Thoughts of Father - masculine card

What car guy doesn't dream of coming across a "field find" or "barn find" old car, 

one that has been long forgotten but could be brought back to life ?

This image reminds me of those types of cars 

and I think most car guys would like the image - even if it does have flowers on it.

The image is from the Thoughts Of Father stamp set from Stampin' Up!

It can be time consuming to color though.

I like to try to color the old car so that it looks rusty. 

I use classic inks from Stampin' Up! and a watercolor pen to paint with.

The image was stamped on Naturals Ivory card stock.

I distresed the edges. 

The mat is Chocolate Chip.

The base is Kraft that I ran the bottom portion of through a paper crimper.

Chocolate grosgrain ribbon. 

A button off of an old shirt destined for the rag bag

(I love repurposing items!) for embellishment. 

Thanks for looking =) 

Antique Autos - masculine card 2

DID YOU REMEMBER TO SET YOUR CLOCKS BACK ?

CHANGE THE BATTERIES IN YOUR 

SMOKE DETECTORS, TOO !!!

Another card using images from the same stamp set as the previous post,

 this one using the large antique auto image. 

It is a retired stamp set, Antique Autos, from Stampin' Up!

I bought this set specifically for the Route 66 image.

The background Stipple Plaid stamp is also retired from Stampin' Up!

This card is an oldie, a sample I came across while cleaning out the craft dungeon.

I remember that it was a near copy of one in an old Idea Book.

I believe the card stock colors are:

Creamy Caramel (base)

Really Rust and Old Olive (mats)

Naturals Ivory to stamp the images on with Really Rust ink

tiny scraps of Mulberry Paper

Thanks for looking =) 

Antique Autos - masculine card

Another simple card design I've used many, many times over the years. 

I made several masculine cards for birthdays this month.

I don't know what it is about March,

but there are several guys I know (or have known in the past)

that have March birthdays.

This is the first of several I will be posting over the next few days.

My two best long time pen pals also have March birthdays - and on the same day !

They are ladies so I will share a couple feminine cards, too.

Thanks for looking =)

all supplies from Stampin' Up!

Whisper White and Night Of Navy cardstock

Night Of Navy ink

Highways and Byways background stamp (retired)

Antique Autos stamp set (retired)

Stampin' Sponge to sponge ink on the edges of the small white pieces

Happy Birthday, Sport !

This is such an old card..........super easy to make, too.

When I first started stamping a dozen years ago this was

my "go to" card design. 

Simple to do (and demonstrate) with any style stamp set/wheel

plus there are so many variations that can be done.

Use a Stampin' Around wheel to roll on the background.

Stamp a greeting, trim, lightly sponge the edges with the same color of ink that you rolled the background with. Mount to coordinating colored card stock then to the front of the card.

Stamp and cut out a football and basketball, adhere to the card front with dimensionals.

Adhere finished card to a coordinating colored base. Simple ! 

All supplies were from Stampin' Up!

Whisper White and Rocket Red ink / card stock

(Rocket Red was retired sooooooo long ago!)

Have A Ball stamp set

Stampin' Around Wheel - All Sports (?)

 Dotted Greetings  (I really don't remember the name....)

Thanks for looking =) 

Thanks Coach - Basketball two step card

I made this pretty simple card in 2007 for the team to sign and give to the then basketball coach. I used the Have A Ball (retired) stamp set and an alphabet stamp set (Brushstroke Alpha I think?) from Stampin' Up! . I also used an unknown clear stamp alphabet set. Inks and card stock from Stampin' Up!

Thanks for looking =)

Attic Tour

I thought I'd share a few photos of the old attic since I mentioned it yesterday.  

The pull down ladder we installed. 

The floor - and this is the best part, everywhere else I balance on rafters or a few old boards tossed down.

There is a decent amount of space up here. Granted not as much due to the sloped ceiling/walls, but enough and certainly with plenty of head room to make a nice sized room for me . Seems like a wasted space to me.

Yikes ! Charred wood ! We have no idea how this happened - or how the entire house did not catch on fire. It was like this when we bought the place. The home inspector and the roofing contractor were both amazed at it as well.

  

The large old window that has been laying on the floor in a corner since we moved in 13 years ago. I have always wanted to drag it out, see if I could salvage it into a frame. I have no idea where I would hang it since we don't really have wall space large enough for it. I did bravely, after all of these years, work my way over to it and drag it to the center of the room for a closer look. Great idea but one I may not be able to do since it looks pretty bad, fragile.

I have much more work to do to get it organized as I would like. And I may just call a couple of contractors for ha-ha's to see what it might take to turn this into a really neat space !!! Perhaps I could find out how to be entered on a home improvement show, they could see the potential and help finish it off ?

The Lorax/Vintage Tshirts

*Ooops ! I meant to post this last Friday!*

I loved The Lorax story / movie as a kid and 

found this shirt in 1994.

I'd been taking advantage of the mild weather recently, working on reorganizing our attic and cleaning some stuff out.

It must be sunny and around 60 degrees or so to work in the attic. If it is too cold, the cold air falls down (as the heat rises), making the rest of the house cold. If it is too hot, it is like an oven up there. Even pleasantly warm outside it gets too hot up there with the heat rising, sun beating on the roof. It needs to be sunny so I have light entering the two windows since there is no electricity/lights otherwise. So the recent 60ish degree, sunny days have been perfect to start tackling that long put off chore.

I'd LOVE to finish the attic off into usable space (my new craft area, get out of the dungeon basement!), but it would take so much money and engineering to do. There is only a ladder up through a hole in the ceiling to get up to that awesome space, so if it were even possible to put in a real stair case I imagine it would be super expensive.

Currently it is a catch all storage area, perfect because no one ever sees the junk up there. Old school papers/projects, some mementos, die cast car and ball cap collections, the old car models I put together, so on. Oh, and zillions of ladybugs that overwinter in the attic !

I also have some old clothing stored up there that I had no intentions of getting rid of. Some of them are a few of my old tshirts that I thought perhaps, one day, the kids may want.

I tossed a few of them down and both kids wanted The Lorax tshirt (from 1994) and my well worn vintage ZZ Top Afterburner Tour shirt, circa 1986. 

My daughter wore the ZZ shirt to work last week, but before she did she listened to some of their music to get familiar with them in case anyone asked ! My son plans on wearing The Lorax this week since the new movie ("We have to go see it!") came out in theaters. 

Yes, I am a sentimental old pack rat. . . . I'm really not that bad, I certainly could have saved many more things with the amount of out of sight space up there in the old attic!

Field Of Clover Flyover

While cleaning up the teeny tiny pieces from the punched border card I made, 

I thought to myself that some of them resembled four leaf clover, 

what could I make with them...

This is what I came up with:

an airplane flying over a field full of four leaf clover ! 

The airplane is from the retired stamp set "Toy Box" from Stampin' Up!

It is cut out, water colored and adhered to the card on dimensionals.

I used a home made stencil to sponge Bashful Blue ink to make clouds.

I inked and stamped the Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp with a Garden Green marker. 

I did it in separate sections to make the greeting into one long one for the banner. 

The banner is a scrap of white paper I trimmed.

Thanks for looking =) 

Inspired St. Pat's Card

All items used were from Stampin' Up!

Card stocks:

Whisper White

Wild Wasabi

Pear Pizazz

Certainly Celery

Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set

Wild Wasabi ink

Lace Border Punch

Rhinestones colored with a Sharpie marker

Clear drying liquid glue

Idea totally lifted from an advertisement for a paper crafting store:

In Like A Lion

It is officially the first day of March, but with all the horrible weather yesterday, Leap Day, March is entering like a Lion around here ! 

Today is going to be beautiful after the relentless strong winds all day long yesterday. I hope to pick up the mess before the next round of severe storms rolls across tomorrow. 

Thankfully we have nothing more than lots of branches down around the property, one gutter blown off the house. Certainly nothing to complain about. I can not imagine going through what many areas of the Midwest did, how tragic. 

On a crafty note, I've several masculine cards I made over the weekend that I will be sharing soon. There are several guys with birthdays in March I'll be sending cards to for my Card Project 2012 . 

I hope everyone is safe and remains so over this upcoming spring storm season.