Stampscapes -Happy Birthday

Today I am showcasing my son's birthday card. It's hard sometimes to come up with something that is more guy oriented and less cutesy. I opted to try using my stampscapes.

Basically I stamped the scene using Stazon black ink and then went back and used copic markers to give the trees some color and sponged on the rest of the inks for grass and sky. I added dots of gel pen to give highlights to the trees and also to give an idea of flowers.

It's not entirely a birthday feeling kind of card but he loves the outdoors so I thought it might be a nice change to something I normally would give him.

Happy Birthday! Confetti

Working on my bff's card I wanted something festive and a little bit pink. I decided to use my papertrey ink stamps, both the candles and the confetti dots along with the birthday sentiment are from Papertrey Ink.

 

The die is from My Favorite Stamps. Now I am off to finish my sons card. 

 

 

Laying an Egg

After playing with my watercolors using the distress crayons and being a little disappointed, I decided I would try another birthday card using my trusty Peerless water colors instead and was much more satisfied with the outcome.

The rooster stamp is from Art Impressions and the sentiment is from Rubbernecker stamps. The inside reads "They are both a pain in the rear, Happy Birthday anyways." This card is for my father in law who loves these humorous type f cards.

Now onto a card for my bff and also my son.

Batman Birthday

Well since my last card didn't work too well for my grandson I thought I would try something a bit more fitting. Remember me telling you I save everything, I really do. This is a negative from a die cut that I used for a Christmas card, I matted it on top of some black and white polka dot paper and decided to make it more comic themed. Used my silhouette to cut out the batman logo, then popped it on a circle punched die cut and all that was left was to make it look like the batman search light.

 

I searched my stash for a bit of vellum and then used that to give the search light effect. I added the sentiment but thought the card looked a little lack luster so I opted to die cut a bunch of stars and tiny dots (yes I know I am a nut) and got a little heavy handed gluing them all down but for a 6 yr old I am sure he will love all those glittery stars.

 

Now on to a birthday card for my father in law. 

 

Hope your birthday is unbelievable

I am back to February birthday cards and thought I would try using my Tim Holtz watercolor crayons. Honestly I am not too crazy about them when compared to more traditional watercolors.

I started this card for my grandson who will be 6 but thought it was looking a little too juvenile even for a 6 yr old. So it will be given to a little girl I know who will be one. That seems more fitting.

 

I used my watercolor brush that holds water to basically paint the stamped images and then die cut  and popped them up. The frame I had laying around and since I keep everything I was glad to put it to good use. I also added a bit of sheen with some perfect pearls and matted on to some pp.

 

Now on to a card for my grandson.

Valentine Gifts

So I have been Grammy Daycare and watching my grandsons while my daughter returns to work. They both go to school and being the pseudo mom with Valentine's Day coming up and my daughter with no time for much of anything because she is also going to school I volunteered to help her with the gifts for the teachers and aides in the classrooms as well as the Valentine's Day cards for the boys.

I wanted to do something somewhat inexpensive for the teachers and aides, but hopefully different from the typical gifts they receive during the year and thought a nice mug with some goodies inside might do the trick. I went to a few places but saw these mugs at Crate and Barrel. They were perfect. Score!

Then I ordered some assorted teas from Republic Tea company, visited Sees for heart shaped truffles and then my local grocery store for some Starbucks vias. I also plan to make some heart shaped sugar cubes to add to this little package.

The best thing about buying these mugs (7 altogether) was that Crate and Barrel packaged each mug in it's own box, gave me red gift bows and some tags. I took the black tags, cut off the one side that said Crate and Barrel and then altered the other side. I kept it pretty simple, a few punched scallop borders, piece of paper, a foam glittered heart that was left over from an art project that the boys did and a stamped sentiment. Simple but cute. I plan to wrap the entire mug with the goodies inside in a clear plastic gift wrap bag then use the bows to tie it close and add the tags at the top as well.

Lastly the boys Valentine's Cards. Or rather the new way of giving cards I suppose. I had a bunch of these little alien toys and my daughter had a bunch of dinosaurs so we put them to good use. The card toppers I designed in Adobe photo shop and since I already had something I use for my Sweet Kaboodle shop I basically changed it for Valentine's Day, just to keep it easy.

 

And the back side. 

First Feb Birthday Card

My first birthday card for February is for my oldest grandson who will be 17. I knew I couldn't just give him a cutesy card so time to think more masculine and go with something car related. I decided to use my Tim Holtz stamps and inks.

I basically started by stamping with some distress paints then used inks to color over and create the background color. I then stamped in distress inks and when I thought it looked good decided to use a few spritz of water. Big mistake it left big white splotches on my card. Ugh.

Well I tried to fix it by adding ink back on top but it just wasn't the same so what better way to hide it then stamping on top of it so I added more stamps then finished with a happy die cut which is raised with some clear foam, added the enamel dots and stars and birthday sentiment. I dug deep into my stash for some very old basic grey pattern paper to mat it on and voila a guy card.

Honestly I feel like it has way too much stamping but I didn't want to start completely all over to fix my water mistake so it is what it is and I am sure he'll love it just the same.

Love With All My Heart

This card believe it or not took a lot of stamping from a lot of different stamp sets to get my background border.  In some cases I just used one stamp once but all in all I must have used at least 7 different sets to get the effect I wanted.

 

After that I just needed to add my big ol honkin Love die and stamped sentiment and then finished it off with a couple of epoxy hearts.

 

Now I better get cracking on birthday cards because this month I have a ton of them to make and its already day one with one birthday today and I am behind as usual.