Birthday Balloon

Here's another card from my crafty play date last weekend:

I was playing with my new Cracked Pistachio Distress ink, and I paired it with a yellow and a blue and inked up a new-to-me stencil while I was at it. That's Pistachio in the center, Mustard Seed at the top and Peacock Feathers at the bottom. I'm gonna like this new color.

The back story: I had a background, but so what? I needed to do something with it. I used one of the Simon Says Stamp balloon dies and die-cut it out of the background, making sure to keep some of the yellow and blue areas.

I die-cut my Winnie & Walter happy out of black a few times and stacked them for heft. I lined it up on the balloon so I'd know where to stamp the birthday from the coordinating stamp set, then I glued down the die-cut.  I then cut a piece of fun foam to use as a layer behind the balloon.

At the time I made this, I was still in Kraft mode, so I opened and used my MFT Chalkboard Frame Builder dies to cut some Kraft card stock. I originally got these dies because I thought thought they'd make cool custom frames, and I'm sure they will! But this time I used them as strips across the front of a white panel.

I put two strips of washi tape down the left edge (too much white showed through just one layer, and I wanted it to be more subtle). A piece of black twine finished it off.

Just so you can see what a difference a small piece of twine can make, here is the before and after:

Big difference, huh?

I'm entering this in the current Simon Says Stamp/Lawn Fawn Flickr Co-challenge to use Kraft. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used: Black crochet string from Mike's, SU Basic Black card stock, SU Kraft/Crumb Cake card stock, washi tape, and the following:

InLinkz.com

You Are The Best

Here's another card I made during yesterday's play date:

This card is the result of me trying to use some more of my new stuff. I've used another Lawn Fawn notecard (this time as background paper), and new Clearly Besotted stamp set that I added to my shopping cart without paying enough attention.

A side note: I know a lot of people who put things in their shopping carts at online stores, then come back later to actually buy. Instead, I add things to a wish list. This way I can pick and choose what I want to buy when I'm ready, and I never lose the stuff I want but don't plan to buy right now. It's also a great way to keep track of what's in stock or not. In my case, I was so excited that most of my wish list was in stock, I went click click click and bought most of it. That's how this set ended up at my house.

I won't bore you with the failed iterations of this idea, but let me tell you: there were a few. I die-cut the you from the Simon Says Stamp Big Love You several times from white and once from black ... it really needed the contrast.  The rest of the sentiment is from the SSS set of expressions that go with the you dies.

For the bottom, I broke out my Clearly Besotted In Print set. This set is so fun, but mostly if you have little kids, which I do not. I had played with the set, stamping a bunch of the finger prints onto a piece of white card stock with Hero Arts Soft Tan ink, then went in with each of the critter images and stamped them over the finger prints. Stinkin' adorable! That's how I decided I needed to use the cat here.

While I assembled my card, I tried a layer of black under the blue panel, but we decided it was too much. But after I'd built the card, I felt it was missing something. I tried a strip of black card stock, and it was perfect!

For my last act, I added a red heart from some Pretty Pink Posh bling I bought in a weak moment.

Even though it took me hours to make even three cards, I did use a bunch of new stuff, so it wasn't a total loss. Also, my pal decided she needed to maybe borrow that finger print stamp set, and I think she's made her Christmas card for this year. #WIN

Thanks for stopping by!

PS: Since the Soft Sand ink is "Kraft", I'm going to enter this into the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge. :)

Stuff I used: SU Basic Black card stock, and the following:

InLinkz.com

Pink Love

HA, I'll bet you never thought you'd see those two words together on my blog, huh? Don't worry, I still do not like pink, but I did use some on a card for a challenge.

I mentioned in my last post that I had a crafty play date yesterday, and I was lacking in mojo. I'd also forgotten to bring my list of challenges, so I had no help there. However, I did remember that the current Just Us Girls challenge is to use at least three of these colors:

I was already in Kraft mode from that last card, and my pal LOVES pink (we are polar opposites there), so I made this:

In an unguarded moment a year or so ago, I purchased ONE OF EACH, PLEASE of the Lawn Fawn note card packs, and I have yet to use them. I took one of them and die-cut it with my new Winnie & Walter love die. I white-embossed the you from the Simon Says Stamp Expressions for You set onto a navy panel, then stuck on the pink word. Yes, I know there is embossing powder everywhere. Yes, I did use my anti-static thingie. Sigh.

I wanted to put the navy piece onto Kraft, but it was boring, so I stamped a mystery (no label - maybe Hero Arts, maybe Basic Grey, maybe HA/BG or HA/Studio Calico) background onto the Kraft panel using Versamark Champagne ink, then I put everything onto a white base.

I like how this turned out!

I have a few more cards I made, so I'll be back later with another one.

Thanks for stopping by!

Stuff I used: SU Night of Navy card stock, SU Kraft/Crumb Cake card stock, and the following:

InLinkz.com