1st birthday

Hi friends!  It's been a minute since I've posted.. no real reason except I haven't had the urge!  :)  Today I'm sharing a birthday card I made for a family friend, whose daughter turned one last week.  I used stamps by Crafty Secrets and lots of fun patterned papers by DCWV.  The gingham brad was in my stash, but I think I found it at Target's dollar spot.  The image was colored with my Copics and the sentiment is a rub-on from Joann's.  I hand-cut the banners out of patterned paper and I think it looks really cute!  I hope you think so, too, thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )


PS-  I know I'm late, but I really have to get the rest of my Valentine's Day cards posted.  Ack!  :)

Love Always

Hi friends!  I made this card for my aunt & uncle's anniversary and to get myself started I thought I'd try my hand at Embellish Magazine's Color Trends Challenge.  Background stamping was also part of the challenge:

I knew I wanted to use that cute little image from Crafty Secrets, and since the image itself is vintage-y, I let that lead the rest of my card.  I used a Glitz background image on some taupe cardstock and stamped the script several times with Versamark ink.  I heat embossed it with clear powder for a tone-on-tone look.  I layered that piece on some blue cardstock (not exactly the shade in the challenge, but it was the closest I could come).  Next up I cut some green cardstock and actual vintage piano music for the next panel.  I roughed up the edges of the paper which started to look worn with hardly any effort!  :)  My image was colored with Copics and cut out with my Nestabilities; I traced the Nestie shape on orange cardstock and cut it out with my scissors.  I'm really loving the matting with this technique.  I've always been using the next size shape to mat my images, but they're too big and not always proportional.  The tracing technique makes me very happy.  :)  

Speaking of, I did the same thing for my sentiment treatment.  I threaded some vintage lace through my ribbon slider and stamped it with a Hero Arts sentiment.  Blue cardstock was added behind the slider to pull the card together and differentiate the slider from the similar tones in the image and sheet music.  To finish off my card, I added some orange buttons by Basic Grey.  I should mention that the layout is courtesy of this week's Sweet Stop Sketch:

This card isn't my usual "cutesy" style, but I'm pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.  :)  Thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Look Who's Turning 1!

Hi friends!  Remember the 100 baby shower invitations I made last year?  Well Gracie is turning 1 on Wednesday, so they had her birthday party yesterday.  It's amazing how fast time passes by!  I wanted to make a special card for her, so I started off by using the Taylored Expressions sketch as my base:

I went through all of my cardstock to see what kind of color combo to go with... I didn't want to do pink, because that's so in-your-face-girlie, and she's not a baby anymore, anyway, she's a mature 1, thank you very much! lol  I've always liked yellow and purple together, and when I saw the deep aqua green, I thought that would be a nice contrasting color, along with the lighter aqua green.  The yellow polka dot paper is Creative Memories, but I'm not sure who made all the cardstocks, as my friend picked up a huge stack of it for me at a yard sale (she's a GOOD friend! hehe).   I wanted to use my never-before-inked Crafty Secrets clear stamp set, and I really went to town with it.  I'm not usually one for making my own patterned paper, but when I got the pieces cut down, it seemed like the light aqua paper needed a little jazzing up, so I thought I'd do some subtle tone-on-tone stamping with ColorBox chalk ink.  I think it looks festive, but not too distracting. ;)   The girl and the balloon are two separate stamps, and when I realized they wouldn't both fit inside the circle, I thought it looked better anyway, and decided to paper piecing the balloon.  I think this girl is adorable, by the way!  I've been trying to focus more on my coloring lately, but I know I still have a long way to go.  I tried to make her look like Gracie with the dark hair. :)  For the finishing touches, I layered some circles to make the "1" stand out, and added a bit of yellow Offray ribbon to repeat my color combo.  I realize my final card doesn't match the TE sketch exactly, but I'm really pleased with how the card turned out.  When Jenn and Gracie opened her presents, Jenn yelled over to  me "I have one guess who made the card!!!" so I'm sure she appreciated my handmade efforts. ;)  We had fun at the party- lots of little ones running around, kind of makes me want to be a mom, but not juuuuust yet.  :) :) :)  Hope you're all having a great weekend- the weather here is turning cooler, can't WAIT for fall to get here!! :D


-Suzanne :O )