It was recently a male relatives Birthday, and pretty much like most ‘made by hand’ card makers, I don’t like making cards for men. They all seem so twee or predictable – so … ‘forgive me Crafter for I have sinned’ … I will normally buy the men in my life a card for their birthday. And … this is the story of how this card came to be.
I knew I’d bought a card for this particular relatives Birthday.
Mr. Cobs knew I’d bought a card for this particular relatives Birthday.
Could I find said card?
Not on your nelly! (I have no idea where that saying came from – but it’s most definitely a saying here in the UK, and has been since dirt was invented. It means: ‘Not on your life’!).
So, with very little time left before a card had to be delivered by hand, I got my thinking cap on and came up with a card which, I have to admit, looks better in real life than in the photo. But … and this is the important bit … it practically made itself.
It began with a cut and scored white card. I chose the cafe latte coloured, striped with cream stripes card for the top part of the card, and the rich chocolate-brown Happy Birthday card, in different font styles for the bottom. (You can buy both these cards in a huge variety of different colours – so check out the options if you visit the website). Both of these cards are from the Anna Marie Designs range.
I cut these different cards to size, then layered them onto some black card stock, then fixed them to the white card.
Then cut the tag from some white card stock, using a Tattered Lace Peach Sorbet Torn Edge Tags die. I don’t think Tattered Lace make these anymore, but I’ve had a look round and found some on Amazonhere.
The ‘Birthday Wishes’ was stamped using a stamp from the Wishes and Vines by Silhouette Stamps. I’ve had these stamps for a while, but you can still buy them in one or two places, both in the US an in the UK – so ask Google to be your friend and I’m sure he’ll help.
I stamped and then layered the tag onto some black card, which I then carefully cut around, attempting to match the wiggly outside of the tag itself.
Then I added a ribbon made from some wide silk ribbon in my stash and …. That’s all there was to it!
I would have posted this a couple of days ago … but I couldn’t find the place I’d saved it to on my computer! {sigh} … It would seem that Birthdays are going to be a nightmare when card giving this year. First Birthday of the new year and I’m already ‘fudging it up’!
I know I don’t normally do Jokes on any day but Friday … but I heard this one and I need to share it with you ….
Why did the cow cross the road? – It wanted to go to the mooovies.
Yup … still finding it funny and still laughing out loud. lol
Have a really great rest of your day, and thank you so much for coming and having a coffee with me!
Sending you lots of squidges in a huuuuge bucket ~
Making ANYTHING for Mr. Cobs has always been a logistical nightmare. He’s got a sixth sense when something is going on which relates to him. A cake. A meal. A gift. A plan. A surprise, etc etc. But making a card for him probably the worst because he pops in and out of the Craft Room all the time. He comes to bring me a surprise ice cream from the ice cream man. To bring me a coffee. To collect empty coffee cups. To look for the dog, or one of our cats. He’ll come bearing any packages which might have arrived for me, or even to tell me something funny which he’s read in the newspaper, heard on the radio, seen, or thought of.
I love him dropping in. Except.. when I’m trying to make him a card. I rarely make cards for him as I find it just too difficult to work on one in secret. But I managed this time, Yay!
In my panic about him creeping up behind me, (always a nightmare at anytime) I forgot to take photographs of each step, but I did remember at around the ‘quarter into it’ mark, so at least have one ‘in the middle making photo’ to share :
It’s meant to represent his shed. A total mess, and no rhyme or reason to it … but he seems to know what’s there, and I guess that’s all that matters. (Doesn’t stop me from wanting to get in there and label everything and put them all in some sort of understandable order though! lol).
Anyhoo …
The card was made using Card-io Stamps, – and the notes saying ‘Happy Birthday’ were made on the computer (I wanted to use a particular font, in the right size – so stamps wouldn’t do it … but stamps could be used), liquid pearls (for the drips of paint and the paint drips on the pots) and Anita’s 3D Clear Gloss. The stamp pads I used were by Memento and Papermania, dye ink pads.
Each of the little pinned notes were first curled up a little at the bottom, then glued to the card front. The two different types of bulldog clips were then stamped into place – in oder to ‘anchor’ the notes to the wriggly (hand drawn) string which stretches across the card – again these bulldog clips are Card-io Stamps. And the cupboard (with opening doors!) was again made using Cardio Stamps, and a bit of careful cutting with a scalpel and metal rule.
And that’s all there was to it!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR. COBS! (erm …. how old will you be next year, sweetheart? [snigger])
Yesterday we went through the Rules (there aren’t any) and Guidelines for getting better images when stamping. We learned the importance of a mouse mat. We stamped the same image a few times. We stamped it in different colours too and saw what a difference that made to the end result stamped image. We chatted about stamping an image in different colours all at once. And we did a bit of colouring of images once they’d been stamped, using a rainbow selection of coloured stamped pads.
Today we’re going to move on to something a bit more fearful. Sorry. I meant to say …Fearfully Easy. An impressive bit of stamp magic which, if you don’t know about these types of stamps yet, you’ll be surprised about.
A blog I follow (PaperPuff ) summed up these particular stamps beautifully when she herself tried them for the first time a few weeks ago. She called them the stamps of the Three ‘Oh’s. smiling to myself here because I knew what she was talking about and she’s right. They really are Three Oh’s. You’ll see why … Shall we begin? Seatbelts on… handbags on the floor …. Let’s go!
These are Altenew Stamps. I’ve blogged about them before, but this time I’m talking about them because I think anyone who’s having a problem with their stamping should absolutely have this set (or one of their other sets) in their ‘armoury’.
There are a couple of brands of stamps which allow me to put together a ‘story’, in stamped images, in different ways. Even if I use the exact same stamps over and over, I can actually still make one-off cards – each of them totally different from the last.
These two brands are:
Card-io Stamps– which I adore, these are available direct from Card-io themselves, (their name is a clickable link which will open in a new window) ...
and . . . the fairly recently introduced into this country: Altenew Stamps. You can now buy quite a selection of the Altenew Stamps from various places which you can find on the web. Google ‘Altenew’ and it will give you suppliers. (I use ‘My Mums Craft Shop’ and have had only great service from them – but shop around. You may find a supplier close to where you live.).
For this ‘play around’, I’m going to use the Altenew Stamps, Vintage Rose collection,shown in the last photograph.
Some of the Altenew stamps come in big sets,like the set in the photo above, but within that set is a collection of smaller ‘groups’. In this set, each group makes one rose for you, in different shapes and sizes, and there also different sets of leaves, again, different shapes and sizes.
In this photo I’ve tried to show you how I pick out each group that I’m going to use, and I pop them down in their group (in lines – top row is the large rose, middle row is the medium rose & bottom row is the small stamp) so that I don’t have to keep peeling them off the carrier sheet.
I’ve chosen to stamp a larger rose. The particular stamped image I’m going to stamp has 3 different stamps just to make one rose. In some ‘groups’ of the larger set, there may be 4 stamps to make just one image. Keep reading, it’s not as difficult or as scary as it sounds…. 🙂
One Stamp. One pale yellow colour stamp pad. The combination of which gives us . . . a frankly underwhelming image. . . . . . ‘Oh’ – number one!
You stamp the palest colour first. The paler colour of the roses tones. I’ve chosen the Yellow set of cubes from the Altenew Pads here – but if you have a selection of tones in the same colour way eg: four different shades of red/pink, or blue, or green etc etc, then you don’t have to buy the stamp pads just to use the stamps.
Then, using the second rose stamp in the group and the next colour,which is slightly darker than the first pale colour. . . . ‘Ohh!’ – number 2.
As I mentioned above – In some sizes of roses there will be three stamps, in others there will be four. (Hence the reason that the Altenew mini cubes come in sets of four).
Mmmm.. what’s happened here then?? (I hear you ask)… well, I want to show you OH! number three, but I wanted to make sure that it impresses you in such a way that you really do ‘get it’. I’ve covered up the finished Large and Medium sized roses which I’ve already completed, and this last rose, the small one, is at that ‘second stamp’ stage …That small rose has now had its 3rd colour from the stamp pads, but you can’t really see what I’m trying to show you about how these stamps will make you look like the Stamping Expert of the Year. Let’s continue and see where this goes …This time I’ve covered up all three roses. But … I’ve added some leaves on vines.
If you’re going to ‘build’ a picture with these stamps – in this case a rose, – you have to start with what’s in the foreground and then follow it up with whats in the background. But in order to do this you complete each section at a time, but then cover up that section so that you don’t stamp over it and spoil what you’ve done. As you can see in the photograph above, as I’m stamping the leaves and vines, some of the leaf/vine stamp is actually stamping onto the ‘covers’, – so, imagine the mess they would be making on the roses if I hadn’t covered up the work I’d already done. (If this sounds complicated, don’t fret. It’s honestly not … as you’ll see …..)….
Now the leaves in the photograph are fine and groovy, but … they don’t have any shadows, or veins to the leaves….. so let’s pop some in.
I’ve stamped in the veins and shadows … but I’ve purposely ‘missed’ the right places on the leaves by just ‘off center’ with the stamp. This ‘miss’ is a prolem that can happen to all of us at some time, so don’t beat yourself up or trash what you’ve worked hard on. It’s not the end of the world. Like I showed you yesterday, in part one of this guide, you can ‘paint’ with your stamp pads! So this can be put right really quite easily. Stamp the ink pad on your glass mat (or plate, saucer etc) and then dip your paint brush into a little water, but take off as much of the water as possible but leaving the bristles damp enough to ‘mix’ into the inky blob and then ‘smudge’ & paint the already (miss)stamped bit. Then simply ‘paint’ the veins of the leaves just a little ….. practise this a little on scap card. You’ll soon get the hang of it.No gaps between leaves and veins now. So … are you ready to look at the roses? . . .The third ‘Ohhh!’ . . . You can see how masking off the roses means that the vines and leaves don’t make a mess of the images you’ve already stamped.
So .. let’s stamp the other corner of the card in the same way …
I’ve stamped a group of 4 roses in the bottom left corner, so that you can see that even though two of the roses are the same, they look different because the stamped images have all been turned around and stamped differently. and the leaves are all different – even though they’re the same!Shall we make a sentiment for this card?In this photo I’ve stamped that same word in three differently places. The top image I stamped on my glass mat. The middle image I stamped on my desk top. (That’s not the light giving that effect … that’s a missing part of the image. And finally … the bottom ‘Amazing’ was stamped using the mouse mat, copy paper and then card sandwich. You can see that the mouse mat really does make a difference.If you don’t have a sentiment which says what you want to say, simply bring in other stamps, stamp them on scrap card and then use them together.
I’ve cut out the stamped sentiments then mounted them on some narrow foam tape and place them on the card. The foam tape gives a little dimension to the card.
I’ve taken three photographs of this finished card, in different lights, so that you can get a reasonable idea of the brightness of the stamped colours which the stamp pads provide.
Lights full on, so that it’s heaps brighter.Some bunnies wanted to say bye-bye!
These stamps really are easy to use, and I highly recommend them – for new stampers and stampers who have been stamping for years. They really are such a great addition to your stamps.
Phew ... well that’s where we end on our hints and tips Guide to Stamping. If there is anything I haven’t mentioned that you hoped I would, then please tell me in a comment and I’ll do my very best to help. I’m not an expert. I’m a crafter, like you, and these are things that I’ve found work for me, and after a plea asking for some help, I made this ‘Guide’ to help a fabulous lady, Mrs. P, but I’m also hoping that it might help someone else along the way too.
Thank you so much for visiting and having a coffee with me. I love your company, as you know, and the fact that you visit really does mean the world to me. So thank you for coming.
May your Tuesday be filled with love and smiles. Sending crafty hugs and oodles of l ❤ve ~ till next time …
I rarely make Christmas cards. You can buy a box of Christmas cards so cheaply that it kind of feels like it’s a bit wasteful to spend lots of money (not to mention time) to make them myself. We crafters know exactly how much it actually costs for our supplies – and believe me it’s not cheap!
But this year I thought that I could justify making them as I had a plethora of card stock, and I if I used my Card-io stamps then I could make them really cheaply, with very little in the way of adornments or embellishments.(Watch out for more about Cardio stamps soon. I’m going to do a write-up in my ‘Craft Products I recommend’ category on my blog here – so look out for that one.) Over the next few days I’ll post a card a day of a selection of the Card-io cards which I’ve made for friends and neighbours this year.
Today is the turn of the Christmas Wreath Card.
Pretty, isn’t it! And yet it’s made SO simply that you probably wouldn’t believe it. Made using just four tiny little clear stamps. The only embellishments on this card are some pale pink flat back pearls (used as little berries on the wreath), and a tie of a tiny bit of ribbon for the bow on the top of the wreath – oh, and a little sprinkle of some glitter.
I know that in the photograph the wreath looks as if it has quite some depth – but it’s actually totally flat, apart from the pale pink pearls. The clever bit is in the stamping. If you use a second and sometimes third generation of stamping then you’ll ‘build in’ some depth. If you look around the edge of the card itself, you’ll see what I mean by ‘second generation’.
second generation stamping
You can see a dark stamped image … but between the darker images, you’ll see a second, paler image. Well – that’s second generation stamping. I stamped the image once, then without inking up the stamp again, I stamped the image again – this time pressing just a little harder on the stamp to ensure that the image printed out. This is what gives a depth to a stamped image. It looks like something is there, in the background.
Because the wreath is a little more heavily stamped, you don’t see the second generation stamping too easily – but it’s there. It kind of tricks your brain into thinking that what you’re seeing is actually a shadow of the darker stamped image, and so makes the darker images look as if they’re dimensional and stand out proud of the card. Hence the deception of depth.
Crafty stuff I used to make this card:
White 6×6 ready scored card stock.
An assortment (4) of small individual Card-io stamps
Whisper Archival Ink Pads (a pinky peachy raspberry colour and a dull brown)
Memento Ink Pad (in a warm brown)
Ranger Archival Ink Pad (black)
Pinflair Glue
Translucent Glitter Dust
Anita’s flat back pearls from their Gemstone Wheel.
Short length of tartan/plaid ribbon.
This was a really quick to make card and it didn’t need any die cutting, measuring, cutting (other than the ribbon) or any great deal of ‘working it out’. I knew I wanted to make a wreath. I knew I wanted it to look festive but in colours other than red and green (so over-used at Christmas!) – and I wanted the edges of the card to be coloured to tone with the wreath.
I had such a fun time making this … but then … I was using Card-io stamps, and I always have a fun craft time with them. ButI’ll do you a write-up about them and then you can make your own decision on whether to buy some for yourself!
Wishing you a blessed and trouble-free Tuesday, love from ~
The Art of Cobwebs 