Congratulations Grad

I have one last graduation card to share.  My niece graduated from grade school last week and I wanted to do something to make it seem a little special for her.  I found this great card on Pinterest.  The original source comes from the Stampin' Connection, which I don't have access to so I can't share it. 

The card itself was super easy to put together.  I simply stamped the graduation cap from my TPC Studio's Graduation set on some blue paper using Momento black ink. I cut it out and then stamped the word "Congratulations" from my Cloud 9 Design Wedding set on some white card stock using StazOn ink in midnight blue.  I then cut out the word grad using the Aharoni font on my Silhouette using some Best Occasions glitter paper I've had for years.  I finished the card of with a little yellow cardstock from DCWV's Pastel Mat Stack and some blue cardstock from my stash.

Happy Birthday Card Inspired by the Technique Tuesday Blog

I loved a beautiful card I saw by Teri Anderson on the Technique Tuesday blog.  I loved the banners and the simplicity of the card.  I had this idea of making it my own using a clear stamp set I've had forever and can longer remember who the manufacturer is, but it has this very large "happy" stamp and smaller word stamps to coordinate.  I thought I would use the happy to coordinate with the banners.  As I played around with different ideas, I finally decided to try the Stampin' Up Designer Typeset stamp set I bought a while back when they had the free shipping.  I stamped the banner with some Momento Tangelo ink on some yellow card stock from the DCWV Pastel mat stack.  I then filled in the letters and stamped the happy with Moment Espresso Truffle ink.  I mounted the kraft card stock on white and then a base card from the DCWV Brights box of cards. 

It definitely still needed something.  I used a spare bit of baker's twine I had on my desk that was left over from something I was sent.  I glued it to the top of the banner.  I then took my sister's suggestion to add some polka dots.  I didn't have the right color of paint, so I mixed a little yellow and antique white Apple Barrel acrylic paints together until I had a good shade of yellow to coordinate with the banner.  I then filled in the happy with some green glitter glue from Studio G and realized I actually was starting to really like the card.

Happy Birthday Card Inspired by the Paper Players Challenge

I was really inspired by Nance Leedy's card from the Paper Players Challenge #147.  I loved how she stamped the large sunflower over the card and through I would give it a try with the Swallowtail stamp from Stampin' Up.  I simply adore that stamp.  I used four colors of card stock from DCWV's Pastel stack:  white, yellow, blue and green.  Then I stamped the image using Momento's Toffee Crunch ink and colored it in with some colored pencils.  I resized a card from the 3x4 Life Cards by Lori Whitlock in the Silhouette store (Design ID #25178) to make it super tiny and stamped the sentiment from a set of stamps I bought from Boxer before they closed.  I then tied the tag using some Hemptique twine onto some sheer yellow ribbon. 

 

Isn't it funny how sometimes you finish a card and you know exactly what you would do differently?  The minute I saw this card sitting on the shelf across the craft room, I thought I should have swapped the blue and yellow.  They would be more impact if they were in the opposition positions. 

Silly Seals layout and Smoke behaves

Shockingly, Smoke was the good one today. But maybe that was because he got the top spot on the kitty tower. But I couldn't resist snapping this picture of him with his pretty pink boa. Although he didn't seem to happy about it.

Meanwhile I finished my third layout of the day. Third! And the laundry's almost done too. It's been a productive day despite Chewie's demands for attention.

So this double page layout was inspired by a sketch in the February 2011 Pagemaps. I used cardstock from the DCWV Pastel stack and patterned paper from My Mind's Eye Delightful pad. The seals and scattered words and bubbles were from Creative Imaginations. The seal brads are from Eyelet Outlet.