TSOT and SIP Birthday for a Friend

Hi everyone! I have a birthday card to share today, using two challenges; the Try Stampin On Tuesday sketch and the Stamp Ink Paper challenge of Bring on the Cake!  

So here we go:

I found these papers in a stash that my sweet friend Teri sent me, and with the cupcakes on one of them, they seemed a natural for the challenge!  I used a So Saffron card base, dry embossing it with a large polka dot EF, and a Spellbinder's Small Die of the Month die for the birthday sentiment.  The optional theme at TSOT is also "favorite patterns", so these definitely fit the bill!  

I did add a little glimmer dot "cherry", which I might go back and re-color with my SU Blend to make it more red than pink!  

So happy that you popped in today! 

And speaking of cupcakes, here's Cassidy chowing down at a recent birthday party....gross, it's BLUE!!!

 Enjoy today and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps
Card stock & Papers	So Saffron, Old Olive,  Poppy Parade DSP (ret), Misc DSP from my stash
Ink
Accessories	Glimmer Dot
Tools	Big Shot, Large Polka Dot Embossing Folder (ret), Small Die of the Month Birthday Die (Spellbinders), Envelope Punch Board (for rounding corners)

IB64 Today Blooms

Happy Thursday, peeps!  Time for another Inspired By challenge....it's a warm vintage one today, here's what I created (the photo doesn't do it justice, really):

And here's Laurel's sweet prompt:  

Spring lovelies they are, too!  Just look at all that homespun goodness!  I started by diecutting an oval from the front of a Naturals White panel, then stamped it with the Linen background stamp in Sahara Sand ink.  For my background, I stamped the Buffalo Check background stamp in Pear Pizzazz and placed it behind the "window". I mounted all of this on a Soft Seafoam card base.  My diecut flowers in Pear Pizzazz and Almost Amethyst were laid along side the edge of the oval and accented with a couple of sequins:

Finally, I "tied" the stems with a piece of crochet trim and Old Olive linen thread.  My sentiment is from Perennial Birthday, and I hand-cut it out and sponged the edges:

I could gaze for hours at this pretty vignette that Laurel found!!  It's so homey and cozy...what inspires you?  I hope you'll play along with us this week as well!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Perennial Birthday, Buffalo Check Background, Linen Background (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Naturals White, Soft Seafoam, Pear Pizzazz, Almost Amethyst (ret)
Ink	Pear Pizzazz, Sahara Sand
Accessories	Old Olive Linen Thread, Crochet Trim (ret), Sequins (Sylvia on Etsy)
Tools	Big Shot, Layering Ovals Framelits, Prim Poppy Die (Memory Box)

FF159 Thanks

Hi everyone!  Another quick card today using the Painted Seasons DSP - my favorite pattern, too!  I am using the Fab Friday sketch, which is a sweet, easy one:

I matted my DSP with a piece of Sahara Sand, then heat-embossed a sentiment from A Big Thanks on a piece of Poppy Parade cardstock and die-cut it with a Rectangle Stitched Die.  

I felt like the sentiment tag needed a little more "something", so I use the little vine die from  the Botanical Tags thinlets to diecut an embellishment from a Corrugated Element; I thought for sure that running it through the Big Shot would flatten the ridges, but it didn't!  I love the look!

Thanks so much for popping by today!

What do you do when your daughter says "Mommy, I'm COLD!"?  You give her your coat, LOL!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Swirly Bird Thank You

Happy Tuesday, peeps!  This will be short and sweet; the sun is actually shining and I might go to Longwood Gardens to take a walk...we'll see!  The Global Design Project this week is a color challenge:

And the Less Is More challenge is Take 3!!  I LOVE things in threes!!

I needed some simple thank you cards for my customers, and I thought using Swirly Bird, which hasn't seen ink for a while, would be a good start!  So here we go:

I stamped each flower in Daffodil Delight, then added the swirls and smaller flowers in Grapefruit Grove.  The images were then masked and I added leaves in Lemon Lime Twist and some speckles in more Grapefruit Grove.  I decided to try the mirror stamping technique again (you can see details on this post HERE), this time with the solid-image bird stamp.  You can see that the image is not quite as crisp and clear as a regular stamped image, but I smoothed out the color with a blender pen, and he really doesn't look too bad!!!

Stamping his feet was another matter!  I simply stamped it on my silicone mat, then flipped it over and pressed it onto the card...amazingly, it worked fine!  I am just thrilled with this technique!  

A little intense video play:

The look on her face cracks me up!

Thanks for popping by today!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Swirly Bird, A Big Thank You
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White
Ink	Grapefruit Grove, Lemon Lime Twist, Daffodil Delight
Accessories
Tools

Happy Tails and Nine Lives Mirror Stamping

Happy Monday, peeps!  Last week was my club week, and my girls learned how to do mirror stamping along with a punch!  I finally found the video tutorial by my friend Cindy Brumbaugh; you can see how she does it HERE.  (She actually shares the whole process for the card she made, so if you just want to see how she does the mirror stamping/punching part, it's around 9 minutes into the video!)  So I wanted to use the dogs from Happy Tails for our card, and this is what we made:

I have to say that this is one of my favorite cards ever!  Everyone nailed the technique beautifully, and it was so much fun to make!  Here's a closeup:

The front panel was embossed with the Subtle embossing folder, and the heart diecut is from the Be Mine Framelits.  We used Call Me Clover for our accent colors for the dog house, collars and DSP, and we even stamped some dog prints on the inside for fun:

I couldn't let the kitties from Nine Lives be left out, so as a sample, I also created this card, using some Twinkle Twinkle and Woodgrain DSPs:

Be sure to check out Cindy's video, she explains everything so well, I know you'll want to try this technique too!  Thanks for popping in today!

On Saturday, our church had an "Everybody Birthday Party".  We decorated twelve tables, one for each month, and everyone had to sit at the table of their birthday month!  We had two big cakes, ice cream and toppings, we sang happy birthday, and played birthday bingo! Cassidy sat at the August table with our friend Dale.  Dale has been to our house many times and is a special friend of ours; he has suffered a couple of strokes lately and it is a real struggle for him to get out to church, but last night John brought him over from the nursing home so he could celebrate with us.  He and Cassidy ate their cake and ice cream together:

Cassidy's table had a tablecloth on it that looked like an ocean, along with lots of beachy things:

You can see my vintage lunch pails in the background for September's table too!  And my friend Sara, whose birthday is next week, decorated the March table:

Lots of cake and ice cream (and that's my friend Sara in her signature green!):

It was fun getting to know people that we might not normally interact with on a Sunday morning!  (Ooh, and there's me behind Wayne, passing out cake, LOL!)

Thanks for indulging me a little today!  Enjoy it and be blessed!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Happy St Pat's to all my friends...Irish or not!

Paper Players 433 One Layer Bluebird

Happy Sunday, everyone!  Hope you're having a great weekend!  I had a fun workshop yesterday as well as an "Everybody Birthday Party" last night at church!  Busy weekend!  It's a good thing that Jaydee's Paper Players challenge was a One-Layer Clean and Simple one!

One-layer cards can be a challenge for sure...we all love to put layers, embellishments and froufrou things on our cards, don't we?  For my one-layer card, I chose to use some Shimmery White cardstock; it's sturdier than regular white, has a lovely little sheen to it, and accepts watercoloring better than regular white.  So here we go:

I stamped my little bluebird from Best Birds in Stazon black ink, then watercolored him with an aquapainter and some Balmy Blue, Blueberry Bushel, Grapefruit Grove, Calypso Coral and Daffodil Delight inks:

I added a little ground with Soft Suede and some very, very pale speckles (Itty Bitty Backgrounds-retired, unfortunately) in Sahara Sand.  For the sentiment, I used a cool heat-embossing technique!  Using the Stamparatus, ink and stamp your sentiment in your color of choice; for this one, I used a birthday sentiment from Perennial Birthday and Early Espresso ink.  Leave your stamp on the Stamparatus plate and very carefully clean off all the ink, then re-ink and stamp again with Versamark.  I always like to ink and stamp a couple of times to make sure I get good coverage!  Then simply sprinkle it with Clear Embossing Powder and heat set, and you have a lovely embossed image in any color!!

Once I had done the embossing, I added some "sky" watercoloring with Balmy Blue, along with a few more speckles!  Simple and easy!

I hope you'll step up to the challenge and create a one-layer wonder card this week and share it with us at the Players!  Check out what the others did at the Paper Players blog!  

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Best Birds, Perennial Birthday, Itty Bitty Backgrounds (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Shimmery White
Ink	Versamark, Stazon Black, Early Espresso, Balmy Blue, Blueberry Bushel, Calypso Coral, Grapefruit Grove, Daffodil Delight, Soft Suede, Sahara Sand, Crumb Cake
Accessories
Tools	Aquapainter, Heat Tool, Clear Embossing Powder, Embossing Buddy, Stamparatus