And now I'm even double dipping!

(Edit: After learning of the amazingness of Your Next Stamp, this card is now for 3 challenges! w00t!)
This frosty birthday card is for three challenges. (That's pretty big for me!) The first challenge is the Pollycraft Monday Challenge. The challenge this week is to use winter/christmas stamps on a birthday card. So, I pulled out my DCWV Holiday matstack and my trusty Inkadinkadoo Snowflake stamps and made my own patterned paper (under the beer glass). I colored the beer glass with colored pencils and popped up the beer foam. I used light blue shading and some clear embossing powder to make it look a bit more enticing. Yum-o! Fantabulous embossing on the foam makes this card YNS #7 - Embossing worthy! Score!
 I then used my making memoried magnetic stamp set (and the Rummage Alphabet) to make my sentiment. After I decided what I wanted to make, I decided I needed a sketch. I'm a little predictable with my layouts! So, I headed over to Tuesday Morning Sketches and found the perfect sketch. To make the sketch fit my bubbly beverage I pulled another piece of patterned paper from the Holiday matstack and cut out some equal sized snowflakes.
I think I've finally made a card for a guy without using glitter, ribbons, pink, or flowers. I'm beaming with pride now! And it worked for three challenges. Lovely!
Card details
Paper: All from DCWV Holiday Collection
Sketch: Tuesday Morning Sketches
Stamps: Magnetic stamp set by making memories, Grunge Alphabet
Embellishments: Clear embossing powder from A la card, Snowflakes cut from DCWV Holiday Collection paper, 3-D foam from 3L adhesives, colored pencils by Crayola, image from stash

Swappin' Sistahs Card Swap - My turn for torture!

Note: We have a "name" now - we are the Swappin' Sistahs. I'll try to add this into my post titles from now on! :)

It was my turn to send the supplies this month so I headed to my LSS and picked up 2 SEI sets of paper and embelishments. I was the December sender (he he, that rhymes!) so the ladies got some extra supplies as a cheery holiday surprise!

I made two cards! Up first is this one - I used paper and acrylic brads from the SEI Winter Song collection and a stamp from the G Studio (AKA Michaels $1 bin). The scalloped edge comes from the special blade I picked up for my Fiskars rotary paper cutter. Even though I plunked down $40+ for a nice Purple Cows Cutting set (the freestyle mouse) I still prefer my rotary cutter. It probably has something to do with my poor dexterity and obsession with straight cuts! ;)

You might notice that I actually layered my card. Impressive, no? I used my new Cuttlebug die to cut out the intricate squares and made them into stickers...using the Xyron Create a Sticker 250 this time. :P While the paper is part of a Christmas collection, I really don't feel like the card is overly Christmassy. Thoughts?

The second card is also a thank you card, noticing a theme yet? The card uses paper and embellishments from SEI's Moravia collection which also came from my LSS. I actually had a dream that lead to this layout. (Don't ask, it's better that way!) I resisted the urge to put this on a solid background and went with the "subtle" pp approach. It's not too patterny and it seems to ground the lines under the copper panels well.

With the exception of the G Studio stamps (again, Michael's $1 bin) and embossing powder, I didn't add anything from my collection. I did cheat a little though. I used ribbon that I had from the Moravia set...but not ribbon that I sent out to everyone. Is that really cheating though? :) Also, I'm admitting to a cover-up mission. The oh, so, cute button embellishment is covering my crappy stamping/embossing job on the Thank you image, where there were supposed to be flowers there were roundish blobs. But I meant to do that! ;)

Hope you enjoyed my cards now head on over to the others' blogs so you can see their wonderful creations!

Belinda

Ren-Yi

Laurie

This month is Ren-Yi's turn to send out supplies and I can't wait to see what she's going to challenge us with!

We "owl" wish you a happy birthday!

This week, I found another obsession - Skipping Stones Design. They had a blog hop earlier this week and just opened their store. I wanted some of their super awesome stamps pretty bad but, Christmas left me broke so, I just used their Card Sketch 2.
The details --
     I used the 1/4 inch corner rounder on my Crop-a-dile Corner Chomper for all of the rounded corners. The balloon, hat, present, and Olivia the Owl are all cut out from the Owl Celebrations set by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I used foam sitckies to raise the hat, balloon (but not the string), and the whole "Happy Birthday" section off of the cream base. I colored the stamps with my black Copic markers and assorted Marvy Brush Markers. The plaid and blue papers are from Die Cuts With A View and the Cream cardstock is from the Paper Factory. Being the queen of thrift, you can guess where the buttons came from. That's right - Goodwill! Best $7 giant bag of crafty stuff ever! I accented the Happy Birthday stamp, from Making Memories, with my Clear Star Gelly Roll pen. Yay, glitter!
It's a pretty darn cute card. I must say, I'm liking all of this time I have right now for crafting. :) Enjoy!
Check out the Skipping Stones designer that inspired me to make this card - http://scraptasticvoyage.blogspot.com/2010/01/tuesday-alreadyand-blog-hop.html

Copics, a pepper, and glitter on my man's card

Poor guy...I don't have the decency, or restraint, that Belinda and Laurie have when it comes to making masculine cards, well, masculine. The only thing manly about my hubby's v-day card is...well, there's red on it...

I mean, seriously, it's for Valentine's Day! How manly is the holiday in the first place? On to the card!

This is another one of those "I'm a n00b" type of posts. This it the first time using:

 - Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps (Punny fruits and vegetables)

 - Copic markers

 - my Xyron 150 sticker maker

 - a knot instead of a bow

 - paper from Target

 - a Cuttlebug embossing folder in my Sizzix BigShot (Spots and Dots)

 - a real easel to hold up my card

You see, I'm a total n00b!

I think the card turned out well even if I did use all of my Copics on this card! (Ok, I own these three!) They are actually really nice to color with, I'll be using these a lot! I also have an apple and pear that I can use from the Punny Fruits & Vegetables set! Oh, boy!

The only real problem I had was that the Cuttlebug folder cut out the Spots & Dots design instead of simply embossing it. I may need to review my "sandwich recipe". Oh, there was also a bit of "user error" with the 150 sticker maker. I didn't know which way was "face up." No, I wasn't at a crop. No, there's nothing wrong with my 250. Yes, I just wanted to play with the new toy that the hubby got me. For all of his caring and love, he got glittery hearts!

Enjoy the card and the artsy photo of my new markers...I think I'm in love! (Shh! Don't tell the hubby!) I'm braving the world of challenges again and submitting this for this week's A Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge. Wish me luck!

Embossing is exciting!

I have a secret confession. Sometimes I make cards that I don't like. What's worse is that I give the cards I don't like to people that I would otherwise buy cards for. I think Belinda can relate to the phenomena of spending so much time on a card that you can't bear to give it away let alone think of what the recipient might do with it.
So, I'm sure you can guess the background behind this card. I had just received multiple crafty items in the mail all at once and I felt that I had to try them all out at once. So, I used my new rollerstamp (PeachyCheap), my new clear inkpad (The Scrapbooker's Schoolhouse), my new embossing heat gun (Joann's), and my new metallic embossing powders (Joann's) all on the same unsuspecting 5x7 card. It never saw it coming!
I must admit though, it was a good exercise. I figured out how much I need to heat the powders, played with new stamps, and felt redeemed because I hadn't technically wasted paper. (A real pet peeve of mine is wasting supplies such as paper and ink.) I had also forgotten about a friend's birthday. So, I grabbed the "card" and a random bottle of booze off of the bar (unopened, thank you) and had an instant birthday gift put together for her. Fortunately, I chose to give it to my least crafty friend who thought it was an amazing feat that I was able to handmake the card. I think it was amazing that I was able to pull off unloading that card! :P
While making this card I did learn that there should be a limit to the amount of embossing powder that can legally be applied to one sheet of paper! Oh, and that if you heat it for too long your embossing powder will bleed through your paper. Most importantly, I learned that embossing is fun, and exciting! Although I think I may need to steal Laurie's ideas for decking out my next bottle o' booze!