It’s not often that I can create a card for four challenges, but it’s the luck of the Irish in this case. St. Patrick’s Day is coming and all four challenges feature some aspect of the traditions surrounding St. Patrick’s Day. Luckily for me I have two birthdays to celebrate–one on the day itself and another on the 18th.

Here are the challenges:

The Card Concept Challenge is a photo inspiration: I’m picking up on the hat (St. Patrick’s Day) and the green for my card.
As usual, it fits their category “Clean and Simple.”

CASology’s challenge is Luck, and my card features four-leaf clovers, definitely a sign of luck!

At JUGS, the challenge is Animals, and I’ve yet another Anita Jeram cutie holding the four-leaf clover.

It’s been awhile since I’ve played with Seize the Birthday, and yes, there are three shades of green created with three green Karin watercolor markers.

So finally, the card itself. As I said it features another of the Anita Jeram illustrations from the Colorado Craft Company. Knowing I had St. Patrick’s Day cards to create, it was a must-have. 

I stamped the design on Altenew watercolor paper and colored it with Karin brush markers. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s Ways to Say: Birthday.

I wanted a narrow frame of traditional St. Patrick’s green (New Leaf from PTI) and then added it to a card base created with Green Parakeet (PTI).

I hope the luck of the Irish is with you today!

 

The current challenge at The Paper Players is a sketch challenge, and one that appealed to me. At Addicted to CAS the challenge is “Animals,” and I thought I could combine an image from another of my unused/new stamp sets and get a birthday card into the stash.

Earlier I shared one of the stamps from Colorado Crafts illustrated by Anita Jeram. This is another of her darling images.

Her illustrations cry out for watercolors so I got out my Daniel Smith watercolors and created a bit of a background as well as coloring the bunny and his/her balloon. 

I kept the rest simple; a narrow black frame and a white embossed sentiment from Pink and Main. Typically, a CAS card calls for white space, but I’m a believer that it can also be colored space as well! 

The sun is shining here, and I hope it’s the same for you!

I really enjoyed coming up with a one-layer card last week, and decided to try another one, both for Less Is More (my second entry) and AAA Cards where the challenge is a sketch. 

I opted to use Copic markers rather than watercolor since I wanted to use Neenah #110 cardstock to dry emboss the My Favorite Things “Peek-a-Boo” die. 

Once I embossed the rectangle, I stamped the smallest flower from Pink Fresh Studio’s new “Friendship Blooms” stamp set. I won a $25 gift certificate during their release blog hop, and decided to purchase this stamp set. It has gorgeous florals and wonderful sentiments. You’ll be seeing more of it soon.

After coloring the floral with Copic markers and adding some detail with Polychromos colored pencils, I stamped a simple greeting from Sentiment Suite: Birthday by The Greetery. Although I also use the Peek-a-Boo window die to cut an open window, I think I prefer it embossed. 

One of my intentions for March is to use as many unused or new stamps or dies as I can. I gathered them altogether and put them in a basket. Some of them are relatively new, but to my chagrin, some of them have been in my collection for well over a year! No more purchases until I’ve worked my way through the pile.

 

Considering that I love CAS designs, and consider myself a (mostly) CAS card maker, I rarely join in the Less Is More challenge, and I rarely make a one-layer card.

But for some reason, this challenge appealed to me, and I set off to find some stamps. I ended up with a new-to-me (and never used) stamp from a Simon Says and Altenew collaboration  and two much older stamp sets from Papertrey Ink.

The beautiful corner frame is from “Framed Friendship,” the Simon Says and Altenew collaboration. The stylized flower is from Papertrey Ink’s “Doodlie-Do” set, and the sentiment is from “Vintage Picnic Sentiments,” one of my oldest sentiment sets.

A dear friend just moved from her home of nearly 60 years to a senior living community where she and I both know she’ll be very happy! As soon as I saw this sentiment I knew exactly who would be getting this card. The floral arrangement was colored with Copic markers which do bleed through cardstock, making it a problem for a one layer card, but I simply layered another piece of cardstock on the inside front of the card which solves the problem. I used X-Press It Blending cardstock so it’s a bit smoother and less bulky than the usual. As always, I’m happy to have used long neglected stamps as well as a never used one.

Seize the Birthday is one of my favorite challenges, and it’s been awhile since I’ve joined in. I seem to forget that you always have an option to just create any birthday card, and don’t have to apply the “topping.” As soon as I saw the new topping, however, I thought of two neglected stamps that have been in my collection for so long I don’t even remember where or when I purchased them. They’ve survived at least three major purges of my stamp collection, and I’m glad they did.  Here’s the topping:

I created two cards, each with a different scene. The stamps are from Stampendous. I no longer have the original packaging so don’t know the name of the set, and they’re no longer available.

This scene reminds me of our trips to Niagara-on-the-Lake with our friends to spend time at the wonderful wineries in the area. I colored the scene with Copic markers, and die cut it with Hero Arts “Rounded Rectangles” before layering it with purple and green and then onto a white card base.

The sentiment is from My Favorite Things “Bitty Birthday Wishes.”

Although I’m quite sure both illustrations were meant to be in Italy, this one reminds me of our tour of Morocco and the fields of olive trees we visited. It was, again, colored with Copic markers and framed in the same way as the first card.

This greeting was white embossed on black and is from Pink and Main’s “Special Day” sentiment set. 

There are eight birthdays on my March calendar so I’m happy to have a couple more birthday cards in the stash!

 

 

The current challenge at CASology is Fox.

I’m thinking the little fox slider card I made for Hannah fits the bill. I’ve become a huge fan of interactive cards now that I’m creating for five grandchildren, and this slider card is one of the easier ones to put together.

I stenciled some light clouds on the slider portion, added the fox and then a piece of die cut grass. Here’s how it looks opened:

And because you can’t send a card to Hannah without sending one to Caleb, here’s his:

And to finish the sentiment:

Stamps: Neat & Tangled “So Foxy” and “Later Alligator”
Cloud Stencil: My Favorite Things
Die: Lawn Fawn “Meadow Borders,” My Favorite Things “Slider Surprise”

 

I’ve been following The Twofer Challenge for a long time, but have never played along. Earlier this month when I saw February’s challenge: Balloons, I had an idea!

I’ve had a “never-before-used” die by My Favorite Things lying on my table for weeks. Originally, I planned to use if for an upcoming project, but ended up doing something very different and just didn’t get it put away. My only problem with this challenge was forgetting to check the rules before creating:

They are very clear–one die, two different designs, two different occasions. My first two cards were both birthday cards, so actually I have a Three-fer. But I’m not unhappy to have a third card in the stash. Here’s a look at the two cards for the challenge:

As you can see the die cuts the balloons and the greeting from a piece of cardstock. I then die cut that with a “Stitched Rectangle” and put metallic papers behind the balloons and the greeting and bumped it up on a white top-folded card. Have to say it looks great in real life, but is terrible to try and photograph.

Here you can see the shine, and the reflection from the windows!

To create the second card, I ran the die through the Gemini, Jr. two times and used five of the balloons. After coloring them with Copic markers, I added balloon strings from a Papertrey Ink stamp set and layered them into a bouquet of balloons. 

The sentiment (just perfect!) from Sugar Peas was embossed on black cardstock die cut from Papertrey Ink’s “Skinny Mini Banners,” and bumped up with some dimensional tape. The balloons are covered with a heavy coat from a Spectrum Noir glitter pen—also difficult to photograph. Here’s a close-up taken with my iPhone.

Finally the third card, just because I have it–and I do like it, too. I used the same technique and the same glittery finish for the balloons here.

I love the “Birthday Strings” mini-stamp from Papertrey Ink and it works perfectly here. I add a few raindrops to this card, as well as the die cut card as a final embellishment. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back to play along with The Twofer Challenge again, but I’m also sure I’ll remember the rules next time!

And because, I used a NBUS die, I’ll put this up at the February post there as well.