Purple Gator

Every once in a while, I see a stamp that really appeals to me and I KNOW exactly how I want to use it. This alligator from Trinity Stamp Company is one of those stamps. It’s a 4 X 8 set called Oh, Snap and has so many possibilities. Me, I saw a Mardi Gras partying gator!

Purple, green, and gold are the main colors universally associated with Mardi Gras and I wanted to make him a little different than your typical alligator so I colored him purple with my Copic markers. (Aside here…I really wish that Copic could come up with more/better purple colors!) I had a picture in my head-sort of- of what I wanted the background to look like and although I played with distress oxide ink sprays and pads I just wasn’t satisfied with anything I came up with. I have a pretty healthy paper stash and am pretty sure I have some Mardi Gras paper but couldn’t find it. That’s okay because it made me have to go another route and I am SO happy with the end result.

As I was going to sleep the other night, I had an idea of how to make the background I saw in my head with my Gelli plate. Thank goodness I remembered that idea the next morning! So often those thoughts drift away with my dreams. I got my plate, some paint, and stencils out and went to town playing with combinations. I ended up with lots of cool prints I’ll be using in the future but as soon as I picked this one up, I knew it was the one! I used the Tim Holtz Harlequin stencil and gold paint for the design and then purple and green as the background. The inside sentiment was done on my computer and printed on card stock.

I’m not completely happy with the ‘beads’ (I may end up removing them!) and the gold crown sort of disappears into the background but overall, this card turned out pretty much as I had envisioned it. That really doesn’t happen very often for me so I’m very happy with this one!

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler

5, 6, 7, 8…Celebrate!

When I was a little girl, I took dance classes; ballet, tap, and jazz. I loved it although I was never very good at it. Tap and jazz were more my thing than ballet was but I think it was because I liked the music better. However, I have no rhythm and struggled with the dances. My last class was when I was about 12 years old.

Last year, for their one of their Stamptember stamps, Simon Says Stamps collaborated with Colorado Craft Company and had this stamp set. I LOVED it immediately and had to have it. This was my first exposure to CCC and oh.my.word. I’ve loved everything they’ve put out since. Actually, I love everything of theirs before and after I discovered them.

As is the case with more stamps than I’d like to admit, this one sat on my shelf until the other day when I was looking for something to make a birthday card for one of my besties. Like me, she took dance classes as a kid but she stayed with it a lot longer than I did. In fact, she was taking tap lessons just last year (I was so jealous, I think this would be SO much fun!). Anyway, when I saw this set, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

I stamped just the dancer on the left…the tap dancer… and colored her up. I fussy cut her so that I could put her on the black and white harlequin background from Amuse Studios. And let me tell you, if you knew my friend, you’d know that this background is perfect for her. I wanted to bring the pink of the tutu skirt out so I decided to use a pink card base and stamp the sentiment on pink as well. This pink card stock is a little smooth with a bit of texture so I did emboss the sentiment to make sure it wasn’t going to smear. I cut it with a die I like (I don’t know the brand or even where I got it). I used foam tape as my adhesive for the dancer and scor tape for the sentiment. On the inside it says “Celebrate”.

I think she’ll like her card this year and although she’s celebrating a ‘mature’ birthday, I think this card and this whole set would be perfect for dancers of all ages!

When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor, it’s to enjoy each step along the way…Wayne Dyer

Candles and Rhinestones

One of my favorite types of cards to make are birthday cards. They are happy cards because a birthday is a happy occasion. They can be silly or serious, funny or snarky, and they are usually colorful and bright.

A dear friend had a birthday a few weeks ago and I was dying to use this flamingo image I had gotten from Angie Blom Digital Designs. I love her stuff! I was so excited when she branched out and started her own website with her digital designs last year. Anyway, she has this fun and funky set of flamingos and I needed something to put them on. Or at least one of them. My friend is a beachy kind of person so I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to use the flamingos.  I ended up just using one of the three flamingos but she was so much fun to color. I used my Copic Markers to color her up and then fussy cut her out.  And those glasses she’s wearing? They were screaming for some rhinestones so I obliged by gluing some tiny little ones on.

Now, my friend that I was making this card for is only a few years older than me but she wears her years well and I knew she wouldn’t mind a little poke about how many candles she had on her cake. I was able to pull it off with this cake and sentiment from Unity Stamps. I use these a lot because it’s perfect for someone that has more than a few candles on their cake!  I stamped it up and colored it with my copics and cut it out. I cut the sentiment with a stitched die.

For the background, I took some pink paper the same color as the card base and used a stencil and distress ink to give it a little texture. I used a stitched slimline die from Trinity Stamps to cut the background. The brown dotted paper was from my stash and made a perfect mat for the pink paper. I put it together to make this slimline card and was pretty happy with the result. So was my friend…she and I had a good laugh over it as we ate her birthday blueberry pie!

“Don’t just count your years, make your years count.” George Meredith