Happy Birthday!

For today's card, I really didn't have to look anywhere for inspiration; it just sort of made itself.  I recently bought this Crafty Secrets' set called Dahlia while shopping at yet another local scrapbooking store that is going out of business.  My sister was over to watch some TV and I just wanted to play with the new stamp.  Without any real idea of where I was going with it, I stamped it in Versamark ink on some kraft card stock from my stash then heat embossed it with some Zing white embossing powder.  I colored the flower in with some colored pencils to add a pop of color.  Then I stamped on the sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp Happy Sentiments set using Versafine ink.  I decided it needed a bit of a mat, so I cut the finished piece down to 3.75 by 5 inches and then cut a white mat at 4 by 5.25.  Then it was just a matter of gluing it all down to a kraft card stock card base. 

Shine Brightly Card

A co-worker has been tempted away from the fold and I wanted to give her a card to wish her well in her new job.  I didn't have any idea what I wanted to do, but I pulled out my Lawn Fawn stamps since they are in fact my current favorite.  I saw the Lunar Lights set and realized I hadn't used it yet.  So I did a Google Image search and found an adorable card on the My Paper Journey blog that used both the Lunar Lights and the Good Fortune set (a two-fer).  I knew it immediately it was the perfect choice for this situation.  It was a pretty simple card to make even though it was a bit time consuming.  I stamped and colored the little lanterns, the bird from Home Sweet Home that I decided to for a little something more and then fortune cookies using a mask to stack the stamping.  I had a little bleeding even though I used paper specially designed for alcohol markers and Momento ink.  I'm thinking that maybe I didn't let the ink dry quite enough.  Then I hand cut them all out.  I had stamped a fourth cookie as a stand alone one, colored it with my Spectrum Noir markers and was able to run that one through the die to cut it out super fast and easy. I also die cut the fortune papers and stamped them with Versafine ink.  Then I stamped the sentiment with Versamark and heat-embossed it with white Zing embossing powder.   Then it was just a matter of putting it all together.  I cut this cute starry red paper from the Homemade 6 Bean Soup 6x6 paper pad from Jillibean Soup down to fit on a card base from the Neutrals set from DCWV.  I then stamped my string for the lanterns and stamped the outline of the lanterns and the bird on the string.  Then I glued my cut out colored ones on top.  I added a touch of glitter with my Wink of Stella pen.  I then adhered my sentiment and the cookies.

For the inside, I added a small strip of the printed paper from the front and then layered my cookie with the full fortune.  It was so fun to make.