Reverse birthday cards

A while back I got some old stamp sets from a friend who had received a bunch of stamping supplies from another friend. (Sharing is caring, especially with craft supplies!) One of the sets was a small set of Hero Arts wood-mounted stamps with bold, birthday images. The images are negative style -- when you ink the stamp, the image stays white and the background is colored. I decided to combine that stamp set with a line-art background stamp (also from Hero Arts) to make a couple of birthday cards. 

For the first card, I stamped the small images in black ink and then cut them out. Using ink cubes, I applied stripes of color to the background stamp and stamped it on white card stock. I used foam tape to add the focal images in a three-by-three square, added a few clear sequins, and adhered the panel to a black card base.

For the second card I used the same layout, but in reverse: I stamped the background in black and the small images in color. (With the ink cubes I applied two colors to each image.) I embellished the card with a few orange sequins and adhered the panel to a yellow card base.

Which style do you like better? Thanks for stopping by!

Wildflower card set

We had the weirdest winter storm last night. It started out as rain and ended up as about eight inches of heavy, wet snow. And just when all our snow was gone, we were having mild temperatures, and it looked like spring was on the horizon. Ugh. So to keep the feeling of spring alive, I'm sharing a set of floral notecards.

I used the Wildflower Background stamp (Taylored Expressions) and stamped it with black ink on eight pieces of white card stock. I chose eight colors of ink and, using a detail blender brush, I colored the flowers on each panel with one color. I die cut the panels with a stitched rectangle die, matted them with black card stock, and adhered them to card bases to match the flowers.

For the sentiments, I decided to use the Simple Strips Background stamp and die (Taylored Expressions). I chose ten sentiment strips and adhered foam tape to the back. I attached one of the sentiments to one of the cards and placed the rest of the strips in a little baggie to package with the cards. That way the recipient can choose which sentiment to use on which card -- with a couple of extra, just in case -- or they can use the cards without sentiments.

Thanks for stopping by!

Time to Party trio

I have another group of birthday cards to share from my October craft weekend. Today's festive trio was made with the Time to Party stamps and dies (Simon Says Stamp).

I love the graphic style of these bold, solid images. For the first card (left), I stamped, die cut, and glued together the pieces for three cupcakes, complete with cherries on top. I die cut a white stitched rectangle, stamped "happy birthday" in the lower left corner, and adhered it to a dark brown card base. I arranged the three cupcakes on the white panel and added a red card stock flag.

For the second card I used a kraft card base and stamped the asterisk/star images across the background using kraft and white ink. I stamped four balloons on white card stock, die cut them, and decided where I wanted to place them on the card front. When I was happy with the arrangement, I stamped the balloon strings with black ink on the card base and adhered the balloons. I added a sentiment strip and finished with three white enamel dots.

For the third card, I stamped and die cut three polka dot party hats: one pink, one purple, and one teal. I used black card stock for the card base and added a die-cut, stitched white panel in the middle. I die cut "celebrate" from black card stock a few times and layered them together to make the sentiment thicker. Then I arranged the hats, sentiment, and a sentiment strip on the card base and finished with several sequins scattered to look like confetti.

Thanks for stopping by!

A bunch of Birthday Stacks

I need to catch up on posting some cards I made a long time ago, so today I'm sharing a bunch of cards made with the Birthday Stacks stamp set (Concord & 9th). The stamp images include rows of four different shapes -- candles, triangles (pennants or party hats), circles (balloons or ice cream), and presents. You can also get coordinating dies that allow you to make cool, dimensional cards, but I decided to skip the dies and just focus on the stamped images for these cards.

For the candle image, I created two cards by repeatedly stamping the row of candles to make a background; one of the cards was stamped with black ink on white card stock, and the other was  tone-on-tone with the same color ink and card stock for a more subtle look. I added splatter, a sentiment, and a few embellishments to finish the cards. For the third card, I stamped a single row of candles in the middle of a piece of white card stock. I used the fill-in images from the stamp set to add color to the candles, then stamped a sentiment underneath and finished with three clear droplets.

For the triangle image, I created one card with pennants and one card with party hats. To make the pennants I curved the stamp before placing it on an acrylic block. Then I stamped the image three times on a piece of white card stock. For the party hats, I used a stamp-alignment tool to stamp the straight row of triangles five times on white card stock. I also stamped the little pom-pom image at the top point of each triangle for the hats. For both cards I used the fill-in stamps to add the color to the images. I finished the cards with sentiments and enamel dots.

For the circle image, I created one card with ice cream cones and one with balloons. (The stamps for the cones and balloon strings are also part of the stamp set.) For the card with ice cream cones I wanted to add a little white to the ice cream after I had stamped the solid fill-in circle, so I used a white paint pen to color in some of the stripes and dots (maybe it's strawberry swirl ice cream?). I embellished each card with some small clay circles to look like confetti.

The presents were surprisingly the hardest image for me to use. For one of my cards I went very clean and simple by stamping a row of the presents near the bottom of a white card base. I stamped the solid square in different colors to create a rainbow of presents, added splatter, a sentiment and a few sequins. For the second card I went back to the tone-on-tone technique I used with the candles, but it's really hard to see on the red card stock. This closer shot makes it a little clearer:

Once the background was done, I struggled with how to finish the card. Finally I settled on using gold accents, so I added gold splatter and a die-cut gold border and sentiment. The final detail was three red enamel dots. (To be honest, this was my least favorite card of the bunch. I think the red was just too much.)

Thanks for stopping by!

February Christmas cards: Vintage style

After my vibrant, colorful northern lights cards in January, I decided to do something completely different for February. So I used one stamp set and a couple of ink pads to make these vintage-style Christmas cards:

I made eight of these cards (and one prototype that had a few differences), and I think they turned out pretty good. I always try to have different styles in my Christmas cards, and I like the slightly masculine feel of these cards.

I used the Home for Christmas stamp set (Stampers Anonymous - Tim Holtz) and stamped the car and tree image on a piece of cream card stock using Soft Suede ink. Using a blender brush, I applied Crumb Cake ink to the panel around the outside of the stamped image. Then I blended a bit of Soft Suede ink just around the edges of the panel for a little more depth. I matted the panel with a piece of Early Espresso card stock and set it aside.

For the card base, I used Crumb Cake card stock and stamped pine branches and a pine cone with Soft Suede ink in the upper left corner. I stamped more branches and pinecones around the card base with Crumb Cake ink to add subtle interest to the background. I also blended a bit of Crumb Cake ink around the edges of the card base.

I wanted a little something else in the background, so I added some Liquid White Snowflake Paper Splatter (Picket Fence Studios) to look like falling snow. I adhered the stamped panel to the middle of the card base and then stamped the perfect sentiment -- "Dashing through the snow" -- in the lower right corner. For the last touch I added two metallic enamel dots on the focal panel.

I didn't take a picture of the inside of the cards, but I added a layer of cream card stock stamped with a sentiment in Soft Suede and a couple of pine branches and a pinecone in Crumb Cake.

Thanks for stopping by!