Sarah's Birthday Card- A Little Cupcake Madness!

Ok, color is a little too intense in the photo! The frosting is really Passion Pink, and the popped up flowers are Pixie Pink and So Saffron.
I have been wanting to make a cupcake card for ages now and this is my first one! Not perfect, but a start.
I grabbed a scrap of cheerful DP and ran it through my crimper to make it look like a cupcake paper cup. Ran some Passion Pink paper through my Cuttlebug with the D'Vine Swirls embossing folder and glued it all to my Pixie Pink card base. The Whole card is a almost 5" square, a little taller than wide. The sprinkles are Fruit Punch Stickles. Yes, It's only half SU! but I have to use my contraband sometime! The sentiment and the little birthday cakes are from One Smart Cookie, which was in the mini this summer, but made it to the Fall/Winter Catty! Also used the Daisy punch and the Boho Blossoms punch. I hope she looks at it for more than 2 seconds before moving on to the next great thing ;) But she is only turning 6. I'm pretty sure 6 year olds don't care about cxards, just what's in them and what they get for presents!

Kirk's Birthday Card

I needed to make my brother a birthday card today, and I was inspired to CASE this wonderful card by BrandiP at SCS! Everything I used was SU except for the DP, which is DCWV Summer Stack from last year I think. We won't go into how many Stack Packs I have...really we won't!
I just hope my brother realizes there are 3, count em, 3 , flaps to unfold! I know, I went overboard, what can I say!
This is a 5x5" card- Pacific Point base 5x10" the scored in the middle and folded over. Edges inked with same color as paper.
The Barely Banana layer is 4 5/8" square, stamped with BB ink and the Sun stamp from Life's a Breeze. Edges distressed with tool from Cutter kit, then inked with BB ink.
The Wild Wasabi layer is 4 1/4 x 8 1/2" square, scored in half, then trimmed from fold line to opposite corner on one half. Used CELEBRATE and YOUR DAY stamps from Celebrate Everything set and a tar from Starstruck set with WW ink and stamped all over inside full square area. Edges inked with WW.
Cut a 4" square of DP, then cut that in half diagonally and glued to both sides of the triangle flap of WW. Wrapped Very Vanilla taffeta ribbon around triangle flap and tied a knot. Took Small piece of WW double stitched ribbon and tied that over the first knot.
The Pacific Point inner layer is 3 1/2 x 7" scored in the middle and folded in half. Stamped one of the many little star stamps from Starstruck stamp set over front and top of inside fold in PP ink. Inked edges with PP ink.
Cut out a 2 1/8" circle of BB, used Large Star punch with WW, and Small Star punch with PP. Inked edges of WW star with Garden Green marker, edges of PP star with Night of Navy marker, and circle with Apricot Appeal marker. Used Crop-A-Dile to attach stars with Antique Brass jumbo and regular brads.
Stamped Birthday hugs and wishes from Hugs & Wishes set inside small PP "card" .
Used dimensionals to attach circle to front of small PP "card" after adhering all the layers together.
Used white gel pen to dot outside edge and inside the card base.
Stamped the Happiness stamp from Heard from the Heart set-new set coming in F/W catty! and more stars from Starstruck!

This is the first flap, and let me tell you, that fold on the ribbon to make it lay flat on the front, was a little tricky! I also don't use jumbo brads on cards very often, feels wasteful. Usually use them for home decor and scrapbook pages. But this is for a special guy, so I splurged!

We can write a quick smarty pants remark in here. My brother is the BIGGEST smarta$$ in the world! I kid you not!!!

And we can all sign the inside and put personal notes to him on the inside. There are 6 of us that need to sign this!

Now I just need to do a FAB card for his daughter, whose birthday is the day after his! And I need to do it today, cuz I work the next 8 out of 9 days! Ugh! But then I get a week off, yippee! And I will only have to use 12 hours of vacation time!

Butterflies Galore!

Ok, I don't do color challenges very often, but I was feeling guilty about how I have been wasting my precious time off by just stalking the SU Convention threads! So I decided to do a NAC (Not Attending Convention) challenge posted on the demo side at SCS. The challenge was to use SO Saffron, More Mustard, and Tempting Turquoise. And this is what I came up with. It's growing on me, but definitely not my best work, LOL!
first I stamped the butterfly in all the colors on So Saffron paper, distressed the edges, and inked the edges of More Mustard card base and So Saffron piece with More Mustard ink.
Then I stamped the sentiment on So Saffron and matted with the other 2 colors. Then I stamped the butterfly in More Mustard on So Saffron and cut it out.
Used 2 way glue pen to add Dazzling Diamonds to the wings and antenna, then popped it up on corner of sentiment .
Stamps: Dreams du Jour
Paper: So Saffron, More Mustard, and Tempting Turquoise
Ink: same
Accessories: 2 way glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, detail scissors, dimensionals, distressing tool from Cutter Kit

New Catty Survival Kit

This is the little kit I put together to give my Club members with their new catalogs when they get here. I used the new In-Colors ink to stamp on labels, then punched them out with the Round Tab punch-these are to put tabs on the different categories in the catty. A highlighter to mark the stuff you already have, mini Post-It page markers for all the stuff you want, a notepad decorated with the new Designer Paper- Bella Rose- to write your wish list in, and a lip balm decorated with the Bella Rose paper just cuz it is so cute! Who can't use lip balm anyway?!

To my Stamp Club girls- I am going to get my catalog spiral bound again, and I can do yours too, if you don't mind paying $5 for the binding-the catalog itself will still be free :) Just let me know! I hope to have the catties in a week or so. We can hope anyway!

Stampin Up! Convention...

Starts today! And the sneak peeks are flowing! Here are some of the blogs posting peeks of the new catalog and stuff from convention Bevithia's blog , Sharon Bridwell , Kerin Sylvester , Linda Heller , Kristins Stamps , Kristina Werner , and Star of May .
Hope you enjoy stalking the peeks!

Fishin card

My hubby, youngest son, and I went fishing yesterday afternoon and had a great time. We just don't do that often enough. The really cool part was my hubby said "You want to go fishing?" at 5:55pm and by 6:10pm we were in the boat out on the water, and no- I don't live on a lake! We live within 5 minutes of about 4 public accesses to 4 different lakes. Plus there are about 7 more lakes within 10 minutes of us, some with public accesses and some without. And how often do I actually get out on the lake? About 3 times a summer. Ridiculous right?!

I also had to make a birthday card for my stepfather-in-law to send out that morning and he loves to fish and works for Crestliner, a big boat manufacturer. So I decided to do a fishing theme, AGAIN! I also wanted to do the emerging colors technique with a masculine theme, so I stamped the fish from Angler in 3 colors on Whisper White, then used Print Pattern BG to stamp with Versamark, then embossed that with clear EP. Then brayed with Blue Bayou ink, and wiped the excess ink off the embossed parts. I think I also embossed the boat silhouette image in white on Blue Bayou paper, matted that and centered it on the card. I hurried up, found a good poem for the inside, had everyone sign it and put it in the mailbox and forgot to take a picture! Ugh! So I decided to play with it again today and this is what I came up with. I took this one a step further and made my own striped paper in coordinating colors.

Stamps: Angler, Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Print Pattern BG
Paper: Kiwi Kiss, Blue Bayou, Whisper White
Ink: Kiwi Kiss, True Thyme, River Rock, Baja Breeze, Blue Bayou, Versamark
Accessories: brayer, clear EP , white EP, Plaidmaker templates-small (retired, used to make the striped paper)

Hummingbird card

I just got the Spring Song set and have been dying to use it! And I finally am allowing myself to play with the new In-Colors that will be available starting August 11th from Stampin Up! I always end up falling in love with the In-Colors and use them alot. I have hoarded paper from all of the years so far and August will be the start of year #3! OK, enough about my love for the In-Colors ;)

I've been playing with the grid technique this weekend and I must say, I like it best so far as a simple texture. I made another card with sponging and background images over the grid, and I really didn't like it, but it could have been just a dud card, you know what I mean!

For this card, I wanted to try my watercolor pencils on a colored paper and see if the white popped enough to make it worth it. I think it worked well, although my coloring is not the best. There are some real artists out there when it comes to coloring, and I'm not one of them! LOL!

Stamps: Spring Song, Dreams du Jour (butterfly)

Paper: Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Whisper White

Ink: Basic Brown, Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze (to dye the VV taffeta ribbon)

Accessories: Watercolor pencils, blender pen, scoring blade with paper cutter, taffeta ribbon