Father's Day 2021

 

Father's Day is bittersweet for me as Daddy passed in 2013, but there is another Daddy in my life, my husband, who is a devoted father to our grown daughter with special needs and gets card from me every year to show my appreciation for all he does.  This year's is based on this Freshly Made Sketch:

I started by smooshing Cracked Pistachio, Salvaged Patina, Peacock Feathers and Walnut Stain Distress Oxide inks onto a piece of cardstock for the strip and blending the same colors minus the Walnut Stain on a small piece that I cut using a stitched oval die from Stampin' Up.  While I was at it I cut two more ovals to stack for dimension and sponged some Salty Ocean ink around the edge.  The dad cat was cut with a die by Spellbinders and the kitten with one by Obsession Impression from bronze metallic paper I bought in an assortment pack years ago at Michael's.  It doesn't show that the bronze paper and the pearl paper I used for the hearts has a nice shimmer.  I used a colored pencil to make a bit of a shadow below the kitties to ground them.  Did I mention that my husband is also daddy to two spoiled cats?  I stamped a sentiment from Close to My Heart's Say It in Style set in Peacock Feathers Distress Oxide ink and heat embossed it with Clear Detail powder from Ranger.

I also plan to enter this card in the Male Room Dads and Grandads, Crafty Gals Corner One for the Boys, and Stinkin Inkers You're the Man challenges.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Balloons for a Graduate

 

A young man I have known for years is graduating from high school.  He is on the more involved end of the autism spectrum and would not appreciate the usual style graduation card but might like a card with bright colors and identifiable objects.  I often make cards featuring this stamp of a cat being lifted up by the balloons he is holding.  I cover the stamped balloons with balloons cut from cardstock using the Stampin' Up balloon punch.  The problem is the punch cuts balloons in two sizes, and it is awkward to try to cut only the smaller one, so I have a considerable stash of larger balloon die cuts begging to be used.

I selected five in primary and secondary colors but had to cut an orange one because I rarely use orange.  I sponged the edges of each balloon with ink to give them some dimension and arranged them in the order of the color wheel, so I could enter this card in the Use Your Stash Rainbow challenge.  The back three balloons are glued directly to the card panel.  The blue and yellow ones are attached with thin foam tape and the green with thicker foam tape.

I used an old Spellbinders die to cut the word Hooray three times and stacked them.  The sentiment strip comes from a Taylored Expressions Simple Strips stamp and die set.  I drew the balloon strings with a black gel pen.

As graduation is a special occasion I am also entering this in the Water Cooler Wednesday All About Occasions challenge.  Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Rainbow Butterflies

 

I always have a stash of backgrounds ready to use, some like this one, feature ink blending.  Many people like blending with Distress Oxide inks because they are not quick to dry which makes getting a smooth blend easier, and being opaque, you can cover mistakes.  I prefer regular Distress inks because the colors are more intense and I like how one color  seems to glow through the other.  Unfortunately that means sometimes my transitions are blotchy or not as smooth as I would like.  Then there is the dreaded unintended ink "embellishment" which seems to happen when I have a lovely blend going:

With Oxide inks I could let it dry and then go over that section to cover it.  With Distress there is no getting away from it.  This background went into my backgrounds that will need special consideration to use.  Often such backgrounds are cut into strips or die cuts or are used to back window die cuts that only reveal the parts I like as with this card set.  

A few days ago I finally got around to using a layered butterfly die set from Stampin' Up and had some lovely negative space leftovers that were worth saving.  I wanted to enter the Use Your Stuff Rainbow challenge in honor of Pride Month and knew I had a few rainbow backgrounds including this "needs special consideration" one.  It just so happened that the butterflies were in just the right place to hide the ink blot.  I cut only the top butterfly layer to allow more of the color to show through.  I then went though my stash of sentiment strips and pulled out one from Taylored Expressions which I backed with two strips of black cardstock for dimension.  I toyed with putting some sparkles of Nuvo drops on but decided they would make the card too busy.  Now I have a black negative space to use, stay tuned...

I also plan to enter this in the Crafter's Cafe Insects/Butterflies, Day of the Month Card Club Best Friend Day, and Love to Craft June Anything Goes challenges.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

My First Slimline Card

I have been toying with trying a slimline card which requires thinking long and lean vs compact.  The current Inkspirational challenge is to make a slimline card, so I took that as my cue to take the plunge.  This cat and balloon stamp from Inkadinkadoo would give me a head start towards vertical thinking.  I don't really like the balloons on the stamp so I usually cover them up with paper balloons.  The Paper Players are running a color challenge featuring bright, summery colors: Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, Grannie Apple Green and Black (or white).  Now that I had my color scheme it was time to get to work.

I stamped the kitty and used the Stampin' Up balloon punch to cut balloons from paper in the challenge colors.  I wanted to sponge them with ink to give them some dimension, but unfortunately don't have those colors in Stampin' Up ink, so I used Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, and Mowed Lawn Distress inks which were almost identical.  It took several coats to get the shading to show up as I wanted. Then I glued the Grannie Apple Green balloon directly to the panel, used thin foam tape to attach the Melon Mambo one and thick foam tape to attach the Bermuda Bay one, so each balloon is at a different level.  I used the birthday die included in the Gina K Designs Forever Flowers card kit to cut the word birthday and a stamp from the Lace Flowers stamp set also included in the kit to heat emboss the sentiment strip.  What I love about this particular birthday die is that there is no dot over the letter "i" that I need to avoid losing.  I used a border punch from EK Success to cut circles from the cardstock and arranged them along the bottom to draw the eye down and repeat the colors in another part of the composition.   

I plan to enter this card in the Craft Rocket Birthday and Seize the Birthday Anything Goes challenge.  Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Using Up Old Backgrounds

 

I know I am not the only one who makes backgrounds and finds that some of them are, shall we say,  less pleasing to the eye.  Sometimes I can salvage a part of such a background and use it to back a window type die cut like with these cards, but sometimes not.  I had one such background leftover after making these cards where I created bokeh backgrounds using gold rather than white pigment ink for the over laying circles, and it has been sitting in my box for almost six (!) years waiting to be used.  

When I saw this Freshly Made Sketch I thought about a die from Penny Black I bought last February and have yet to play with use.  

This is how I discovered that using a die such as a sentiment or very small shapes breaks up areas of color enough to simply give some color variation and interest to the die cut.  I backed the die cuts with two layers of Neenah 110 lb. cardstock for dimension.  Next I used a Penny Black Stitched Nested Frame to emboss a white panel, backed it with the remnants of my failed background and a single layer of 110 lb. cardstock for dimension and adhered it to a white cardbase.

I also plan to enter this card in the Happy Little Stampers Anything Goes With Dies Challenge, Just Us Girls No Stamping Challenge, and the Penny Black Saturday Challenge, Anything Goes or Fussy or Fancy.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi

Graduation Card for a Butterfly

 

I need a graduation card for a young woman I have known since she was seven who just graduated from the nursing school at Case Western Reserve University and will be pursuing some post graduate training in Pediatric Nursing.  Caring and passionate with strong people skills and experience with children and adults with special needs, she is going to be one of those peds nurses that children and their parents remember.  Because I didn't want a traditional "congratulations graduate" card, I struggled until I saw this image from the If You Give a Crafter a Cookie challenge:

I thought about how she developed from this young girl on a swim team into a fabulous woman like a caterpillar grows into a butterfly.  Butterflies and pastel colors it was going to be!  Now which of my too many butterfly stamps and dies should I use?  The current Always Fun challenge is layers, and I had a Stampin' Up layering butterfly die set that I bought last year from Stampin' Up and, unbelievably, had not used.  I had so much fun with it that you will be seeing it more in the future.

I started by blending Salvaged Patina, Tumbled Glass, and Spun Sugar Distress Oxide ink onto a panel.  Then I cut two of the bottom layer die from Neenah Classic Crest Solar White 110 lb. cardstock to stack and one of the top layer from the center of a piece of Dreamy holographic paper from Close to My Heart that I cut to 4 3/8 by 5 5/8.  I used one of the sentiments from the Simple Strips Friendship set.  This line from Taylored Expressions consists of themed rubber stamps with 18 sentiments per stamp and coordinating dies with different ends which are all interchangeable and easy to line up thanks to squares in the corners and side that you line up.  In other words, you can stamp and cut once and have 18 sentiment strips.  I have the flagged end die and several stamps and every so often stamp, emboss, and cut a mess of sentiment strips to have on hand to speed up cardmaking.  I snipped the tails off the strip and backed it with two 1/4 inch wide strips cut from the Neenah 110 lb. cardstock to pop the sentiment up over the butterflies and, because the butterflies are popped up, cut two more one inch long strips to layer under the part of the sentiment that extends over the background.

I backed the panel with the piece of Dreamy paper from which I had cut the top butterfly layer and a  piece of  Neenah cut to 5 x 6 1/4 that I embossed using the Subtle folder from Sizzex for Stampin' Up.  I toyed with embellishing the card with a few clear sparkles but I wanted to enter this card in Mod Squad Simple Focus challenge.  I also plan to enter this card in the Happy Little Stampers June Anything Goes With Dies challenge.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi