Explore Life's Journey

Its my brothers birthday on the 20th so I decided to make him a notebook instead of a card. I like the wording on the stamp so I started with that...

In my boys themed stamps and paper collection, I have got quite a few maps to hand from various sources and they always come in handy for the men.

Along the journey theme, this is the back inside cover...

And this the front inside cover. I used a Martha Stewart punch to make the border. He can rip out the Happy birthday front cover when he wants to use the note pad.

Front cover which contains a metal strip I made with a Kabuka mould. Most of them are too big but this one works well I think on a 4" x 4" page. I put glass over the vintage picture and edged it in metal then distressed it a bit with a metal wheel (Ten Seconds Studio). Both bits of metal have been alcohol inked in order to tone them down a bit. Then everything is distressed around the edges with distress ink...

All this cheered me up from the disaster of the workshop I was missing today (now that is a very long story...)!

Dogs Day

I hardly ever use the free stamp that comes in the Craft Stamper but something about this cheeky chappy caught my eye.. he just spoke to me... Woof, Woof!

Birthday Blast

I've sold a few of these. People say it is nice for men as well as music lovers. The stamps came from The Stamp Man and the little bellies came from Paper Artsy.

Happy Thoughts of Shoes

I don't usually like anything too modern but something about these stamps caught my eye. The shoes shrink really well on shrink plastic if you go carefully (twice the heel wrapped itself about in an annoying fashion and the shoe was unusable). I know things look better in odd numbers (3's, 5's) but it struck me when making this card that it was rather odd to have three shoes! Oh Well!. All the stamps are Hero Arts and new to me.

Romance isn't dead... yet!

These letters are made from Delight so they are really light. Its rather soppy but sometimes this is called for don't you think?

Go explore!

I just love these little hearts and I'm always stamping them on something and cutting them out. It's good to see a woman in a plane in a Vintage pic, tho' she seems to have mislaid her goggles! The wire rope came from LB Crafts and is lovely to work with - really heavy and very flexible too. The pic sits on a tag produced for ribbons which I recyled - you see... a true crafter at heart!

Mother's Day Cards

Not normally being Hero Arts fan, I was surprised to find some new stamps of theirs that I really liked in a little set. Here are a couple of the cards I made with them for Mum's Day

Here's a few of the cards I made last month. Invevitably, there were a few Valentines Day Cards which I really like to do since it justifies how many stamps I seem to have collected along the love theme. Then I had a request for a vintage card with an "A" for Alison in plumb colours so this is what I produced along with a card for a Gerbera fan who was turning 30.