What, no ribbon?!!

As I mentioned in last night's post, I was busy designing cards for a stamping class that I have this afternoon and I was shocked by the end - five cards and no ribbon! If you've stamped with me or followed my blog for long, you'll know that I have a ribbon addiction - it goes nicely with my stamp collecting addiction! Of course, it helped that I was designing cards to suit the request for kids cards, mostly for boys.

I was determined to use the Bugs & Kisses stamp set which I had ordered a long time ago and had not yet used... I thought this was a pretty cute card in the end! Card stock colours are Very Vanilla, Garden Green, Chocolate Chip and Close to Cocoa - all sponged with Chocolate Chip ink.

Next, I needed to use the Ahoy Matey set - another that had not met my stamp pads yet. I was able to use a jumbo wheel on this card also - Matey's Map. The greeting comes from the Family Phrases set. Card stock colours are Bordering Blue, Real Red, Not Quite Navy, Sahara Sand, Basic Black and Whisper White.

And, guess what? I had another set that I had not yet used... This one is called Prehistoric Pals and I ordered it as soon as it was introduced in the new catalogue. I had tried to use it before, but just didn't seem to find a good layout - I'm very pleased with this one! It's very simple but I think a little dinosaur-loving boy (or girl!) would enjoy it. First, I stamped the dinosaur in Basic Grey on the card stock. Then I stamped the trees - the trunk in Chocolate Chip and the leaves in Garden Green. I sponged the ground with Close to Cocoa ink and used Soft Sky to add some blue for the sky. You can't see this too well in the scan, but it made a big difference and took away from the stark white of the card stock. I used the Canvas stamp to create a background layering piece. And, the greeting comes from the Happy Everything set - I punched the "birthday" out using the Word Window Punch and it worked well to fill in some empty space.

I wanted to include one card that would be suitable for a little (or bigger) girl so this is it. It's based on another card that I had designed a couple of years ago and I always liked the layout. It's very simple... The butterfly is from the Priceless set and the greeting comes from Hugs & Wishes. I've used a favourite colour combination on this one - Lavender Lace, Certainly Celery, Cameo Coral and Apricot Appeal. And, amazingly, no ribbon even on this card... but I must admit that I tried to add ribbon to it! : )

I finished things off with this rocket ship card which I think is pretty fun! I've been wanting to use this stamp from the Pun Fun stamp set... I stamped it onto Naturals White card stock using StazOn ink and then used blender pens and ink (Brilliant Blue, Real Red, Only Orange and Basic Grey) to colour in the rocket ship. The stars stamped on the top are from the Background Basics set. And, I also used some Bashful Blue card stock to layer behind the rocket ship and to punch out the two stars.

So, what do you think? Maybe not quite as amazing as the fact that I managed to create five cards without using any ribbon, but I have to tell you that I sat down at my stamp table to start on these cards at 7:30 last night! Other than having considered which stamp sets I was going to use, I had no idea what I was going to do. I must admit I was a little panicked since I had to have them all ready for a class today, but I was done before midnight... and that included cleaning up! I was on a creative streak!

Happy stampin'!

Bev.

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