Don’t you love this Bird Banter set? It is retiring at the end of May along with the Occasions and Annual Catalogs.  Not all stamp sets are retiring, thank goodness. But this one, so sadly will. This crazy good set was chosen by a group of Demonstrators I meet with monthly to do a swap.  There are 12 of us and we call ourselves the Designing Dozen.  Everyone in the group is assigned a month and that person chooses the stamp set and sets the ground rules for the swap.  Its a great way to meet and talk business each month as well as add some high quality card samples.  And this month was Bird Banter.  The sample above was done with a Berry Burst Background paper and the sample below with a Crushed Curry pattern. Using 2 color ways meant that I could use the supplies I had on hand!

What’s not to like about Bird Banter? You have several choices in tropical birds, including a Toucan! And the sentiments are quirky and a bit sassy. I really wanted to use the Color Theory DSP and the matching Glitter Dots. And Old Olive and Berry Burst were colors I wanted. I love, love those colors together.  It turned out an often used stamp from the retiring Work of Art set was the perfect thing to create a colorful design to set off a black & white bird image. If birds and sassy sayings are your thing, you really want to check out Bird Banter!

Products Used For This Card

This is the last of my “True Gentleman” cards for the week.  I may come back with a few more in May because Father’s Day, Graduations and all sorts of celebrations are coming up and these are perfect for the guys you need to give cards to! And the colors work really well for summer. I have to say designing cards with this suite was very easy. The stamps and the paper made it easy.  And I love how the accessories bring it all together. And its adieu to these Dapper Dudes soon! This suite will be retiring the end of May.

I  haven’t done as much stamping for my blog as I would like to this year. But I have liked the cards I have done.  And I like using a suite of products for a whole week’s run.  Using the True Gentleman Suite this week has been fun. Let me know what you think about seeing cards from the same suite all week!

And this card, I really liked. Maybe because of the colors and maybe because my Dad was a Pipe smoker. I have taken some of this paper and created a scrapbook page with him. Its unusual to see pipe smokers today, but in the 50’s and early 60’s it was almost iconic to see Dads relaxing after dinner with a pipe. Maybe not a good habit, but a great memory.

The design was centered on the rather large sentiment. I wanted to keep it really masculine and bring in some of the houndstooth design paper. Everything I tried looked to busy until I came up with the small squares topped with the wood look True Gentleman buttons! That sort of brought the whole card together for me.  I added some Linen Tread behind the sentiment and the card was done!

Products Used For This Card