I'm on a bit of a birthday card "phase" at the moment.
After a string of early Saturday morning realizations that I needed a card for a birthday party that afternoon, I made a resolution: I'm making a bucket-load of kids birthday cards and will not be caught short again for a long time.
My last resolutions were to get a craft room up and running (check), start a blog (check), and spend more time creating (check). Now I need to actually take the pictures, upload them (and fix them in PSE...I suppose if I did this more often it would be a cakewalk) and post them. This has always been my downfall - just ask my Aunt Linda who is still waiting for me to send her copies of my wedding pictures (we will celebrate our 14-year anniversary in two weeks!).
So, without further ado, here are a couple of my latest birthday cards:
Can you tell that I love circles? Riveting and Circle of Friendship (both
Stampin' Up) are two of my favourite sentiment sets. I love that I can use my circle punches to quickly add a sentiment to a card. I've used bigger circle punches to make the turquoise ring. Here, I've used one of
The Greeting Farm's Miss Anya stamps, coloured in with
Copic markers and "blinged" with Stickles. The image is cutout and embossed (as is the mat) using the Nestabilities Long Rectangles dies. The DP is from an old DCWV stack cut into strips and sponged around the edges for added depth. The last embellishment are my Dew Drops. Voila...very easy, but one of my faves (and it could do for an older "girl" in a pinch, LOL!
This one is for the boys... I've used the image King's Jester Charlie from
Whiff of Joy stamps. He is coloured in (again) using
Copic markers and cut out and matted with the circle and scalloped circle Nestabilities. The small circles have also been cut out using the same sets of nested dies. I love having such a versatile tool that takes up such little space! Again, the DSP is from an old DCWV (another resolution I made was to start using up some of my cartloads full of DSP. Once the wheels start breaking off, you *know* there's too much paper stored inside!) and the cardstock is all from
Stampin' Up. The juggling balls are "shined up" using
Stampin' Up's Crystal Effects.
That's all for today...don't want to overdo it ;)
This little beauty comes from a great little stamp company in Scotland called Sugar Nellie. She's called "Rope Swing" and although my first stamp came with "rogue rubber" (the pattern at the neck of her dress wasn't deep enough to transfer the image as you'll see if you look *really* closely), Karen sent me a replacement right away, no questions asked. Fabulous customer service...I had to fill another basket just to express my thanks, LOL! Again, she's coloured using Copic markers, but the ovals (sponged a bit heavy-handedly) have been cut using my Creative Memories oval shapes from the Custom Cutting System. This is one of the best "manual" cutting systems I have found - normally I'm a bit "awkward" with manual circle cutters (to put it nicely), but this one cuts like a charm - for me at least! The pierced holes have been done "by eye", so don't look too closely (and if you do, please don't pass judgement!) The brads are from Bazzill. Again, the DP is old DCWV and the cardstock is all SU. The sentiment is a clear acrylic stamp from ??? (I have a few like that) If I had to guess, it would be from a set of many stamps and ink pads and markers that I picked up at Costco years ago. It is cut using an SU oval punch and mounted on the SU tab punch.
This one was going to be a boy card, but once I put this much ribbon on it, I'm thinking it's looking a bit girly. Again, I've pulled out my Sandylion Clear Boy set - fun images, coloured them with my beloved Copic markers and blinged things up a bit with my Copic Spica glitter pens. The ribbons came from a box of assorted ribbon bought at Costco quite some time ago and I've finished things off with one of Martha Stewart's border punches. Cardstock again is SU, DP is old and from a DCWV stack.
