Happy Birthday Everyone for As You See It Challenges

 I seem to be doing a lot of beachy cards these days, especially for As You See It Challenges. This week the challenge is a colour swatch and these colours just represent the beach to me. Or maybe it's just because we've been having unseasonably warm temperatures lately. I've never had to put on the air conditioning in April before, but that's what I did yesterday, it was so toasty. Anyway, it definitely feels like beach weather, so that's where this card is coming from. Here's the As You See It Challenge banner for this week:

I love those soft colours and they do look perfect for a nursery, but all I could see was wood, sand, water, reeds and shore birds. Naturally, I dug out Wetlands stamp set, which I'm happy to say, will be sticking around for another year, and the Hardwood background stamp. I needed a sentiment and decided on Happy Birthday Everyone, as it would be just the right size. Happy Birthday Everyone is a Hostess set which means it will retire at the end of May. If you really like this one, you're going to either have to host a workshop, my house or yours, join my stamp club with your host month in May (I do have a May opening, by the way), or spend $200 to get Stampin' Rewards.

• I stamped the reeds first in Soft Suede, then added the birds with the same ink. I stamped the sentiment in Soft Sky ink and then sponged a little of the same around the birds' feet as water.
• The Hardwood background stamp can be tricky to stamp and get a good, straight and complete image. Here's a couple of tricks: First, line up your paper squarely on the grid paper and when you stamp, line up the edge of your block with one of the lines on the grid paper a little lower than the paper. Add extra pressure in the middle of the stamp to get full coverage.  Second, instead ink up the Hardwood stamp and lay it on your working surface rubber side up. Place your paper where you want it and then cover with scrap paper and roll evenly over the surface with a brayer, or your hands. Then remove the cardstock and you should have a good image.
• The little snippet of trim in the top left corner is Natural Chevron Ribbon which will be retiring at the end of May as well, and this will also be the last month for the Silver Basic Metal buttons, one of which adorns this card.

So that's it! I wish I could show you the new catalogue, but as soon as I get to preorder in May and receive my first shipment, I will definitely start to highlight some of the many new products! Keep watching here for them!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today.

Product List

Wetlands Wood Stamp Set [126695]	Wetlands Clear Stamp Set [126697]	Hardwood Wood-Mount Stamp Set [133032]	Hardwood Clear-Mount Stamp Set [133035]	Happy Birthday, Everyone Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139171]
Happy Birthday, Everyone Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139958]	Soft Suede 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [115318]	Soft Sky 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131203]	Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101650]	Soft Suede Classic Stampin' Pad [126978]
Soft Sky Classic Stampin' Pad [131181]	Natural 5/8" Chevron Ribbon [132982]	Silver Basic Metal Buttons [133319]	Brayer [102395]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]
Fast Fuse Adhesive [129026]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]	Glue Dots [103683]

Happy Birthday to a Special Sister

My sister, Sandi, had a birthday last Saturday, and I made a card for her. (Of course I did! Duh!) Hopefully she will have it by now ( it was only a few days late...) and I can share it with you. My sister is the glue that holds us all together. She makes sure we stay in contact with each other and she fixes many problems we might have! She loves the outdoors, her animals and her friends. She makes you happy just talking to her! I was thinking outdoors and fall colours when I designed her card using the Awesomely Artistic stamp set.

• The style of this card's background is known as Collage Stamping, where you stamp several different images on the same layer, overlapping some, using sponging, splotches, spritzes, etc to unify them. Awesomely Artistic is the greatest set if you like collage stamping!
• The sentiment is from the Happy Birthday Everyone stamp set and it is BIG, BOLD, and BEAUTIFUL! Of course, with a busy background, you need a large bold sentiment or it would get lost. 
• The Lots of Labels Framelit Dies are my current most popular set. I used the same size for the greeting and the backing. I just used my old trick of cutting the backing in half and mounting each end on the ends of the sentiment.

There you have it! Happy Birthday, Sandi!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

Product List

Awesomely Artistic Wood-Mount Stamp Set [138694]	Awesomely Artistic Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139950]	Happy Birthday, Everyone Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139958]	Happy Birthday, Everyone Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139171]	Very Vanilla 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [101650]
Crushed Curry 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131199]	Island Indigo 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [122923]	Cajun Craze Classic Stampin' Pad [126965]	Crushed Curry Classic Stampin' Pad [131173]	Delightful Dijon Classic Stampin' Pad [138327]
Cucumber Crush Classic Stampin' Pad [138324]	Island Indigo Classic Stampin' Pad [126986]	Soft Suede Classic Stampin' Pad [126978]	Pumpkin Pie Classic Stampin' Pad [126945]	Lots Of Labels Framelits Dies [138281]
Big Shot [113439]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]

Happy Birthday Everyone for The Paper Players

When you think of it, birthdays are a strange thing to celebrate! Really! You've done nothing to merit celebration except stay alive, like everyone else who celebrates a birthday. And birthdays bring you one year closer to not celebrating another birthday ever! Right? So what, exactly are we celebrating? I guess it's just a good time to focus on the uniqueness that is each person and our love for them. It's a chance to make them feel special and cared for. I took the opportunity to create a birthday card using the challenge at The Paper Players this week and I used the stamp set Happy Birthday Everyone. I love the combination of print and script in this bold greeting and the colour swatch from the Paper Players worked well:

This is a very pastel and subdued palette, but it gives the opportunity to let the bold sentiment be the star of the show! I have to apologize for the photography. It was almost impossible to get the White Balance right because of the mix of warm and cool colours here. It must be the Smoky Slate vs the Sahara Sand, because I've never struggled with it like that before.

• I didn't notice the crooked sentiment until I was editing the photographs. Has that ever happened to you? Also the background Sahara Sand Lace Trim looks askew! The top of the ribbon is straight, but due to the placement of the front panel, I caught each side at the end of a scallop along the bottom edge, and because you can't see the start of the next scallop coming down again, it looks like it's hitched up in the middle! Some days, you just can't win! I've been hard at work on my swaps, so I just didn't have it in me to start again. I hope you can enjoy the concept and overlook a few of the oopsies!
• With this layout and the little bow of Mint Macaron Dotted Lace Trim, the sentiment panel kind of looks like a present! The panel of striped Mint Macaron Envelope Paper and, behind that, some Sahara Sand DSP from the Timeless Elegance collection, give the impression of other gifts just waiting to be opened.
• I used my new Boho Chic Embossing Folder on the Smoky Slate panel and I am a convert! I wasn't sure I wanted it at first, until I saw some great cards using it, but it took just one use to convince me that it was a good investment.

Thanks for checking out my blog today! I'll be back tomorrow with something for As You See It Challenges!

Click on the links below to take you to my On-Line Store, where you can read about, look at, and purchase if you wish, the products used to make this card today!

Product List

Happy Birthday, Everyone Clear-Mount Stamp Set [139958]	Happy Birthday, Everyone Wood-Mount Stamp Set [139171]	2015-2017 In Color Envelope Paper [138312]	Timeless Elegance Designer Series Paper [138444]	Sahara Sand 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [121043]
Smoky Slate 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [131202]	Mint Macaron 8-1/2" X 11" Cardstock [138337]	Whisper White 8-1/2" X 11" Card Stock [100730]	Mint Macaron Classic Stampin' Pad [138326]	Sahara Sand 7/8" (2.2 Cm) Lace Trim [137866]
Mint Macaron 1" Dotted Lace Trim [138424]	Boho Chic Textured Impressions Embossing Folder [138286]	Big Shot [113439]	Liquid Multipurpose Glue [110755]	Stampin' Dimensionals [104430]