Birthday Card Challenged No More!

The past few years I have been pleasantly surprised at my output of handstamped Christmas cards thanks to Christmas card challenges on the web. This year I decided to devote more attention to making birthday cards in advance of the dreaded eleventh hour, as well. Fortunately there is a new challenge in town for just this occasion: Seize the Birthday. They have a fun concept: one week they give you a challenge and you make a "feminine" birthday card with it, then the following week you use the same challenge to create a "masculine" version.

The first sketch is this one and this is the week for a girly card:

I created this card by embossing a sheet of pink pearl Shimmer Sheetz in my Cuttlebug using the Paisley embossing folder. Then I swiped Black StazOn ink across the top to provide a bit of contrast.

4.25 X 5.5 inch card

I am really happy about the scalloped border Labels One dies that Spellbinders recently brought out. They add a subtle touch of colour to frame the Labels One die cuts. Labels One is still my favourite of all the Spellbinders dies, so it is nice to have new ways to use them.

Shimmer Sheetz is an interesting product that pressure embosses easily. In the card below, I used a Spellbinders M-bossibilities folder. Then I sanded the top of the relief areas to provide white contrast to the pink pearl below. This folder has a space for a Labels One die cut and the calligraphy quote and frame from Quietfire Design were stamped in StazOn Fucshia ink.

5 X 7 card

This is what the Shimmer Sheetz looks like prior to being embossed:

 Here is the embossing folder I used:

So now I have two birthday cards for 2013 made already! Be sure to check out the Seize the Birthday blog to learn how you can play along, too.