Clothing Tag Inspired Card

Have you ever been inspired to create a card by something you've seen, even though it wasn't a card? I bet you have...I admit, I've taken surreptitious photos of things like the shirt on the lady sitting in front of me in church so I could recreate it later on a card. For this one, there was a black tag on my son's jeans and it had clear embossed tire tracks on it. This was four years ago! I know because I posted that card here.

I was going through my saved scraps of techniques (watercolored panels, heat embossed sentiments, etc) I've made and found this black paper heat embossed with clear powder and a Hero Arts flourish stamp. I love this old stamp and need to employ it some more.I layered the saved scrap embossed piece with papers to make this card.

I added a strip of gold paper to match the gold embossed sentiment from Papertrey Ink. I really love the clear embossing on black paper...it's pretty classy looking. You can see this post where I first tried it out.

Gearing up for the Coffee Loving Papercrafters' Blog Hop upcoming on Friday...hope you get a chance to join in to try to win prizes! 

Happy Monday!

Chark

Hero Arts Notes and Dates Digi Duel

I'm up on the a2z Scrapbooking blog today dueling it out with team member, Arlene. Each month on the 11th, two team members use the same digi set to make cards. You can head here to see the full post, but here's how I made my card.

I layered a bunch of the digi stamps in CorelDraw to start but I ended up with just two layered here and then I added a sentiment from the digi set Chalkboard Frames and Messages and ran the arrow through the letters. I added a ton (maybe too many?!) Nuvo Drops for accents. And I added glitter stars from my stash because, yes, I like my glitter AND because I smeared one of the drops :) I tried to use the Mono Sandpaper Eraser, but it didn't get rid of all of it. So, I covered it up! 

Then I liked how the edge looked white-ish from the eraser, so I ran it along the edges to get that look around the card. You could use white ink to do this too. Think I'll send this to my adult nephew.

That's it! Hope you'll check out the May challenge over at a2z and join in for a chance to win!

Happy Friday!
Chark

Happy Birthday in Classic Colors

I made a couple of birthday cards using the same Memory Box Happy Birthday dies and the same background paper and kraft cards. I used the negative and the positive of the die cuts and embossed one of the cards with a We R Memory Keepers geometric embossing folder.

I don't remember where the paper came from, but I believe it was a Christmas pack...I thought the colors were more classic than Christmas...very appropriate for a masculine card. I decided to go with no sparkle or bling, which was difficult for me! But there are some thin gold lines on the paper, so I had to be satisfied with that.

I plugged the center of the a, p and y back into the die for placement and then moved the die to the other card and glued the bits down...it just makes it a little easier to read. 

I love the dimension of these We R Memory Keepers embossing folders...they are so fun to emboss and deboss on different papers...they look yummy on metallic paper.

I've been using my Big Shot a lot lately because I found a great deal on some dies, so you'll be seeing more die cutting projects in the future from me!

And since today is a big day in science..being the solar eclipse and all...I thought I'd better acknowledge it with a couple things. First, Galaxy Donuts...yum! Here's my pin and the link. 

Second, here are some crafty outerspace ideas for cards that can be found here at Lawn Fawn...love how many ways there are to make a sky in this post!

This is a photo taken by Susan Klenk of the eclipse here in Dayton, Ohio. 

Happy Solar Eclipse Monday!
Chark

Celebrating An Anniversary

Hard for me to believe, by my hubby and I have been married 27 years as of June 16th. That's crazy! Sure we were just 22 but still, I imagined when we'd celebrate 25 years and it seemed so far in the future. 

Is there anyone who isn't surprised some days by their age? I remember my mom and her brothers all sitting around our kitchen table, laughing and talking and they seemed like they were teenagers and their ages were 55-78. That kinda cracked me up as a teen myself.

Ah well, I guess the good news is that we're still here counting those years, am I right?! Here's the card I made for him for our anniversary. I used Lawn Fawn heart dies to cut out of maroon glitter paper, then backed it with text paper. The Forever die is an old one but here's a similar one from Echo Park and it's cut from blue foil cardstock. The last touch was black and gold washi tape to make it more masculine. I received a beautiful card myself, but didn't take a picture, but it did have glitter on it!

Oh, and today I'm up on the a2z Scrapbooking blog with a gift bag I made with the gorgeous Large Hydrangea stamp and a digi butterfly. Here's a peek. Head over and say Hi! if you get a chance.

Don't forget, if you fill your cart at a2z Scrapbooking with $25 or more in stuff, you can use Chark15 to get a 15% discount! 

Happy Weekend!

Chark

Belated Birthday Wishes

I know it'll surprise you, but I have some belated cards to send out. Now, do I not own a calendar? I do. Do we not keep the birthdays listed for each month? We do. Do I not make the cards I send out? Why, yes, I do. Then how, do you suppose, can I never get them out on time?!

Here are a couple I have to send TOMORROW for April birthdays. Yikes. And my sister is having a birthday tomorrow and her card still needs to be written in and mailed. I am perhaps slow, but I am sincere. That phrase should be a stamp!

This card uses great map paper from a 6x6 pad...I'll have to look for that to add it here. The greeting is heat embossed in gold on clear embossed black paper. I used a swirl and clear powder. It makes the greeting a little rougher looking than normal, but I like the texture. I added two strips of washi and rounded the card corner.

This card uses a journaling card and the matte adhesive dots from Doodlebug Design, I'm loving these matte dots. There were already colored dots on the paper notes, but a little dimension never hurt anyone.

That's it for today. Stay tuned for further belated birthday cards, including my sister's. :)

Happy Monday!

Chark

The Good and The Bad

So I was fooling around with the new Birthday Message sentiment stamps from Hero Arts and ended up making a good card and a bad card. Okay, it's  not bad, but I don't like it at all. I guess I could send it to someone I don't really like, but really, why would I send them a birthday card in the first place? Ha!

Here's the stamp set.

And here's the bad card. I stamped a bunch of the sentiments on a card in three different inks to get an ombre look. That was fine. Then I cut them apart so the Happy Birthday message was separate...also fine. The part that seemed to mess things up for me was the sequin part.

I love my bling, as you can tell from my blog title, but this just seems eww. I think if I'd just used thin strips of paper or tape (silver maybe?) on either side of the Happy Birthday that might've worked. But the sequins just didn't. It didn't look right with just a couple sequins, so I added more and that didn't help. What?! In what universe does adding more sequins not make things better?!! You can see the ombre inking here better. I used the Summer Sky, Navy and Deep Ocean Hero Arts inks.

Luckily, I was stamping my little heart out, so I ended up with a couple of cards that did work. Whew!

Here's one, using the sentiment stamps and white Unicorn Ink from Hero Arts. I stamped the Happy work on the background just once, so it would fade a little into the cardstock and then stamped it three times on the black so it would stand out more. I think this one would be a good masculine card, and those can be tricky, depending on your recipient.

The other two cards will be up on the a2z Scrapbooking blog Tuesday and Wednesday if you wanna peek at them. They would work for men or women too.

Have a fab weekend, friends! I'll be celebrating my last birthday in my 40s!! Ack, when did that happen?!

Happy Friday,

Chark

Hello, Friday!

Here's another card I created using the Hello Die from Papertrey Ink, along with their matching Hello Stamps and a Hero Arts stencil called Arrows. It's a great stencil for a lot of different styles. I like it in clear embossing powder on black cardstock for masculine cards. I thought this one might be a good "missing you" card.

I used gold paper and regular white and black cardstock for the layers and then stamped the hello in Versamark and embossed in gold embossing powder. Then I die cut with the matching die and added heart epoxy stickers from Doodlebug Design. The stamp is textured, which makes the word very cool-looking imo.

Hope you're having a great day and checking out the Black Friday sale over at a2z Scrapbooking Supplies! There's a cyber deal of 20% your order of $25 or more. Woot! 

And there's a fun Scavenger Hunt for this weekend too! Check out the post at a2z and enter to win! If I weren't on the Design Team, you know I'd be there entering for the $25 gift certificate! 

Happy Friday,

Chark