First Class Birthday

I am back from a fabulous holiday in beautiful Malta, on the Mediterranean Coast. It was warm, the food was fantastic, the company was awesome, and I'm left wondering if I want to move or not :) If you do go and see one thing, go see Comino - the waters are just unreal but prepare for a large amount of tourists! And this photo is just from my iPhone... so you can imagine photos do not do this place justice.

 Comino & Blue Lagoon - an island belonging to the Maltese Archipelago between the islands of Malta and Gozo in the Mediterranean Sea

My brother in law is a huge fan of planes... which means, I use a specific set: Horizons over and over again. I'm hoping to expand my collection of plane stamp sets eventually. However, this time I had accidentally double ordered a set for a customer of mine that included a first class fun tag - just perfect for the same flight theme.

Inspiration: http://stempelwiese.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/geburtstagskarte-stampin-up-rosette-sonnenblume-031012.jpg

I hauled out an old set of the Level 2 Assortment from Lucky to finish this off. After all, doesn't everyone dream of flying first class one day? I wanted to play a bit more with distressing, so I crumpled up some paper towel and went to town with Barn Red, Autumn Terracotta and Outdoor Denim.

On the inside, I used one of the borders that you can cut off the 12 x 12 patterns from Skylark. Some left over goodies from my workshops that went awesome!

Other:
* Cream Cardstock

CTMH:
* True To Life Stamp Set
* You Are My Happy Sentiments Set - retired Constant Campaign
* Card Chatter Birthday Set - retired
* Horizon Set - retired
* Dreams Come True - retired
* Skylark Level 2 Paper Pack
* Barn Red Ink
* Outdoor Denim Ink
* Autumn Terracotta Ink
* Goldrush Ink
* Lucky Level 2 Chipboard Assortment
* Designer Ribbon Blue Collection - retired
* Blue / Green Epoxy Adhesive Bubbles

Where did the heat go?

And the birthdays start again...

With both my brothers having birthdays in January I had to break out all my crafts again, even though they were all put away for the holidays.

However a swift inspiration kick in the back is always welcome and the new Spring/Summer catalogs arrived! They will debut Feb 1st but I will include one new catalog with any order in January.

My inspiration for today had to include planes, as my brother-in-law was once a pilot and still adores them : Mojo Monday : MOJO275

I thought I'd let the paper from Dreamin Level 2 (retired) carry the oomph of this card as it is so beautiful. However I was needing a distress tool and as it turns out, my foot file did the trick. Mind you I think I'll have to include the distress files in my next order. It exposes the white core that is at the center of all CTMH papers for a nice look.

I carried the paper and distressing through to the inside of the card and added a few flourishes, including distressing the middle panel's edges with Pacifica.

My Stash:
* Solid color cardstock
* Blue flower rhinestones

CTMH:
* Dreamin Level 2 Paper Pack
* Horizon
* Just A Number
* Love Life
* Olive Ink
* Pacifica Ink

Finally I should mention the stamp of the month for January - Happy Valentine's before it's too late - it's a beautiful set of roses that would work wonders on any layout or card.

This set is only 5$ with a minimum order of $50 CAD and don't forget about the latest promotion - a Valentine's Day kit for $10 with a minimum purchase of $35.00. 

Stay warm, it's cold outside!

Masculine colors...

My father in law is turning 60 this year, and his gift to himself is to fly all the siblings plus any significant others to Portugal from Denmark. So all we need to do is get to Denmark and he'll take care of the rest. Our tickets are bought; and just counting down the months before we go.

A 60th birthday deserves an awesome card! As I was doing my usual trolling of the forums last night I came across two inspirational items and a card was born. This is the first time I am entering in two challenges.

Inspiration: Heart 2 Heart's Photo Inspired Challenge & i{heart}2stamp's January 2012 SFYTT

I changed up the layout slightly from the SFYTT because I didn't feel like doing a circle but also because the inspiration from H2H includes tags! From the picture I took the theme of browns, yellows, and the leaf branch which is present in the large brown background patterned photo. Since the colors aren't "girly", they're masculine, in my opinion.

The funniest problem I have with putting so much on a card is that it flops over if I don't design the inside of the card and add some more 'weight' to it. So, I continued the leaf theme - those leaves are actually cut out of scraps from the front pattern of the paper, and I distressed the edge of the sentiment piece with Chocolate because it blended too much into the yellow otherwise.

Michaels etc:
* Solid Cardstock, Spice Market Collection
* Yellow dotted pattern - Creative Memories
* Ribbons
* Leaf pattern cardstock - Costco

CTMH:
* Limited Edition - September 2011 SOTM
* Horizon
* Bohemian Alphabet
* Card Chatter - Birthday
* Chocolate Ink
* Spring Iris Ink
* Olive Ink
* Honey Ink
* Opaques Adhesive Gems (Pearls), Mocha

I'm looking forward to Portugal and seeing my Danish family soon!

Brother birthdays back to back

My brother and I are born exactly six months apart, and my brother-in-law is the day after that for birthdays! I already have a card done up for my brother from a prior workshop, but I had to do one for my brother in law. Postal office, here I come again.

Today's inspiration was a card sketch from Got Sketch? that I got in my mailbox back in December. And I thought it was the perfect reason to use up paper from one of my retired Level 2 kits - Lucky.

Inspiration: Got Sketch? : Sketch 135 (card)

You can never go wrong with a few boy themed papers on your hands. My Cricut E2 cut the neat letters doily on Wonderland paper (brown with dots) and the blue doily with the grey background. It amazes me how intricate the E2 can really cut things.

To illustrate the versatility by simply turning the background paper over, I used the other side of it on the inside of the card. The print is similar but in this case it is in monotone color only.

And of course, the plane is because my brother in law absolutely adores planes; he used to be qualified to fly but hasn't in a few years. Maybe one day he'll take me up to the sky in a Cessna in the future.

Michaels:
* Blue cardstock from "Primary"
* Grey cardstock
* White embroidery floss

CTMH:
* Little Reminder : January 2012 Stamp of the Month
* Card Chatter - Birthday
* Horizon
* Lucky Level 2 Paper Pack
* Wonderland Level 2 Paper Pack
* Liquid Glass
* Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge
* Olive Ink
* Outdoor Denim Ink
* Grey Wool Ink

Stay warm, I hear it's gonna get cold this week!

You and Me Themed 2012 Calendar

This was a unique challenge for me. I wanted to stay solely with the colors that were in the You and Me Kit: Creme Brulee, Olive, Smoothie, Garden Green, and Chocolate which meant that I did not have free reign with colors like I normally have. However, I didn't mind; it was actually less stressful to work with four colors (I did not end up purchasing the Creme Brulee ink) and it came out looking fantastic.

As you can see I ended up using You and Me patterned cardstock for the front and back only. The rest of the inside pages were the brownish/cream colored cardstock from Michael's Spice Market cardstock and the quote pages were white cardstock that I distressed with chocolate ink.

Each of the stamped corners on both sides were done with the curly stamp from You and Me, three times per corner and then all squares were distressed with chocolate ink. I thought it would be lovely to have a little quotation on the back of each square. Each quotation is matched with some "pictures" of course, all second generation stamping. In the case of September and December, the months actually span over six weeks so I needed to do some masking in order to stretch the weeks.

I wish I could keep this calendar for myself as it came out looking so gorgeous but it is a present that I'm sure my Mom will love this year for Christmas. I am glad that this project is done - I can finally put all my stuff away properly :) but no shortage of stamp sets were used.

All in all this being my first time, I will definetly use the My Creations chipboard items again. Next time I will be using their triangle banner.

Michaels:
* Cardstock from 'Spice Market' set

CTMH:
* You and Me Kit
* Creme Brulee, Smoothie, Olive, Garden Green cardstock from Autumn set
* Bohemian Alphabet
* Classmate Alphabet
* Month By Month
* Enjoy Life
* Find Your Style - Jan 2011 Stamp of the Month
* Horizons
* Chairs To You - April 2011 Stamp of the Month
* Pair-A-Phrase - August Constant Campaign
* Angel Sent
* Sensational Season - March 2011 Stamp of the Month
* Wings Workshop kit stamp - retired
* Dreams Come True
* Baby Love
* Snowflakes
* Wonderful Friend - retired
* Olive Ink
* Chocolate Ink
* Garden Green Ink
* Sorbet Ink

More Father's Day...

... as it were we celebrated early, so a CM consultant and I decided to sit down and have a go at cardmaking/scrapbooking on actual Father's Day. I hadn't seen her in a long time, so it was a good greetup, and I actually finished two layouts of which one is featured below, and three cards. All Father's Day Themed, of course.

My old pace used to be 3 hours on one card, but let's say back then I was on a mission.

Could someone help me out? I know this layout is from the Originals book, but I cannot for the life of me remember it's name. This is the Cubes and Colors Layout from Originals.



I'm getting one year ahead of myself because I borrowed her Originals book and just had to try out a few layouts. And I had a quote in mind to use so I figured I'd just write it on. It looks really personalized that way.

Cardstock:
* Local craft stores

CTMH:
* Horizons (C1454)
* Cranberry Ink (Z2116)
* Garnet Ink (Z2121)
* Chocolate Ink (Z2111)

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