Masculine Case - QUESTION

Here is a question for any of you who read my blog, if there are any of you?

What is your most versatile stamp set? Read details below:

I had to make a quick masculine card for a family friend who is going through a medical ordeal. I admit that I have a hard time with masculine cards. I don't think I am very forward thinking when purchasing my stamps sets making sure that my sets are versatile for all occasions. For example I have a lot of masculine stamps that work for Father's Day and birthdays, but aren't appropriate for the occasion I mentioned above.

I think I am going to have to work on that, making sure my future stamp purchases are more versatile. I like SU's - Lovely as a Tree. It can work for masculine, feminine and pretty much any special occasion as well as for Sympathy or Get Well. That's the kind of stamp sets I have to be better at picking up.


Here is the card, I basically cased.

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1028676?si=masculine

Details:
Stamp: Rubber Stamped - Monkey Paw Fern, Studio G Clear stamp sentiment
Paper: scraps
Ink: Color Box - Copper

Cupcake Delight

I have been seeing cupcake cards all over the place lately and thought I would try my hand at it. I already had a cupcake from my SU - Treat Yourself stamp set and by chance found a smaller cupcake in a Studio G clear set that I have.


I admittedly have never made the cupcake in the Treat Yourself set. I won the set last year at my local SU stamp retirement party. To be honest, the stamp I use the most from this set is the sentiment "Treat yourself to a wonderful day". I have used that all over the place. I have also envisioned using this sentiment with a spa type image or something like My Favorite Things - Time for the Bubbly.

Can I tell you how much I LOVE SU cardstock. I have mostly been using cardstock from Michaels or my local craft store, but finally broke down last month and bought some cardstock in Soft Subtles. Versamark works a hundred times better on their cardstock. I used versamark cupcakes on the bashful blue cards stock as well as a quick pass of Versamark on the embossed certainly celery cardstock.

Supplies:
Paper: scrap plaid, certainly celery, bashful blue
Stamps: SU - Treat Yourself (lrg. cupcake), Studio G Clear stamps (sml. cupcakes)
Ink: Versamark, Tombows
Embelishments: Skittles, Cuttlebug folder - Swiss Dots

Red Hot Bella Meets Grease Lightening

Yes I have other stamps sets, but I've had the plan for this card etched in my brain for weeks. When I read Sharon's blog LATE last night I knew I had to get my idea down on paper ;) immediately. Who needs sleep?

Here is my submission for the Stamp Simply Challenge #50 (Julie's Red Hot), on No Time To Stamp.

I will admitt, since it was VERY late when I read the challenge I only noticed that the card was suppose to be red inspired, I missed the part about emulating Julie's style (Out to Impress). However now going back and looking at Julies samples, this card still works! Julie has a lovely Inspire card using red organza ribbon and a beautiful bleeding heart's card where the image and the mat aren't centred on one another.

If I were to redo this card to truly emulate Julie's style I would swap out the white card stock to manila and use a scrolling image stamp not a bella.

My older sister's Fortieth birthday is coming up in December. I have been picking up the supplies for my card idea as I find them, but have been holding out for the Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch which until yesterday was sold out every where I looked.

The inspiration for the whole card is from the movie Grease. The paper pieced dress is a cross between Cha Cha DiGregori's and Rizo's dresses from the dance scene in the gymnasium. The sentiment I typed up on the computer - it sounded less harsh then "Lordy, Lordy, look who's forty!"

The edges of the red scallop as well as the red mat are brushed with purple chalk (thanks Kerry J.)

Supplies:
Paper: Red card stock, Making Memories - Black Small Dots
Ink: Versa Magic Chalk - Purple Hydrangea, Tombows
Stamp: Stamping Bella - Bellarina
Sentiment: done on the computer
Punch: Martha Stewart - Doily Lace
Embellishment: Red Organza ribbon

Share The Candy

Do you love Blog Candy and do you love Magnolia stamps?

If you said yes to either one of these then you must head over to Kreativ Kristin 's blog. She is giving away two (2) lots of Magnolia stamps. Two winners will be drawn. Contest ends September 15th.

Thanks Kristin for being so generous!!


Blog Candy Post

Cheers Baby!

After the week that we have had, my hubby is going to need to down a few cold ones on his Birthday just to de-stress, and we aren't drinkers.

Our littlest had 2 seizures, which were due to a viral infection. Pretty scary stuff, but thankfully he is fine.

I tried to make the beer bottles look like Corona, but I couldn't remember what colour the labels were and I accidentally got some smutz on the card while staining the edges:


Supplies:
DP - crap from various projects.
Stamp - Beerafella by Stamping Bella, American Art Stamps "Cheer!", Anita's "Birthday"
Ink - Tombow markers

Asian Inspsiration

This card was inspired by Peaceful Blossoms found here:

I absolutely love the Peaceful Blossom card and the original. I now desperately want to host a party just so I can buy the Garden Silhouettes stamp set.

The technique is called Burned Batik using clear emboss powder.

I posted 2 photos because of the glare of the flash on the clear embossing.

I originally started out with a large white section to batik, but my sponging left a lot to be desired. So I ended up cropping it. I like the effect, but I am going to work on perfecting it, even the cropped image is still a bit messy looking. I think I will try a different sponge and on watercolour paper to see if I have more success.

Oh I used my new Cuddlebug folder "Forest Branches". The stamp is by Stampin Up, I think it may have been from a hostess set, but I am not sure. I won it as a gift at the last stamp Retirement Party. The stamp actually has a boxed frame around it, I carefully embossed around the image so as to only printt the pattern and not the frame.

Adolescent Birthday

I sat down to do a birthday card for my nephew who is turning 11 this year. I stamped out his name using Zoophabet letters by Penny Black, whoever decided it looked a little too juvenile for an eleven year old.

I sorted through my stamps and realized although I have masculine stamps, they are more for Father's Day and such, I really don't have anything for a young man. All I could find was the star stamps from Studio G clear stamps that Kerry J gave me last year in my RAK. The end result is nothing like I usually do:

The Happy sentiment is from the SU All Year Cheer II, and the Birthday is by Kolette Hall (Michael's dollar stamp), and the star punch is from the dollar store.

Take Two Challenge - Stamp Simply #48

The challenge was to take one of your own cards and basically case it, making as many or as little changes as you felt necessary. I chose this card to case from January 2008:

I had already planned to try to re-make this card using paper piecing on the dress since this was a technique I have often admired but never tried myself. I made half a dozen of the dresses however because I just couldn't decide which pattern I liked best. Here is the end result.

I didn't change much to the layout, it was more so to attempt the paper piecing, which I am TRES happy with. It's a great effect, I will have to try it more often.

Birthday Blitz

Hurray all my birthday pages are caught up until this October. The DP is all from Michael's and I think the flames on the Hot Wheels page was Harley Davidson. The Wiggles and Hotwheel's embellishments were cut out from either the party invitations or other party supplies.

Snail of Good Time

This is almost a direct knock off of the sample on p.69 of the new SU Caddie. I couldn't help my self, I was really wowed by the colour combination they used. It made me fall in love with this stamp set all over again. Can you believe I had never used the snail stamp before. I love it, I have a whole list of projects I want to use it with now. I love when old things are new again. I


The Happy sentiment is from SU's Polkadots & Paisley's and is clear heat embossed.

It's Halloween Winnie the Pooh

As I posted earlier, I am desperately trying to catch up on my kids scrapbooks, so I may not be posting many cards for a while.

I actually accomplished 2 pages in one night which is a miracle for me. It usually takes me all night for just one page. I know I have read that others knock off a page in an hour, not so for me. Maybe I over think it, don't know.

I was 3 Halloween pages behind. One page for 2006 and 2 for 2007. My daughters 2006 page I had all planned out in my head before starting, it was inspired by a page I saw on Penny Black found here.


However, it was an interesting challenge to use the same paper for my son's 2007 page, trying to make the two pages look completely different. I like both pages, but I think my son's turned out better. Funny how no pre-planning yielded a better result.


DP - Sanylion (Kelly Panacci): Halloween Stripes, Halloween Circles, Orange Mini Dots
Reminisce: Pumpkins for Sale and Spiders Web
SU: Dots & Dashes, purple cardstock

Stickers: Sandylion

Water Baby

Alright so I haven't been so good about making cards lately, but with good reason. I am unbelievably behind in doing my kids scrapbooks. I made a run to the local scrapbook store and purchased a bunch of paper to make myself get caught up. This page was inspired by a card challenge for July 18th on TayloredExpression.

When I saw the card sample I thought it look liked water bubbles and thought I would attempt to make a card some time in the future. However, when I sat down to do my son's swimming page I remembered Taylor's card challenge.

All the paper is Studio Basics 101 - Creative Imaginations which oddly enough doesn't say the names of each print.

Cosmopolitan Anyone?

I made the background of this card last weekend when a girlfriend came over to make cards. We shared stamps and such, and the patterned circle paper was from her collection. I wish I had made note of the name, it's too cute.

I actually never finished the card because I couldn't decide on a stamp & sentiment to go with it. When I was cleaning up my work space this morning (after a long night of scrapbooking for my kids), I came across a pre-stamped Cosmobella just waiting to be coloured in. The sentiment is from Studio G Clear stamps from Michaels.

Some exciting news, well for me any way... my local scrapbooking store now sells Cuddlebug accessories. I have been purchasing my die cuts and embossing folders online so have to not only pay shipping, but WAIT forever for them to arrive. Now I get the immediate satisfaction of bringing them home and NOT paying shipping. Could make it more tough on my wallet though.

I purchased Swiss Dots and one that is all tree branches but kind of looks a bit like the Distressed Stripes.

They have some really cool new ones that I haven't even seen online any where yet. There is four folders in one that do just a line of imaging like Zig Zag stitch or a row of flowers. Can't wait to see how everyone uses those.