Loving the Close to My Heart April Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Welcome to the April Stamp of the Month Blog Hop. You may have found yourself here from Traci Godbee's Blog. We have 50 Close to My Heart Consultants participating in this month’s Stamp of the Month Blog Hop.

The April Stamp of the Month is entitled You Are (Set of 15). Look at what you can make with these cute stamps.


So you ask, what did I make with this stamp set?  Well when I looked at this stamp set I saw an answer to my prayers.  I have teenaged grandsons and it is hard to make cards for them.  They don’t really like flowers, butterflies, and cute little animals.  So this stamp set is super awesome.  So please take a look at my masculine teenager cards.

I took the same elements and made two totally different cards.  And they are made entirely of cardstock!  I stamped the words in Black on Brown Bag Cardstock.  In the card on the left I inked the edges while on the one on the right I sanded the strips of Brown Back Cardstock.  Changes the look a whole lot doesn’t it? 
Here is a closer look at my cards.

I layered my card with Black Cardstock to frame it. Then I stamped the larger background stamp to add some interest onto some Chocolate Cardstock.  The Brown Bag Strips were inked with black ink and then popped up with 3D Foam tape.  I used some of our super cute, but masculine, Durables Studs on the left side of the strips kind of like bullet points.  Then I inked up some of our Cork Alphabet letters by coloring them with our Black marker.  Finally I finished it off with two corrugate cardboard stars from the Milepost Shapes pack.  I squirted on a little Bronze Glitter Glitz Gel because even boys need a little bling,

My second card actually came out of a demonstration I did with a customer of mine today.  She wanted to know how to get these cool ridges on a piece of cardstock.  I showed her how by using my Dry Embossing stylus and my paper cutter and running the stylus across the paper in the cutting groove of the paper cutter that you would get a ridge.  Then I turned it over so the ridges were on the top and sanded it until the white core of our paper showed through.  Kind of reminded me of a wall of sorts.  My boys have always been kind of sloppy so I wanted to kind of slap my Brown Bag strips on the wall will nilly and then add the ampersand from the Milepost Shapes as well as that cool label shape.  And how do you like what I did with that label shape?  Know where those letters came from?  Someone told me I couldn’t get it to work so of course I had to try.  Those letters are actually our Newsprint Rub ons.  They held onto the ridges pretty well and I love what they added to my card.  I finished it off with more Bronze Glitter Glitz Gel on the Ampersand and a Pewter Photo Hanger with some manly twine attached.
Well, thank you for visiting my blog. Now you can head over to the next stop, Melissa Laverty's Blog, and see what she has created for you!

This stamp set can be purchased or you can even get it for only $5 Between April 1 – April 30, 2012. If you do not have a Close to My Heart Consultant, you can purchase this stamp set on my website.