Grunge Rock

I've been challenged with multiple boy cards to make this month, and this one is perfect for my nephew's 8th birthday, if I do say so myself ;) After the DSP layer, my next favorite thing is the brad, that I "stamped" on Versamark, and added Tempting Turquoise embossing powder. I used 4 challenges here... the sketch was from Pals Paper Arts, the colours were from ColourQ, Just Add Ink's theme was music, and Anything Goes was stitching.

And the challenge pictures:

Sk8er Boi

No, this card doesn't have anything to do with Avril Lavigne, but that song title is just perfect for this card for a 9 year old boy. Now that I think about it though, maybe I should make and send her and Chad Kroeger a congratulations card, so if I ever run into her at our local grocery store near his Abbotsford home, I'll have a conversation starter ready ;) Anyway, enough about that...

Is it just me, or does it get harder and harder to make boy cards, once they pass the years of dinosaurs, trains and other classic little boy toys? Lately I've been feeling like all the cards I make for boys 7+ are either boring and plain, or the same as all the other ones... but I managed to break my boredom mold with this one, and was quite happy with it, and my nephew seemed to like it too!

I used the Color Throwdown challenge and Mojo Monday sketch for this one, some grungy looking embossing, and the denim ribbon, to "boy it up" a bit extra ;)

Here are the challenges:

Vellum in Flight

This Papillon Potpourri butterfly set and coordinating punch are one of my favorite sets ever, and even though I should have made another Christmas card for club, I could NOT wait till January to play with these! I thought the detailed butterfly would look beautiful on vellum, but when I tried it out, it just didn't quite pop enough. So I gave it a try on Whisper White, and it popped all right, but it didn't have any softness. But then I decided to see what the vellum image on top of the cardstock image might look like... AMAZING!!! Bright, and clear, but with a softness and a very realistic 3D look to it. I will definitely be trying this again! I also used a hostess set (which I realized too late was not current), with a  circus bear on the tag. I just inked the border and sentiment with a marker, leaving the left space empty for a nice seam-binding bow. I used Sunny Challenges & Creations sketch for this and Anything Goes again.

The sketch:

Faux silk and modified Peek-a-Boo!

I love the super easy faux silk technique and thought it would add some extra interest to a fairly basic club card. To do this technique, all you do is crumple up a sheet of plain tissue paper, carefully spread it back out, glue stick the entire cardstock surface, and then smoosh it on. You can add stamping behind it too, but I still with a clean look for this card.

I used the Pals Paper Arts color challenge, the iSpy Sketches sketch challenge, and the Anything Goes challenge. For the oval in the sketch, I decided to swap out to a square, and use a Peek-a-Boo die frame with the door sliced off.

And the challenges:

Crayon Blizzard

I figured the new crayon emboss resist technique I used a few weeks ago would be a GREAT way to make a snowy background for a Christmas card! I used the SnowBurst folder from last years Holiday Mini, but it would be beautiful with the current Northern Flurries folder too. I used the iSpy Sketches challenge for this one, which was a very clean and simple sketch.

And the sketch:

Orchard Season!

We've had our first trip to the local Apple Barn already, and it got me in the mood to use my favorite new line from the Holiday Catalogue. The Orchard Harvest DSP is an all time favorite of mine, particularly the super versatile and homey ginghams, plaids and crosstitching sides. But since I was using the equally awesome Perfectly Preserved bundle, I used the sides shown on this card. For this card I used the Sunny Challenges & Creations sketch challenge, the Crazy 4 Challenges "leaves" theme and the Our Creative Corner inspiration picture.

And the challenges:

Framelits galore!

I LOVE FRAMELITS!!! Sorry for shouting, but it can't be understated... they are so versatile, affordable and take up next to no storage space at all. Of course dies and punches will always have their place at my craft table, I love the addition of this family to the Stampin' Up! line, SO much! I used 4 Framelits on this card, and it just makes things look so clean and professional. This was a card for a friend's 30th birthday, and I used the sketch challenge at Create with Connie and Mary, the colour challenge at The Play Date Cafe and the technique challenge for crayon embossing/resist at Hand Stamped Sentiments. This was a fun new technique that I might teach my club this month.

And the challenges:

Club Challenge Card

And here's the more challenging card we did this month, with the sketch from Craft Project Central and the Early Christmas challenge at Anything Goes. I LOVE the new Core'dinations papers, and all the awesome Framelit bundles!!! I'm posting both the with and without flash pics, so you can really see the properties of the paper, and the awesome new buttons.

And the sketch:

Club Card Basic

I love that I have a club full of girls who've been doing Stampin' Up! for awhile already, so I don't have to stick with JUST simple basic cards, but with time constraints and sharing tools, I still can't go overboard, so I've decided every month, we'll do one challenging card with a new technique or more steps involved, and one basic card that's not too time consuming. Here is the basic we did this month, using the sketch challenge from Clean&Simple.

And the sketch:

Welcome Teach!

Can I just tell you... I LOVE my son's teacher for Grade 2!!! And since this is only her second year teaching, I wanted to make sure she had a very warm welcome. I thought this adorable matchbox desk, filled with staples, like paper clips, rubber bands and stickers would do the trick, along with a matching card. I used the Mojo Monday sketch for the card, and the SUO Challenge for "Boxes or Bags" for the desk.

Here's the sketch for the card

Colors for Class

As I mentioned in my last post, I haven't hosted my small friends and family class in ages, so most of them haven't seen the new In Colors yet. Well, it just so happens that HandStampedSentiments challenge this week is to use ALL of them together, so that's what I did, along with the Mojo Monday sketch, which had enough elements and layers to utilize them all easily. And once again, I just cannot get over the amazing new ink pads, and how such fine detailed images, as well as those more solid ones, all come out crystal clear... I can't WAIT to share these with the girls, not to mention this beautiful ribbon! Again, with the objective of keeping things simple enough to get through it with my whole, mostly beginner class, I left things as basic as possible, and with so many layers, I decided against sponging all the edges, etc. Fortunately, all the great DSPs add a lot of texture on their own.

The sketches:

Trying to K.I.S.S. ;)

It's been WAY too long since I held a class at home, and I also need some practice with simple cards before Stamp Club is back in session, so I picked a VERY clean and simple sketch challenge from Stampin 411, and a simple color scheme from Color Throwdown. The thing is though, "simple" always feels more like "unfinished" to me, so it's a real challenge... even with the very minimal layers and embellishments, I still ended up using the Big Shot 3 times, and heat embossing too, so it will still take awhile for the whole class to put this together. C'est la vie! We'll still have loads of fun making it :)

The challenges:

Bouquets of Love

I'm at the age where wedding invites are sporadic, rather than 5 per summer, so I haven't invested in any specific wedding sets, so when I needed a card for my beautiful cousin's wedding, I pulled out this fabulous Valentine set, that I am SOOO glad was carried through to the new catalogue! 

And of course, it goes perfectly with the Sale-A-Bration paper from last spring, which I am still head over heels in love with, so that's what I used ;)

I pulled inspiration from 3 challenges for this one... Create with Connie and Mary for the sketch, Just Add Ink for the bright florals, and SUO Challenges Buttons & Brads theme for the brad usage on the bow.

The sketch (flipped):

The inspiration:

Reason To Smile

Another thing I finally had a chance to play with was the July exclusive 2-step stamp set, Reason to Smile, which is ONLY $5, if you order $60 CDN!!! I used Pals Paper Arts sketch for this one, along with some Orchard Harvest and Patio Party papers, and the new Brushed Bronze Designer Buttons. I also have to admit, I wasted some unnecessary time on this one, when I had the "brilliant" idea to literally tie this bow and tag onto the stem of the flower. So, I cut slits on each side, and threaded the ribbon through it and tied the tag on, but looking at it now, I could have more easily tied the bow to the tag and glued it on, and it would've still looked exactly the same... oh well, live and learn ;)

And here's the sketch, which I flipped... 

In Stitches

In the midst of a very busy month, I FINALLY had a chance to sit down and play with some of my new pre-order goodies from the upcoming Holiday catalogue, and found the Stampin' 411 sketch fit just perfectly! Some of the Orchard Harvest papers are perfect for the Hoop La La set, so I decided to have some fun with that. The tried and true Lattice folder works great to accent the two as well, and with the new Core'dinations paper, it was even better! After sanding the embossed Core'dinations, it even had a beautiful fabric like feel and look to it that accented the theme of the card perfectly. And for some finishing touches, I used the new silver Stampin Dazzle marker to color the metal screwpiece at the top of the embroidery ring, and I silver embossed the needle stamp directly onto the "stitch" paper, and threaded some Baker's Twine through it, as if it was sewing the stitches on the paper. And of course, I clear embossed the sentiment, so it would be raised like actual crosstitches.

And here's the sketch I used...