The Star of My Life

 

Most of the cards I make for my husband are of the more romantic variety, so I don't have to worry about designing a masculine card, but to me, his birthday calls for one.  I don't know about y'all, but I struggle with masculine cards.  Fortunately he has two hobbies, astronomy and cooking, which gives me some direction.  For this year's card I went with a star for astronomy.

I started by blending Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy, and Blackberry Bliss inks from Stampin' Up on white cardstock.  Then I sponged on Champagne Mist shimmer ink by Tsukineko over it to give it a gold shimmer that is not that visible in the photo, and set it aside to dry.

Next I cut a 5.5 X 4.25 piece of copper foil paper to use as a mat. To conserve specialty (in other words, expensive) paper, I used the So Many Stars dies from Stampin' Up and a die by Simon Says Stamp to cut the stars and sentiment. Once the inked panel was dry I positioned the die cuts to fine tune the composition, moved the copper star, and cut a medium sized star out of the inked paper under it. I cut a second mediumd star from scrap paper and popped it in the negative space, so the surface would be smooth. I used a stamp from the So Many Stars set to emboss the filigree pattern in copper on that medium star.  After stacking the stars I attached them to the background, rotating the star so that the Night of Navy and Blackberry Bliss points were backed by the opposing colors.  This helped the inked star stand out.  Of course, I had to finish the card off with a sparkle in the center of the star.

I am entering this card in the Watercooler Wednesday Occasions Challenge, the Just Add Ink Challenge to make a card for a guy, and the Seize the Birthday Challenge with an optional topping of adding gold.  So why did I use copper foil paper instead of gold?  After applying a gold shimmer to the background, I found that the copper stood out better and had more of a nighttime feel to me.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Freshly Made Triangles

 

Long time no post!  It isn't that I haven't been making cards; I just haven't had time to photograph them before sending them or haven't gotten them finished in time to meet a challenge deadline.  As it is, this one is getting in just under the wire.  When I saw this Freshly Made Sketch I was so excited because I had just gotten the Prismatic Triangle layering dies by Birch Press Design and wanted to play with them.  

At first I thought I would cut off the extraneous triangles, but then it seemed like the composition would be out of balance, so I thought I would just not color them in which was also unbalanced until I pulled the color through by putting the sentiment on a background using same colors as the triangles that are part of the sketch.  Leaving the edges of the extra triangles ties the sentiment piece to rest of the design.

I started by using blending brushes to blend Peacock by Close to My Heart with Night of Navy and Rich Razzleberry from Stampin' Up on white card stock and cutting it with Layer C (bottom layer) to get the filler pieces to color the triangles.  If you have not tried blending brushes I highly recommend them.  They make it so easy to create smooth blends!  I layered two layer C's and a layer B cut from white cardstock and one layer A cut from Champagne foil cardstock from Stampin' Up.  Champagne is like a warm silver.  I also used it for the sentiment cut with a Simon Says Stamp die. The sentiment piece is popped up with thin foam tape.  Although I usually cannot resist adding some sparkles, this time I felt they would detract from the clean geometry of the design.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

My Baby is Turning 30!

Baby Girl is turning 30!  I can't be the mother of a 30 year old!  Wasn't she a little girl five years ago?  I took inspiration for her birthday card from a card in this Jennifer McGuire video and this Freshly Made Sketch:

I cut a mask using the largest Hero Arts oval infinity die and used Gina K Designs' Music Medley stamp to create the background.  Next I cut the butterfly layers with a Spellbinders die and the vine with a die by Paper Artist from white cardstock and used sponge daubers to color them with ink.  I heat embossed the sentiments (inside and out) and the edges of the butterfly's wings and put small pieces of thin foam tape under the tips of his wings, so they would stay up to provide dimension when I glued his body the the card.  I also popped up the sentiment and the front panel.

 Here is the inside:

Have I mentioned that the birthday girl likes butterflies?  The butterflies and sentiments are from retired Close to My Heart stamp sets.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Naughty Kitty

There is a reason why we didn't have a Christmas tree last year.  I thought it would be safe to hang a few ornaments from the dining room light fixture; however, between the day after Thanksgiving and New Year's somebody grew.  If anyone knows how to share this with the motion on, please let me know.  She is jumping and the ornaments are swinging.  Needless to say, I had to take down the ornaments.

You know that when I saw that The Alphabet Challenge was "N is for Naughty" this incident and stamp came to mind.

This adorable stamp by Inkadinkado is perfect for a CAS card which aligns beautifully (purrfectly?) with the Addicted to CAS Challenge code word of creature and The Sweet Stampin' Challenge to feature an animal in honor of World Animal Day which was October 4th.  As you can see, if I placed the kitty where I wanted her to be in terms of composition, the branch would be at loose ends, so I used a journaling pen to extend the branch to the edge.  The sentiment is part of Hero Arts' Fluffy Stockings Stamp and Cut set.

Now to color the image.  I have never mastered alcohol pens, so I used my Prismacolor  pencils.  I recently discovered that they make a colorless blending pencil.  All I had to do was draw a heavy line of silver (I don't have a gray pencil) along the edge and then "color" with the colorless pencil in small circles to draw the color out into a fade.  I also used it to smooth away most of the pencil strokes after coloring the ornament.  I layered the panel on colored cardstock before attaching it to a card base because it needed the extra pop of a colored frame.  I hope it still qualifies as CAS.  In case you have noticed the sentiment in the completed card and the sample above are in different colors, I come from a family of crazy cat lovers, so I made several cards for Calli(sto) and her sister to send to their aunts and uncles.  Of course she had to supervise.

By the way, Calli is now 14 months old and is still naughty, although she prefers to say inquisitive or playful.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

So Many Stars for Freshly Made Sketches

I really like this Freshly Made Sketch, but it presented a problem.  I had just gotten Stampin' Up's So Many Stars bundle and, like a spoiled child, I wanted to play with my new toys.  Unfortunately the sentiment didn't fit the sketch.

I finally decided to force it by using the sentiment with a star to create the medium square element and replace the "sentiment" with a trail of stars.  Where did I get that little star stamp?  I (gasp!) cut it from one of the star cluster stamps.  I when I edit stamps I avoid making straight cuts.  I usually cut stamps in a curve to make it easier to fit the pieces back together in proper alignment when I want to use the whole stamp.  The sentiment and white stars are heat embossed with white detail powder and the star trail and edges are embossed with silver detail powder.  To do the edges I stood the cardstock straight up and pushed the edge into Versamark and then my plastic tub of powder.  After I cut the silver foil pieces I put them through my die cut machine between two pieces of cardstock.  That eliminated the raise dots left by the holes in the small dies and gave the foil a softer shine like you get with silver embossing powder.  I spritzed the card panel with Hero Arts shimmer spray.  For the center of the large star, I cut two white and one silver small stars and stacked them to keep it from getting lost in the white filigree stamping.  Of course I had to finish my card with some sparkles.  

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Peace and Snowflakes Ornament

I love this two piece die from Hero Arts.  The circle of snowflakes and the ornament outline are separate dies, so you can cut out an ornament as I have done here or cut an opening ringed by snowflakes into a card front which I will show y'all another time.

I started by dropping green, blue, silver and white Hero Arts glimmer inks onto a craft mat, misted them with water and dragged paper through it all.  I cut a solid ornament shape twice from aqua paper and once from the inked paper and stacked them before layering on the snowflake layer.   I used a Birch Press Designs die to cut the sentiment three times, stacked them and attached them to the shadow piece cut from Silver paper.  All this stacking gives the card dimension.  To help separate the ornament from the background I embossed the background with Stampin' Up's Subtle folder.  I finished the card off with some bitty sparkles in the centers of the snowflakes.

I used the Freshly Made Sketch below and drew on the Jingle Belles Challenge theme of peace on Earth and the ABC Christmas Challenge theme of sparkle and texture.  Here is a shot using a direct flash, so you can see how sparkly it is.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Hanging Ornaments

The theme for the September Christmas at Sweet Stampin' challenge is Christmas decorations and this Freshly Made Sketch seemed perfect for it:

I decided to use a wide Merry Christmas sentiment to create the illusion of the strip across.  I used a die from Birch Press Design and stacked three cut from Stampin' Up Gorgeous Grape cardstock topped with one cut from Gold foil paper slightly offset.  This gave the sentiment lots of dimension.

Now for the ornaments!  I made them using the Simon Say Stamp "Ornate Ornaments" stamp and die set with Ranger Princess Gold embossing powder and colored them with a Violet Zig Clean Color Real Brush marker.  I simply swiped it across the embossing and blotted up any bits of ink that might have been on the embossing.  No need for detailed coloring when you are only using one color!  The original plan was to use gold embroidery thread to "hang" the ornaments and place it on a Gorgeous Grape card base, but as I laid everything out the card seemed pretty boring, so I used substituted black for those elements which gave it more pop.  I wish I had used regular sewing thread because the embroidery thread is somewhat fuzzy.  I had also planned to let the ornaments swing freely, but like so many plans, that needed to be revised as the bottom two ornaments kept switching places and the round one on top of the almond one did not look right.  After I glued them all down I realized I could have left the almond one loose like a tag.  Y'all may see another version of the hanging ornaments in the future.  I had to finish the front off with (what else?) bitty sparkles.  The folks at the Winter Wonderland Challenge blog want to see my favorite embellishment.  If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that sparkles are my favorite!

Here is the inside using a sentiment from Close to My Heart's "To You and Yours" stamp set which I stamped with Black Versafine ink and embossed with clear detail powder.  No messy black embossing powder for me!

I also plan to enter this in the Simon Says Stamp Monday Monochromatic Challenge.  Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi