All Star Boy Card [PDCC #133, CFC #54]

My oldest son is really into baseball. In fact, his 8th birthday party next month will be a baseball-themed party. Tonight I ordered 2 dozen real baseballs that we'll use to write the invitations on. Crossing my fingers that it will turn out similar to what I have in my head : )

I'm a little worried how he'll be when the season is over. I thought it would be nice to give him a card at the end to let him know how proud I am of him. So this is what I made tonight.

Inspiration comes from the challenge at The Play Date Cafe to use the following color scheme:

Also entering this in CASual Friday's Man, it's Casual Friday challenge to create a manly card with designer paper. None of my papers jumped out at me to use with this color scheme, so I made my own background paper. I'm hoping that me being a "designer" of cards makes this a "designer paper". A stretch, for sure : )

Thanks for looking!

Supplies used:

Martha Stewart Background Stamp

A Muse You're A Champ Stamp Set

PTI 1 3/4" Circle Die

You Rock! [LIM #69, Gallery Idol]

My talented friend, Julie, just won an essay contest on her genealogy research and is on her way to San Deigo as part of her prize. So Julie, YOU ROCK! So proud of you : )

Inspiration for this card comes from the current Less Is More challenge to make a shaped card. I made sure to give this one plenty of white space (which I found a little more challenging since there is not as much card to work with after cutting the shape out!)

Huge props to Mandi and Chrissie for stressing the importance of including more white space for these challenges. Very cool to get constructive comments like that! Much appreciated.

This one ... not so much white space, and a little "irregular" ... but that's OK. I like the larger, grungy font on this one. It's for the Gallery Idol Contest that ends today. What the heck. It's always fun to play along.




Here's another one for the Gallery Idol Contest. Lottery Balls! A rather odd topic, but I wanted something a little quirky. I added some rough, generational, texture stamping around the sides of the balls to make them stand out from each other. And to make them look more like balls! The red "you" was too hard to read on the grey so it got another white "you" layered on top. Now the red is a shadow.

Speaking of quirky, I've had this Mark Twain stamp forever and have never used it. I may have gotten it at a garage sale, or at Borders Books about a decade ago on massive clearance. Not something you look at and say, "I want that stamp!" But I felt sorry for it, appreciated it for its uniqueness, and thought it would go well with the "encouragement" theme for Gallery Idol. I don't know if Mark Twain actually had grey hair, but he does on my card.

Thanks for looking through all the cards!

Supplies Used:

You Rock

Love, Elsie Baseball Alphabet

Autum Leaves Alphabet

PTI Think Big Favorites 

PTI Wonderful Words Die

Copics

Lucky You

AC Paper

AC Texture Stamp

PTI Wonderful Words Die

PTI Banner Builders

Circle Punch

Mark Twain Cheer Up

Unknown Stamp

PTI By The Numbers Die

PTI Paper

Chalk Pencil

Pulling For You [PTI Blog Hop]

Here's an inspirational card for the Papertrey Ink May Blog Hop.

The lime green looks so fresh set off with the black and white in Papertrey's inspiration photo:

I used the PTI Bloom Builder #3 die for the gears. The card was done last night, and this morning when I was taking pictures I couldn't stop thinking that the "gears" still really looked like flowers. Here's what it used to looked like...

So I punched some circles and put them in the center of each Bloom Builder flower die with a little adhesive so they would stay put. This effectively chopped off the long, rounded ends of the flower so they looked a little more like gears.



 

A texture is stamped on the gears to make them look a little more weathered. 

Thanks for looking!

Off to check out some wonderful posts in the Blog Hop ...

Supplies Used:

PTI Bloom Builder Die
PTI Linen Impression Plate

AC Texture Stamp

AC Chevron Stamp

Stampin' Up Paint Splatter Stamp

Technique Tuesday Pulling for You Stamp

Robot Birthday [CFC #53]

OK, so the danger of browsing card sites late at night is that you see a card, love the idea, and then totally forget where it came from a month later! Someone, somewhere had "happy" going down the card with "birthday" stamped in the "p" and I just loved it. If anyone knows this card let me know!

This is for the CAS-ual Friday challenge to get punchy and use a punch or two on your card. For this one I used Martha Stewart border punch, a big circle punch, and a smaller circle punch as a mask for the "2".




Here's another version with a robot helping to give birthday wishes.

I made 20 of these cards for a card exchange last weekend and to have extras on hand for myself, so needless to say I had some left over pieces. Some of the left overs got used on a card for the PTI patterned paper challenge this week.

Thanks for looking!

Supplies used:

- Autumn Leaves Tia Bennet Astro Boy stamp set

- PTI Banner Builder stamp set

- AC Textures stamp

- Sandylion Kelly Panacci 360 Degrees stamp set

- Cricut Boys Will Be Boys Alphabets

- Martha Stewart double loop weave border punch

So Many Scallops [LIM #68]

Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you make a card for a challenge, get busy, and all of a sudden you miss the deadline. Then sometimes you get lucky and the card works for the very next challenge. Hooray! This card was originally for last week's Less is More one layer challenge to use 3 stamps. Now, it's for this week's Less is More baby card challenge.

This one layer stuff is HARD, especially when using a wood mounted stamp (the onsie on this card). You just can't tell where those things will stamp! Four cards later I finally had a revelation ... stamp the wood mounted image FIRST. Then you can build around it. Much better, worked like a charm.

Not wanting to toss the other off-centered cards, I stamped the main image (rabbit/elephant/duck/sheep) on a scrap piece of paper, punched it out, and stuck it right on top of the old image.

It happened to fit right inside the dotted circle. Again, sometimes you just get lucky.

The scallops are stamped in alternating colors down the card. 

Last week, when I was in one-layer challenge mode, I tried using an impression plate for the scallop portion of the card, with a separate circle die run through at the same time to keep the main part of the card unembossed. Ignoring the off-centeredness, I think it could have worked, but the circle die cut the impression plate a little so I stopped before I ruined the impression plate. I tried using a couple layers of cardstock circles to block the impression, but the impression from the plate still came through slightly. So, I scrapped the embossing for this card design. Maybe I'll explore that one a little later. If anyone knows how to do this and is willing to share, let me know : )

Anyway, thanks for looking!

Supplies used:

Inkadinkadoo Mehndi Borders (scallop)

Stampin' Up (onsie and toy images)

Kelly Panacci 360 Degrees

Colorbox Lime and Lilac ink

PTI Simply Chartreuse.ink

Corner rounder punch

Woven Paper Birthday Cards [PDCC #132]

Boy, it's been ages since I've woven paper for a project! I was inspired by the checks in my son's madras shorts and thought weaving would be an easy way to get those checks (these are the goofy things I think about when I'm driving the highways!)

Originally I planned to use patterned papers to mimic the shorts, but when I saw The Play Date Cafe challenge #132 to use a splash of mustard with black and white, I thought I'd work with that graphic combo instead:

At first I lined up all the strips right next to each other, but it was impossible to keep the strips going straight across. So I left a tiny space between each strip and it made the weaving so much easier. The ends are secured with Scotch tape in the back. So not glamorous.

The strips are in random order, so it was a surprise to see what the pattern was going to be. After paying attention, I saw that alternating colors on the top and side will make a stripe. The same color on the top and a different color on the side will make a check.

Instead of tossing the leftover strips I made another card. I like the first card with random strips better than this one. But always good to have a card you don't mind sending out in the mail : )

Thanks for looking!

Supplies Used:

PTI Mat Stack 1 Collection stamp

gems

Patterned Paper Birthday Cards [MIM #67, CQC #138]

Again, a fun challenge at Papertrey ... use at least 3 patterned papers on a card.

One challenge is to use patterned papers from the same pack. Already coordinated, nice! The "2" and "u" circles, and the punched border, are leftovers from last week's project that I haven't posted yet.

Then, you are challenged to use patterned papers from your scrap bin. Much more playing around with things for this challenge, not so easy when things aren't already picked for you! I always love making things from my leftover papers though. Seems like you often come away with something you totally wouldn't have thought of otherwise. This card has 5 pattern papers ... a record for me!

It also uses the colors for this week's ColorQ challenge:

Thanks for looking!

Supplies Used:

PTI leafy vine border die

PTI tag its #1

PTI circle die

PTI banner builder stamps

Kelly Panacci 360 Degrees

Martha Stewart border punch

Hole punch

Making Memories Just Chillin' cardstock (first card)

American Crafts Confetti (Lucy Lemon Twist), Peachy Kean (Easy Peasy), Letterbox (Reply) cardstock

Gems