LEAFY GREEN BIRTHDAY CARD

I had a few gel prints on hand and I picked one that was very green.  I had used a very old background stamp from Impression Obsession called Boxwood that is one of my long time favorites.  On top of that I used the leaf layer from the Layered Leaves & Flowers stencil from Pretty Pink Posh.  I applied a coat of Nuvo Glimmer paste in Moonstone.  Because that had a goldish tint I used Tonic Gold metallic paper for the sentiment using Tim Holtz Stretch Upper dies.  For the leafy boughs, I used the scrap paper that I cleaned my brayer on for the outline and the same gold paper for the 1st layer.  

The Birthday I layered with foam tape as I did with the leaves.  The panel was then mounted on kraft and the finished size was 5 x 5".

METALLIC OMBRE LETTERS BIRTHDAY CARD

I was watching this video by Kristina Werner and just loved the idea of metallic paints on black watercolor paper and decided to adapt that for a birthday card.   I used ALTENEW METALLIC WATERCOLORS on STONEHENGE AQUA BLACK COLDPRESS paper, the  ALTENEW BOLD CAPS dies for this project and the the balloon stamp from the Ink Road stamps.

I first did a wash of color onto the black watercolor paper, overlapping the colors a bit to blend.  While that was drying I did a wash of light purple, using the KARIN DECO PRO METALLIC markers and put that aside to dry.  I die cut the letters out of the black watercolor paper, making sure I lined up the letters so that the ombre effect would be the same on all the letters.  I stamped the balloon stamp and embossed in a fine gold embossing powder and then painted it trying to mimic Kristina's use of gold and color together.  When that was dry I fussy cut the image.  I then die cut the light purple panel using TRINITY STAMPS SLIMLINE DIE.  I adhered the balloon stamp directly to the paper and applied foam ounting tape to the letters and using a T-square, I mounted the letters onto the paper.  The panel was then attached to a black card base cut (finished size is 8.5 x 4.75).

TIME FLIES.....

I cannot believe it is already mid May and I have been so crazy busy that I haven't had a chance to post since February.  I was travelling in April to Virginia and New York to visit lots and lots of family.  In Virginia I had the pleasure of meeting and having lunch with the wonderful Suzanne Dean. You can still follow her on Pinterest and see all of her wonderful copic coloring tutorials.  So my calendar looked like this from April 30 to May 13; anniversary, birthday, birthday, mother's day, birthday.  Yikes!   Here, finally, is the card I made for my Grandson whose birthday is the day after mine.

I have been wanting to try tone on tone die cutting which I did with all the numbers but I inset die cut the large number 10 and used a balloon die cut for the zero. The cute little bird is from Paper Smooches.

JENNIFER DOVE (just4funcrafts) SUNFLOWER STAMP BIRTHDAY CARD

Ooh, I had so much fun coloring this stamp.  It is my step-daughter's big 50 birthday so I made this for her.  Colored with copics of course!

SIMON SAYS STAMPS FARM ANIMAL BIRTHDAY CARDS

I love coloring these little animals for cute and quick birthday cards.  

SIMON SAYS STAMPS FARM ANIMALS
CLEAR AND SIMPLE GRASS STAMP
LAWN FAWN CARD
SIMON SAYS TILTED BANNER DIE AND SENTIMENTS
SIMON SAYS STICHED SLOPES AND HILLS

THIRD ALCOHOL INK CARD

This is the third in the series of alcohol ink die cut cards.  You can see the other two here and here.

MY FAVORITE THINGS HAPPY BIRTHDAY DIE

MEMORY BOX BELLA BOUQUET DIE

TIM HOLTZ ALCOHOL INKS

BAZZILL GOLD METALLIC CARD STOCK

DARICE SPARKLE GLITTER TAPE

BRONZE PAPER FROM STASH

ANOTHER ALCOHOL INK CARD: MEMORY BOX VESPERTINE BLOSSOMS

I love the elgance of these cards so much I made four of them!  This is for my daughter-in-law's birthday.  The technique is the same for all, see this post.  The matching glitter tape is applied to card stock before die cutting.  I had to cut the "Wishing" die so that it read "Wish".

And Lawn Fawn Milo's alphabet is perfect for creating your own sentiment (stamped in black and embossed with clear embossing powder).

CRAFTER'S COMPANION SHIMMERING CARD STOCK SILVER

MEMORY BOX VESPERTINE BLOSSOMS DIE

SIMON SAYS SENDING, WISHING DIES

LAWN FAWN MILO'S ALPHABET

RECOLLECTIONS SPARKLE TAPE

BAZZILL 40LB VELLUM

TIM HOLTZ ALCOHOL INKS

COUTURE CREATIONS ALORA EMBOSSING FOLDER

A GLITZY BIRTHDAY CARD

This card is for a childhood friend who remains one of my favorite people to this day.  I am lucky enough to get to see her this week for her birthday.

I first applied the gold embossing paste to the stencil and when it was thoroughly dry I layered distress inks.  I die cut the sentiment our of three layers of the same purple cardstock so the sides would show purple.  I stamped with the gold metallic ink and embossed with the gold tinsel embossing powder (I used the same embossing powder on the edges of the card stock)
Hearts have a glob of Glossy Accents and the whole card was spritzed with a bit of water and then the gold Color Shine.  

This is the inside which I totally forgot to photograph before signing (sigh).

It is PTI Framed Love die embossed with the same Ranger gold tinsel

                                                                                 

This is the bottom inside which is just a gold foil paper (stash) stamped and embossed in the same gold tinsel.  Hard to photograph with my cell phone but it is a nice and shiny gold on gold that does match the rest of the gold on the card.

MFT SCROLLED BACKGROUND STENCIL

PAPERTREY INK BIRTHDAY TRIO, TIPPED TOP DIES, FRAMED LOVE DIE

DISTRESS INKS AND MINI DISTRESS BLENDERS

TIM HOLTZ GOLD STARS COVERED IN GLOSSY ACCENTS

RANGER GOLD EMBOSSING TINSEL

DELICATA GOLDEN GLITZ INK PAD

WENDY VECCHI GOLD EMBOSSING PASTE

HEIDI SWAPP COLOR SHINE GOLD

BAZZILL CARD SHOPPE CARDSTOCK 

PIRATE BIRTHDAY CARD

 This was my first attempt at one of these fold-out cards and it was really challenging since it has to look good open and closed (of course I forgot to photograph it closed!)  My grandson loved it and that was all that mattered.

STUDIO CALICO 6 X 6 ATLANTIC BLUE PAPER PAD

PENNY BLACK 6 X 6 MADISON PAPER PAD

TIM HOLTZ KRAFT CORE CARDSTOCK

AVERY ELLE  KNOTTY & LET'S GET NAUTICAL

PAPERTREY INK THINK BIG FAVORITES #12

MAGENTA STAMPS (SCROLL AND BARREL)

HIGH HOPES STAMPS (PIRATE AND PIRATE SHIP)

MFT WOODGRAIN (ON PIRATE WHEEL)

LAWN FAWN BACKER'S TWINE

COPIC SKETCH MARKERS

LAWNSCAPING CHALLENGE #83: EMBOSSING

It has been so hot in Southern California that I decided to do a winter themed card for the embossing challenge.  I am still stuck on my distress marker backgrounds so I did a wintery night background (need to figure out how to do northern lights) and then I versamarked the WHOLE thing and embossed with clear embossing powder.  The WHOLE thing! I then used Stampendous chunky white to get the effect of snow and snow falling. I added a bit of Stamp n Stuffs Kaleidoscope to the snow on the ground.  It was hard to keep the embossing powder on the card and then I had a problem with overheating it and it bubbled and melted.  I colored the rest of the images with my copics and used my embosser tool to press out the back of the igloo to give it a little depth. I attached the pieces with Glossy Accents to hold them onto the shiny background.  Then I embossed the banner and sentiment on an old piece of slightly grayed vellum that had snowflakes on it but they ended up being invisible.  I used a ton of double stick tape on the back because the background piece was very warped from all the embossing.  Hope you like my crazy amount of embossing card!

Here you can see the embossed texture and the glittery snow effect.

Always hard to photograph shine so this is the best I could get.

DISTRESS INKS

STAMPENDOUS ULTRA DETAIL CLEAR EMBOSSING POWDER

STAMPENDOUS CHUNKY WHITE EMBOSSING POWDER

STAMP N STUFF KALEIDOSCOPE EMBOSSING POWDER

FILIGREE SILVER EMBOSSING POWDER

LAWN FAWN CRITTERS IN THE SNOW

LAWN FAWN HATS OFF TO YOU

LAWN FAWN BIRTHDAY TAGS

VELLUM FROM STASH

COPIC SKETCH MARKERS

WINK OF STELLA CLEAR 

             

AVERY ELLE PICADO BANNER BIRTHDAY CARD

I love this stamp from Avery Elle and lifted the stacked banner idea from Jean Manis. 

Avery Elle Picado Banners

Hero Arts Basic Grey Herbs & Honey "Star" background stamp

Filigree Gold embossing powder

Simon Says Handwritten borders

Papertrey Ink Soft Stone Card Stock

MFT Grout Grey Ink Pad

THROWBACK THURSDAY OR A CARD THAT I DID A LONG TIME AGO AND FORGOT ABOUT? PIXIE DUST STEAM TRAIN

I think I forgot to post this card cause the photos were just awful (blurry and washed out).  The image is from Pixie Dust Studio and I made it in March 2012.  Oh dear.  Colored in Copics and some distress inking on the  background.  The card looked terrific in person.

This was a Silhouette library image that I cut out the top right corner and added the name in stick on letters

MEMORY BOX BUTTERFLY WASHI BIRTHDAY CARD

The odd thing about this card was that I didn't plan to make it, but lying in bed one night I started thinking about all my washi tape that I wasn't using and this idea just popped into my head. The washi tape is perfect to alter a background but lets the kraft paper show through.  I love the shimmer paper under the MEMORY BOX butterfly.  This is another card that I made a while ago and can't find my list of supplies.  

AVERY ELLE BIRTHDAY CARD

This little card was for one of my favorite co-worker's birthday.  

The glowing sun effect wasn't easy for me but she loved the card.

I've had those tiny starfish in my stash for ages (decades) and this was 

the only one I ever used.  So cute.

Supplies:

Avery Elle Fanfare
Avery Elle Knotty
Distress Ink Pads
Copic Sketch Markers

MORNING GLORY BIRTHDAY CARD

This card took forever.  The coloring part was easy but the assembling drove me nuts. The stamp is from Serendipity Stamps from 2003.  

Silhouette image and Memory Box  Vivienne butterfly die

I  found this beautiful floral paper from Anna Griffin (dated 2001 no less) in my stash and I had TONS of it.  I must have bought it for invites but who remembers.  I stamped my image on X-press blending and colored with copics using online images as a color reference.  I really like the way the image turned out but it looked much brighter than the paper, which also had a very antiquey off white background. GRRR.  The butterflies and dies were spritzed with Mr. Hueys Calico Shine.  This was my Mom's birthday card last September when she turned 91! (just a wee bit late with posting)

SUMMER CARD CLASS 2 WEEK 2

Loved this class but I was up in Mammoth Lakes with NO supplies.  Here is a card that I made for week two using just what I had on hand.  Papertrey ink Pretty Peonies for the flowers and Tombow duel brush pens to create the brown background.  Didn't love the card and was so annoyed that I didn't have more to work with but I thought I'd post it anyway.

PAPERTREY INK COMFORT FOOD BIRTHDAY CARD

As usual I was in a mad rush to create a birthday card for a very dear friend.  And it had to be a guy card! Thankfully he loves ice cream and it was a perfect opportunity to try out the Comfort Food set from PTI.  Stamped with Palette inks (and maybe one Stampin Up) on Neenah solar white.  I cut an insert on black card stock and attached the stamped image underneath.  Then just the Simon Says Tilted Banner set and Tilted Banner die.  A few enamel dots and it was done!