Birthday Cards for the Last Blast of Summer, and Some On the Road Fun

Hey, Readers!!

SO, I know it has been a while since I was here.  I had my birthday, and got LOADED up with stuff for card making, thanks mostly to my Dear Charlie (DC).  I am up to my eyeballs in new stamps and paper and ink and tools!  Woo to the Hoo! 

I actually made eight thank you cards, but I got a late start on them, and I wrote in and sent them BEFORE I realized I forgot to take photos!  ARGH!  They were really cute too.  Some were loaded up with stickers, some were CAS, some were hot pink and orange.....SIGH.  Dumb, dumb, dumb.  Oh, well.

ANYWAY--

My friends Susan and Karlah have birthdays coming up, on the same day!  So I made two of  these-

I just realized the colors kinda photographed funny.  They really DO all go together, I promise.

This project started with the bright orange cs from SU.  I took a background stamp with indeterminate words, and inked it up with versamark ink.  Then I put the paper on top of the inked side, and rubbed it really well.  I find this works better than stamping on the paper, because I invariably miss a spot of pressure somehow.  

I stamped some birdcages onto white cs with stamps from Amuse studio, the Life is a Song set, with orange and tan inks.  I added birds in blue and yellow, and then cut them out .  I highlighted the edges with more orange ink.  

 I used A*muse Studio card stock for the base of this card.  I really like their cardstock for bases, because the backs of all their cs is WHITE, so you can write inside it without any issue.  Looks very professional, IMHO.  Anyway, I really wanted to stamp with versamark ink a nice flourish all over the cs to make a nice design.  DANG, if my stamp wasn't filthy!  I don't know what I used with this stamp before, (inkadinadoo's dot flourishes, btw) but it did NOT come off, and left some nice brown marks on my cs.  SO lucky I was stamping with versamark!  I grabbed my white embossing powder and took care of that mess in a hurry.  Then I took a sponge dauber and did some resist technique with some studio g ink. 

Now, from the files of what NOT to do, I trimmed the edges of the stamped orange piece, backed it with  with some blue cs, wrapped it with a piece of blue organdy ribbon, and popped the whole thing on my cardfront.  With my permanent adhesive.  Oh.....wait..... I wanted to stamp a chain for the birdcage....oh poo...

Yeah.  It's all about doing stuff in the right order.  I was just kinda happy I actually thought about rounded edges and ribbons ahead of time. 

HOWEVER!  It's aaaaaalllllllllll fixable!  I just grabbed my stampamajig, and I stamped in my chain, right over the ribbon and everything.  What?  It worked.

I backed the image with the yellow bird onto more blue cs, and popped it up with some mounting tape.  The orange cage is popped on with some foam squares, which sit just slightly higher than the mounting tape.  I like the multiple depths that achieves.  I only wish I had used a darker ink on the sentiment, but I definitely know better than to try and restamp over something like that.  We're just gonna call it "subtle".

So, these turned out to be pretty cute, and I definitely got a nice lesson in PLANNING.

In other news-
I went to the A*muse Studio "On the Road" event in Nashua NH last weekend, and had a BLAST!  Yeah, I was the only guy in the room, no big surprise there....We made SIX projects that afternoon, and they look like this-

These were SO fun, especially the little favor box that was SO easy!  I really love the loose leaf cardstock, and the woodgrain, which comes in several colors.  They were kind enough to gift us the Life is a Song stamp set, so I used it to make the card in todays post!  I had a great time!

Thanks for stopping by! 

All Best-

Richard