Playtime Collection Release at Clear and Simple Stamps

Today marks the release of the Playtime Collection from Clear & Simple Stamps. You’ll find a great selection of stamp sets in this collection. Quite a few of them are great for making cards for little boys, something that I’ve had a hard time finding just the right stamps to do. If you've gotta have them all, CSS has made it easy for you with this Want It All link.

Here’s another card using the fun robot themed Get in Gear set, perfect for little boy cards. As the Stamp of the Month, you can use the code DTBlog909 to get a $1 discount on your purchase of this set. I couldn’t resist pairing one of the robot images with this gear patterned paper from Scenic Route.

The robot is colored with Copic markers and layered on a mat to coordinate with the colors in the paper. I attached a panel of the patterned paper to the cardbase, then layered on a strip of twill tape, backed by a piece of cardstock, for the sentiment. I find that twill is a great alternative to ribbon on cards for men and boys. It’s a way to add that embellishment without being too feminine. Here, I stamped the sentiment directly on the twill using Palette ink. I’ve had the most success with stamping on ribbon and similar surfaces when using this type of ink.

Materials Used:
Get in Gear stamp set (Clear & Simple Stamps); white cardstock (Taylored Expressions); Tuxedo Black ink (Memento); markers (Copic); Riding Hood Red, Night of Navy, and Kiwi Kiss cardstock, silver brad, dimensionals (Stampin’ Up!); designer paper (Scenic Route-Appleton line); Noir Black ink (Palette); oval dies (Nestabilities); twill tape (Martha Stewart)

And, this release also includes some sets that are perfect for holidays. With Halloween coming up, I have a difficult decision to make—Cosmo the crazy dog’s Halloween costume. Every year I dress him up to help me answer the door. Despite what you might be thinking, I promise that this isn’t torture for him. He absolutely loves the admiration from the crowds at our door. He thinks it’s Happy Cosmo Day and that everyone’s coming to the house to see him. Must be nice to live in his world . . .

Anyway, here’s an 8 1/2" x 8 1/2" scrapbook page I made featuring one of his past costumes. He was Batdog a few years ago and the bat image from Holiday Defined II worked perfectly with this photo. I’m definitely not a scrapper, so I turned to one of the experts for inspiration. I based my page on one of CSS DT member Jen’s past Paper Craft Planet Scrappy Sunday challenges (she hosts a scrapping challenge every Sunday—if you’re a scrapper, be sure to check it out!). The bat is stamped on yellow and gray cardstock squares that I arranged at the bottom of the page. This is a pretty trendy color combination, a little out of my comfort zone, but it worked nicely with the colors in my photo.

I used some foam letter stickers for my “bat dog” title and added some handwritten journaling underneath the bat tiles. The date and event are noted on the word window punch piece at the top of the page. I added the block definition from the Holiday Defined II set over a portion of my photo, being careful to not cover up any Cosmo cuteness.

Be sure to visit the rest of the Clear & Simple Stamps DT for more samples using the newest releases. Here’s where you can find them:
CSS Blog
Beth Matson
Jen Tapler
Kim Howard
Maria Levine
Neva McMullen
Robyn Weatherspoon
Sue Berker
Millie Dawson-Hardy, guest designer

Materials Used:
Holiday Defined II stamp set (Clear & Simple Stamps); Tuxedo Black ink (Memento); Yoyo Yellow, Basic Gray, and Basic Black cardstock, word window punch, 1 ¼” square punch, dimensionals (Stampin’ Up!); Smokey Shadow Palette ink, Smokey Shadow cardstock, black button, twine (Papertrey Ink); black foam letters (Queen & Co.)