Happy Birthday Susanne!

My friend Susanne, the talented author of the blog Keep in Touch is having a birthday on Monday.  I can show you the card I made because the Cardologists had a party tonight complete with ice cream cake and presents for Susanne.

I started with an idea for a CAS card that involved embossing a strip from Stampin Up and adding lines on either side with the score board.  I even put the sentiment on before I decided on the stamp to use for the focal point. 

This is the Sweetbriar Rose from Stampin Up, that was one of two flower stamps sitting on my desk waiting for their first use, stamped on watercolor paper.  The flower petals were painted with distress ink, the leaves with an Elmers watercolor brush. The leaves were a little dark so I took some of the color off with a waterbrush.  I then had to fussy cut the flower because it needed to overlap the embossed strip, added the mulberry paper underneath, and touched it up with Wink of Stella and yellow pearls.  Finally I decided to make the white card front into a layer and mounted it on a blush card.

I am going to link this to the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge where it is "Anything Goes" this week.

Happy Birthday, Susanne!

Bonjour

Just a quick post because I finished our Thursday card.  We all stamped the Penny Black 'bonjour!' stamp three times, colored, fussy cut and layered.   Lola brought her Sizzix Eiffel tower die and while some went with sparkly pink or distressed red, I chose glossy black.  That was as far as I got after two weeks.    

Today, after organizing some of my new stamps and putting them away, I found the motivation to finish the card.  First,  I found the "Paris" in a Hero Arts set to be stamped in the corner of a quarter sheet of white.  Then I added parts of the tree branch from the SU Thoughts & Prayers in Pear Pizzaz kissed with Forest Foliage.  Since the tower was so solid, I die embossed the layer with diagonal lines. 

The final embellishment was the flower for Mimi's beret.  Alas I had only pink gems; but no worries, I colored over with a red sharpie.  Everything assembled on a red card.

Mimi is now ready for her Paris adventure.   Au revoir.

Anniversary wish

What a beautiful day we had today.  I woke up to sprinkles, but they went away quickly, and it was quite a bit warmer than yesterday.  I finally went out and replaced my ailing mailbox - it had quite a swivel going since it was hit by the plow.  This time I made it higher too so I, and the mailman, can reach it better.   I also pruned my forsythia back - although I can never remember if it is better to do it in the spring or fall. 

After that, I was off to my craft room to play. My calendar shows many birthdays and anniversaries around the corner in June, so I have to get creative. 

Here was a card I finished today using a retired Stampin Up French flair background that I bought at a yard sale. Since it is 5 x 6 inches and I didn't want to cut it down it makes a big card.  I just happened to have some 5 x 7 inch white cards left over from a Christmas project to use as a base.

I embossed the image on watercolor paper intending to use my watercolors.  While the card was in process,  I decided my distress inks needed reorganizing.  (That means there were too many on the desk in my way!)  While I had them out, I decided to sponge distress inks over it instead. 

I diecut the word 'happy' from the Stampin Up Hello You thinlits using the same purple paper that is the layer.  That didn't look firm enough so I cut it again in white and glued the layers together.  I found this little anniversary tag in a Studio G set, stamped and layered it. It is tied to the happy with a white string and popped up.  The finishing touches are three epoxy hearts added to the ends of the swirls. 

This anniversary card is the closet I will get to a wedding card this month, so I am cheating a little and linking it to the Just Add Ink Wedding Challenge.  It is a better fit for the Inkspirational Challenge 83 where the color is purple and the theme is love/wedding.

Thank you for stopping by.  Your comments are always appreciated.

Delightful

Delightful does not describe the weather at the moment.  It is so dark that I had to use may scanner to take a picture of these cards. It is the name of the Penny Black stamp that my friend Susanne had. Because I loved it, she let me stamp some images to use on my cards. (In fact, I had to purchase it myself recently.)

I haven't finished a card in a few weeks - it has been way too nice to be indoors.  So I guess I am happy it is a gloomy day today.  There are pieces of half finished cards all over my desk.  Sometimes I get stumped with how to finish a card and I have to leave it for a while.  But I need to reclaim my desk.  Today was the day to finish these three. 

The Penny Black image makes a big card; I will have to use a letter envelope to mail this first one.  I colored all three images with Primsacolor pencils while I was watching television.  Then I had to match the colors to paper., always a tough job and usually where I get stumped.  I found scraps of pink and purple to match the flowers; added a snippet of green ribbon and used butterflies that were in my stash left over from some other projects.
The sentiment is from a very old The Angel Company stamp set



The other two are made from part of the image....accidents in stamping but couldn't bear to throw away.    This second card is a regular card size.  The layer is from a Ranger core'dination stack embossed with a Darise folder.  The stack, paper and sticky dot embellishments were all gifts from my friends.  The banner for the TAC sentiment was going in the upper corner.   I could tell you I didn't want to cover the embossed butterflies with it, but the truth is it is covering a blooper.  When will I learn not to put "finished' cards by an open stamp pad?


This last one is a small 4-1/4 inch square card.  Once again it has core'dination paper, embossed and distressed as a layer but this time it was diecut first.  I added a layer of blue vellum that has a faint pattern to break up the blue space of the card. The vase uses an ornament punch cut off at the bottom then embossed with a Cuttlebug folder..   And who doesn't have oodles of gems to use - someone who has more power to resist them in the store maybe.


Edit:  I am entering this third card at Virginia's View Challenge "layers" and Penny Black Saturday Challenge "nature".

A productive day, I think.  Its off to Sunday dinner at my sister's house.  Wishing all my friends a Happy Mother's Day.  Thank you for stopping by.