A Spot of Tea?

You don't usually build your card around a sentiment, but that's exactly what I did for my card today.  As I was looking at Kindred Stamps' The Next Space Explorers, the Earl Grey sentiment struck me.  As a tea-drinker, it was the perfect place to start.

I went on-line and found a tea cup template and printed it out.   After folding a piece of light blue cardstock, I laid the template along the fold and cut out my cup.  I had found some narrow sparkly washi tape in Hobby Lobby last week, and it looked like the perfect trim for my tea cup.  I then glued down my fussy-cut captain onto the cup and popped on some sequins.

Boldy Celebrate Your Birthday

It's always fun to be able to share a Kindred Stamps card with you.  I'm such a geek, and their stamps are right up my alley.  Today is no exception.  Today I have an easel card made with The Next Space Explorers set.  Easel card are so easy to make and yet make a great impression.

I had found a great pad of patterned paper called Stargazer in Hobby Lobby several months ago -- with lots of designs that lend themselves to several of the "outer space" sets that Kindred Stamps has released.   After creating the easel, I stamped, colored and cut out the character for the front and popped him up on foam dots.  The "Happy Birthday" sentiment die is from Karen Burniston.  I cut it out five times (four from gray cardstock and one from silver paper) and layered them together so that the sentiment would stand out from the background.  Then added a few sequins for good measure.

I used one of the coordinating stickers for the "bumper" on the inside to make the easel stand up.

Actually, what I did was put the sticker onto a scrap of heavyweight white cardstock and cut it out so that the bumper would be very sturdy.  There's a large foam adhesive pop-dot on the underside of the sticker.  As you can see, the easel stands up very nicely.

HINT:  To conserve on the more expensive silver paper, I cut the sentiment from one of the matting panels.  It was going to be covered up anyway!

A Good Day to Celebrate

Masculine cards are not always the easiest ones to create; but, if the man or boy has a particular interest, it's much easier to create something personal.  The card I have today is one that I'm sure would appeal to a sci-fi lover!  I used the Kindred Stamps set called The Next Space Explorers as well as one of their stencils.

As you can see the background was made by sponging several different distress inks onto light blue cardstock -- using the Swirl stencil.  After sponging on all the colors, I cut the panel down to 4" x 5 1/4" -- to layer onto an A2 card base.

I stamped the Next Space Explorers captain onto a piece of white cardstock and colored him with Copic markers.   The image itself did not have an emblem, so I improvised and drew a small emblem with a white gel pen.

After fussy-cutting out the captain, I adhered him to the center of the swirly background, stamped the sentiment, and added a die-cut "Happy Birthday" greeting at the top -- then glued the panel to the navy blue card base.  I think any space nerd would enjoy getting this card.