XCth Birthday

Ahhhh!!  A nice long weekend to sit back and relax!

Ok.  So the sitting back and relaxing is more of fantasy than reality this weekend, but, you can't blame a gal for dreaming!!

One of the events on the schedule for this weekend was the 90th birthday party for a long time client of the Toad.  This gentleman has just been giddy with the wish that his grandson and The Oldest Kiddo meet at this party as they share the same first name and both play basketball.

Reality was the boys met, shook hands, posed for a picture and that was about it.  The Oldest Kiddo actually ended up hanging out with another young man his age who has taken to the birthday gentleman and helps him with yard and home projects.

It worked out, not as the birthday gentleman might have imagined, but, it was good.

The Toad requested a birthday card for this gentleman, as that is supposedly what I do.  Make cards.

Did you know that making a milestone event card for someone you have never met personally is really rather difficult?!  The Toad's helpful insight was, "he was a principal for many, many years and used to play a lot of tennis".

OoooKaaaay!!  No problem!

When I get really stumped for card ideas, I usually head to SCS, click on the gallery link and then do a search for the theme of card I am mulling over and see what comes up.

BINGO!  I hit the jackpot with this particular search as I found the perfect vintage image for my project!  The image is a digital image from McMahon 5 Designs.  

I re-sized the image and altered it with a sepia tone in PSE.  Light sponging was done with Distress Brushed Corduroy.  The image was matted onto BoBunny's Time Piece collection, and then again, on the Roman Numeral design paper from the same line.  This was adhered to a base of Gina K's Pure Luxury Ivory, cut to 5 1/4" square.

The sentiment panel was cut and embossed using Spellbinder's Classic Circle dies.  While the paper was still in the die, light sponging was again done with Distress Ink in Brushed Corduroy.  I masked the retired Stampin'  Up sentiment, so that I could border the old scrapbook stickers I pulled from my stash that states what special birthday is being celebrated.  The sentiment was adhered using dimensionals.

Being true to my status of Queen of Procrastination, I was trying to snap off a quick picture before having to walk out the door!!  LOL!  

Now, I just need to find some inspiration for a birthday card for the Oldest Kiddo.  Vintage guitars?!  

'Till next time...............

Hitting It Out of the Ball Park

Hey Peoples!! Are you ready for another week?!  How in the heck did we get to APRIL?!! I swear life is zooming past me over 90mph!  I'm to the point of just hoping to catch the draft and keep life in site!!

Saturday night the Oldest Kiddo received a text from a friend asking him if he could come to a BBQ celebrating his friend's 13th birthday.

Did I mention that the text came at 9:00pm?!

Did I also mention that the BBQ was for the following day at noon?!

You would think that by now I would have a stash of cards ready to go for such situations.  Guess what?!  I don't.  And in all likely, I never will. 

But!  Once again, I pulled it off and got the card done.  Do you think that Stamper's have creative lives?  I wonder if you get another 1/2 life for passing the test of having to make "That's cool" cards for your kid's friends on very short notice?  'Cause at this rate, I'm going to need all the extra lives I can get.  I think I'm pushing the limits on the regular creative lives!!

The Kiddo's buddy is a baseball player.  And a BIG boy.  I found this image at Bonibleaux Digital Designs.  PERFECT for the birthday slugger!

I resized and printed the image on Georgia Pacific #110 paper.  Have I ever mentioned how it destroys me that my printer refuses to accept my absolute favorite paper Pure Luxury?!  After coloring the image with my Copics, I used one of the Spellbinder Classic Diamonds to trace the frame behind the slugger.  Light sponging was done with Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass.  The image was then mounted on SU's Real Red.  The base is Pure Luxury 120#.

The Inside:

Just ignore my thumb in the picture.  I could NOT get the card to stay upright after I flipped the front over.  Have you ever tried to take a picture in focus while trying to hold something?  I lack those particular photography skills. 



For the inside, I printed the sentiment on my computer, leaving space for the number stickers. I die cut the baseball with Spellbinders Classic Circles. I used the direct to paper technique with Distress Ink in Antique Linen to "age" the ball.  Light shading along one edge was done with the ink that was left on my Vintage Photo sponge dauber.  I used a small Classic Oval to trace the shape of  the stitching line with SU's Creamy Caramel marker.  Real Red was used for the "stitching".  The number stickers were from my stash of scrapbooking goodies from a life time ago. 

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I'm down to the ninth inning, with bases loaded for the next E-Team installment of the Distress Series. Hold on to your hats, People!!  Mojo is throwing a temper tantrum and the clock is ticking!!  I'm hoping to see you again tomorrow for the final pitch and the game outcome!!

MISTER Old Fart

Hey Peoples!! It's a dreary, rainy Monday here.  The moisture is desperately needed, so I won't complain (too much).

Thought I'd share the last of the cards I made for all the birthday's that we celebrated while in Solvang over the weekend. I'll share about the trip in another post.  Like I mentioned before, most of our friends and family tend to look at life from a snarky (but fun!) point of view.  Once again Bugaboo Digi's came to my rescue.  Here is my Old Fart for an old Fart!

Pretty self explanatory.   Sized and printed the Old Fart onto Georgia Pacific 110# and colored with my Copic Ciaos.  My printer liked this paper better, but I have to say, I much rather use Gina K's Pure Luxury.  What a difference!  This paper bleeds with copics, so it wouldn't do for a one layer card.  The texture is not as smooth (or luxurious, hehe) as the Pure Luxury.  BUT!! It did the job. 

The image was matted onto SU's Night of Navy.  The design paper is from Making Memories Just Chillin' pack.  Another mat layer of Night of Navy.  Base is a 5 1/2" square made of SU's Kraft (now called Crumb Cake, I believe).  The buttons are from Basic Grey's Granola line (I think.  I have had them in my stash forever).  They look much darker in this late night photo than in real life.  I added some hemp twine and adhered them with glue dots. 

The inside: 

Hate to cut this short, but I need to get my rear in gear and get ready for work!!  Thanks for stopping by again today!!  Remember~~make time for creativity.  It makes the world go round!!  Till next time......

Birthday, Shmirthday

WoooHooo!! This is card number 2 of the three needed by this weekend!!  I'm on a roll!!

I decided to show my true colors on this card and go with a snarky attitude.  Unfortunately, I don't have many snarky stamps.  Seriously, people.  This is a sorely lacking market in the stamping business.  Think Maxine.  Think Erma Bombeck.  There are those of us who think life is too serious as it is and prefer to lighten things up!!  Give me the demented, the snarky, the FUNNY stamps!!

Ahem.  Anyhoos!!  Since I have very few snarky stamps, I went on the hunt for some digital stamps that might fit the bill.  Found what I was looking for at Bugaboo Stamps.  Even better, Jodi is having a 50% off sell on all her digi's (I am not being asked, paid, compensated for this plug.  Jodi has a wide variety of digi stamps and I'm all about letting you know about good deals!!)  I will admit that with my limited computer skills, it took me a bit to get my images from one place to another, but if I can do it, ANYONE can.  It also helped that Jodi has a tutorial on opening her files into a word document.  If you need help, check it out here.

And this is what I came up with!! 

I printed my  4"x4" image out on Gina K's pure luxury (though my cheapo printer does not like the weight of this paper!!) and colored it with various copics (just a note for those of you who might be new to my little corner of blog land.  I know that there are those who list the markers that they use to color.  You will never find that on my blog.  I grab, scribble on scratch paper, lay down, pick something else, and in all honesty, have no idea what markers I finally used in my project!!).  The image was layered onto SU's Eggplant Envy. The sentiment was computer generated (this image actually comes with the sentiment "One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor", but I wanted to personalize this for the birthday gal!!), printed out on Georgia Pacific #110 paper (which my printer liked better).  I cut and embossed the sentiment and mat layer using my classic Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities.  Very light sponging was done along the edge of the sentiment and the main image using Distress Ink Dusty Concord.

The image and sentiment were then layered onto SEI "Black Orchid" paper. I couldn't get the black embossing on this paper to show up without a glare!!   My base is once again, Gina K's pure luxury, cut to a 5 1/2" square. 
Supplies:  Stamps:  Bugaboo Digi, computer generated sentiment.  Paper:  Gina K's pure luxury, SU Eggplant Envy, SEI dp. Ink:  Distress Ink Dusty Concord. Accessories:  Spellbinders Classic Circles, copic markers

I think once I figure out this digi thing, I could have lots of  fun with them!! It's nice to be able to resize your image to fit the project.  Explored something new today.  And that, my blog friends, is what it is all about!!

Thanks for dropping by again today!!  Off to switch the laundry and onto card number 3!!  Till then.......