Pink birthday!

Here is my second card from the other night! I needed a birthday card for a friend and thought I'd feature more retiring products! And it comes from Jen's Saturday Sketch to Try. (My scrapbook class this Wednesday comes from the same sketch!) I have a Pixie Pink card base, the side squares are punched from the Wild Wasabi Prints paper (hostess level 1) and I have three little black buttons on the squares too. The main image is the flower from Time Well Spent (hostess level 3). I stamped it all with Basic Black ink, then colored with the ink pad (Wasabi, Pink and Yoyo Yellow) and blender pens. I matted the White paper onto Basic Black card stock and wrapped it with (retiring!) Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon. Then I stamped half of this greeting stamp from Its Your Birthday in Pink Passion ink. Went pretty quickly too!

Inspiration Everywhere!

First, Beate found inspiration in a cake! This is a gorgeous cake! I wanted to do something with the tiny flowers, but I don't really have any that worked... So I turned to my newest set, Fresh Cuts and thought I could make the big stamp work for the flowery vines, with different colors. Um....it worked....but not how I envisioned...! This one is my third attempt to color it, and I liked how soft this try ended up, so here we go! I actually used Always Artichoke ink (and Rose Red and So Saffron) but the Artichoke looked a lot closer to Mellow Moss, so that's what its mounted on. The card is Soft Sky, and I tied a little Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon on the side, and stamped the words in Mellow Moss.

This one is a lot brighter! I found this in a round-about-way on Carole's blog for their TCP Tuesday challenge. I decided it would stretch my creativity! LOL! And for this card I used lots of retiring products to entice you as well! The card is Yoyo Yellow, which I really don't use very often, I think just for birthday cards! I used a piece of the soon to be retired Hostess Prints Pack in Wild Wasabi, then the top is just Whisper White. I used the soon retiring Time Well Spent set with Yoyo Yellow and Wild Wasabi inks. I tied the fast-retiring Wasabi double-stitched ribbon around the top and then tried my hand at a totally new bow idea (for me, anyway!). I used a tiny bit of very old yellow ribbon to tie the center. Oh, and I got the words from the retiring Its Your Birthday set. Don't forget to place your order soon if you want these things! Have a Happy Wednesday!

Be Inspired Challenge #15!

After a nice, long Memorial Day weekend I was very happy to be back to stamping! Which means I was also excited to play with Beate's inspiration piece! I needed a nice, masculine card since its also my husband's birthday. (Love you Honey! We got to go on a date too! A nice quiet lunch to ourselves and a very late movie- Prince Caspian!) Anyway...the card...I took the masculine-looking colors and created something TOTALLY different for me! Wow!

I started by playing with this tool:

Anyone know what it is? I sure don't! Something from Making Memories, obviously. My friend was cleaning out her craft room and has never had any luck using this so she gave it to me to try. Not having any idea how its supposed to work, it was kind of a pain! But! I have a circle cutter now! I thought I'd go with these oval cards I saw here ...but that didn't quite work. I got a huge circle from my Blue Bayou card stock! So, I cut the circle in half...(ish...) and got this. I mounted it on a piece of More Mustard card stock. I added a rectangle of Soft Sky thinking for the greeting and the writing...but then it would show oddly... So I stamped this on the inside:

and wrote my own message on the inside of the Bayou half circle! Then I added the Close to Cocoa tab from my super cool Round Tab Punch, and attached it with Silver Brads. The front of the Bayou piece I stamped weirdly with the bottom of one of the Boho Background stamps. The "love you" on the Cocoa comes from the stamp set Sweet Thing. All the ink is Basic Black. Happy Birthday Burt!

Sparkly Blue & Bright!

Two card using unique colors for me...imagine that! This first one I actually stamped a couple days ago. I caught a few minutes of a home-decorating show and they were painting lamps and things using colors awfully similar to River Rock, Bordering Blue and Night of Navy! I have never once used Bordering Blue! I only have it in marker anyway, which actually doesn't work so well with the shadowy part of this flower stamp... I also added River Rock double stitched ribbon and some dazzling diamonds glitter to add bling to the focal point. I think this card is fantastic! This bright card I stamped last night. I've been wanting to do these butterflies more like Monarch butterflies, which are one of my favorites. I really love doing the Rock-n-Roll technique with these butterflies! So, I used So Saffron (my favorite shade of yellow) with Only Orange, and then a touch of Gable Green. Its a softer, bright green. And the colors look a lot like the rainbow sherbet we had the other day...lemon, orange and lime! Then I added the white grosgrain and a birthday greeting and I'm very happy with it. See, I knew today would go better!

Recent Mail

I'm sending in an order Wednesday evening. If you need any supplies right now or are interested in getting a Sale-A-Bration set free, call me before Wednesday night and I'll add your order too! This butterfly card is the one I gave my mom for her birthday. I posted this on my website in January, but she mentioned a couple times how much she liked it...so she got it! (see, that can happen to you too- tell me what you like and you just might find it in your mailbox on your birthday!)

Its a super simple card, the hard part was cutting out the butterflies. I hate cutting things out... Anyway, I used So Saffron cardstock and ink, Elegant Eggplant cardstock and ink, the white gel pen to make the butterfly flight paths and a fire Square Rhinestone Brad to have the greeting 'peek' out. I think the color combination is striking. This second card I sent to another stamper. It's also a simple card but again, all about the color combo! Groovy Guava and Not Quite Navy. I wish I could remember (or find again) whose blog pointed out how great they look together... They really do! Its hard to see, and I apologize but I used the flower image from another stamp in the For A Friend set. It's versamarkered (cool word, btw!) down the left side of the card. Then I used the Guava ink pad to watercolor the little heard. I love that spiral punch and I added a little white grosgrain ribbon for a simple accent. Cute and easy!

On the side bar I've added some new info. In March I have an in-home workshop coming up, plus a fun birthday card class. If you like to make and give cards this is one you'll really want to attend. Birthday cards for everyone! Plus we'll use new stamps, which is super exciting to me. Anyway, be sure and RSVP and I'll keep the reminders comin'!