Birthday Wishes

This week's Cas-tastic Wednesday challenge was to CASE one of the design team's cards. I already did a fun one based on Agata's card, click here to see that. But since I've become blogging pals with Karen (okay, I admit it, I'm cyber stalking her, but she's too friendly to tell me to get a life!), I wanted to do another entry for the challenge based on her lovely birthday card. And while I'm making a birthday card, I'll enter it in this week's Party Time Tuesday & Crafty Cardmakers "anything goes" birthday challenge. Tiffany's Doodles challenge this month is flowers and Sentimental Sundays is having an "anything goes" challenge this week. Simon Says Stamps is doing songs and I think this one makes me sing "Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you..."

Materials: Stampin Up flower stamp, PTI sentiment, Stampin Up Rose red ink, Stampin Up watercolor pencils and blender pen, cream brad

Monster Spike turns into an Owl

This week's cas-tastic Wednesday challenge is to case one of the design team's cards. I chose Agata's very fun monster card. I have been enjoying Jill's blog "inspired by" and think that casing other people's cards is one of the biggest compliments you can give. I must say that I tried really hard to have my little Hero Arts owl have mis-matched socks like Spike, but after several creative attempts (legs from a frog stamp, body from a giraffe stamp) I decided it didn't work and left the feet alone. Since I've used buttons on this card I'll enter it in the Everything But The Kitchen sink button challenge. Agata-- loved your tip on using graph paper (she cased that from Jane- who's digital stamp she used). I raided my son's drawing book and now have some "back to school" ideas brewing with graph paper. I also "borrowed" the eyeballs from my children's art supplies.

Materials: Hero Arts digital owl, Lawn Fawn Just My Type sentiment, mystery flower stamp (woodblock stamp with no company name on it), orange and yellow cheap markers, graph paper, eyeballs, Stampin Up black ink, Versacolor Brown Ink, versamark, Fiskars rotary scallop cutter, buttons compliments of Ruby

Polka dot couches with bling pillows

I was having a serious night of indecision. I am a CAS girl who likes clean and simple cards and I can normally make a decision, stick with it (pun intended) and move on. Last night, something was in the air and I spent 2 hours making this card. Not sure why. I wanted to make something for the Cas-tastic Wednesday "bling it up" challenge and being a non- bling kinda girl I had to go digging. In the boys' craft box I found a long forgotten container of glitter glue. After getting glitter glue everywhere I remembered why I'd banished it to the bottom of the spare bedroom closet. So please note the sparkling throw pillows on the couch, I'm sure there are people out there who have sequins on their pillows? I have been having far too much fun with this PTI On The Couch set and I wanted to make a polka dot couch for the Treehouse Thursday Challenge and the Simon Says Stamp Challenge dot challenges. I love how Cosmo Cricket Early Riser paper looks, wouldn't it be fun to have such playful couches? I've paper pierced the couches, so I'll enter another card in the ABC Design Blog challenge (are you ladies sick of me yet?).

Materials: PTI couch and sentiment, Cosmo Cricket Early Riser patterned paper, silver glitter glue, Stampin Up Black ink, Silver brads, vellum, Stampin Up blue card stock, white gel pen, Stamping up black embossing powder

Happy Summer

Cas-tasic Wednesday, Wee Memories and Saturday Crafter are having summer challenges this week. Karen posted this lovely card and I thought on no I can't do one like that (same general idea, same Lawn Fawn set), but she said yes. So, I took note of her blog post that said the floss for her clothesline was messy and difficult, so I used zip ties and electrical tape. Karen, no mess here, it did exactly what it was told to do. And then she commented about the Practicing Creativity set and I thought, "perfect, I'll hang some flip flops just like that set." So thanks Karen for helping me sort out my card. So exciting to help celebrate summer after a morning of skiing in the snow with my lovely husband.

Materials: Lawn Fawn Swimsuit Season, PTI sentiment, PTI cloud (although I think it's suppose to be a clump of dirt actually), various scraps of patterned paper, white mini brads, electrical tape, Yellow and white card stock from Spotlight, Stampin Up black ink

PDC38 Friends

This week's Play Date Cafe colors didn't spark an idea immediately. The lime green was my challenge, I can work with purple. Then I made this card, with the green twine and got some great feedback. So I went off stamping some flowers and cut them out, similar to this card. I was going to stamp the flower stamp onto the Hero Arts digital Friendship image and cut it out, but I ended up liking it the way it turned out even better. I'm also going to enter this card in the Cas-tastic Wednesday SIMPLE challenge (stamped image, inked edges and paper piercing).

Materials: Hero Arts digital Friendship image, Hero Arts hello stamp (and I cut out the flowers part), misc. purple scraps, green twine, Stazon Royal Purple Ink, Stampin Up black ink, Fiskars rotary scallop cutter

3 little houses- congrats on your new home

I love making cards. And I'm so thankful there's such a great little community out there of people who are just like me. You guys understand when I say that I just love making cards. Clean, simple cards like this one make me smile. The colors are from Color Throwdown, way to go on one heck of a 100th party last week. Well done ladies. Can't wait to see the list of party favors. The card uses a clear sentiment so it works for Sentimental Sundays (and the digital sentiment was free from their site, click here), I'm such a sucker for vellum, use it all the time. Cas-tastic Wednesday is having a SIMPLE week and I've used printed image, inked edges and paper piercing. Moxie Fab World is celebrating card styles and I'm a clean and graphic kinda girl, so let's add this to their current challenge. And lastly Pile It On is challenging us to use Christmas materials/colors/stamps for non-Christmas cards and I've used a piece of Anna Griffin Christmas paper for the kraft colored house.

Materials: Kathy Martin digital houses, Echo Raindrop digital sentiment, vellum, Making Memories black eyelet, Fiskars rotary scallop punch, Anna Griffin kraft patterned paper, Stampin Up Kiwi Bliss & Baja Breeze designer paper, Stampin Up black ink for inked edges

It's a party

I'm confident that other card makers out there wont be at all surprised to hear that I deconstructed a birthday card I received this week and made this card. Is it bad that my first thought when I got the card was "oh perfect colors for the Embellish challenge"? I love recycling cards- I still can't believe that there are people out there that pay $7 for a card in a shop. This card was also an excuse to buy some new paper- I figured it was my birthday, why not? (Plus my mother-in-law gave me a gift certificate to the local book shop). So right, this card is for the Embellish color challenge to make an invitation. Anyone want to come for drinks? It also works for this week's Cas-tastic Wednesday challenge to use kraft.

Materials: John Sands birthday card, Bazzill patterned paper, Paper Salon sentiment, Paper Source circle punch, Fiskars rotary scallop cutter, Stampin Up black ink

Yellow cupcake card

Another CAS card using the Cas-tastic Wednesday Sketch challenge. It's also for the 365 cards challenge of 3 shades of yellow.

Materials: Studio G cupcake stamp, Hero Arts digital friends sentiment paper pierced, yellow scraps, Fiskars rotary scallop cutter, Stampin Up border punch

Kayle Cowboy boot card

A simple card for the Cas-tastic Wednesday sketch challenge. This card is another one to celebrate my friend Kayle's cancer free status (she's used the cowboy boot as her symbol for kicking cancer).

Materials: Paper Source cowboy boot stamp, Fiskars circle punch, Versacolor red ink, black paper, cream textured card stock, Fiskars rotary scallop cutter, Making Memories stickers "red wagon".

Blue & Yellow Daisy

Cas-tastic Wednesday is having a challenge with blue & yellow & neutral color challenge and I was inspired by Karen's hybrid card. I printed the digital daisy from Two Peas in A Bucket on vellum and then put it on a blue paper (the flower is blue though, hard to tell in this photo). Since I was on a vellum kick I used a strip of yellow vellum on the bottom, flipping the scallop cutter to be the opposite side as the top scalloped edge.

Materials: Blue art paper from the coolest art shop in San Francisco, yes I am a paper hoarder as that trip was pre-children (oh dear!), vellum, Two Peas in a Bucket digital daisy, yellow vellum, Fiskars rotary scallop cutter

Father's Day Card

A super quick card (b/c I should be doing a whole list of other things) for a couple of challenges. The color challenge is from W Plus 9's Color Cue, bonus points for using my W Plus 9 stamps (the woodgrain and the sentiment). The bicycle is yet another one for Moxie Fab World's I Want to Ride My Bicycle challenge. And the Father's Day theme is for Cas-tastic Wednesday Father's Day Challenge.

A few extra Father's Day themed challenges this week (thanks Deb's Paper, Ink, Scissors & Stamps blog) include, Creative Craft Challenges, Fab 'n Funky Challenges, My Time to Craft Challenge, Stampin Royalty, The Town Scrapper, Kah-Wink-E-Dink Digi Stamps.

Materials: W Plus 9 woodgrain and sentiment, mystery bike stamp (no information on stamp what so ever), teal ink, orange ink, black ink, brown card stock, kiwi bliss card stock, vellum, deckle edge on Fiskar cutter

cas-tastic wednesday button challenge

A simple card for this week's Cas-tastic Wednesday Challenge, the theme to use a button.

Materials: Inkadido frame, Hero Arts sentiment, button, papers

Wishing you all the good things

My friend Michelle brought this stamp over to our card night the other night and I think it's great! I've made a simple card with it for this week's Cas-tastic Challenge, where it's all about the sentiment.

Materials: Stampin Up Chocolate Chip Card stock and designer paper, Stampendous sentiment, brown Making Memories eyelets

Cleaning Your House

I've had this stamps for years and every time I see it it makes me smile. Our house will never be clean, so why do I spend so much energy worrying about it? I'm entering this card in this week's Cas-tastic Challenge, where the theme is the sentiment. I thought about adding the cool snowflake eyelets I had to the card, but then decided that I should keep it clean and emphasize the saying. I'm also entering it in 365 Cards challenge #95, which says make a card about you. Since this card sentiment says a lot about the state of our house I think it works for the theme "Its So You".

Materials: Stampendous Sentiment, E-1953 Snowflake (whatever that means), blue vellum, silver and black ink, blue and white card stock

Cupcake Card- a touch of green

A simple birthday card for the Cas-tastic Challenge, the theme being a "touch of green".

Ladybug card- CAS-tastic Challenge

A girlfriend asked for some ladybug cards and since I'm going to be sending them internationally I thought I'd see if I could make some that would fit with the one layer CAS-tastic Challenge. I've made a few versions of basically the same card... can't decide which one I like best.

Jacket Thank You

This card makes me smile for so many reasons. First of all it's a thank you for my sister for the very cool new Cloudveil softshell jacket she just sent me in the mail. The jacket makes me happy. The jacket also is the same color as this week's Play Date Cafe color challenge, humm... my little brain went tick, tick, tick. Well, if I take a photo of the jacket, I can enter it in Flourish's "Picture It" challenge. And if I use circles I can enter it in CAS Challenge. And then I can make a cool card to send my sister for the jacket, awesome!

CAS Birthday Card Challenge

I am loving all these amazing websites with great competitions, encouragement and fun card ideas. Tonight's challenge, a CAS (Clean and Simple) Birthday card for the CAS-tastic Challenges site.