April Blog Hop - Not just feminine

April's Stamp of the Month is called "Blessed" and if you need inspiration for this whimsical set, you've come to the right place. Not only have I designed two completely different cards from this set, over 40 other Close To My Heart consultants are participating in the Blog Hop, so be sure to check 'em out.

If you're already hopping, you came here from Chris Shouse's blog. Since I'm posting early, I haven't had a chance to see her creation, but I'm looking forward to it! Make sure to keep scrolling through my post to the end to see where to go next in the hop.

An image of this month's complete stamp set is shown in the righthand column of my blog page. At first glance, I knew it was obviously a more feminine style. So I went in that direction for my first design.

I selected a mix of Petal, Colonial White, and Black for this card, adding some purple sparkle gems here and there. You'll have to click on the photo to see those more closely. Lots of embossing with Black embossing powder and I used my Grey Wool marker to color in the images here and there. For the ricrac, I colored over our Colonial White ricrac with my Petal marker.

I saw a sketch in a magazine using panels of four like this, so that was my inspiration. I lightly tacked down four equal sized panels to a sheet of scrap paper to hold them in position for the stamping and embossing.

Then I went to town stamping with Versamark and then embossing with Black powder, then I peeled them up after they cooled and adhered them to the card.



For my second design, I channeled my inner Tim Holtz and went totally the other direction. I really wanted to show the versatility of this stamp set and make a more masculine card.

On this card I used Cranberry, Black and Twilight on a Kraft card stock base, along with some of my favorite new embellishments - Kraft Borders. I love these self sticky border strips. They are so quick and easy! With a little help from my brick wall texture fade (Tim Holtz/Sizzix) and some gold embossing powder, the card definitely came together in a masculine style.

This card design is based on "Sentimental Wave" in the Wishes book. Let me show you the technique I used to make the bird in the center of the card.

First I mounted the bird image backwards on the acrylic block and stamped it lightly just so there was enough image for me to cut around properly. (This will make sense in a minute.)

I flipped over the cut-out bird and used some of the swirly image from one of the stamps in this set to emboss the design on the bird. (I know. It still looks weird. Hang on.)

Then I stamped the image again, this time with the right side of the stamp using Twilight ink. I cut this out again, close to the edge.

I'll get back to that Twilight bird in a minute. After assembling the card, I held my breath and stamped this bird image right onto all the layers, hoping that I'd get a good impression. I embossed with Gold and was happy with how it turned out. A little extra gold remnants here and there only added to the distressed look of the card.

After putting some foam tape on the back of my Twilight bird, I placed him over the gold image. 

As I completed this card, I decided I would give it to my hubby for our upcoming anniversary, so I added a little LOVE just for him.


Thanks for "hopping by". Now keep it up and go see what Sarita Schraeder has created. I can't wait!