Birthday Balloons

I made a bright pink celebratory card using Sunny Studio products  for the current Anything Goes Challenge at Seize the Birthday. The balloons are from the Birthday Balloons stamp set. I stamped them with an assortment of dye inks and did not mask them, trying to achieve a translucent look to the balloons by overlapping them.

It was a bit bright and bold, so to tone it down and add some fun texture, I placed a panel of dotted vellum over the card front. 

The sentiment is bordered with black and white striped washi tape and mounted on a black panel, echoed in the frame around the larger panel.

Thanks for visiting today! Check out the challenge at 

The Bee's Knees!

The Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog calls for sprinkles and splatters. I have a few fun cards that I have made with that in mind. Each of them follows a similar format. 

Memory Box card base, washi tape, Waltzingmouse Stamps bees and
sentiment. Black Soot Distress Ink sprinkles.

I created a beehive overlay from white cardstock on my Silhouette Cameo by manipulating a purchased file from the Silhouette Online Store called Beehive Background by Hero Arts, Design ID #38548. Each of the following cards were created with a Distress Oxide inked background with varied amounts of water splatters. 

For the following cards, I used the negative pieces from the Beehive Background.

Black photo corners used to frame these busy bees.
Hexagons were inked with Distress Oxide inks.

A few black gems and some glitter on the
bees' wings add a bit of sparkle.

It was fun, once I got in the groove, to make a batch of these bee-autiful cards! Thanks for visiting today!

My Kind of Guy

I am sharing here masculine cards I made using a Dreaming Tree project cut file. This is a fun shutter card that makes a great Father's Day or birthday card for the man in your life.

My first one was for my husband for Father's Day. I used Tim Holtz Paper Stash papers, as well as some other scraps, and an old photo of my husband and daughter for the insert. The photo is revealed as the action of opening the gatefold card opens the heart-shaped aperture. This provides that WOW factor. The bow tie band slides off.

My second card was for a card exchange and so I needed it to be a bit more generic. I used Tim Holtz Paper Stash papers again and instead of a photo inside, I did some rubber stamping. For the eyeglasses, I used silver Silhouette brand printable foil instead of the pearl paper used in the first card, and a textured glossy metallic paper for the bowler hat.

I think the papers really compliment the retro style of the Waltzingmouse rubber stamps used.

I used a rainbow stamp pad to get a gradated effect to the words.

For this second card, I made the bow tie with a magnetic closure so instead of sliding the band off, it comes undone easily by pulling apart. Here's what that looks like.

The recipient gave this card to her husband for his birthday, which was such an honour for me. She said she did not want to give it away so by giving it to him, she still gets to have it around. So I am entering this card in the Male Room Challenge which is for a male birthday card as that challenge is celebrating its fifth year.

Thanks for visiting today. If you have an electronic cutting machine I highly recommend Dreaming Tree files. They have useful videos showing how to put together the cards or 3D paper items. In the case of this file, there are even helpful divots built into the design to help align the various pieces. The hardest part for me was just deciding on which coordinating papers to use!

Christmas Card Challenge - Bethlehem

For Sylvia's month of March Christmas Challenge, the prompts were Navy Bethlehem and Sparkle Background. I chose to use a navy Canson Mi-teintes heavy paper for my card base.

The stars were made by dotting on Nuvo Silver Moondust Glitter Drops. As I don't have any Bethlehem rubber stamps, I created a cut file from watercolour paper and used Zig Clean Color Markers to shade in the scene. 

I also cut a second scene from watercolour paper to use as a silhouette. The background was made with Distress Oxide Inks and spattered with white gouache. I created the song refrain on my computer to run along the base. Fun challenge for me this time - I really stretched to make it work!