CAS-ual Birthday Cards for Every Member of the Family

Hi, everyone!

The CAS-ual Fridays challenge for the next two weeks is birthday themed to celebrate Michele's birthday. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to play with some new toys: a cupcake punch and sponge daubers from Stampin' Up! and Nestabilities scallop dies from Spellbinders.

Two Cards in One?
For supplies, please see cards below.

The card at the right was my first attempt. All in all, it's good a little card. Hubby liked it with the exception of the candle on the cupcake. However, there was something about it that was bothering me. Then came my epiphany: This card was two cards in one. Both the circles and the cupcake were whimsical, but the circles felt more abstract and dreamy than the cupcake.

So, I made two cards, each inspired by the disparate images of the first card.

For Mom or Big Sis

watercolor paper washed in watered-down Warm White acrylic; Bazzill black
circles: Distress Ink peeled paint, dusty concord, and tumbled glass, sponged on using SU daubers
circle and hole punches from EK and Marvy
Mark Richards rhinestones

I apologize that this is such a rudimentary image. (There were lots of technical difficulties -- really struggled to get a photo that did justice to the colors.) Regardless, I LOVE this card -- love, love, love it. This is up there with one of my all-time favorites.

Bernadette Kirk taught the technique of punching out templates and using the templates to sponge on images at a recent Stampin' Up class. Think I'm going to be using this idea lots more. Thanks, Bernadette!

For Little Sis

watercolor paper washed in watered-down Warm Water acrylic; pattern: Distress Ink Scattered Straw on bubblewrap
Distress Ink core paper; Stampin' Up! cupcake punch and Tangerine Tango ribbon;
Recollections  stickers; Spellbinders Nestabilities scallops, EK hole punch

This just feels like a bright, cheery,  fun card perfect for the little girl in the family.

For Dad or Brother

After experimenting with sponging on Distress Inks, I decided to try it out with the SU honeycomb embossing folder and went with a masculine palette. For this card, I embossed an index card and cut out hexagons to create sponging templates.

Stampin' Up! (Sizzix) embossing folder, heat embossed with Distress Ink black soot
cardstock: Bazzill black; AC white, sponged in antique linen
hexagons sponged in Distress Ink (vintage photo, antique linen, tumbled glass, peeled paint, dusty concord)
computer-generated sentiment (Mistral)

Not a  bad first effort. Think this could take on lots of different looks with different palettes and fonts.

Parting Thought

Thanks for stopping. Have a great week and happy scrappin'!

A Perfect Pair

What's a perfect pair, you ask? A great OWH Sketch and a couple of good college basketball games! Who could ask for more to craft away a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon? Throw in a long walk on a sunny day... Seriously, who could ask for more?  :)

And, it's always interesting to me how some sketches come so easily and others not so much. Luckily, this was an easy one for me. :)

Card 1: Pop, Poppa, Daddy, Dad

dp: Moxxie Father; cardstock: Distress Ink core, inked with Distress Ink Vintage Photo
PSX Creative Characters in Adirondack espresso
Celebrate It! jute twine; pop up dots
Creative Memories square punches

Looking at all of the green and brown paper left in my Distress Ink core pad, looks like I need to make a few more of these masculine cards. :)

Card 2 -- Today's Any Hero Card: Red, White, and Sparkly

dp & chipboard letters (with baked-in glitter) Bo Bunny Liberty
cardstock: Bazzill Admiral, Distress Ink core

These chipboard letters are really thick. So, they seemed like the perfect embellishment for an Any Hero card.

Card 3: Hello, Cupcake!

dp: Imaginisce Hello, Cupcake!; cardstock: Distress Ink core; ivory rickrack
Cuttlebug ef; cupcakes fussy cut from coordinating 12 by 12 paper

Since there are several April birthdays on our calendar, I made a second one of these for a friend.

Parting Thoughts

My last post featured a card with one of those adorable kid quotes. Sharon commented that she uses those sentiments on the inside of cards and had never thought of using it for color blocking on the front of a card. That's really interesting since I seldom stamp sentiments on the inside of cards. Most of my cards are sent to Operation Write Home. So, I leave the inside of them blank so troops can write notes to loved ones back home. What a great idea to use these stamps as inside sentiments for cards made for my family and friends. Thanks, Sharon!

As always, thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!  Have a great week!

A Cupcake Walt Disney Could Love

Happy weekend everyone,

Maybe it's just a piece of Disney folklore -- or a bit of wishful thinking, but there's a story I've heard about Walt Disney that I think of at the most random times.

As the story goes, young Walt was drawing flowers during an assignment to draw a still life. As his elementary school teacher walked past, she was shocked -- and dismayed -- to see flowers with faces and arms. When she informed Walt that flowers don't have faces, Walt replied, "My flowers do."

I can't ever watch Fantasia without thinking of this story. (And, I often times wonder what that teacher would've given to have kept that youthful drawing of smiling flowers.) I was reminded of the story once again when I saw a smiling cupcake face on the cover of Imaginisce's Hello, Cupcake! 6 by 6 pad.

Happy Cupcake to You!

Paper: Imaginisce Hello, Cupcake!, AC cardstock
Tools: Creative Memories cutting system
Techniques: fussy cutting, paper piecing, inking in Close to My Heart Desert Sand

This card was made for this week's OWH Midweek Challenge to make a "card 4 kids". The top of the cupcake is double layered. In addition, the cupcake edges were inked and this little guy was adhered using 3D dots. I'm thinking of trying Barb's marker trick along the inside edge of the teal outline circle.

In case you can't tell, a circle was cut out from the front of the card. The cupcake is attached to two circles on the inside of the card.

I originally cut out the cupcake that was on the cover of the paper pad. However, it was a little too large for the cut-out circle. So, I scanned the cut-out cupcake with our computer's all-in-one printer and printed slightly smaller images. The printed images aren't as glossy. But, printing out multiple images allowed me to double up the top of the cupcake, which I couldn't have done if I'd just used the cover cut-out.

If you look closely, you'll see three of the candles on the front of the card also have flames with smiling faces. I'm hoping this little card will bring a smile to the face of a little one knowing that someone special is thinking of him or her on their special day. :)

Parting Thought

Happy cupcake, happy weekend, and happy scrappin'!