Come fly away with me

Another glorious day, it looks like it's going to be even warmer than it was yesterday! After enjoying a wonderful breakfast of asparagus from our own garden with poached eggs, a bit of ham and Hollandaise sauce (I admit, I cheated and used a store-bought mix, but it counts as home made if you squeeze in the lemon juice all by yourself, right?) I am planning to dig a bit more in the garden. And then my wonderful man is making me BBQ. Could a Sunday get any better? Yes it can, I had a mother's day photo shoot with my gorgeous boy (you can see pictures here) and I had time for a bit of crafting as well! And it's barely midday yet!

Today's card was inspired by the inspiration image over at Inspired by All the Little Things, which was a perfect image to go with the new STAMPlorations Born to Roam stamp set that popped through my mailbox a few days ago. The cupcake wrappers inspired me to use the Stampin' Up World map and the compass from The Open Sea. I was also inspired by the cue card over at CASology which is Move, and the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches (this is my second entry in this week's challenge). I'm also linking up with Crafty Calendar Challenges where the theme is Things With Wings.

I started by stamping the plane in Versafine ink, and then masked it before stamping the World map through a mask. The I watercoloured the image using Tim Holtz Distress inks and last I stamped the compass from The Open Sea and one of the sentiments from Born to Roam in Versafine. I really like the way the card turned out, it reminds me of the Indiana Jones movies, where they show the little airplane moving over a map whenever Indy would fly anywhere. 

Card: 300 gsm super smooth white card

Stamps: STAMPlorations Born to Roam, Stampin' Up World Map, The Open Sea

Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, Tim Holtz Distress Inks Broken China, Festive Berries, Fossilized Amber, Shabby Shutters and Vintage Photo

Stampin' Royalty - Colour challenge

Today is the time to reveal the second challenge for my guest DT stint over at Stampin' Royalty. Thank you for everyone for submitting your gorgeous flower themed creations last week. This week we have a colour challenge for you - Old Olive, Soft Suede, Tangelo Twist and Very Vanilla. If you don't have these colours, you can use anything you have that is close. If you hop over to Stampin' Royalty you will see the gorgeous inspiration from the DT. 

As I went with a super feminine card last week I thought it was time for something for the males this time. I masked off the edges of a panel of Very Vanilla card and used a foam applicator to sponge a light layer of Soft Suede. I then stamped the ship from The Open Sea set. After masking off the ship, I stamped the World map in the background after first stamping it off once so it won't be too prominent. Then I added splotches from the Gorgeous Grunge set, again after stamping them off first. Last, I stamped the sentiment from the Just Sayin' set in Old olive, and fussy cut it. Then I realised I actually have the dies for the speech bubbles and felt a bit silly about fussy cutting. Last, I stamped the anchor from The Open Sea in Calypso Coral and fussy cut that too. As a finishing touch I added some Soft Suede around the edges of the front panel and attached to a Very Vanilla card.

I would like to link up with the following challenges:
STAMPlorations - July challenge Stamp and Distress
Inkspirational - Grunge
Make My Monday - The Sea

Card: Stampin' Up Very Vanilla
Ink: Stampin' Up Old Olive, Soft Suede and Calypso Coral
Stamps: Stampin' Up The Open Sea, World Map, Just Sayin', Gorgeous Grunge

Masculine Open Sea

It's been a crazy hectic week with no time to play in the craft room. After enduring an hour and a half of crazy traffic to get home from work I finally had some time for crafting. I'm not quite up to date with all the current challenges out there, but I did like the colour scheme over at Colour Me...! this week. I also went for a rather literal interpretation of this week's CAS(E) This Sketch. I'm also linking up with Red Rubber Inspirationals where the theme is to repeat the same stamp at least three times. For my background, I actually repeated the background stamp four times. 

For the card I used a stamp set from Stampin' Up called The Open Sea, and it makes a great masculine card. I stamped the background stamp in Soft Suede and the world map in Early espresso. The anchor is stamped in Tangerine Tango onto Crumb Cake cardstock and fussy cut, as is the compass. Last I stamped the sentiment from Bloom with Hope in Versamark and heat embossed using white powder. A bit of matting, and some stamping for the inside as well. I decided to keep it simple and not to add any embellishments to keep it masculine.

Card: Stampin' Up Soft Suede, Early Espresso, Tangerine Tango and Crumb Cake, Hobbycraft 160 gsm white card
Stamps: Stampin' Up The Open Sea, Bloom with Hope
Ink: Stampin' Up Soft Suede, Early Espresso, Tangerine Tango, Tsukineko Versamark
Other: Papermania Seafoam White Embossing Powder

Following the map that leads to you

The Stampin' Up World Map background stamp has been on my wish list for ages, and I decided to finally treat myself to it. It's just one of those stamps that I can see being so versatile, it will work as a background or as a focal image. For this card, I decided to use it as the main panel. The sketch I used is from STAMPlorations. Originally, I made another card for this sketch, but as usual it didn't turn out how I wanted. That was a floral image, and as that didn't work I decided to go somewhere completely different. Inspired by the current Just Us Girls challenge where the theme is ombre I created a green ombre background and stamped the World map on it. I used a stamp from The Open Sea for the background. The sentimet is from a Tim Holtz stamp set. Once I knew what I wanted to do, the card came together very quickly. I'm also entering the card in the Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge where the theme is "O" and my O is for ombre (obviously) and also for ocean.

Cardstock: Leonardo Stationery 300 gsm white card, Coloured 240 gsm kraft card Beige, Hobbycraft 160 gsm card white
Stamps: Stampin' Up World Map, The Open Sea, Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous The Journey
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress inks Bundled Sage, Iced Spruce, Peeled Paint, Pine Needles, Stampin' Up Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Tsukineko Memento Tuxedo Black

Father's Day card

I'm trying to keep on track with the various Mother's and Father's days. Mother's day in the UK this year was on March 30th, and Father's day is Sunday June 15th. Finnish Mother's day falls in between the two, this year on May 11th and Finnish Fathers's day doesn't take place until November 11th. The good thing of course is that this means there's lots of cards that need to be made all through the year! As I've already managed to tackle both Mother's day cards this year (on the UK date for the Culinary Consultant's mother and on the Finnish date for my Mum) it was now time to start thinking about Father's day cards. I will try to post both Mother's day cards at some point, as they turned out rather nice even if I say so myself.

This Father's day card is inspired by two challenges, the Muse challenge (below) as well as one of the themes for the Friday Mashup, which was ombre. I used a stamp set from Stampin' Up called The Open Sea. I actually bought the stamp set specifically for the Culinary Consultant's Dad as he likes boats and has one himself. As all card makers know, it's always so hard to make cards for men, so if they have some special interest you can use as a theme, that makes things so much easier. I also deliberately didn't use all stamps from the stamp set, only the sailing boat as I thought I can use the world map and the anchor for another card, maybe a birthday card and in that way get more use out of the stamp set. You know how making several cards to the same recipient using the same stamps is kind of like showing up in the same dress to party after party...

I used Tim Holtz distress inks to create the ombre background for the ship, and stamped it in Hobbycraft black pigment ink. I matted it onto matching Tim Holtz core'dinations cardstock and added some Tim Holtz paper string. I made banners out of the leftover scraps of the matting cardstock, and printed the sentiment onto the DSP.

Card: Craft UK kraft card, Hobbycraft 160 gsm ivory card, Tim Holtz ColorCore Cardstock in Faded Jeans and Barn Door
Paper: Stampin' Up DSP Fan Fair
Stamps: Stampin' Up The Open Sea
Inks: Tim Holtz distress inks Broken China, Faded Jeans, Peacock Feathers and Salty Ocean, Hobbycraft Black Pigment Ink 
Other: Tim Holtz Paper String