Happy Father's Day!

Well, Father's Day has been a little bit of a bust over here
at the Scrapyard. Our two-year old picked up a bug
and has been a lean, mean, puking, pooping machine
the past couple days. I had grand plans for celebrating all
the dads in my life, but instead have been doing lots of
laundry, cleaning up vomit and keeping our little guy
entertained and away from the carpets :)
Thankfully I had at least made all our Father's Day
cards ahead of time so they were ready for today.

Unfortunately, when my husband went to visit my parents
this morning I forgot to give him my dad's card...
Thankfully, since I took a picture of it to put up here
on the blog-o, I can still send my dad some virtual lovin'
today until he gets the real deal in the mail later this week!

Anyways, I tried to keep things pretty simple. I did use
some ribbon, but no bows for the men! And I added some
lines along the bottom with the scoring blade in my paper cutter.
I like the added detail without getting too frou-frouish.
(Is frou-frouish a word?) I stamped the word "BLESSED"
from a retired SU! set in versamark and heat embossed it
with white powder and then sponged over top in Old Paper
and Baja Breeze. The inside of the card says ''...to have a dad
like you." I don't always like adding my own handwriting
to cards, but sometimes you just need a sentiment that fits!
And I truly do feel blessed by my husband, dad, dad-in-law,
and our two grandfathers. We are definitely celebrating them
today...even if it's with a barf bowl on couch :)
Happy Father's Day.

Hoo-ray, it's your Birthday!!

It was Dad's birthday on Friday, so another manly-man
card was in order:

To make the background paper, I rubbed distress ink right
onto my embossing plates (yes, it was scary) and then
ran them through my Cuttlebug with the script stamped paper.
Afterwards I flicked water onto the paper, although I think
next time I will try spraying the water directly onto the embossing
plates as well. Regardless, I really like the rustic/textured look I got.

For his gift we got him a gift certificate to
a local tree farm, so I created this 'envelope'
to give it to him in.

This is the tag inside the envelope and the
bands at the bottom are actually a little
pouch that held the gift certificate. I was
really happy with the way it turned out and
I think it's nice to add that personal touch instead
of just giving a plain, boring envelope...not that
Dad would've really cared either way. Hee!
But I had fun making it, so I just look at is as
a double bonus: birthday card and gift for Dad,
play time in the Scrapyard for me. Check! Check!

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Loads of love

Between Father's Day and a bunch a birthdays, I've got
a whole bunch of manly cards to share with you in the next
little bit. First up is a birthday card for our Uncle Garry.
He loves vintage vehicles and just last year bought a
'67 Chevy truck that he's restoring. I knew right away
which stamp set I wanted to use for his card:


I kept it fairly simply, which was tough! I kept wanting
to add more - some ribbon, something sparkly, a bow... but
held myself back and stuck with a couple popped-up layers
and some big, bad brads for hubcaps :)

I coloured the truck and hearts in using my blender pen, but don't
love how you can see the lines on the truck...I'm pretty sure Uncle Garry
won't give it a second thought though. LOL! The inside is stamped
with the sentiment "Loads of love on your birthday". Even
though everything in me wanted to keep adding embellishments,
I'm pretty happy with how this card turned out.

Thanks for visiting!
And stop by for some more 'manly inspiration' soon.

More PTI lovelies...

Eager to ink up some more of my PTI winnings,
I made this set of cards - a late Mother's Day
card for Grandma who was away on vacation last month,
and a thank you for a sweet stamping friend.
I don't own the Top Note Die from SU! (although I wish I did!),
but because I am Dutch, when we used it last year in
our Stampers 10 group, I saved everybody's negative image that
was left after cutting out the shape....I know, so very Dutch.
Anyways, I'm so glad I did because I love how it worked
on these cards! One woman's trash is truly another's treasure.

For the first card, I stamped HA's Old Letter Writing
in Versamark for the background and then the
flower image from PTI's Year of the Flower: Sweetpeas
in Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I restamped the flowers
on some retired SU! designer paper and cut them out and
adhered them with pop dots.

For the second card, I stamped the flower in
Baja Breeze and used a blender pen to shade
in some of the image. I stamped the flowers on the
designer paper with Versamark and then embossed
them with white embossing powder and shaded
them in as well with my blender pen. I love how
little changes like that can really switch up the
look of the card. A few little pearls and some twine
to finish it up, and a sweet, shabby thank you is done.

I'm loving these PTI stamps, they're really
stretching my stamping style. Now, if only I
could win some more... Ha!

Have a great day!

Sending a little HAPPY!

I don't know too many people more amazing than an

old girlfriend of mine, Cara. She just finished her third round
of chemotherapy, still works full-time and is raising two
teenage girls on her own. I have no idea how she does it.
This month's Hazzard County Card Challenge was the perfect
excuse to send her a little lovin' in the mail and here's the
card I created for Cara:

The colour scheme was inspired by the super cute bobby
pins on the left, from the etsy shop 'howbeadyful'. This is my
first time playing along with the the Etsy Inspired Challenge.
You should check it out - awesome inspiration combining
two of my very favorite things, Etsy and card-making!
And don't you just love those sweet bobby pins...
don't be surprised if they disappear from the shop, I've been

dreaming of them all week. I'm pretty sure my hair needs them :)

The layout was from this week's Mojo Monday Sketch Blog.
Wowzaa - it was a doozy! I'm not used to so many layers on
my cards, so it was a stretch for me to figure this all out.
I'm pretty sure this card will need extra postage, it's so heavy!
I love the teal velvet scalloped ribbon, and it worked out

perfectly as teal is the colour for ovarian cancer awareness.
Love it when stuff works out like that! And those two bitty
clothespins are just way too cute. I've been hoarding them
forever, but knew this was the perfect card to use them on.

Lastly, to work with the HCCC, the card needed to
be different than a standard A2. I decided to make an easel
card, so Cara can prop this up in her windowsill and get
a 'little happy' every time she sees it. Don't you love that sentiment?
Well, that was a long schpiel, wasn't it? Sorry about that!
Thanks for much for stopping by, hope you're having a great week!

Supplies:
Paper: Whisper White, Taken with Teal, Cameo Coral, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red (SU!)

Ink: Taken with Teal, Cameo Coral, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red (SU!)

Stamps: 'Sending you a little happy, Umbrella' (Unity)
' Fill this day with JOY' (Papertrey Ink)
' Canvas background' (SU!)
Other: mini clothespins (dollar store), velvet ribbon (Cosmo Cricket), Versamark and clear embossing powder, button (SU!)

!

A one-layer card!?

Kristina Werner had a challenge on her blog
a while back to do a one-layer card. So here I am,
one month later, taking her up on that challenge.
I know, I'm always late aren't I? Someday I will work on
this - LOL! Anyways, my hubby needed to
send some thank you cards and I figured it would
be weird for people to get a flowery, sparkly card
from him. My Duke Divas have been creating some
great manly cards lately (see here, here, and here),
and so, together with their inspiration and spurred on
by the challenge, I came up with this:

The thing I love about a card like this? I made
four of them in less than 20 minutes - love it!
Sometimes it's nice to get back to the basics
and just do some good ole' stamping...although I
couldn't help but emboss the sentiment, just for
a little something :)
Thanks for stopping by!
Have a great weekend!

Supplies:
Paper: Very Vanilla (SU!)
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss (SU!), Vintage Photo (Tim Holtz)
Stamps: True Friend (SU!), Messy Stitches (Autumn Leaves)
Other: Versamark, clear embossing powder

Another housewarming...

Friends of ours just moved into a new home, after
spending a couple months renovating it first. It was an older
farmhouse and it truly was a labour of love getting it ready and
liveable for their family. They spent a lot of time and hard work on it,
and it looks fantastic now! They also just celebrated their 5th
anniversary, and I knew right away what I wanted to make for them,
to commemorate their new home and 5 years of marriage.

Another framed layout, this one a bit more substantial
at 12x12. They used a lot of different purple tones in their
downstairs, so I went with that thinking they could then
hang it in whatever room they want. I used a recent family
picture but adhered it with temporary adhesive, so they
can switch up the photo as their family grows.

After making some cute hairclips for my daughter, I had
two of these prima flowers leftover which I used, but the layout
seemed kind of unbalanced with all the pairs of things, so I
made a third flower out of some old sheet music and inked
up the edges to shabby it up a bit. Another piece of sheet music
(which just 'happened' to have lyrics about being part of
God's family - love that!) to anchor the photo, a slip
of crocheted lace to balance it all out, add a few little
pearls for detail and that was that! Except for the fact
that this wasn't a picture of my family, I had a hard time
giving this one away! I think I may just have to
'gift' one of these to myself. LOL!
I'm loving being able to make personal gifts for
friends that are meaningful and AFFORDABLE.
I picked up these frames for $3 each and all the
supplies were just from my 'stash'. I'm sure they didn't
even total $1. Now, if only I could think of something
homemade for all the birthday parties the kids are
invited too...ideas, anyone??
Thanks for stopping by and hope you're
having a wonderful day!