#1130 – Happy New Year!!

Hello and welcome!! It’s the New Year!!!

WISHING EVERYONE A VERY HAPPY & PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!

I have no idea how 2025 flew by so fast – I am trying to recollect what happened in my life and everything seems like a blur – I feel like I did so many things, but I just can’t remember what! I guess being busy while not having many sad moments itself is an achievement and I can at least be happy about that feeling!

So anyway, while I wasn’t able to make any Diwali cards this year since I was so busy (one of the fre regrets!) I am happy I made new year’s card to give my sister. We also made this an Inspiration Station challenge – which seems to have been a yearly occurance, but we hope to change that this year!

So this time is my turn and I chose a trio of images –

_{sources: butterfly, Humming bird, Water Lilies}

The challenge is to take basically from the image – the colors, elements – nature, flora, fauna, shining – anything that you like! I wanted to use one or the other element from each image. Initially I thought of using the butterfly, bird and flowers, but then changed that to use the colors from the first image, and use the humming bird from the second and using the floral theme from the third. And here’s what I created –

Truthfully, I did change my idea quite a few times before I arrived at this one. But that seems to be the usual process with me! I used the Neat & Tangled Geometric Blooms on the base of the card and gently blended in some darker ink on the sea green cardstock, leaving the center un touched. I then die cut a frame for this panel using Pink Fresh Studio Ornate Rectangle Frame and set the pieces aside.

I then used various colored cardstock to die cut the florals from Spellbinders Fresh Picked Anemones. I used some ink blending only on the stalk and leaves, while leaving the rest of die cuts with solid colors. For the humming bird, I used Simon Says Stamp Delicate Hummingbird Duo on watercolor paper and then watercolored the bird before using a shimmery champagne watercolor from Gansai Tambi Starry Colors to color certain areas on the bird to make it shine – after all Humming birds are wicked shimmery! I used Sakura black Glaze pen on its eyes and beak. I also added dots of gold on the already die cut areas of the center of the flowers using a gold gel pen for doing so.

Once everything was dry and ready, I assembled all the pieces on the card base, and felt that the background was too flat. So I splattered some gold from the Gansai Tambi Starry Colors, let it dry and then adhered all the pieces on the card base. I also cut off the cardstock from the corners of the card base to match the frame.

For the sentiment, I used a sentiment from CrafTangles Happy Holidays and stamped it on gold pearl shimmer cardstock using a Colorbox teal pigment ink. I then stamped it using Versamark clear sticky ink before heat embossing it with clear embossing powder. I then die cut this using a die from Simon Says Stamp Stitched Circles and adhered it on the card.

And that’s my card for my sister – Happy New Year to you sis!!

Checkout my sister’s card here. It’s still hidden from me at the time of writing this post, so I am excited to receive it, but I bet I’m gonna love it! ❤ ..and oh, wow!! Her mixed media card just blew me away!! I am delighted to be at it’s receiving end!! Thank you sis!! ❤

Thank you so much for stopping by!

#1111 – A Tunnel Birthday card

PE: Honorable Addict at Addicted to Stamps and More!

Hello and welcome! It’s time for a new challenge at Seize the Birthday. The leading lady this time is our leader, Nancy, and she has chosen the Topping of ‘Layer It‘. The topping is, as always, optional and you are always welcome to join as long as your project is birthday themed.

Incidentally, my sister’s birthday also fell recently and this is the card I had made for her –

Yeah, the outside looks nothing special. Because the fun is inside!

The card opens with a double door layout which opens to a tunnel card, with a wild garden theme. I was inspired by one of my own cards I had made in the beginning of the year.

For the card front, I used a pattern paper from and the sentiment die cut using Simon Says Stamp Birthday Wishes. I added a few small butterflies from My Favorite Things Hip Clips.

I started with making the different panels for each of the layers. I used Canson Montval watercolor paper and before adding anything, I added a base layer of color on the panels using distress inks ink smooshing technique. And I used quite a few different products on this one.

Coming to each of the panels – for the botton most, I used Hero Arts Blooming Meadows and Technique Tuesday Wildflowers and used distress pencils to color them. In places where the print wasn’t good enough or smaller places where I didn’t want to stamp, I took my brush and painted them myself using the color from the distress pencils. middle layer, used Mudra Leaves and Altenew Floral Shadow stamps, coloring the stamps with the water dipped distress pencils, them stamping them and then coloring them some more using a brush wherever I needed it. Once this dried, I cut out the window in the center. I also added a few more die cut leaves from WPlus9 Folk Art Floral and also some flowers using Paper Smooches Flowers 2 dies and then some butterflies using a small die from My Favorite Things Hip Clips.

For the top layer, I used Simon Says Stamp Arching Leaf Border, Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms, Paper Smooches Flowers 2, Simon Says Stamp Delicate Hummingbird Duo and butterflies from My Favorite Things Hip Clips. I had intended to leave the layer as is, but it was too flimsy, so make the layer more stable, I die cut a frame from the same cardstock to stick it on.

For making the sides (the doors) to the card which extends to the tunnel, I took two pieces of cardstock, scoring the sides to 0.5″ each, then folding them to get the zig-zags where I would attach each panel. (If my explanation is confusing, a simple search in youtube might give you a video with a much better one!!). I used one door for the card front, and the other to add my greetings.

For some embellishing, I used Sakura Glaze pen in black on the butterflies and the eyes of the hummingbirds and some Nuvo drops on the flower centers.

Of course, because of the zig-zag sides, the card ended up being too thick and couldn’t fit in a normal envelope. I had to make one out of thicker paper and adhere the pattern paper on it (it had a width of half an inch!) – thank goodness I didn’t have to mail it – there would be no quarentee that it would arrive intact! 😉

And that’s my ‘took so many days to make’ card! I’ve already declared to my sister that never again will any card I make be this elaborate. This is my apex! 😀

And I’m also joining these challenges with my card –

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge #490: Die cuts &/or Stencils

Neglected Stuff challenge #425 – It’s been years since I used WPlu9 Folk Art Floral dies, Hero Arts Blooming Meadows and Technique Tuesday Wildflowers and I have never used Mudra Leaves stamp since I bought it years ago! I am so glad I used them here!! 🙂

Checkout the Seize the Birthday blog to see what the rest of our DT and our guests have created for your inspiration! And don’t forget to join the party yourself!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#1104 – Garden for a Humming Bird

Hello and welcome! It’s time for the first Seize the Birthday challenge of the year!! Our leading lady Cathy and she has chosen the topping of ‘Use Something New‘. Of course, the topping is optional, and you can just make any birthday themed project and join us.

And here’s what I made –

I purchased the Simon Says Stamp Arching Leaf Border die during their Die-cember sale last year, and I couldn’t be more pleased with it. I had seen so many pretty cards online that I just couldn’t wait to start playing!

So anyway, I started with creating ink smooshed panels. I used different shades and tones of greens and blues to make a few panels to die cut from. I also made a couple of panels with pink, purple and blue so I could cut out the flowers and the humming bird from them.

I then used the Simon Says Stamp Arching Leaf Border dies, Simon Says Stamp Delicate Hummingbird Duo dies, Spellbinders Be Bold Blooms dies on different panels to get a variegation of colors.

Before mounting this on Paper Trey Ink Rustic Cream cardstock, I embossed the card base using Simon Says Stamp Vine Canopy embossing folder. I then assembled and adhered all the die cuts on the card base. For the sentiment, I used JustRite Lace Vintage Labels 3 and cut off one of the edges at a diagonal before adhering that too on the card.

I have to confess I am really happy with the dies – they are perfect for quickly creating a garden/forest like impression on the card. And this card, in particular, looks even prettier in real life! Can you believe that!?

Ok, enough of patting my own back. I’m going to join these challenges with this card –

Addicted to Stamps and More #483 – Birthdays

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge – Something New

I hope you hop over to the Seize the Birthday challenge blog to checkout all the impressive cards the rest of the design team and also our guest designers have created. You won’t be disappointed! And I think you’ll be inspired enough to join the party! 🙂

Thank you so much for stopping by!