Happy Birthday

It has been a little while since my youngest son's birthday, so I can safely share the card I made for him using new colours and product from Stampin' Up!

They're not so new now, and you can go to my online shop to place your order (if you reside in Australia). Here is the link to my online store. You even earn the same hostess benefits there as you do when you spend $300 with me personally.
The card colour is Bermuda Bay, an In-colour from the time before I was a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and  reintroduced in the brights colour family. Its just beautiful!
The inks I used were Bermuda Bay, Smoky Slate, Midnight Muses and Basic Black.

I have used the lovely new stamp set Gorgeous Grunge on the front of the card and some of the Epic Day washi tape too.  The greeting is from Label Love and cut out with an Artisan Label Punch. I cut a window out of the card front with my 2½ inch circle punch and used 2 of the hot air balloons out of the now (retired) Up Up and Away stamp set and the greeting was also from the (retired) stamp set Word Play. At the time I needed the card, my new greeting stamps were in transit or I probably would have used the Live the life you've imagined from Really Good Greetings. Aaron is at a junction in his life, so to speak, finishing off his science degree with a year of research on site and in the laboratory, before he moves on to the "Real World".

Happy stamping!
Rachel

  

In the Direction for CCMC251

I'm always being asked for cards for men and boys, it seems to be a challenge for everyone to make something for the fellas in their lives. I haven't made this with anyone in particular in mind, so it will just go into my stash of cards, for now.

I've used two retiring stamp sets, Word Play for the greeting and Up Up and Away for the hot air balloon. (I'm going to miss both of those sets so badly!)

The other stamp set with the map of world and compass stamps is The Open Sea, which is sticking around, thank goodness! I've seen sneak peeks of a LARGE stamp, same size as Swallowtail,  which is a map too, looks great!

I used Basic Gray, Bravo Burgundy (retiring) and Gumball Green card, with the addition to those colours of some Crumb Cake and Garden Green in the inks. The Bravo Burgundy went through the Big Shot inside the Chevron folder for just a bit of texture, doesn't really show in the  first photo, might be better in the next one.

For inspiration, I went over to Create with Connie and Mary, and used this sketch.


Hope you've enjoyed dropping by, I've loved having you call in,
See you
Rachel

CCMC209 - The Open Sea and Word Play

I haven't had time for a challenge for a while, but this little sketch from Create with Connie and Mary appealed to me and I have been planning to use a greeting stamp for a special birthday card, so began with this sketch this afternoon.

I chose to use Baja Breeze, Not Quite Navy, Cherry Cobbler, Crumb Cake and Vanilla and began by stamping the map of the world from The Open Sea in Crumb Cake onto the Vanilla card. I then inked up the greeting from Word Play, using markers to pick out the different words in different colours. There are 12 great large greeting stamps in the Word Play stamp set, (Page 104) this greeting says " go confidently in the direction of your dreams" which is a great one for someone about to turn 30, who lives his life very energetically! I mounted the vanilla onto Crumb cake and then stamped the card base, and a scrap of cherry cobbler with the ledger stamp from The Open Sea, and used the splodges from French Foliage as well as the compass from The Open Sea on the strip of not quite navy. I have only notched one end of that strip. Now when I came to put it all together, I couldn't layer it exactly like the sketch, maybe I need to make the card a bit bigger! I took the liberty of staggering the layers so all were visible.

Sailors Knot

I think this knot is really called the Reef knot or Square knot, but when The Open Sea stamp set was released, I looked up on the internet how to tie knots. It looks so good with stamps from this set, especially the sailing ship, but I still have to sit with the diagram in front of me, following each step very carefully!

However, for this special birthday card, it is certainly worth the trouble, and I used the strip of cherry cobbler to emphasise it. Hope you like my card, there is still a short time left to play along too.

Cheers,

Rachel