I never seem to have enough guy cards in my little box of cards, so this week I decided to grab out a pack of Well Worn DSP and some Crumb Cake (Kraft) cardstock and get creating.

I trimmed all my cardstock strips to the same width and spaced them randomly so I didn't have to do any maths - ha ha.

Simply Scored for the score lines, some linen thread and an antique brad, and a greeting.  (From one of the big birthday sets.)  Even dug up my stampamajig this time rather than winging it on the greeting.

One more pic since I rather like this one.  My sort of style - simple.

Have a fabulous weekend.  I had a creative burst last week so a few more things to share with you in the coming week. 

Happy stamping!    Cheers, Sue

Need more card inspiration for making cards for the guys in your life?

I've got lots more ideas for making masculine cards featuring patterned paper over on my youtube channel. 

Here are just a few.  

Happy Easter.  We're enjoying a few days of rest, relaxation, chocolate eating and bike riding.  Since it is holiday time I thought I'd share this card - any of you spending the holidays at the beach?

We did this card last month at technique class.  The stamp set is Surf's Up (from the main catalogue) and includes the waves, greeting and surf board.  Perfect set to add a little crayon resist to. 

Colours: Island Indigo, Pool Party, Whisper White, Cherry Cobbler and Basic Black

My crimper got a bit of a run and we added the brads before attaching the strip so that they didn't show through to the inside of the card.

We embossed the greeting and one surf board with Cherry Cobbler embossing powder (yum!) and the other surfboard with white embossing powder - on darker cardstock so that those lovely swirls showed through.

I hope you're having lots of fun, and maybe even a bit of craft time, over Easter.

Cheers, Sue

I've got a nice stash of cards in my card crate, but am very much lacking in cards for the guys!  My brother in law had a birthday recently so I got out some masculine looking products ......

.... and set to work creating!  In holiday mode so kept it nice and simple.  

You can find a great range of products for the men in your life on pages 18 and 19 of the Summer Mini.  

 Stamp Set: The Open Sea.  Bakers Twine in a few colour combos.  And the Nautical Expedition patterned paper.   I've grabbed out my 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches for a quick and easy card.

Shhhh, really should have sponged the edges of those circles but hey - it is January!

Colours:  I used the colours from the DSP - Cherry Cobbler, Not Quite Navy, Early Espresso and Basic Gray

While I had the supplies out I whipped up two more.  Now if I can get into the habit of that I'll be restocked for guy cards in no time.   Takes not much longer to make 3 as to make 1, especially with simple designs. 

Have a great weekend!   Cheers, Sue 

Here's the second card we made at last week's Autumn Mini Catalogue Launch.  A nice simple one.  The French Foliage stamp set is so easy to work with.

The greeting is done with Early Espresso ink on Cajun Craze cardstock, and punched with the new Decorative Label punch.

The base was stamped with images from French Foliage using More Mustard, Soft Suede and Cajun Craze ink.   Some sponging around the edge to add a bit of depth.  The base card is Crumb Cake, a colour I use all the time and constantly have to restock. 

Here's a matching bag made with the little brown paper bags from the Autumn Mini.

Wall News!

Our long long awaited replacement of our back boundary retaining wall/fence has finally begun!  Bit of a tricky job - 30 metres long, 1 - 2 metres high, and running between the stormwater pipe on our side and the sewer line on the neighbours side, with tight hilly access thrown in for good measure.  Quite a few crews took one look and said 'nah.' 

But Monday morning 7.30am we had trucks, bobcats, diggers and men in yellow vests all on site.  Here's the view from our balcony in the morning.

And here it is a few hours later ... (I blanked out faces for privacy in case you are wondering why our builders have weird orange faces!)

And then it rained all day so now it is a bit of a mudpit!   I'll pop a few more pics up over the coming weeks as the project takes shape.  We're very excited to finally have it happening.  Once this is up we can get some water tanks in place then can start on the rest of the yard.  Hmmm, given our track record on keeping pot plants alive this could be interesting!

Cheers, Sue

In the mood for a blog hop?!  Well, grab a cuppa and head around the 11 stops on this SaleABration themed blog hop that some of my stamping buddies and I are having today. 

Let's Get Hopping!

You might have arrived here from the blog of the always lovely and very talented Christine Blain - Happy Heart Cards, or perhaps you're starting out from here. 

Punch Bunch: Masculine Card

I've used the happy birthday stamp from the SaleABration set Punch Bunch for my masculine card.

This stamp fits the Scallop Square punch.  Punch and stamp combos make card making so easy I think!  I've stamped it in Wild Wasabi ink on Naturals Ivory cardstock. 

Base card: Wild Wasabi spritzed with Early Espresso using a marker and spritzer.  This card is 4 3/4" square and fits inside the Stampin Up medium square envelopes on page 123.

Feature:  Chocolate Chip cardstock cut with the Scallop Square die and embossed with the Square Lattice embossing folder (both from the Summer Mini) plus a piece of the woodgrain patterned paper from the Woodland Walk DSP (pg 125.)  A couple of loops of hemp twine to give a masculine finishing touch.

And a nice super simple inside - just a few extra spritzes of ink plus another punched Happy Birthday scallop square.

Do you ever find you're using the same colours a lot?  The colour scheme for this card was from the Woodland Walk DSP.  Check out the coordinating colours for each pack of Designer Series Paper in the catalogue - a great way to find some new colour schemes to try out if you find yourself in a bit of a colour rut. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have lots of fun on the rest of the hop and get all inspired for some crafting happiness this weekend. 

Next Blog Hop Stop:

Now on to your next stop  to check out the lovely creations by the gorgeous Di Dunk from over in Healesville.  Her blog is Stamp Art By Di.

Have fun!  Happy SaleABration.

Cheers,  Sue

PS If you get lost along the way, or if you're visiting after blog hop day, you can see all the lovely SaleABration creations by clicking on these links.   Di Dunk, Tina Gillespie, Kathryn Manglesdorf, Judy May, Amy Buchanan, Kathryn Ruddick, Alisha Watson, Ros Davidson, Nikki Sadler, and Christine Blain.

I wanted to make a nice simple Valentine's card for John - a) because that's the sort of card he'd like best, and b) because being the organised card maker that I am, I only had about 10 minutes or we'd have no Valentine's dinner! 

I've used Crumb Cake cardstock with some scraps of Riding Hood Red, Night of Navy and Sahara Sand and 2 punches to make the little feature.  Some hemp twine and some (retired, sob) Kraft taffeta ribbon were the only other embellishments.

I love the Square Lattice embossing folder - so versatile and perfect for masculine cards.

A couple of leftover hearts for the envelope ....

....  and it made a nice addition to a box of Favourites and a nice candlelit dinner for four.   Seemed just the occasion to remind me to be thankful for all the wonderful things John does.

Cheers,  Sue

Jack (4) had his first birthday party invitation from a kinder friend for this weekend.  He's been to family parties and tagged along to some of Hannah's but this was his first friend's party.  He was soooo excited.  

I managed to leave myself with rather a short time to make a birthday card.   I grabbed out Celebrations Designer Series Patterned Paper (pg 125), some matching cardstock and my Big Shot and Timeless Type Alphabet sizzlits.  Here's what I came up with. 

 
I used my 1 1/4" square punch to punch a bunch of squares of the DSP, glued the letters for Alix's name onto some matching cardstock squares, sponged the edges in Pacific Point so they'd stand out on the Bashful Blue base card and stuck everything down with Snail.  Quick and easy.  I used my crimper for a little extra texture.

Jack looked after the inside of the card for us .....

...and we used one of his gazillion paintings for the present wrapping paper.    Here's one excited boy about to head off to the party.  He told me afterwards, "That was the best day EVER mum." 

Hope you're having the best day ever too.  :-)

Cheers, Sue

Ducking in today to show you a quick and easy boy's birthday card.  This one is for Ben who we've known since mum's group days when he and Hannah were bubs.  We car pool together now for school. 

I love Lots Of Bots stamp set for those male cards.  Think I might use it for my brother too - he turns 31 today, and Jack turns 4 in "ONE MORE SLEEP MUM!" so busy week in the card making department!   Be back to show you those ones in a few days.

The robot comes up quite well embossed in white on black card.  The nuts and bolts stamp from this set make a nice background - in Versamark here on Basic Gray cardstock.  Some crimped silver and a touch of Real Red and DSP to finish off.

A quick stamp on the envelope to match makes a nice quick and easy finishing touch too.

Happy middle of the week to you!

Cheers, Sue
  

It was birthday week in our house last week which means I've been busy 'birthdaying' but also means I have a couple of cards to share this week.  John's turn last Wednesday and Hannah turned 7 last Thursday.

Here's John's card.  A simple but I hope elegant one.  (No no no - nothing to do with the fact that I'd only left myself with a short window of time to put it together!)  :-)

I really love the silver from our Metallics Pack (pg130) teamed with Basic Gray and Black for cards for guys.  The Basic Gray patterned paper panel is from the pad of 6" x 6" patterned paper in the Hostess set on page 18. 

Love the corduroy buttons too for male cards ....

I punched two slots with the slot punch to thread the Basic Gray Taffeta Ribbon through, then added the button with a glue dot. 

And another favourite for this card is the greeting.  It is from 'On Your Birthday' (pg 113) and I love the message.  Came up well embossed in black.

Now from very masculine greys we move to pinks and get the glitter out for Hannah's card.  Back another day with that one.  (And a very pink cake too while we're in birthday mode.) 

Thursday night is booked out but there's still 4 spots left for Wednesday night's class if you'd like to try Stained Glass technique and an array of colouring tools to use on your cards.  Lots of fun and you go home with 3 cards!  Give me a buzz or shoot through an email if you'd like to grab one of the last seats.

Details here.

Cheers,  Sue 

A quick card first.  This one was for my brother's 30th recently. 

Silver (from the Metallics pack) and Basic Gray were my chosen colours for this one.

Finally got my corduroy buttons (Spring Mini pg 4) out too after hoarding them for a bit!  I crimped the piece of Urban Oasis patterned paper for some added texture.

The tag has a stamp from Circle Circus stamped off once as a background, with a birthday greeting stamp from On Your Birthday.  I've used my neutrals markers for those, and punched it with my wide oval punch.

If you're interested in joining a marker club, I'm taking names for my next group - commencing October 2009.  Details here.  There are a few spots left if you'd like to join us.

And now time for those prize draw results.  Drum roll please ......

Hostess Prize Draw:

* Carla won a Level 1 hostess set and chose Best Yet

* Karen won $30 to spend and chose the Scallop Circle Punch

* Melinda and Amy won the Colour Sampler Cards

* Lisa and Cathy won the Embellishment Packs

Not So Local Prize Draw

* Patricia and Olivia won the Colour Sampler Cards

* Mary and Shelley won the Embellishment Packs

Congratulations ladies.  I'll pop your prizes in with your orders once they arrive.  For the 'Not So Local' prize winners, your prizes will be in the post later this week. 

And that's it from me for a few days.  We're off to Ballarat for some school holiday fun with the kids.  Normal transmission will resume midweek! 

In the meantime though there will be lots of scrapbooking gorgeousness to look at over at StampAMemory so check in there for your dose of Stampin' Up! inspiration.

Click here for the StampAMemory blog

Cheers,

Sue