Friday, April 11, 2008

Right up my alley

Today's SCS limited supply challenge was perfect for me: to make your own designer paper. This is actually something I do all the time, but I always love doing it so I was happy to play. I made two cards and each used a different kind of handmade DP, both being ideas I hadn't played around with before.

Here is the first card I made, another Mother's Day card. The stamp set featured here is Live Your Dream from the current mini catalog - I just love this set and I hope it makes it into the next big catalog! I first stamped the Weathered background in river rock on vanilla cardstock, then stamped the small flower image repeatedly in river rock and second-generation not quite navy. It seemed like it still needed something to fill in the holes so I added a few second-generation stamps in river rock anywhere a blank space was bothering me. The edges were sponged with river rock, and then I added the river rock ribbon and mounted onto a not quite navy panel.

The small panel is also stamped over the weathered background. I inked the stamp in river rock and then wiped away what ink I could from the petals and colored over with not quite navy marker. I cut it out and sponged the edges with more river rock. I laid it all out and couldn't figure out where a sentiment would go, and then I remembered the handwriting LSC Jen gave us a few weeks ago. I wrote "mom" over the top of the panel with the writing end of the marker, then mounted with dimensionals and stamped "Happy Mother's Day" on the inside.

I did something very different for my second card, which is for Father's Day. I took the journaling stamp from the Live Your Dream set and made a pinstripe background using my Stamp-a-ma-Jig. What a great little tool! I can't believe I ever tried to stamp without one. The ink is chocolate chip and I used kraft cardstock just to add a little more visual interest.

The panel I ended up with was square, so I decided to make this a square card. It's not something I do too often, but I think it really worked well here. The vanilla card is 5 1/4" square, the chocolate chip layer is 5 1/8" square, and the striped panel is 5" square. I used my ticket corner punch for the corners.

For the image panel, I first cut four 2 1/4" squares of vanilla cardstock. I took the outline stamp from Wonderful You and stamped in chocolate chip on three of the squares, and then used the solid stamp on the fourth square. I mounted them onto a chocolate chip scrap and then eyeballed it to trim it down, so I guess the size of this square is about 4.5". Before I adhered the vanilla squares I used the ticket corner punch on each outside corner and did the same to the chocolate chip layer.

The sentiment was the final touch. This stamp is from Memory Box; I wanted something small that wouldn't take away from the images. It's stamped in chocolate chip on vanilla, cut out, and layered onto more chocolate chip. I only corner punched the vanilla panel this time so that I could add vintage brads in the corner of the chocolate chip rectangle. I mounted it on dimensionals and that was that!

I think both of these cards took about 30 minutes to do. Just goes to show that you don't have to spend hours and hours to get a card that you really like!

1 comment:

jjcreations said...

I like both of these cards. I hadn't really paid much attention to the set you used in your Father's Day card, but I've seen it a couple of times lately and am beginning to like it. Joan