#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! 🙂

#1110 – Milestone Birthday

Hello and welcome! We have a new challenge up at Seize the Birthday and this time, our newest leading lady, Jenny, has chosen the Topping to be ‘Milestone‘. As always, the topping is optional and it’s always ‘Anything Goes‘ birthday.

Over the past couple of months, I have been playing with my new stash a lot. Also, I wasn’t using my embossing folders a lot until then, so I made plenty of use of them – so much that all my ideas started having them! This time I wanted to change that up a bit – I thought of using something that I don’t use often – or I might even say have difficulty using – pattern papers. And here’s what I made –

I started with the focal piece. I used a piece of ivory cardstock to stamp the images from Concord and 9th Painted Peony (April 2021 release). I also used some watercolor marker pens (what we call sketch pens here in India) to add some more highlighting dots and dashes over the flowers and leaves. Once done, I die cut the piece using Winnie & Walter Essentials: Lana’s Cutaways die. I then masked off a part of the die cut and used a makeup brush to brush a soft layer of green. I then removed the mask and stamped the sentiment from Simon Says Stamp Mix n Match Butterflies.

I also die cut a piece of pattern paper from an old stack from my stash (yeah, I hoarded quite a few pattern papers) called Farmer’s Market from We R Memory Keepers. When I was about to adhere the pieces together, I felt that I could add something to the ivory cardbase. So I masked off parts of the card to add strips of green over on the edges of the cardbase. I then adhered the pattern paper and the focal piece.

At this point I was super happy with the card but suddenly realized that there was no mention of milestone anywhere!! But thankfully, I got the idea of adding the die cut clip from My Favorite Things Hip Clip die. I colored it with the same shade as the topmost strip in the card base and then die cut ’40’ using Neat & Tangled Journaling Numbers dies and adhered them on top of the card. Whew!

And that finished my card! And I’m joining these challenges too –

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Anything Goes

Retro Rubber challenge #251: Anything Goes

Addicted to Stamps and More challenge #489: Anything Goes

Checkout what the rest of my team (who are a bit more clever than me!) has created along with the creations of our wonderful guests over at the Seize the Birthday challenge blog! And don’t forget to join the party yourself!

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂

#1087 – White and Gold!

Hello and welcome to a new challenge at Seize the Birthday. As always we have an optional topping chosen by the leading lady of that challenge. This time it’s my turn and I have chosen ‘Metallics‘ as the topping. Of course, if you’re not a toppings kinda person, you can just stick with our usual Anything Goes birthday. The choice is yours!

And here’s what I made –

I have some pretty Gold Matt paper in my stash and I decided to all out! 🙂

I first die cut Neat & Tangled Star Cover Plate, cut off the outer frame and set it aside. I then die cut Simon Says Stamp Flower Cluster from the paper. I wanted this one to have white solids in the base, so that I could color it. So I die cut another scrap piece of white cardstock, adhered it over a clean white cardbase, trimmed all the pieces sticking out and then lightly colored it using Zig brush markers with shades of pink and then green. I then adhered the gold die cut piece on top.

I also die cut a couple of butterflies from My Favorite Things Hip Clips dies. I think I’ve used the butterflies on this die set more than I’ve used the clips!! 😀

For the sentiment, I first die cut a piece of vellum using a die from Altenew Ornate Nesting dies. I then stamped some script on it using gold pigment ink, let it dry and then adhered the sentiment on it. I used Die-versions Celebrate die to cut out the matte gold and scrap papers and then adhered them together.

Finally, on the white card base, I splattered some drops of gold metallic watercolor. I adhered all the pieces together after everything was dry and ready. And that’s my card. Hop over to the Seize the Birthday challenge blog to checkout more inspiration from the rest of the DT and our guests.

Thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂