Hello and Happy Monday!

Hello! Just a quick post tonight as my eyes are starting to burn-I need some sleep!

This card of one of several that I made using this non-SU paper. I have pictures of cards made with the flip side of it, too. I'll have to post one for you soon. I liked this paper a lot! And who doesn't need a card that 's good for men and women? I know I do!

The candles were made with paper that I believe was about 3/4" thick. Then I ran them through the crimper on an angle. The flames were made from the punch with the bird and the branch. I can't remember the name of it-I'm too tired! LOL I then covered the wing/flame with two-way glue and stuck them into Dazzling Diamonds, one half at a time. I raised the flames on Stampin Dimensionals, as well as the Happy Birthday.

Neat idea for the bird's wing, don't you think? I didn't think this up myself (I'll bet you knew that was coming! LOL). I had told my friend Kim about how I'd seen the wing used as a flame, she came up with the card, and I cased it. And now you can case me-isn't it fun how it works? ;)

Ok, I have to go. I am one pooped little girl. Have a great night, and I'll try to come back soon!

Have a great week!

Donna

Happy Birthday Season

When I was young and still living at home with my parents, the birthdays we celebrated were concentrated in the spring and summer. We started with Mother's Day, and then we had almost all the family birthdays (both grandmothers, aunt, cousins, uncles etc) and come September 4th, my sister's birthday marked, for the most part, the end of the birthday celebrations. Now, my sister, cousins and I have children and I have my husband's family to add to our birthday collection. My birthdays start in February and don't end until the end of the year! If I'd have been a stamper as a child, I would have only needed birthday cards for 4 months! But now, I have to make sure that I constantly have plenty of cards all the time! Yikes! There has been more than once, where I've had to dive into my stash to pull out a birthday card on a moment's notice (ok, some of that is mommy brain where I forget to make one in advance!) and been grateful to have a choice of cards from which to choose!

So, when I make a birthday card I like, I will often make more than one and in different colours, just in case family members are comparing! LOL This card, was no exception!

I loved the olive with black, and was fortunate to have some black bling to throw on the flowers:

Here it is in Pretty in Pink and Olive:



The dsp is Cottage Wall, in case you didn't recognize it. The polka dot was definitely not the side I saw first because there were so many pretty, fancy sides in the collection. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from a Sale-a-bration set that I am now kicking myself for not having ordered it when I had the chance! I love the swirly-fancy part, and the simple part that offsets it. It's perfect for a semi-fancy card!
Have a great day!
Donna

Birthday Hugs

Hello! Happy Friday! I thought I would give the lunchbox love notes a break, and show you a regular birthday card today. This one uses the Parisian Breeze dsp, the same dsp I used on one of my lunchbox lovenotes in an earlier post. My friend Tami and I saw this card somewhere and decided to case it. It uses Baja Breeze and Pacific Point paper, which were once In Colours, but as of yesterday, are a part of the regular colour collection! I am pretty happy about it, because as you can see, these two colours look great together! Not bad, considering this card is covered with hearts, that the main colours are blue and brown!
This picture shows the pretty bling at the bottom of the card...the jewels are all the same colour, but it's neat how they each look a different colour in this picture.

This picture is supposed to show you how some of the hearts are popped up for more interest.

The card itself was simple enough to make, but cutting out the hearts was a bit of work, I'm not much of a cutter...unlike some people (Hi Jacqui! yes I mean you! LOL)...

Well, I'm outta here! DH and I are going out to a restaurant to celebrate our anniversary, and then we are going to watch Eclipse! Ooooh, I can hardly wait! Whatever you are doing this weekend, I hope you have fun too! Come back soon!

Donna

Happy Bearthday!

This September, my nephew celebrated his 7th birthday. As I've mentioned before, I have a difficult time coming up with cards for males of all ages. Lucky for me, the month of October gives me the chance to practice! LOL I have no less than four birthdays, all male, to create cards for this month. Oh the stress! LOL

Fortunately, I have this new Build-a-Bear stamp set, which works perfectly (well for the boys in my family, anyway)! I love this little guy! The best part about him, is he has a "better half"! LOL A girl bear comes with this set, too, so any card I can think of for a girl, I can now create for a boy, and vice versa.

So for my nephew's card, rather than try to stamp a background, I punched out 3/4" circles in colours that matched his clothes, party hat and balloon, and adhered them to the main card. In this replica of my nephew's card, however, I had a bit more time (what, me wait to the last minute to make a card? never! Ok, maybe sometimes...) so I cut out his clothes and party hat. I just couldn't mask his head and party hat to make it look right. It either looked like he was wearing his hat on his forehead, or it was floating above him!

This picture shows how his clothes and shoes are raised above the bear image. To make the circles stand out, I followed my oldest daughter, Kaitlyn's advice, and inked around the outer edges so you could see the Green Galore circles on the same coloured background.

For the balloon, I punched a 3/4" circle of Real Red, raised it with a Stampin' Dimensional, put a couple of white gel pen lines on it to make it look like it was shiny, and then added more shine with Crystal Effects. I love using Crystal Effects on a card because of the kind of extra dimension it adds, especially to a balloon! It helps make the card more fun, don't you think?

I think I've mentioned before, that I love to colour, I find it calming somehow. Must be a throwback to my little girl days. So you can imagine how happy I was to pull out the watercolour crayons to colour this little guy and his party hat! I don't use my crayons enough, and there are so many different ways to colour with them. For this card, I coloured on the paper, then used my aqua painter to spread the colour around. When I wanted to highlight, I squeezed out the excess water from the bristles, and picked up colour directly from the crayon, and then painted it on the image.

Tomorrow, I am going to show you a cute little project for Hallowe'en that I've seen and finally tried!

Until then, have a great day!

Donna

Pop! Pop! Pop-up card!

As you may remember from an earlier post, I attended SU Regionals here in London in February. I love Regional meetings-a day filled with stamping, surrounded by ladies who love it just as much as I do! And it was my friend Kim's birthday that day too! Which made it even more special for me! But I digress...

During the course of the day we had presentations given by a few of our fellow demonstrators. There were many fabulous ideas-Stampin' Up! has quite a talented group of women working for them. One of these women, Ally Fereday, demonstrated how to make these fun pop-up cards. Instead of using paper to pop out your image, you use strips of window sheets! Isn't this neat?!?

This particular card was for my nephew's birthday, which is why it was made in primary colours. With an easy change of colours and stamp sets, the possibilities for this kind of card are endless! You could suspend hearts for Valentine's Day, flowers for Mother's Day, birthday candles, butterflies, Christmas ornaments, or, as I made for my youngest, letters, spelling out Happy Birthday, and then the recipient's name. (I'll have to find a picture of that one to show you!)

I will try to post a tutorial for this card for you soon so you can try your hand at making one too!

Have a great day!

Donna