Graduate Card w/ long horizontal piece

These cards use the set Great Grads. Most importantly, I got help from another stamper through inspiration in her stamped pieces. This was the inspiration post.

I've made some with a masculine feeling or a feminine feeling, based on the patterned paper and colors that I used. The striped and "starry" papers are from the retired Stampin' Up designer paper - Wintergreen. The flowery paper below is from the current Ginger Blossoms paper.

Masculine card #1:

Masculine card #2:

And a feminine take on the layout:

And a close-up on the various layers making up this card ...

Thanks for looking!!

Subdued Father's Day

This was just a quick card with some of my patterned papers and the father's day stamp from the set, All Holidays. I don't have much to write today, and want to get out into the nice weather, so I'll just leave it at that! Hope you're having nice weather to be in as well!

Chocolate wedding

Edited to add: this just happened to fit into Joanne's "What You Got" challenge of using 3 patterns from Berry Bliss, so I've added a link to her blog's challenge if you want to play, too!

I don't know what I think of the grooms that I've done with this set being dressed in white tuxedos ... I'll have to tackle that issue next. But in the meantime, I adore how her dress turned out!

Her dress is paper-pieced out of Berry Bliss designer paper, as are the background patterned papers. I purposely extended her dress beyond the border for a little visual interest.

Because of the tricky cuts around the flowers, I did a little pre-coloring before I glued her dress on. This is where it's VERY handy to have all the coordination of Stampin' Up products to work with. The base color of her dress is "Pretty in Pink," so with my matching marker, I colored around the flowers and down the "sides" of her dress (although it isn't shown in the picture below). The helps just in case I've trimmed a touch too much, or her dess is scooted just a little out of place, it's good back up.

Something else that I've done is to add little dots of eyes on both bride and groom. I feel like this gives them a LOT more life, especially in relation to the amount of effort that it takes. The photo below is of the stamp image as it appears in the catalog, and I just think they look a little sleepy.

Wheelbarrow Love

Another card made with Bali Breeze paper and the Set Blooming with Love. I don't looovvve this card, but it's ok. I do wish that I had not emphasized the wheel by putting that rhinestone brad in there. That's just kind of silly. But, in case YOU might have though it would be a good idea ... it isn't. Save your rhinestone brads for something more important! :)

And nope, Mom, this still isn't your mother's day card! You'll have to wait some more.

Mother's day wishes

Happy mother's day!

I was just having some watercoloring fun with this card and this set, Blooming With Love. I'm also using up some bits and pieces of my Bali Breeze Designer paper, hence the kind of patchwork pattern laid out behind the main image.

Mom, this isn't your card, instead you'll get yours when we get together. :)

I watercolored using my Watercolor Wonder Crayons and an aqua painter on watercolor paper which is simply the best paper to watercolor on because you can move the color around so nicely. When it dried, I put on some Crystal Effects over the top of the pots, and added some dots with my trusty white gel pen.

The square metal piece is from the pewter finish hodgepodge hardware. the ribbon is attached behind the paper piece inside of the square with the brads you can see on top and glue dots behind.

Here's a look at the ribbon/metal piece as it is when it wasn't on the card. I sized it for the card, but didn't want to permanently attach it until the rest of the card was laid out. Shown below are some pictures of how I put it together.

First, I laid it the ribbon and the square element out as it would fit around the card front to get the sizing right. Then I marked dots through the holes where the brads would go onto the ribbon with a black pen. In the picture below, you can see it with one brad attached (top) and the ribbon pulled aside again with it's spacing dot (bottom w/ circle showing pen dot).

Here is the square embellishment from behind. It really is the back, there are just words because I had to restamp my words again to get it to show through and leave space for a couple flowers. So far only the brad is holding the ribbon on. Then I put a couple glue dots below the ribbon, to attach it to the paper.

And after that, I put the other brad through the ribbon on it's dotted mark, and put a couple more glue dots between the overlapping layers of ribbon for extra grip, especially with the satiny ribbon.

Thanks for looking! Enjoy your mother's day. :)

From this day forward ...

A one-layer card! Is it still one layer, if there aren't any layers, just a card base? I thought that with the involved swirls that I wanted to use that I should keep it simple and just rely on simple colors and a VERY simple design/layout.

The base images are stamped in black Stazon ink and then I colored over it with markers (Bordering Blue, Bashful Blue, Almost Amethyst, Lovely Lilac, and very small touches of Old Olive). The finishing touch was some Dazzling Diamonds glitter and doodles.

I did re-trace over the flowers in the border with a black fine-tip marker to make the flowers pop out of the background.

The set for this card is a Stampin' Up! set, To Have & to Hold, and I love the graceful lines of it. Another feature that I think pulls it together is the tiny dots in her dress skirt (bashful blue) and in the swirly border (old olive) to match the groom's bow tie color. The olive dots were a good way to tie (ha, ha) in the green of his tie, which I put on before I really considered my colors ...

Egads! Grads!

I'm getting requests for graduation cards, and I need to send one out myself, so I made these up last night using the set Great Grads and Bali Breeze designer paper.

I also threw in some Purely Pomegranate and Old Olive ribbon on this first card for a more feminine feel, while I left the others below more gender-neutral. The hats are all stamped, then stamped again on a separate scrap and popped up on dimensionals for a little more interest.

Most of all, I wanted these cards to feel really FUN. I remember when I graduated high school and college, I felt such a sense of relief to be getting on to the next step of life.

Thanks for looking! Have a great weekend! I hope to get some more stamping done this weekend as well as design work that you can check out on my blog banner design site. I've put up several new designs and still have a couple more customer orders to go. If my creativity holds out, I'll wrap their orders up this weekend. :)

Color Inspiration #8 - KWERNER Design Blog

That's right, I'm posting a THIRD card tonight. I'm on a roll. :)

This [GASP!] is my first color challenge of any sort. Click through to her site and to see her post.

I just really liked the colors and I had some scraps already out on my table. Other than the brilliant blue, which I don't believe I've EVER used before. The striped paper is from Stampin' Up!'s Summer Picnic designer paper, while the word stamp was colored with markers and is from the All Holidays stamp set.

This was REALLY fun, and I think I got it done in 30 minutes, including mounting the stamp! Thank you, Kristina, for the inspiration! She has a really amazing blog, with cardmaking videos (!!) so stop by and check it out.

Long, long ago ...

A double-post today! I don't want to leave this in the drafts folder any longer, so you're getting a double-dose from me.

I posted my first card ministry card a looooonnnggg time ago now. I meant to show you this card then, and couldn't get a good picture, etc., etc. Well here it is! :)

The sentiment was printed on the card stock, with the card then built around it. The bird was watercolored and while the watercolor paper was still damp, I spritzed it with my marker and color spritzer.

Fruit gate-fold

This is a gate-fold card that uses the Tart & Tangy set and punches to create a unique closure to the card. The fold is behind the three circles. The strawberry and apple pieces are glued on at the top of the circles and the orange piece is glued on across the bottom. Because they alternate where they're attached, the cardstock can just tuck right in behind.

The apple and strawberry have Crystal Effects covering them (with dots of white gel pen over it when it dried). The orange, though, is my favorite with it's Dazzling Diamonds "sugar" coating. They look super fresh and good enough to nibble.

Look good enough to eat!

These are cards that I essentially CASEd as an inspiration piece. I was looking for a project to take downstairs and work on while I watched a movie on Friday night. It needed to be something that's fairly easy and doesn't take a million supplies or tons of focus.

I decided to copy these cards from Joanne's blog, Just a Little Something ..., and I sure didn't change much. I added some white gel pen faux stitching and dots around the scallop, and I omitted the sentiment, but I can add that later either with a stamp, or by hand. Aren't these happy cards?! Thanks for looking!

Another birthday? Pull out your wallet ...

I was inspired by Lorri's wallet that she posted on her blog, Confessions of a Stamping Addict recently. When my sister said that what my BIL wanted as a birthday present was money toward a larger item, I thought this was a perfect gift giving and packaging idea, all in one!

This was made with Chocolate Chip paper, so please picture that color instead of the weird redish color that the camera decided to dole out! I did a lot of paper piercing and faux stitching around anywhere that a seam would normally be on a wallet. Then I roughed up the edges with the tool for that on the Stampin' Up! cutter kit and then I rubbed the whole thing with my Choc. Chip ink pad, which with the brown paper, manages to make it look fairly realistically leathery.

On the front panel piece, I stamped the image from the set Older & Wiser in Choc. Chip ink, then used the pointy end of my bone folder to trace around the candles and to trace a rectangular border around the piece, then I traced back over that with the chocolate chip marker so that it stood out a little more.

On the inside, I used my oval punch to make cutouts so you can see that there's money to be had and so that it's easier to grab. There's also a smaller pocket for a little note that I stamped with the same stamp from the front, but I changed the sentiment. It says "happy belated birthday," because my BIL and I are both celebrating our April birthdays together with the family, and we're both belated in wishing each other a happy birthday in person.

I think that about covers it! If you have questions about this project, please leave a comment! Have a great weekend. :)

Modern Bride

We have several weddings this summer, so I'll be making a few cards for brides. This is the first one I made using the Stampin' Up! set, Big on Spring.

All materials on this card are Stampin' Up! with the exception of the tiny pearls that I stuck into the bouquet to give it some dimension. I also went back to a favorite technique of mine and covered the flowers with Crystal Effects, then, when it dried, I drew in highlights on top of it with my white gel pen.