Sunday, July 19, 2009

Birthdays Galore...

Well another weekend has quickly gone by. I spent some time in the craft room to relax and wind down after the busy work week. My new AR clerk has 6 days off so now I am wearing 3 hats again. I can't belive how busy I am but of course this is our busy season... I get lucky to only have a three day work week coming up as we are heading back to NY again on Wednesday evening. Daughter Jessica will be heading home as well and I look forward to seeing her - it seems like ages have gone by since we were last together.

I'm sharing a few birthday cards that I made this weekend. The first is a simple and elegant black, white,teal combo. I love it. I actually made another version as well but I thought it was a little darker than this one because it had a black accent strip but the DH thought it would be scarry to get such a dark card. He usually has some sound advise so I listened and lightened it up to the card below.



I started with a balck card base and added a black and white grid pattern from a specialty cardstock pack by me & my Big ideas. I love, love, love it. It reminds me a lot of the grid pattern stamps by Papertrey Ink. I topped it with a Nestabilities label 4 panel. Now most of you know that these don't nest to 1/8 inch like much of the other dies so I had to cut my DP (also from the me & my Big ideas pack) and then trim it to be 1/8 inch smaller than the black. This is a tedious task but I love the result and am glad I made the effort. Next I added a sentiment panel using the Nestabilities classic large ovals and large oval scallops. The sentiment is from SU's Sincere Salutations. I stamped the image on Neenah Classic Crest Solar White cardstock using the Memento Tuxedo Black ink. I am a firm believer that your images will improve using the right combo of paper and ink and this one works great for me.

Of course a card wouldn't be finished without some Swarkovski crystals to bring the sentiment center stage. I like the way it makes this feel classy. I repeated the background and label 4 panel inside for my greeting and this card is a wrap.

Ketto Bella

Next up, I colored one of my new Stamping Bella images called Phoebe Ketto. I loved her bouquet of hearts and her angelic wings. I have a story to share about the Shimmerz Angel Wings I used to color these wings. I have wanted these shimmery paint accents for some time now but couldn't find them locally. The only way to get them was to order them on-line. I'm trying to be a little frugal and hate to pay shipping charges so I patiently held back adding these to my stash (and believe me my stash is growing - the DH loves to remind me of that!). Anyway - you probably think that I caved in but nope - as luck would have it, I entered a contest on "Life One Layout at a Time" and had my name pulled for the free Shimmerz and Spritz. I think I directed you all there in March and again in May. I patiently waited for my new items to arrive and I was so thrilled to get the package you should have heard the squeal of delight when I found the Angel Wings white bottle inside. There were also three other colors, Sunflower, Pumpkin (which I can't wait to use for fall) and Hottie Pink (I think this would be great on cards for Lisa, the girlies, Stephanie - gosh I can't wait to get creating!) I also received two colors of Spritz, Saphire and Concrete. I used the Saphire to color a plain silk flower and loved how it came out. Ok, sorry for the chatter but I was so happy to have won these and Danielle couldn't have picked better colors for me if she knew me. You wouldn't belive how hard it was to wait for their arrival. Sissy Linda (Scrappy Lin) won the Bind-It-All from the same site in early March - just in time for her 40th! She was equally as excited since she does the scrapbooking. She made a gorgeous book of the girls from their birthday party and her pictures and journalling make you feel like you were there dancing along. Ok ok on to the picture...




I started with a Neenah Solar White card base and added red cardstock and a cute strawberry pattern from Out & About by My Minds Eye. I used the Nesties large classic circle dies to make the sentiment panel and the classic large square and scalloped square for the main image panel. I colored Phoebe with my Copics and had fun trying a new hair coloring technique. Linda Heavens was a great starting point for this challenge and I was pleased with the result. The sentiment is a Stampabilities wood stamp I picked up from Hobby Lobby. I added a satin ribbon and tied it off with a silk flower, button combo. I even pulled out the Sunflower Shimmerz to make the flower sparkle. Loved it!

I kept the same background for the inside of the card and added a compter generated sentiment. That that.

Have a great week everyone and I'll catch up with you again soon.

Thanks for looking!

Cath

1 comment:

ScrappyLin said...

I love, love, love the bow and flower combo. How did you tie the bow? Both cards are beautiful, but I love everything about Ketto Bella and you used one of my favorite paper lines MME. Can't wait for some more.