CCEE2226 - Dotsy's Birthday

I'm starting my month as hostess for the CCEE Stampers with a personal challenge.  Tomorrow is my sister Dotsy's birthday.  She is an avid card maker and scrapbooker, and she also helps with wedding floral arrangements with her friend.  In her honor, I asked the team to make either a birthday card or a wedding card.  

I chose a birthday card.  July actually has two birth flowers -- larkspur and water lily.  I don't have any larkspur stamps, but I have a couple water lily ones.  This one is from an old MFP Stamp Shop stamp.  The frog on the front and the card base are from Karen Burniston (Bayou Animals and Circle Tag Book), as is the "Happy Birthday" sentiment.

I used the water lily from Bayou Animals on the inside panels.

Be sure to check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see how the rest of the team treated my sister's birthday.

CCEE1907 Love One's Birthday

Maryann continues as the CCEE Stampers hostess for this Valentine's Day.  She told us that it is also her birthday and asked us to make a birthday card for someone we love.  I'm not sure who will ultimately get this birthday card, but I have to tell you that I loved making it!  I used the new Karen Burniston Woven Basket.

As you can see, it folds flat for mailing.

I invite you to hop over to the CCEE Stampers blog to see some more loving birthday cards.

Happy 70th Birthday

I have a friend celebrating her 70th birthday this week, and I wanted to make a special card to commemorate the occasion.  I thought the Karen Burniston Explosion Pop-Up would be perfect.  I pretty much copied the card Karen used in her video demonstrating this die, adding the 70 on the inside.  I used lots of bright colors and balloons.

The borders on both the inside and the outside are from one of the new Border Blends dies, and the circles are the Crosshatch Circles dies.

I hope she likes this card.

CCEE1847 - Humorous Birthday

Anne continues as hostess of the CCEE Stampers this week and tells us that today is her daughter's birthday.  She says that Amy (her daughter) loves to get funny cards and challenges us to make a birthday card -- extra points if it's humorous.  Art Impressions makes some really humorous stamp sets, so I pulled out their Spring Chicken set and made this card.

The inside says something that is close to what my feelings are about growing older.  I've always said, "Getting old is not for sissies," but you get the idea!

Stop over at the CCEE Stampers blog to see some more birthday cards -- humorous or otherwise.

CCEE1846 Topaz

Anne reminded the CCEE Stampers that the November birthstone is Topaz and asked us to make a card using the colors in the yellow to amber range.  My card is definitely yellow!  I used the Karen Burniston Cupcake Pop-Up die for this card.

Be sure to check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see how many shades of yellow are represented in today's challenge.

Birthday Balloons

We all need birthday cards, and I have a relatively simple one for you today -- using two different CottageCutz sets, Happy Birthday Phrase and Balloons, Variety.

To start my card, I cut a piece of heavyweight cardstock 10" x 6 1/2", scoring it at 5".  I also cut two pieces of purple cardstock, 4 3/4" x 6 1/4" and 3" x 4 1/4"; as well as two pieces of patterned paper, one 4 1/2" x 6" and the other 2 7/8" x 4 1/8".

I then cut the images in various colors from the two dies . . .

. . . and sponged some distress ink on them to give them a bit of dimension.  I added a highlight on each balloon with a white gel pen.

Then I constructed my card base . . . 

 . . . and added the various die cuts.

Easy peasy!

CottageCutz dies used on my card:

CCEE1707 - Feminine Birthday

Liz continues as hostess for the CCEE Stampers again this week.  She tells us that today is her and Lynn's mother's birthday, and in her honor Liz asks us to make a feminine birthday card for some special lady in your life.  Next week is my best friend's birthday, so I made my card for her.  CottageCutz has some new stamp/die sets.  One of them is birth month flowers.  The flower for February is the violet.

Check out the CCEE Stampers blog for some more birthday cards.

Birthday Time!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.  Now it's time to get back to work . . . or fun, as the case may be!  I have another fun birthday card for you today using a few CottageCutz Mini, Petite, and Expression dies.

Supplies needed for this card are:

Card base - white cardstock, balloon patterned paper

Scraps of colored cardstock - pink, green, purple, red, yellow, orange, black, white

Dies - CottageCutz Balloon, Round (mini), CottageCutz Present, CottageCutz Happy, CottageCutz Birthday 

Ink - Distress Worn Lipstick
Other - red pen, ribbon, foam pop dots, adhesive sheet, scallop border punch, ruler, pencil

I started with a white card base 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", folded in half.  Using a pencil and ruler, I marked in 1/2" on all four sides.

Using a red pen, I drew a border around the edge.  Then I cut a strip of patterned paper 1 1/2" x 5 1/4" and punched the scallop border down the long left-hand side, adhered it to the left-hand side of the card and ran a ribbon round the center, gluing to the inside of the card.

Next I cut all my dies.  I wasn't sure how many balloons I was going to need, so I arbitrarily cut six of them. 

As it turned out, I used only five of the balloons on the front of the card, so I put the sixth one on the inside.

I had cut two present die-cuts -- one in pink cardstock and one in patterned paper.  I cut the ribbon portion of the pink one out and backed the hearts with a small strip of red.   After sponging around the outside of the patterned paper, I glued the ribbon to the package.

All that was left was to construct my card.  To make it a bit easier, I had put an adhesive sheet behind some of the cardstock for the smaller die-cuts, such as the sentiment dies, string and shadow on the balloon die.  The sentiment is glued flat, while the balloons and present are popped up on foam dots.

CottageCutz dies used on this card are:

CCEE1627 - National Ice Cream Month

Joanne is our CCEE hostess for July, and her first challenge is to celebrate the fact that July is National Ice Cream Month.  Who doesn't like ice cream?  No one that I know!  Because I have several birthdays to celebrate in July (my sister, my grandson, and my daughter-in-law), I decided on a birthday card.

Check out the CCEE Stampers blog for some more ice cream treats.

CCEE1515 - Stencils

Frances asked the CCEE Stampers to use a stencil on our cards this week.  I love creating backgrounds with stencils, so I really enjoyed this challenge.  I made a sort of rainbow behind my tag.

There are a lot of stencils out there.  Check out the CCEE Stampers blog to see what stencils the rest of the team used on their cards.

White-on-White

White-on-white cards always catch my eye because they're so elegant.  Today's Technique Challenge on Splitcoaststampers was to make an all-white card, and the Clean and Simple Challenge was to make the sentiment the focal point.  I combined these two challenges to make this card:

While it's not very elegant, it is definitely white-on-white.  After embossing the bottom panel and popping it onto the card base, I punched out three balloons, added some fishing line for strings, and attached them to the card with big pop dots.  I tied the strings together, glued them down with a glue dot, and popped on a little white bow.  The birthday sentiment is from a set of Sizzix dies.  I cut out the words and popped them on with very small foam dots.  Pretty simple!  No stamping required!

Paper:  MFP Stamp Shop Snow Storm Smooth
Accessories:  Sizzix dies, MS punch, Fishing line, Ribbon, Darice embossing folder

Speedy Fox and Friends - Christmassy Birthday Card

Speedy Fox and Friends figure you've probably got all your Christmas cards in the mail by now.  So, we're doing something a little different this week.  My card has many elements of a Christmas card -- poinsettias, jingle bells, Christmassy designer paper -- but it's really a birthday card.  I like the crispness of the blue and white color combination.

Hop on over to the Mark's Finest Papers blog to see how the rest of the team handled a Christmassy birthday card.  If you'd like to play along with us, link up your card at the end of the blog post.  You might win a free stamp set.

Bob's Birthday

I didn't do much stamping yesterday. My daughter-in-law came over to make a Father's Day card for my son, and I was acting as coach. But I did have time to get one card done -- a birthday card for my brother-in-law.

When I saw this new set from Gina K. Designs, which actually has two clocks in it, I knew I had to have it. I just love this grandfather clock. It's stamped on white and sponged in Creamy Caramel. The image is colored with Prismacolor and Copic markers. Most of my alcohol markers are Prismacolor, but I am accumulating a nice collection of Copics, too. The clock works are colored with a gold marker; but, after I colored the face, the numbers were hard to see. So I stamped the top of the clock again on a piece of gold cs and punched it out with a 5/8 inch round punch. The bg paper is from a pad of Martha Stewart DP which I found on clearance, and I thought the eyelets and twine were all the embellishment needed.

* Stamps - Special Fathers by Gina K. Designs
* Paper - Kraft, Night of Navy, GP White, MS patterned paper, Gold
* Ink - Palette Noir Black, Creamy Caramel
* Accessories - Prismacolor & Copic Markers, Sakura Permapaque Gold Marker, Nestabilities, Jumbo Eyelets, Navy Twine, Sponge Daubers

Grandchildren's Birthdays

Two of my grandchildren, brother and sister, are celebrating their birthdays later this month – one day apart. They live in Alabama, and I live in Florida; so I don’t get to see them very often. This is a picture of them at the beach last year.

I wanted to make birthday cards for them that were a little different, so I opted for “clothing.” Calvin’s card was made with a TooMuchFun stamp of a sweatshirt. Their father (my son) graduated from Florida State University, so I chose FSU colors (garnet and gold) for the card.

I printed the Seminole’s logo onto a label, cut it out, and attached it to the back of the card. Go ‘Noles!

A month or so ago during the Featured Stamper challenge on SCS, several people (me included) chose to CASE a card that looked like a little dress. The pattern was downloaded from Paper Craft Magazine on-line. So for Wyatt’s card I decided to make another dress card using the same pattern. I cut the dress from a piece of cardstock from DCWV’s Pocketful of Posies’ pack; and the apron is vellum run through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder. The little tag was stamped with one of the many sentiments in So Many Sayings and punched out with SU’s Word Window Punch.

I won't get to see Calvin and Wyatt on their birthdays, but they'll know I love them and am thinking of them.