Celebrate Your Day

Hello all,

It's time for a new challenge at The Paper Players challenge. Ann has a fun theme challenge for us this week. CAS and Masculine. A perfect inspiration for me to make a birthday card for one of my co-workers. He happens to be one of my favorite peeps in the world too. I've combined Ann's theme with the sketch from this week's CAS(E) this Sketch! challenge. It's a great one to use for a CAS card.

The front of my card is one layer, with the exception of the greetings and the two lines down the left side. Using a very old wooden stamp, I stamped the bottom of the card with Memento black ink, then using some blending brushes, blended distress inks over the image. I did add some black enamel dots because, truth be told, I got a tiny smudge of red on the white space and I didn't want to start over, so I used an enamel dot to cover it. One of our "tricks of the trade." It's still a pretty simple design.

I did layer the inside panel with a black mat. It was just too white without it, LOL. To make the mirror image of the beer mug, I stamped it onto a piece of thick clear plastic and used that to stamp the image onto the paper. Using a fine Copic marker, I drew over the lines. Another trick of ours.

I've used a variety of stamps from a variety of sets to make this birthday card. Nice to have the options when creating.

Speaking of creating, our former neighbors had a new baby recently. He's probably about 2 months old now. When we were in Central California over the July 4th weekend, I visited one of my favorite Quilting/fabric stores and got some fabric to make a baby quilt for him. (I made one for his brother when he arrived two years ago.) I was able to get the top completely pieced this week, sewing after work. Here's a picture of it laying on our living room floor. It's not even pressed, but I wanted to see what it looked like. The fabrics are all sea related, since we do live by the ocean. I'll hopefully get the sandwiching, binding and quilting done this week.

Thanks for looking in. Have a great week,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Beer Collage wooden stamp by Stamps Happen, Sentimental set and die by Avery Elle, Cocktail Party set by Hero Arts, Scripty Birthday set by Mama Elephant, Piñata Party set by Concord & 9th
Paper: SU Whisper White and Basic Black card stock
Ink: Memento tuxedo black, Tim Holtz Distress Oxide inks, VersaMark, Copics
Other: SU white embossing powder, heat tool, Taylored Expressions Blending Brush set, Gemini Jr, enamel dots

I Love You THIS Much!

Hi all,

I finally had some crafty time! It's been awhile. More work travel as well as some personal time away from home over the July 4th long weekend has kept me away from my craft room.

To get back into it, I started with a couple of my favorite challenges today. My friend, LeAnne, is the hostess for this week's Paper Players Challenge, and she has a fun color challenge for us this week. I got this uber cute Dino Days set from the new SU catalog and decided this was the perfect challenge to ink it up. I'm using the current Freshly Made Sketches!, sketch by Linda, for my layout.

To make the borders in Linda's sketch I've used the long line of dots die from the SU Stitched Nested Labels die set. I used a pencil to very lightly draw lines 1/2" in from all of the edges around the panel, then lined up the edge of the die along the pencil line and ran it through my die cutting machine.

The images are stamped with LeAnne's challenge colors (brown is a neutral, right?) on SU Whisper White card stock. After stamping they were all cutout with the corresponding set dies. To stamp the greeting I used SU markers in Balmy Blue and Blueberry Bushel to color the stamp instead of the larger ink pads. The white panel is layered onto Blueberry Bushel, then onto the card base of Balmy Blue.

Here is the inside of the card. The dinos are stamped and cut out with the dies here too. I used the little pebble die to cut across the white panel so that the blueberry card stock shows through.

I will add a get well greeting to the bottom and mail this to my brother. He's been in the hospital for a few weeks and recently transferred to a convalescent hospital, hopefully where he can gain enough strength to go home. 

For tonight, my personal chef is planning a yummy shrimp salad for dinner and some good friends are coming over, so it should be a fun evening. Nice to have before what I'm anticipating will be a stressful work week.

Thanks for looking in,

Colleen

Supplies

Stamps: Dino Days set by Stampin' Up

Paper: SU Whisper White, Blueberry Bushel, Balmy Blue card stock

Ink: SU Blueberry Bushel, Balmy Blue, Granny Apple Green, Soft Suede

Other: SU Stitched Nested Label dies, Dino Days dies, SU brown candy dots, Misti, Gemini Jr, dimensionals

Here's to a Beautiful Day

Happy Tuesday,

We are headed out of town later today for the long weekend and I'm looking forward to having four days off work. I will be doing some computer work tomorrow, but come tomorrow afternoon, I'm done.

Before we leave, I wanted to get my card finished for this week's Paper Players Challenge. Joanne is the hostess with one of my favorite kinds of challenges, Tic-Tac-Toe. I just think these are super fun to do. Here's Joanne's banner of options. I choose to use the center vertical options of Patterned Paper, Yellow, Birthday.

On Sunday while cruising through my saved blogs, I started watching this video on Jennifer McGuire's blog. It looked interesting so I decided to give it a try.

I used the "landscape" layout for this one. The patterned papers are from a retired SU paper stack called All Abloom. Most of the dies and stamps are from Concord & 9th. The Stitched Rectangle die is SU.

These bridge cards are super easy to make. It's really just making sure that the dimensions are correct for the cutting and the scoring. Jennifer also recommends using heavy or thick card stock for the card base. I have a box of SSS card stock that is pretty thick and that's what I used. There happened to be a bright yellow/gold piece which matched the SU Daffodil Delight shade very well.

What's great about this design is the dimension. The card stands up on it's own. There is no place to write a personal note like on the inside of a traditional card. If you watch the video, Jennifer recommends using the back of the card to write your message, or making a small note card and gluing it to the back.

The other great thing is that it folds into a regular A2 envelope, as demonstrated here.

I recommend you give this technique a try. Lots of possibilities.

Wishing everyone a safe and fun July 4 holiday. Happy Birthday America!
Thanks for looking in,
Colleen

Supplies
Stamps: Beautiful Butterfly set by Concord & 9th
Paper: Simon Says Stamp yellow card stock, SU All Abloom paper stack DSP
Ink: Memento tuxedo black
Other: Misti, Score-Pal, Concord & 9th Butterfly Turnabout set dies, SU Stitched Rectangle die, Gemini Jr, pink gems, liquid glue, dimensional