Summertime Birthdays Can Be So Cool!

The Woodware team are celebrating summertime birthdays this week. Since my own birthday is the 24th of June, I qualify. I never liked having a summer birthday growing up, as school was over, leaving me with no chance to treat my class to cupcakes, or to feel like a "big deal" to my classmates. On the other hand, our family vacations were usually right after school was out in June, so my birthday was celebrated on one of our holidays. On one of these, we met up with both sets of grandparents in Montana. My grandmother on my father's side somehow had baked me a chocolate cake, but there were no candles for the top. So my Gran (mother's side) used pink nail polish to paint some matches to stick on top of the cake. I had to blow them out really quick! It was one of my best birthday memories!

Now that I've reminisced, I'll share with you this sweet House Mouse Designs' card that is perfect for a summertime birthday. No chocolate cake here, but there is plenty of icy cold ice cream to be shared! The image is the House Mouse Ice Cream Kitty, and has been colored with markers in yummy sherbet colors, that also happen to match some very bright tags and cording.

For the fun of it, I placed the card in a translucent envelope so that the recipient gets a "sneak peek" at their lovely card. I happened to have the envelope on hand, but you can easily create your own with the Artemio Envelope Template and Vellum Paper.

Yummy! I just had to add a few ice cream drips off the mouse, because...hey! Ice cream can be messy, especially in the summer! I added a very simple sentiment from the Stampendous Birthday Assortment clear stamps on a small part of tag for a unique styling to this card.

Be sure to check the Woodware Witterings blog each day this week for more summertime fun!

With a Little Bit of Luck

Graduations aplenty have been swarming this season, and I wish every single one of the graduates, "a little bit of luck", as navigating this world is never easy.  It also happens to be the weekly challenge for the Woodware team. Sometimes with luck, the stars need to be aligned just perfectly, for all of that hard work to pay off. And speaking of stars...don't you love the Star Swirls stencil from Dreamweaver? For this card, I've pasted it in silver, and sprinkled it with Stampendous Aged Black Embossing Enamel. When heated all of these items melt and bubble for beautiful shine and texture. This panel was popped up above the card base with the Dreamweaver Dot Spiral pasted in Glossy Black for a cool black on black effect. A strip of the negative portion of die-cut letters from the Dreamweaver Alphabet set was adhered over mirror cardstock to finish the card. If you've missed the rest of the team posts this week, head on over to the Woodware Witterings blog.

Color Blocking with Woodware

This week on this side of the "pond", the USA have been celebrating our "Independence" from YOUR side of the "pond". Lol. Good naturedly, of course. Our theme this week on the Woodware blog is "Colorblocking", which is always an effective way to highlight an image in a different way. For my Fourth of July/Independence Day card, I used three colors of core paper, designed to be embossed and then sanded to reveal the design. The design that I chose was the Dreamweaver Fireworks Embossing Folder, but can easily be done with the stencil version as well. I had one large panel of each color to run through my embossing machine with the folder. Once embossed, they were sanded lightly to reveal the design, and cut into thirds to be adhered on three cards.

The sentiment uses images from a few Stampendous Perfectly Clear sets, including the Vintage Alphabet set. This same design would work well for several occasions, including Christmas, as it's a quick way to complete three cards at once! For more color-blocking ideas, visit the Woodware Witterings blog.

Woodware/Crafty Cardmakers Challenge

The Woodware team are playing along with the challenge at Crafty Cardmakers once again. This time the theme is "Shabby Chic". I thought this canvas would be perfect for this.

Featuring the Stampendous Birds with Blossoms Stamp set and matching set of dies, along with Andy Skinner's crackle background stamp from the Stampendous Industrial set, the Vintage Decor stencil from Dreamweaver, a bit of embossing paste, a bit of acrylic paint, a sprinkling of Stampendous Color Fragments, patterned paper, and a large 12 inch square canvas, this was layers of shabby chic fun!

Shown here, the Vintage Decor stencil is pasted in Glossy White, and when dry, given a wash of light blue thinned paint. The Dreamweaver Faux Cross Stitch screen was used with a dauber and ink to add textural interest over the various sections of the canvas.

Here, the Vintage Decor was stenciled with Frisket, a resist medium, and when a wash of pink went over the top, the frisket could be rubbed off having resisted the paint.

The matching die set for the Birds with Blossoms stamp set makes it easy to add additional shapes for more interest. Finally, the washed panel was torn to reveal a pretty paper underneath.

The canvas itself had been washed with blue paint, and stamped with the crackle design using black ink.