I love how the dark green shows through the scallops at the bottom of the card; it really shows them off!

Two prints from the Tea Party Designer Series Paper were used on this card.  The other colors of Pretty in Pink, So Saffron and green are taken directly from the colors found in the paper, making the development of the color scheme so easy!!

Thanks, Alison, for another beautiful swap card!!

I hope you enjoy these two cards I've shared today as I have!

Thanks for dropping by!

Margaret

All Holidays: Father's Day Card

Masculine cards don't seem to come as easy to many of us as do cards for our female friends and relatives.  True? 

The "Happy Father's Day" greeting is from the versatile All Holidays stamp set of 12.  I  really like it's boldness as well as it's straightforward font and reverse coloring.  The greeting was stamped in Soft Suede onto Crushed Curry cardstock and added a Jumbo Grommet in Antique Brass to the "D" for emphasis and tucked a very small piece of Twill Ribbon into the center hole.

The Brocade Blue background layer was run through the Big Shot with the Harlelquin Texturz Plaate for that marvelous texture.  A length of the widest Twill Tape was wheeled with the Friends Jumbo Wheel then adhereded to the Brocade Blue with three Antique Mini Brads added to the left side.  The blue cardstock was then layered onto a Soft Suede card. 

There it is, pretty quick and easy packing a punch with layered textures and a bold greeting!  We can't think too soon about Mother's and Father's Day card, can we?  :)

Thanks for visiting today!  I love for you to say "hi" and leave me a note that you were here.

Have a great weekend!

Margaret