Father's Day Inspiration (and a My Digital Studio newbie too)

Father's Day is just around the corner, so here are a couple of cards to inspire you.

The first one uses a retiring stamp set (those retiring from the 2009-2010 Idea Book & Catalog are only available through June 30th!) called Game Night.

The card base is Basic Gray and the dice image is stamped in the same color ink. The hearts, diamonds, spades & clubs image is stamped using Gong Gray, a color that is retiring this year. The accent on the front of the card is from the All Holidays stamp set, stamped using Going Gray ink onto Whisper White card stock, and backed onto a piece of Real Red card stock. The accent is attached to the card using Stampin' Dimensionals. The final touch is a piece of Real Red 1/4" grosgrain ribbon tied around the front of the card.

This second card is a hybrid card using some elements from the My Digital Studio and traditional stamps and accessories. The image is from the brand-new digital download from My Digital Studio, King of the Grill stamp brush set (#123174, $3.95). This is also available as a stamp set in the Summer Mini Catalog (#121707 in wood mount, $18.95, or #120066 in clear mount, $14.95).

To make the card, I sized the image in My Digital Studio to the size I wanted, and printed it onto a piece of Whisper White card stock. Then, I trimmed the image to the finished dimensions that I wanted and colored it in using the Many Marvelous markers. I layered it onto a piece of Poppy Parade card stock (a new In-Color) and attached it to the card using Stampin' Dimensionals. The card base is Not Quite Navy, the accent piece is Sahara Sand that was run through the Big-Shot using the Square Lattice Textured Impressions Embossing Folder, available in the Summer Mini Catalog. The Father's Day stamp is a retired stamp (it fit the area that I needed) and is from last years mini catalogs, And Many Mower.

Hope I've inspired those of you who still have Father's Day cards to make.

It's Graduation Time

It's that time of year where thoughts turn to graduation. They do, of course, unless you don't know of anyone graduating this year! For me, that would be my son graduating from High School. So, needless to say I'm thinking about it quite a bit.

When Stampin' Up! sent out my preview copy of the Summer Mini catalog, I knew that I was going to "need" this stamp set. It's the "Go, Graduate" stamp set on page 24 of the Summer Mini catalog that became available today! It's a great set for cards and scrapbooks and is available in both wood mount and clear mount.

The colors I used were Basic Gray, Going Gray, Whisper White, Bravo Burgundy and Basic Black. The Perfect Polka Dots Textured Impressions Pad for the Sizzix Big Shot was used to give a bit of texture to the background of the card front. While it was available in the previous mini catalog, it's still available for purchase.