One for the boys!!

Hey blogland.. It's all too easy to do cards for female friends and relatives, but when it comes to us guys, even I struggle... That said, there are a lot more images and products around now than there ever used to be, so it is getting slightly easier...For this card I used a digi stamp from Mo Manning..It was coloured with Copic Pens and Glazed with Glossy Accents.Whilst it was drying I had a play with my Cricut Machine and Gypsy and welded some Mobile (Cell) Phone shapes from the Smiley Cards cartridge to a Rectangle from Plantin Schoolbook and cut them out on some Silver Mirror card.Once the image was dry I matted it onto the rectangle and added some Black Mobile Phone shapes to make them stand out a little more..After matting one more time onto some light Blue card stockI attached the image to my base card.I then cut out a tag using a die from the Spellbinders Ribbon Tags Trio Three (S4-323) set.Added a peel off sentimentand then threaded some ribbon through the loops before adding it to the card to finish the project off.So, just an idea for some of the younger guy's in your life..
Thanks for checking us out.
See you soon.
Andy.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Hi everyone, it's Mother's Day here in the UK Today, so a very "Happy Mother's Day" to all you Mum's out there...
I just wanted to share with you the card I made for my Mum...I don't think that you can go wrong with a Butterfly or two, or even five!!To make the card I started off by welding together a Butterfly image from the Martha Stewart Crafts Elegant Cakes Cricut Cartridge using my Cricut Gypsy. The Gypsy allows me to not only weld the images together but also re size images and also flip those images to make the finished shape a little more interesting.I cut this welded image out 3 times on 225gsm card stock. This did take a while to be honest due to the detail in each Butterfly. But I'm sure you'll agree, time well spent?I then glued all 3 layers together.As my intention was to do some embossing with this image I placed it on my A plate of my Cuttlebug machine. I had to use the longer plates as the image was so big.On top of the image I placed a piece of Glossy White Card Stock.Then my Maxi No Shims Matfollowed by two 290gsm pieces of card which adds just the right thickness to the "sandwich"before adding my C plate and passing the whole thing through the Cuttlebug.To make sure I embossed the whole of the Butterfly image I had to do the process twice as there is no 12" long Maxi mat available at the moment to my knowledge! you can see the previous embossing showing..I think I must have turned the card stock over for this picture as it looks debossed to me, perhaps I had the idea to show you both sides? Who knows!! But hey, here is the debossed side!!!For the base card I cut a thick piece of Acetate to sizeand added the Butterflies to the inside back panel.This is some printed Acetate which I have placed on top of a piece of White card stock so that you can see the intensity of the colour and pattern.From this sheet I cut out some singular Butterflies. To make sure that they were exactly the same shape & size I was able to copy the images from the "welded" Butterflies and separate them all.I then applied them to the front of the Acetate card matching each image with it's embossed counterpart.I then made a Ribbon Rose, the same way as I did in my last post and applied it to the card which I had added some more Ribbon and some "Bling" to the Butterflies.And there you go. I know Mum had a good day, She spent the whole day with me so why wouldn't she!! I also paid a visit to my Nan, who was having a "good day" in the home she is in. So all round a great day. Hope you had a great one too! See you soon and thanks for checking us out.
Andy.

House Mouse 2

Hi Blogland. Today is Paul's (Joanne's Partner) Birthday. The man loves his food HOT!!! I think he would have hot sauce on his Christmas Dinner if he could!!So, when I saw a decoupage image in the Food & Drink House Mouse set I knew this would work for his Birthday Card!!I started off by cutting out all of the imagesand layering them together.I know that decoupage can be fiddly, but the time spent cutting and layering the pieces together is so worth it when you can get this sort of dimension. Don't get me wrong, die cut decoupage would make life sooooo much easier!!I then matt and layered the image with some Gold and Red Mirror card.I then took a selection of Adirondak Inks, and covered a piece of White card stock,initially with Sunshine Yellow and Orange Sunset.I then embossed the card through the Cuttlebug using the Fauna Embossing Folder.And then went over the image again, this time using Red Pepper and Water Mellon Ink.Highlighting the raised sections with Glossy Accents.Once it was dry I matt and layered the image with Gold and Red Mirror card.I also came across this piece of flame backing paper which I cut to size, matted in Goldand added it to my pre made Easel card.I then added the embossed image to the front of the card,overlaying the decoupage image...I printed my sentiment in a "flame font" from my PC.I really wanted to cut it out in a Chilli shape. The only thing I could find on My Cricut that looked similar was a cut from the Pumpkin Carving cartridge. So I loaded it onto my Gypsy and positioned the image on the cutting mat so that the sentiment would be included in the cut. I stretched the Pumpkin shape to look a little more like a Chilli, this has got to be one of the greatest features of the Gypsy, the fact that you can manipulate any image above and beyond it's intended use!!Once cut out, I applied some Red Pepper and Lettuce Adirondak ink to the imagebefore covering it entirely with Glossy Accents and leaving it to dry overnight.Once it was dry I added it to the card to finish it off!!!And there you go, one very HOT looking card!!! Happy Birthday Paul.
Thanks for checking us out, see you soon.
Andy.