Have a Moo-tiful Birthday!

I love that hockey season is back in full swing:  last night the home opener and tonight the first game at home in my easy chair watching on the big screen.  Yes, this is the life.

The only big dilemma in my life right now is whether to drive to Seattle on Thursday night to take Sandy Allnock's class on coloring funny people at Impress.  I so want to go, but it's a long trip and I'm a bit of a introvert.  I have a hard time sometimes convincing myself to go do new things even when I know I will enjoy it.  So in the next couple of days, I have to make up my mind.

In the meantime, I've finished up with the last of the Birthday Farm Animals stamp set she designed for Simon Says Stamp.  I've had so much fun coloring these cuties.  Today's card came together pretty quickly too.  There's a flag shaped die in the My Favorite Things Blueprints #13 that I had been looking at and thought would be perfect for the cow stamp, so I had already cut it out the other day.  Then it was just a matter of picking only two of the fun patterns in the Sunny Side 6x6 paper pad from Pebbles to build my card.  I added some baker's twine I found in my stash, a little Wink of Stella to the banner, and the now almost required Pretty Pink Posh sequins and Glossy Accents. 

Happy Birthday Spring Chicken!

Ahh... It's Thursday.  Just one more day before opening night of hockey and I just can't wait.  This time tomorrow I'll be yelling and cheering and celebrating one of my favorite things about Fall:  the return of hockey!

In the meantime, I continue to make birthday cards using that Simon Says Stamp Birthday Farm Animals set.  Today's card features the chicken (which is so stinking cute).  Once I had it colored, I was back to that same place:  what do I do with it now?  This time I pulled out the tag die from Lawn Fawn from the Winter Gifts set.  It was the perfect frame for the chicken.  I cute a second one from patterned paper from the Pebbles Sunny Side 6x6 pad, which was still sitting on my desk.  Then I cut down another piece using the stitched frame die from Mama Elephants Basic Set and some vellum from the scalloped die from the same set.  Then it was just a matter of layering the papers together, added some Hemptique baker's twine and finishing it off with some Pretty Pink Posh sequins and Glossy Accents on the eyes.  Super cute!

Got Cupcake? I Do and Lots of Upcoming Birthdays...

For some reason the end of September and beginning of October bring a lot of birthdays to my world.  Not much cake because many of those birthdays are for people too far to celebrate with in person, but then that's probably a good thing.  I certainly don't need cake, okay, well my waistline doesn't need cake.   So on Sunday, I spent some time in my craft room, watching movies and coloring the images from the Simon Says Stamp Birthday Farm Animals set.  (Can I just take a minute to say that Jennifer Lawrence is pretty darn amazing?  I watched American Hustle for the first time and was stunned about how well she played the part which is so different than Hunger Games, which I've watched probably a dozen times this year alone - it's a great background movie for crafting).

Anyhow, so once I had colored all my images, I wasn't sure what to do with them.  I was flipping through my dies and saw the polaroid die from Amy Tan's set and knew exactly what I was going to do.  I pulled out my largest stitched rectangle die from My Favorite Things' Blueprints #13 to cut out the background from the dotted paper from the 6x6 Sunny Side pad from Pebbles for my background.  Then I cut out the polaroid from white paper and made the frame for my goat image.  I stamped the sentiment from the set, added a little pink card stock behind the heart and finished it off with some Glossy Accents on the heart, the flame and the goat's eyes, some Pretty Pink Posh sequins and a little Marvy Liquid Applique on the cupcake (note to self:  put the applique on first and heat set it before the Glossy Accents). 

So in Love with Birthday Hogs and Kisses

I absolutely love this Birthday Farm Animals set from Simon Says Stamp designed by the talented Sandy Allnock.  I just had to order it (in fact, I mistaken ordered two to my mother's benefit).  When it came in the mail, I had to get inky.  I had been playing with copics that day but had switched to colored pencils and decided that the colored pencils would be perfect for this cute little hog. 

I picked out the pretty chevron type paper from the Pebbles Sunnyside 6x6 paper pad for this card and used the colors to help in my decision making for the balloon and hat.  I, of course, added a bit of Wink of Stella to the hat and the balloon and topped the balloon with Glossy Accents.  I used the Lawn Fawn Stitched Journaling Card to cut out my panel and finished the card off with some Doodlebug sequins in Swimming Pool.  In retrospect, I would have left of a lot of the sequins.

 

Happy Birthday Card Inspired by Our Change of Art

I'm back to share yet another card for last week's birthdays.  I had another co-worker's birthday to celebrate and I wanted something colorful for her, so when I saw this card by Jennifer Rzasa on Our Change of Art, I knew it would be the right choice.  I decided to use the Sunnyside 6x6 paper pad by Pebbles for this card because of the bright and pretty color palette.  I created the shape in the Silhouette software by drawing a square with curved edges and then placing smaller squares in opposite corners to form the peaks.  Then I welded it together and created a shadow for matting.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Then all I had to do was cut my seven shapes and seven mats, glue them together and adhere them to the card with pop dots.  I stamped the sentiment from the Inkadinkado Expressions and Frames set and it was done.  Fun and quick!

Fly High

Today I'm sharing another card I made from inspiration found while browsing through older posts on Rita's Creations. She made this delightful kite card that I just loved.  I don't have the stamp set she used, but I did have a kite shape to cut on my Cameo.  I used my french curves to draw the hills out of a piece of paper from the Sunny Side 6 by 6 pad by Pebbles.  I couldn't draw a straight or curved line to save my life without a straight edge or a french curve.  I used a Darice embossing folder called Cloudy Sky for the background.  The blue and white papers are from my scraps stash.  The brown cardstock has a linen texture and is from the Paper Company. The green background paper is from the 6 by 6 paper pad called Vanity Fair by My Mind's Eye.  I used some baker's twine from Hemptique to finish it off.  I haven't added a sentiment yet.  I think I'll probably save that for the inside only on this card. 

Hallie's Birthday Card

Yesterday, my eldest niece finally got her birthday card and I realized I had not posted it yet.  It was a fun card inspired by this post on Beak Talk.  I wanted to make sure it was in fun bright colors so decided to use the Sunny Side collection from Pebbles.  I just love the colors and patterns in that 6 by 6 pad.  For the background I used the Large Petal embossing folder from Darice.  The sentiment comes from the Fiskars set All Year Greetings.  I just love that set.  It's so versatile.  But the card still needed a little something, so I added some Diamond Stickles for a little bit of bling.  What girl doesn't love a little bit of bling?

Get Well Soon

For the last more than a month, my father-in-law and mother-in-law have been at the Mayo Clinic.  My father-in-law has a bad ticker and needed to have a valve replaced, but doesn't have such a great track record with surgery.  So they went to the experts and the procedure went off without a hitch.  The recovery has been a completely different story.  It's had a lot of ups and downs.  After the first hiccup in his recovery, I thought I would send him a get well soon card and a thinking of you card to my mother-in-law. That same night I also had a thank you card I wanted to send out and a birthday card for girlfriend for the next day.  Well, I always have thank you and birthday cards on hand, and I had a thinking of you card ready too.  Strangely enough, I didn't have a single get well soon card on hand (weird, I know).   Since I didn't have much time to get it ready, I had to find inspiration quickly.  I headed over to Splitcoast Stampers where I can always find a lot of wonderful inspiration for specific types of cards.  With a search for "get well soon," I quickly found this card from Sandy Mathis of Stamp with Sandy.   It was perfect for my needs. I used brown, green and cream cardstock pulled from my scraps bin. The brown cardstock was edged using my scallop border punch from Stampin' Up. The green leafy patterned paper is from the Sunny Side 6x6 paper pad from Pebbles.  The leaf branch was cut with the Cameo from a design purchased in the Silhouette store.  The sentiment is from my oft used All Year Greetings set from Fiskars.  I just love how versatile that set is.

Before I go, I just want to share with you a picture of the fabulous wood carving done by my father-in-law's cousin, Lowell Anderson.  It's truly an amazing work of art.