Aloha, all!
Last time, I wrote about using stamp sets outside of the Stampin’ Up! catalog. I do this when I find the “perfect stamp set” someone else. But for today’s card – for our grandson, Carson, I didn’t have to look further than page 100 of the Stampin’ Up! 2019-2020 Annual Catalog. Dino Days!
While we’re not sure if he’s at all “into” dinosaurs, they’re usually a good bet for an 11-year old young man. On the other hand, I didn’t actually own this stamp set, and I was wondering if I was going to have to order it for just this one birthday card. Saved by my friend, Cheryl Hamilton, whom I was visiting in Maui last weekend! We were playing working in her craft room Saturday evening when it occurred to me that she might have this set and she did! I was able to stamp the two dinosaurs, along with the sentiment, cut them out with her set of Dino Dies, and bring them home to Hilo with me. Yay for friends!
This wasn’t all smooth sailing when I got home and started to make the card. For one thing, I had managed to stamp and die cut the wrong set of spikes for this cute dino guy. So I had to hand-draw them and color them in – and did a pretty nice job if I say so myself!
Then there was the sentiment. I had wanted to die-cut or punch the sentiment while I was there as Cheryl’s stash is WAAAAY larger than mine. I liked this punch shape, but it’s nowhere in a current catalog and I have no idea what it’s called. What I should have done is just wait until I got home because there was another problem with the sentiment. The pronoun at the beginning was “I” and I wanted a “We.” I found a “We” on another stamp in my stash (amazing!) and glued it onto the stamped and punched image. But it sticks out there like a teeny sore thumb. But it works.
From the time I was stamping these critters, I knew I wanted the larger one in a frame type of layout, with the winged critter up in a corner of the card. I was really surprised when I got home and the idea worked! The center background is Very Vanilla Cardstock, with frames of Mossy Meadow and Cajun Craze Cardstock, cut into rectangles with the Stitched Rectangles Dies.
When all the pieces were put together, I realized I was looking at a card with no embellishments at all. That just can’t happen. It took a while of looking through stuff, but I finally came up with the idea of wrapping some of the Cajun Craze Linen Thread from the Come to Gather Ribbon Combo Pack.
If you’re looking for a dinosaur stamp set with coordinating dies, this is the cutest set I’ve seen in a long time. It’s so easy to work with and all of the cards I’ve seen made with it are just precious.
Whatever you’re working on this week, have fun with it! And thanks, Cheryl, for helping me make this card.
You did a great job on the spikes! Cute card. Your grandson will love it!