#851 – Happy Birthday Friend

Hello and welcome! Somehow managed to make a card today – I wanted to make a shaker, since I recently bought some shaker sequins + beads mix! 🙂

On this card, I first applied a light coat of brown distress ink, then used the smallest polka dots stencil from the Simon Says Stamp Seeing Dots I added a bright blue ink. I used the same ink on a scrap strip of white cardstock also, to use for the shaker background. The critter is from Mama Elephant Three Amigos stamp set, which I watercolored using ink from my Zig Brush pens. I then fussy cut them all, and also die cut a strip of cardstock using the ‘Friend’ from My Favorite Things. I then made a shaker card using all these pieces. Pretty quick to make, I should say. 🙂

I am joining the following challenges –

Happy Little Stampers January Watercolor challenge: Anything Goes + optional Die Cuts

STAMPlorations January Stencil Challenge

AAA Birthday challenge #9: A Shaker Card

Fusion Card Challenge: Critter

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

#849 – Another New Year card!

Hello and welcome! Here’s another new year card. I made this one to send to a dear blogging friend of mine. Hope she liked it! 🙂

I was totally inspired by this card made by Jennifer McGuire (the last card in the series). I don’t have any such die, but I wanted to achieve a similar effect. So instead of a single die cut, I used many!! 😉

Of course, as you can see, I made the card a more-or-less tone-on-tone, rather than colorful, as I first intended to. I kinda liked this look! 🙂

I first started with a card panel – 6″x4″. I used MFT Flutter of Butterflies and die cut a few of the butterflies from the panel. I then used the flower and leaf dies from Paper Smooches Flowers and Flowers 2 dies, and die cut from the gaps in between the butterflies. I also added a few dotted swirly lines using Paper Smooches Stitched Flourishes 2 die. I retained all the die cut pieces, to use them later in my card.

I first adhered the die cut panel on a cream colored cardstock. I then started adhering the die cut pieces, layering a few and finally embellishing a the butterflies and flowers with cream half pearls.

Finally coming to the sentiment. After finishing the card base, I had no idea how to proceed. I finally settled on using the happy die from Mama Elephant along with a strip of stamped sentiment from Reverse Confetti Whole Lotta Happy. I first die cut three pieces of the die and stacked them. I added some liquid glue behind both the die and strip and just laid them on the card – no pressure, so that they would appear floating on top of the butterflies.

And that finished the card! With this card, I am joining the following challenges –

Just us Girls challenge #514 – Trends Week: Create Dimension

Global Design Project #223: Celebration

Happy Little Stampers January Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Just Add Ink challenge #488: Celebrate! A BIG congrats on completing 10 years of the challenge! Wow! What an achievement!!

Thanks for stopping by!

#847 – Happy New Year!

Hello! I am already almost half a month away, but I think I can have the whole of January to wish someone a Happy New Year, so there! 😀

These are the cards I made for the family this year.

As I do for every year, this time too, I have common theme and design. This year, I planned to

• Use colored cardstock as my card base
• Use layered flower stamps as the focal
• Use dies for the background
• Have some kind of a different fold than the usual.

For these cards, I made the card open in between. The bottom half is tucked in between the foil strip and the colored card base. So, one has to kinda pull the bottom half of the card towards themselves to open the card.

For the first card, I used navy blue cardstock, added pieces die cut from Simon Says Stamp Clustered Flowers die. On this I added a strip of silver mirror card stock. I then adhered all the leaves and flowers in layers. The focal flower comes from Hero Arts Flower Layering Hibiscus stamp set, and the other pieces are from other stamp set.

For the second card, I used Spellbinders Doily Circle dies, die cutting cream and yellow cardstocks and alternating them between each circle when adhering. I used a gold mirror cardstock strip on this one, and the focal rose is from Altenew’s Build a Flower: Rose.

For the third card, I used Stamplorations Bloomtangled 1 die with a strip of silver mirror card stock. The flowers are a stamp set  from Right at Home called Sunflower.

For the fourth card, I used Altenew’s Doodled Lace die cut, a strip of gold mirror cardstock and then Altenew’s Layered Lili as the focal point.

On all of these cards, I used the sentiment which is a combination of Lil Inker Designs’ Rustic Spring and Reverse Confetti’s Whole Lotta Happy stamp sets. I used the same on the self made envelops as well. This time I used Fabriano Tinta paper to make the envelopes.

With these cards, I am joining the following challenges –

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge: Something New

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Fun with Florals

Happy Little Stampers: January Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Virginia’s Show and Share for January. Thank you Virginia for hosting it!!

Thank you for stopping by!

#844 – Christmas Poinsettia

Hello and welcome! Time for another Christmas card!! This time, the focus is on the poinsettias. The red of the poinsettias against a white (or, in this card, a cream) background is just fantastic! The red looks absolutely dashing! 🙂

I first die cut the top and bottom pieces using the My Favorite Things Stitched Scallop Basic Edges dies. Then, on the card base, I drew the outline of the two pieces using a pencil and set the pieces aside. I then die cut a bunch of the poinsettia leaves using the Simon Says Stamp Poinsettia Cluster die using the same cardstock. I then adhered all the pieces, flat on the card base, taking care not to go much beyond the pencil markings.

Next came the sentiment. I used Paper Trey Ink ‘Tis The Season stamp. I first stamped the upper half in red ink, then stamped both using Versamark watermark ink, and heat embossed the bottom half using platinum embossing powder, and the top using clear embossing powder. I repeated this a couple more times to give it a bit more dimension. I then foam mounted the top and bottom pieces on the card. Finally I adhered the poinsettias, which are from Itsy Bitsy, on the card. For embellishing, I added half pearls on the centers of all the poinsettias and added silver glitter shine on the poinsettias.

I am joining the following challenges –

The Flower challenge #39: Use a Die

Inkspirational challenge #202: No Stamping (I have stamped for heat embossing the sentiment, so if this doesn’t count, please take my entry off!)

Happy Little Stampers: December Anything Goes with Dies challenge

Just us Girls challenge #516: Anything Goes

Thank you for stopping by! 🙂

#839 – Merry and Bright

Hello! Continuing from the post yesterday, this is the second card I made during my free time yesterday. I got inspired by the Winnie & Walter Color Combo challenge which is hosted by Heather. The colors are beautiful this time too!! But before that, here’s what I made –

I started with stamping the images that I wanted to use – they all came from In Bloom: Victorias Very Merry Flowers, plus a few die cuts from In Bloom: Paulina’s Greenery. I used dye inks, misted them and then stamped them, giving them a watercolored look. Once they dried, I fussy cut them. On the die cut piece, I blended in a bit of green tinted distress oxide inks.

On the card base, I adhered a piece embossed using We R Memory Keepers Geometric embossing folder and trimmed the sides from. On this I adhered all the fussy cut and die cut pieces, foam mounting a few of the flowers, some of them partially even.

Coming to the sentiment – I used In a Word Merry Co-ordinating dies. I cut the shadow using vellum and white cardstock using the word die, which I then colored a bright red using Zig Brush marker, which I adhered together. The stamped piece of the sentiment comes from In Bloom: Victorias Very Merry Flowers, which I stamped and then fussy cut. I adhered the all the pieces using foam tape.

For embellishing, I added a few tiny drops of Nuvo Silver Lining crystal drops on the center of the flowers and also added sparkle using Spectrum Noir clear sparkle pen. This finished my card!

I am joining the following challenges –

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes

Winnie & Walter October Color Combo challenge with Heather H

Happy Little Stampers November Watercolor challenge: Anything Goes with optional ‘Animals’ (I haven’t used the optional here)

Thank you so much for stopping by!

#833 – Seize the Birthday: Its just a Number!

Hello and welcome! We are starting a new challenge this week at Seize the Birthday challenge, and the topping this time is ‘Its just a Number’, which is given to us by Colleen. Of course, as usual, you are free to ignore the topping and join the fun with any Birthday project.

I, of course, went with topping, and here’s what I made –

After a long time, I turned back to my favorite technique and had some relaxed time watercoloring. Didn’t last too long though – I think I completed this, quite unexpectedly, within an hour!

Anyway, I stamped the images from Waffle Flower Enveloper Birthday and Enveloper Little Birdie on watercolor paper using Distress Ink Antique Linen and then used Gansai Tambi watercolors for coloring.

Once it dried, I masked off the girl, then added a few splatters. I trimmed this to size and kept it aside.

While I had a basic idea of what I wanted, didn’t think too much about it before the watercoloring and I was stuck on which sentiment to use and how and where for quite some time, until I came across this sentiment from Simon Says Stamp Big Birthday Wishes. I stamped it in vellum, trimmed the piece and after folding the top half of it, tucked it on top of the watercolor panel and then foam mounted it on top of a grey cardbase.

I hope it serves as an inspiration to you! I am submitting this card to the following challenges –

Happy Little Stampers September Watercolor challenge: Anything Goes with optional ‘Tropical’ (I haven’t gone with the optional)

A2Z Scrapbooking challenge: Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge: Stamp It

Check out the Seize the Birthday challenge blog for more amazing inspiration from our talented team and our talented Surprise Party Guest, Annie!

Thank you so much for stopping by!

#831 – Butterflies Birthday Hugs!

Hello and welcome to another challenge at Seize the Birthday, where the latest topping, given to us by Barbara, is ‘Butterflies’! Of course, you can also choose to not go for the topping and make a fresh birthday project to join us!

And here’s the card I made –

I started by making the background using Altenew Floral Shadow. I actually made three of them – with different shades of black and grey, and ended up choosing this one for this card. The rest are saved for something in the future. 🙂

Well, I trimmed my chosen paper on the top and bottom and then foam mounted this on a black cardbase.

I then cut out several pieces of the butterflies from three dies from My Favorite Things Flutter of Butterflies, from several pattern papers. I also cut out the body of each butterfly using black cardstock. I then adhered three pieces of pattern paper together for each butterfly..

Finally, coming to the sentiment. I cut out one piece of Memory Box’s Big Hugs using white cardstock, and three more using black. I stacked the black ones and adhered them together, and adhered the white one off a bit, to get a shadow effect. I adhered this on the card, so that there was enough space to add the three butterflies too. Then I added the other part of the sentiment, which comes from Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Flowers, using foam tape

With this card I am joining the following challenges –

Happy Little Stampers: August Anything with Dies challenge

A2Z Scrapbooking challenge: Birthday

Checkout the Seize the Birthday blog for more amazing instance of creativity by the rest of the design team! Also joining us is our Surprise Party Guest, Su Mohr!

And thank you so much for stopping by!