Festive Dinosaur

Today’s card is being featured on Stylin’ Stampin’ Inkspiration. The challenge was to create a card using your favorite animal stamp. Hands down my favorite animal stamp is the dinosaurs from No Bones About It. I love that I can layer the solid images and the skeletons. Such a cute visual! I decided to play with a simple color scheme of blue and orange with a yellow accent. I love the play of subtle patterns in the DSP. Because of the DSP, I kept my dinosaur image and sentiment simple.

• Stamps: No Bones About It
• Inks: Pumpkin Pie; Soft Sky; Tempting Turquoise
• Cardstock: Festive Birthday DSP; Soft Sky; Tempting Turquoise; Whisper White
• Accessories: Metallic Enamel Shapes
• Tools: Layering Circles Framelits; Triple Banner Punch

Throwback Thursday #1

For 2017, I'm starting a new series on the blog. Every other Thursday (or so), I'm going to feature a project using retired products. If you're like me, I hoard paper and products and end up having leftovers once the catalog retires. Not any more! I'm going to use those pieces. Today's set of cards were made while in Indiana for Christmas break. I realized that I was completely out of Birthday cards! Oh no! Never fear, I still had half a pack of the Petals and Paisleys DSP to play with. I layered on some DSP sections, added a simple sentiment, and finished off the card with some fun copper foil die cuts. 

Variations using Night of Navy and Mint Macaron

Variations using Rich Razzleberry and Sweet Sugarplum

• Stamps: Birthday Blooms
• Inks: Night of Navy; Rich Razzleberry
• Cardstock: Petals and Paisleys DSP (retired); Copper Foil; Night of Navy; Mint Macaron; Sweet Sugarplum; Rich Razzleberry
• Accessories:
• Tools: Detailed Dragonfly Thinlits; Paisley Framelits; Lots of Labels Framelits

Arthur's 2nd Birthday

This post is going to be a long one! Last week was Arthur's 2nd birthday party! Being the crafty person that I am, I couldn't buy store decor and cards. So I buckled down about a month ago, and started creating...

Favor Bags: I chose to go simple with white paper bags as a base. I stamped some dino footprints in random directions. From there I added a starburst tag in a variety of patterns. For the actual party, I put the kids' names on the bags and clothes pinned the tag to the bag.

Matching Games: I made 2x2 squares featuring stamped dinosaurs on one side and some patterned paper on the other. Each set includes 18 different pairs to match. I thought about adding leaves and such, but decided that the simple dinosaur silhouette in different colors looked just right. These are matching games for toddlers.

Cupcake Toppers: I used up my scrap paper from the favor tags to create these simple circle cupcake toppers. I stamped skeleton on each side completed the tag. These looked perfect in the cupcakes!

Thank You Cards: Simple, but cute! I made a variation of colors and patterns using some old patterned paper.

Party Pics:

Supplies:

• SU No Bones About It stamp set
• SU old DSP
• SU Pool Party, Gumball Green (retired), Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, and Tempting Turquoise ink
• SU Starburst framelits (retired)
• White paper
• White Paper bags
• Toothpicks
• Labels framelits

Dino-rrific Birthday!

Today’s card is being featured on Stylin’ Stampin’ Inkspiration. The challenge was to create a a kids' birthday card. I just received the No Bones About It stamp set and couldn't wait to use it! Two of Arthur's toddler friends will be the recipients of these two cards.

For the first card, I decided on a boyish color palette featuring the triceratops stamp. I love the layering effect with the solid dino on bottom and the skeleton on top. Very cool look! Add a sentiment, some dirt, leaves, and party hats to fill out the space. I mounted the stamped piece onto a nice piece of polka dot DSP. Very cute little card!

For the variation, I repeated the layered stamping, but this time the skeleton was heat embossed. Notice that the skeleton isn't complete. I didn't see that the stamp picked up all the versamark until after I embossed it. My mistake! But I still really like the look of the partial skeleton.

• Stamps: No Bones About It
• Inks: Tip Top Taupe; Bermuda Bay; Watermelon Wonder; Cucumber Crush; Wild Wasabi; Island Indigo; Daffodil Delight
• Cardstock: 2015-2017 In Colors DSP; Bermuda Bay; Island Indigo; Whisper White
• Accessories:
• Tools: Versamark; Pearl Embossing Powder; Heat gun

Arthur's Birthday Pages

Arthur's first project life album ends with his first birthday.  While the family album is done by calendar year, I feel that marking each year of his life with a new scrapbook made more sense to me... As I finally printed the photos from his party, it was time to finish his first PL album! The last official page before the ending inserts features his 12 month photos.  I ended up going very simple with four photos, his month card, the stats card, and two filler cards. I wanted the pictures to stand alone with no embellishment.  Clean and Simple.

At his party, I put out some PL journaling cards and asked friends to write him a birthday message.  Most people did leaving me with a stack of cards.  Instead of sprinkling them in, I decided to have one page dedicated to the cards.  I love how they look all lined up in the sheet.

The last page in his album is the once a month photos I took over the course of the first year.  I just slide them into pockets without embellishment.  Simple, yet very striking.

And now it's on to Arthur's second PL album.

Arthur's Birthday Photo Board

For Arthur's 1st Birthday party, I knew I wanted to make some sort of photo board, but how?  After looking at many elaborate creations on Pinterest, I decided to scale back my intentions just a bit.  I wanted something simple with the focus on the actual pictures and not the decorations. Enter the blessed land of Michael's.  I was in the kid's art supply aisle for other things (felt or paper for apples) and found these lovely white display boards. They are meant to be for science fair projects and the like, but I thought it would be perfect for the photo board. After pulling paper, the pictures, and some embellishments, this is what I came up with:

The base layer is SU Gumball Green Coordinations and then Gumball Green, Pumpkin Pie, and Pacific Point DSP.  I made a little sign for people to write Arthur a birthday note on PL cards (not pictured). And I added some silver glitter letters for his initials.  I originally had his full name up there, but realized the pictures would not fit nicely with the entire name. So I shortened it down to just the initials. Much better!

The pictures are from our monthly photo shoots.  I love being able to see his growth throughout the first year. I even included the one day old pic for comparison. Everyone really loved this at the party. I loved that it was easy to make and the base is reusable (look for it in the fall social crafts).

October Month of Cards Week 4 - Challenge Edition

For October's big crafting goal, I am attempting to make a different designed card everyday.  Instead of flooding everyone's feed with tons of posts, I am just going to do a weekly wrap-up post with my cards. Today's featured cards are my takes on various card challenges from this week.

Day #20

• Stamps:
• Inks:
• Cardstock: Basic Black; Whisper White
• Accessories: Various gold washi tape (SU and My Mind's Eye); Gold Glitter Alpas
• Tools:

Day #21

• Stamps: Work of Art
• Inks: Tempting Turquoise; Chocolate Chip
• Cardstock: Kraft; Daffodil Delight; Random scraps
• Accessories:
• Tools: Blossom Punch; 1" Circle Punch; Petite Petals Punch; Banner Punch

Day #22

• Stamps: Circle Circus (retired); Wacky Wishes (retired)
• Inks: Midnight Muse (retired); Chocolate Chip; Baked Brown Sugar; Always Artichoke; Blackberry Bliss
• Cardstock: Kraft; Whisper White
• Accessories:
• Tools: Ovals Framelits; Corner Rounder

Day #23

• Stamps: Kinda Eclectic
• Inks: Tangerine Tango; Elegant Eggplant; Always Artichoke; Melon Mambo
• Cardstock: Basic Black; Random scraps
• Accessories:
• Tools: Starburst Framelits; Elegant Butterfly Punch; Pattern scissors

August PL Swaps (Part 3)

I joined a Project Life Swap group on Facebook a few months back and have really been inspired.  Basically every month, the admins post swap themes (8-10 usually).  You sign up for how many you want and commit to making usually 10 cards utilizing the theme.  Before the due date, you send your cards to the swap host.  She collects everyone’s cards, sorts them, and sends you back a packet of cards.

This month, I joined eleven swaps.  I'll be showing four of the swaps today:

Embossed Stamp -- I started with a large background polka dot stamp in Baked Brown Sugar.  I then added stamped and heat embossed the coffee cup and coffee bean using Early Espresso powder.  I liked that it didn't come out at as a completely clean image.  The smudges add character.  I stamped the "Coffee Run!" in Midnight Muse.  Finally I added a gold sequin and gold flitter tape to jazz up the card a bit.

Birds -- For the bird theme, I knew I wanted to use my birdcage stamps, but had to play with them for awhile for inspiration.  I settled on stamping lighting in Crumb Cake onto the pink gingham paper.  That allowed me to layer on the quote (Primrose Petal) and bird (Early Espresso).  As a finishing touch, I added some baker's twine in pink.  I really love this card!

Stripes -- The stripe theme shouted washi tape to me.  So I grabbed some fun different patterns and different colors and started layering. This set took forever to finish, but I like the fun stripes.  I completed the card with a "This Week" stamp and some enamel dots.

Washi, stamp, and sequins -- My final swap of the month challenged me to use washi tape, a stamp, and sequins.  That's a lot of stuff for one card, but i think I nailed it.  I started with some cute lightly patterned blue paper, but realized that I didn't have enough to make the set.  I search through the stack and found this striped paper that had a similar blue color.  I stamped the Birthday Cake in Midnight Muse and made a sentiment banner in Blackberry Bliss using the A Word for You Stamp Set (retired).  For the washi tape element, I layered a few different tapes underneath the sentiment for a cute peek-a-boo effect.  Finally I adhered a few large fold sequins to complete the look.  Really loving this set!

Another Kid Birthday Card

After the first round of baby 1st birthday cards, we had another invitation arrive in our mailbox.  So I pulled out some fun stamps and tried to make a card out of them.  This card is completely non-Stampin' Up (except for the ink).  Every once in awhile it's nice to pull out old random supplies to use.  I think this card is simple, but perfectly adorable for a little boy birthday card.

Description

• Stamps: Random dinosaur, random birthday sentiment and cake (presents inside)
• Inks: More Mustard (retired), Summer Sun (retired), Chocolate Chip, Taken with Teal (retired), Tempting Turquoise, Green Galore (retired)
• Cardstock: Random blue and green
• Accessories: Blue polka dot washi tape

Girl Birthday Cards

It's birthday season around here.  My mom's group is comprised of mostly summer to fall 2013 babies.  That means that they are all turning 1!  Just this month and early next, we have four birthday parties to attend.  Parties mean presents and cards.  I've bought the presents, but I can't just buy the cards.  Nope, I need to make them!  Today, I'm highlighting two of the cards I made.  These two were for the two girls we know, but the first one could easily work for a boy also.

Card #1

Another card featuring PL cards from the Everyday Adventures pack.  I loved this "Happy" card, but didn't see myself using in a PL spread.  But I though it would work perfectly on a greeting card.  I layered it on top of the rainbow stripe card and adhered both to a pumpkin pie layering piece.  It still looked a little plain.  A quick dig through my stash and I found these glittery silver stars.  Because they are 3D, the stickers add that bit of visual interest the card needed.

• Stamps: Birthday Cake (retired)
• Inks: Primrose Petals (retired)
• Cardstock: Melon Mambo; Pumpkin Pie; PL Everyday Adventures
• Accessories: Random silver stars
• Tools:

Card #2

For the second card, I pulled this gorgeous "wonderful" 4x4 card from the stack.  It screamed little girl.  Because of the unusual size, I cut my card base to be 4.25 x 4.25.  I layered on pieces of another PL card featuring polka dots.  Those pieces were cut using one of my patterned scissors to add more visual interest.  Finally I found this great little Happy Birthday sticker in my stash to complete the card.

• Stamps: Birthday Cake (retired)
• Inks: Island Indigo
• Cardstock: Bermuda Bay; PL Everyday Adventure
• Accessories: Random birthday sticker
• Tools: Patterned scissors