A Masculine Birthday Card

August 25, 2016August 25, 2016 KimberlyLeave a comment

Making cards that are suitable for a male recipient can be difficult sometimes. When I need to make a card for a guy, I usually go straight for a Tim Holtz blueprint sketch stamp. The sketchy, architectural feel to them makes them perfect for masculine cards. For this card, I stamped the present image on some white cardstock, colored the box and the bow with copics and cut them out. I then stamped the image again on some vellum and adhered the colored-in box and bow on top of the vellum. I popped the colored image up with a bit of foam tape to give the card some added dimension.

I recently purchased a Papertrey Ink horizontal stripes cover plate die and I can’t get enough of it. I think 9 of the last 10 cards I’ve made have included some horizontal background stripes, and I see no signs of stopping. I love how it adds a little extra somthin’ somethin’, so I used the negative cut from the die and popped that up onto my card base before I added my vellum panel and sentiment. The sentiment is from the Altenew Label Love stamp set.

Quick and easy, and totally manly. :)

Birthday Wishes

March 30, 2016October 11, 2016 KimberlyLeave a comment

More birthday cards! This one even came with a matching cake topper.

I used the Mama Elephant Brush Strokes stamp set and several of my Wplus9 and Simon Says Stamp dye inks to create the background for this card. I just repeat stamped one of the images from the stamp set diagonally across the panel and tried to stay in rainbow order when changing colors. It created a plaid effect a la Laura Bassen(one of my favorites!) I love how the background turned out!

I heat embossed the Birthday Wishes sentiment on some black cardstock and mounted it to the middle of my panel. Lastly I added some Pretty Pink Posh clear droplets because I am obsessed with them.

I made this card for a friend’s birthday, and I even made her a cake with a topper that matched the card, mostly because I loved making the plaid pattern so much! I used Lawn Fawn’s Louies ABC’s dies for the hbd sentiment.

The cake was chocolate, with a (pink) chocolate ganache frosting, and it was delicious!

Birthday Blueprints

March 28, 2016December 30, 2016 KimberlyLeave a comment

Popping in today to share some recent projects. I’ve been loving the Tim Holtz Birthday Blueprints set because it’s so easy to create quick cards with.

Sometimes I just stamp an image from the set in archival ink, and then do a crazy watercolor wash over the top. Mount it to a card base and I’m finished. I love the structural blueprint quality of the stamp and how it contrasts with the haphazard watercolor effect.

My other favorite way to use this set is with my copic markers. I’ll stamp the image in black on a card base, then stamp it a few times on some scrap paper. I color elements of the images I stamp on the scrap paper and then cut parts out and pop them up on top of the image on the panel. I’m not sure if that makes sense, but it gives the card some nice dimension that you can’t really see in these photographs.

There are several fun blueprint stamp sets by Tim Holtz. I’m having so much fun with the birthday set that I might have to add some others to my stash. What’s your favorite Tim Holtz stamp set?

Fuse Tool Fun

January 14, 2016December 30, 2016 Kimberly3 Comments

I’ve decided it’s time for me to start cranking out some birthday cards to get a good jump on them this year. I always kick myself when I don’t have one on hand to send out when someone’s birthday creeps up on me. It’s all part of my resolution to be more organized in 2016.

I also picked up a W R Memory Keepers Fuse Tool in November and finally put it to use a week or so ago. It’s great for creating quick shaker cards that aren’t so bulky. I also plan to use it for some photo album projects in the future. Essentially, you fuse two layers of plastic together using the heat of the tool and one of the nibs. I used a plastic stamp pocket for this – I just cut it to size and fused three sides together using the ruler as a guide. I tucked in a piece of patterned paper and added some sequins to the front before sealing up the fourth side.

The patterned paper and the sequins used for this card came from a Simon Says Stamp monthly card kit. I also added a few seed beads to the shaker pocket. The “Hello” sentiment is the SSS Painted Hello die. I cut it out several times on black card stock and stacked them up on top of each other to give it a chipboard feel. The “Birthday Girl” sentiment comes from a Wplus9 stamp set called Hand Lettered Hello (which I use all the time…). I stamped that with Versafine onyx black ink on a piece of white cardstock and glued everything onto the shaker window with some glossy accents glue – because that stuff is strong!

I followed the same principles for the second card – sequins and patterned paper from a past SSS Monthly Card Kit, a few seed beads, SSS and Wplus9 sentiment combo. For this card, though, I mounted the window onto a piece of gray and white patterned paper before mounting it onto an A2-sized card base.

I’ll certainly be making more of these!

A Birthday Shaker Card & An Envelope to Match

April 17, 2015April 17, 2015 Kimberly2 Comments

A few weeks ago, a cute little girl I know turned 1. It’s amazing how time flies.

To go along with Sadie’s gift, I made a cute shaker card (in the hopes that she’d have fun shaking it), and a watercolored envelope to match.

For the card, I cut a panel using a stitched rectangle die and then used a stitched circle die to cut the shaker window. I stamped a cute little cupcake on another panel, to sit right in the window. To fill the shaker, I used an assortment of sequins, seed beads and die-cut stars. I then added the “HOORAY!” sentiment on a strip of slate cardstock that I cut to fit across the bottom of the window. The sentiment is heat embossed and the strip is popped off of the window using some foam tape.

Before adding the shaker panel to the card base, I decided to put some of pink vellum polka dot paper on the card base to give it a little more interest.

For the envelope, I used some Canson watercolor paper and my We R Memory Keepers envelope punch board. I found a scripty font that I liked (check out my post about free calligraphy fonts here), and replicated it on the envelope front using a versa mark pen. Then I added some gold embossing powder over the versa mark ink and heat embossed it. Then, I added a water color wash over the top (the heat embossing resists the watercolor). After the first watercolor wash dried, I added another wash, just to give it a little more depth and interest.

I had so much fun putting this gift bag together. Pink, pink and more pink!

Stamps: Sweets & Treats (Wplus9), Birthday stamp set (similar here)
Dies: Stitched Rectangles (SSS), Stitched Circles (SSS), Lots of Stars (Mama Elephant)
Paper: Canson watercolor paper, Neenah Solar White, pink vellum polka dot paper (Studio Calico – similar here), acetate
Embellishments: Moonshine sequins, shaker beads (SSS), silver sequins
Other: Sweet Nectar dye ink, Hero Arts white pigment ink, Versamarker watermark emboss pen, Ranger Gold Embossing Powder, transparent watercolor paints, 3M foam adhesive

Hey There Sweetie // More Cupcakes on Cards

March 27, 2015October 6, 2016 KimberlyLeave a comment

I guess this is more of an ice cream sundae and less of a cupcake. Either way, I am having a lot of fun with the Sweets & Treats stamp set from Wplus9. I used the clear cut stackers circle dies to cut several circles in the cards, and also used to dies to make frames. I colored the circle frames and the ice cream sundae with copic markers.

I used some glossy accents glue on the ice cream to give the fudge a shiny look. Hopefully you can see a bit of that shine in the above photo.

Stamps: Sweets & Treats (Wplus9), Birthday Tags (Lawn Fawn)
Dies: Clear Cut Stackers (Wplus9)
Ink & Other: Memento Tuxedo Black Ink, Ranger Glossy Accents, Copic Markers (including BG10, BG13, BG15, E39), 3M foam tape

Hey There, Cupcake!

March 12, 2015 Kimberly1 Comment

Today’s card features all kinds of fun techniques – heat embossing on the cupcake sentiment, dry embossing on the panel with cute little polka dots, masking to color the area behind the cupcake with distress inks, and partial die-cutting to create the circle window for my cupcake to sit in. Phew.

I colored the cupcake and stand with Copic markers, and then used a Wink of Stella pen to add some glitter to the cupcake frosting, and glossy accents to embellish the pink parts of the cupcake stand.