Best Dad Ever

Since most of my cards are for the military, I tend to use more general sentiments instead of "Happy Father's Day." This particular sentiment is from Mama Elephant. Do you recognize that shield? It's Captain America. My dad recognized it when I gave him one of these with the Father's Day sentiment inside. The circles and star were done with Spellbinders and the background is dry embossed to repeat the star. Pinterest provided the inspiration.

Sparkly Christmas

I was in a mojo slump, but needed to make something. This bright, fun Best Creation paper with it's build in glitter was a perfect place to start. Since SU Rich Razzleberry is one of my favorite colors, I used it for all of my layers. The ivory is some Core'dinations. With my Rich Razzleberry ink, I stamped a Lawn Fawn snowflake and a Mama Elephant sentiment. The circles are done with SU punches, not Spellbinders!

Embossed birthday

When I saw this card on Pinterest, I thought it would be perfect to use up some scraps of patterned paper. I cut out the center with a Taylored Expressions die and placed the scraps in the right spot so none of the background blue could show through. The Stampendous sentiment and Mama Elephant stars are heat embossed with black.

Simply the Best

I rarely do one layer cards, but when I saw this one, I decided to CASE it and see what would happen. Using my SU Circle Circus set, I began with some Fresh Ink Chocolate, added some SU Rich Razzleberry and finished it off with VersaMark Onyx Black. I thought about a sentiment for a bit and went with this one from Mama Elephant stamped in more Rich Razzleberry. I really like the simplicity of this card. I even stamped the envelope!

A Plane Birthday

Over on Pinterest, I saw this card and couldn't wait to make my own version of it. The plane is made using the SU slot punch and Spellbinders circles. The sentiment cloud is a die from Mama Elephant and the sentiment is Stampendous. 

Please forgive me for the horrible colors in this picture. I took four pictures and they all have this odd yellow cast that I couldn't edit away. The plane is actually a dark grey and the windows are a pale yellow.

Best. Dad. Ever.

I love this sentiment from the Mama Elephant set Papa Love. It's how I think of my own dad. And I was thinking of him while I made this card. I used some SU inks and stamps along with a SU punch. The bottom orange shape was done with a Taylored Expressions die. The button is a Martha Stewart punch and the brads are American Crafts. The string is a weird waxy one that somehow ended up in our house. After making this card, I got rid of it. It doesn't stay where you put it, even with Scor-Tape, and I had to glue the knot to make it stay. I love how this card turned out and you can find my inspiration for it here.

Green for Dad

Here's another dad card for you. I started with the card idea you can find here and this is what I ended up with. I stamped a piece of paper with two stamps from SU Circle Circus using Fresh Ink Chocolate and SU Old Olive. Then, using Spellbinders, I cut the ovals out and mounted them on some brown Bazzill. The ribbon from my stash is mounted on a piece of white to make it pop a bit more. I used a Mama Elephant sentiment stamped in Fresh Ink Chocolate and added two American Crafts Chestnut brads for emphasis.

Simply the Best

When I saw this card on Pinterest, I knew I wanted to do my own version of it. And how perfect that "brown" is the current OWH MWT! So I dragged out my brown inks (Fresh Ink, StazOn, Memento) and my SU Circle Circus stamp set. I had some sheer brown ribbon in my ribbon scraps and noticed the yellow ribbon, too. I decided to use some Color Box yellow ink to brighten up the card along with the yellow ribbon. I layered it on some brown Bazzill and used a sentiment from Mama Elephant.

Merry Merry Monday 101

This week's Merry Monday challenge is to use red, gray and white. Since these are pretty basic Christmas colors, I didn't have to think too hard. I got out some silvery gray paper from DeNami and some Darice red pearl paper then got to work! The Mama Elephant penguin is embossed in Recollections white and cut out with Spellbinders. I then used a Mama Elephant sentiment and embossed it with some silver Ranger. The pearls are from my rather large stash of embellishments. This card also fits perfectly for the Anything Goes challenge at Sparkle Creations.

Love Ya, Papa

For this card, I used Freshly Made Sketch 126 and mashed it with The Friday Mashup by making it a masculine card. I dug deep for some masculine papers and came up with a piece from Basic Grey and a piece of Lily Bee Design. The sentiment on the left is heat embossed and the one on the right is popped with some dimensional adhesive. Both of them are from Mama Elephant. 

Merry!

This card is for Seize the Sketch 14 and Rudolph Day over on Stamping for Pleasure. It's rare that I use typical red and green for my Christmas cards, but I'm trying to use the Recollections papers I used for some gifts last year. The background is embossed with a Darice folder and the ribbon is from my stash. The circle and ovals are done with Spellbinders. For the sentiment, I used a Mama Elephant stamp. The bling is by Triveni. 

Here's my picture for the Rudolph challenge showing two cards, although I made four of these.

Merry Monday #95

Here's my entry for the Merry Monday #95 challenge. This week we needed to use an animal on our card. I started with a SU reindeer stamp, then embossed it with Ranger Copper. The striped paper is Simple Stories. Since I didn't have any copper paper laying around, I also embossed the layering paper to match the reindeer. The Mama Elephant sentiment is embossed in Recollections White. All of the red paper is Bazzill. I edged the image in black to make it pop a bit more and added some American Crafts brads to pull out the black a bit.

Soccer, anyone?

I love soccer. I played for several years growing up and still enjoy the game. When I saw this card, I knew I'd have to do something similar, especially when the OWH MWT is hexagons. I started by using my Taylored Expressions hexagon dies and mounting them on a piece of green paper. Then I used a Spellbinder circle to cut out the ball. The embossing is a Cuttlebug folder and the sentiment is from Mama Elephant. The baker's twine sets off the sentiment tag. 

Seahawks and Christmas

Over at Operation Write Home, they're having a Card Bowl all weekend. There will be a new challenge Friday through Sunday. How fun is that?

Today's challenge is to make a card using the colors from either team playing in the Super Bowl this year. Since my team didn't make it, I decided to go with the home team and make a card using Seahawks colors. Not only that, but I used the new CAS(E) this Sketch and used an ornament for the Merry Monday challenge. I love being able to incorporate more than one challenge in a card!

I started with some blue, white and neon green (it really is neon in person) papers and worked from there. The snowflake punch is from Martha Stewart and the dies are Sizzix. I chose a sentiment by Mama Elephant and stamped it with VersaFine Onyx Black. For a bit of bling, I added some shiny silver stickers from Stampendous.

I already know who these two cards are going to: my dad and my brother. Enjoy your weekend!

Penguin in Turquoise

I'm loving my Mama Elephant Polar Pals stamp set which includes this cute penguin. I thought it was perfect for this Pinterest idea. I started with black, white and turquoise card stock and some Spellbinders for the circles. After stamping her in Memento Tuxedo Black, I colored her with Copics and added googlie eyes. The Stampendous sentiment is heat embossed in black. I used a Darice embossing folder for the background. 

Merry and Bright

Today I used my new Mama Elephant Polar Pals again to make a pretty pink Christmas card. It uses OWH sketch 207, has snowmen for Merry Monday 91, and I used some of my new stash for A Blog Named Hero 36. I enjoyed making this with non-traditional colors and I'm pretty sure my hubby won't be sending this to any of his friends! 

I used pink and white card stock and some SU striped paper. Everything was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black. The coloring is done with Copics and the brads are American Crafts.

Snowmen with no snow

I had to smile when I saw Cards in Envy Snow Buddy challenge. With all of the snow around the US, we don't have any here in the Pacific Northwest. However, I did get a cute new Mama Elephant Polar Pals stamp set for Christmas with some snowmen in it. The sentiment is from the same set. I stamped everything on white card stock and used some paper from a new 6x6 DCWV paper I also received for Christmas. The inks are VersaFine Onyx Black and SU Old Olive. I used my new Taylored Expressions dies to layer the sentiment and some American Crafts brads to finish it off.