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Big Birthday Wishes

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 Here’s one final card for the CASual Friday Birthday Bash celebration.

 
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This is one of those cards that had multiple iterations before it was done. I wanted to use the new Wonderful Words: Birthday die as well as the patterned papers from Lawn Fawn’s Daphne’s Closet that came with the Simon Says March card kit. I tried a lot of different ideas, but finally ended up with a birthday banner and a card I’m quite happy with. The card stock (all Bazzill except for Neenah Solar White) came from the kit as well. 

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The banner dies are Papertrey Ink’s Countdown banners folded in the middle, and I selectively stamped Big And Wishes from two different sets:  Birthday Bash and 2012 Birthday Tags. 

Spring has finally sprung here, and it’s simply gorgeous. I’ve managed to walk over ten miles in the last several days, walking when I normally would have driven—to the library on Friday, a walk through the park on Saturday, to breakfast with Tracy on Sunday, and to meet a friend for lunch this afternoon. So good to be outside again instead of on the treadmill!

 

Retro Sketches #60

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Here’s another birthday card, this time based on this week’s Retro Sketch challenge. I had some flowers stamped from this project, and this sketch seemed perfect for them.

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I tried a couple different patterned papers for the right-hand side of the sketch, but they all seemed too busy, so I did a partial embossing with the Cuttlebug Polka-dot embossing folder. I couldn’t find any good way to add a bow either. I tried twine, thin ribbons, and twine, but my CAS style won out on this one.

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The flowers are stamped with Papertrey Ink’s Rosie Posie and Rosie Posie Step 2 stamp sets, and the sentiment is from Papertrey’s Daydreamer set. I die cut the circle with a Spellbinders Small Circles die. The inside sentiment reads, “Hope all your birthday wishes come true.”

Linking this to CASual Friday’s Birthday Bash challenge and Simon Says Anything Goes.

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Amazing Birthday

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Here’s a second card for the CASual Friday Birthday Bash challenge, as well as the Simon Says Challenge this week:  “Anything Goes.”

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The calendar for the end of April, May, and June is packed with birthdays and anniversaries, so I set a challenge for this week to get some cards created using the April Simon Says Card Kit. I love the mix of yellows, grays and blacks so it was easy to do. You’ll be seeing several cards with this color scheme this week.

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All the product for this card except the wood veneer star (Studio Calico) which I painted yellow, the banner die (also Simon Says), and the rickrack from my ribbon stash came from the April kit. These kits are a great value. You received a full set of stamps (which retail for $14.99), a mix of patterned papers, cardstock, and embellishments for $19.95. There’s easily enough product to create a minimum of ten cards without raiding your stash (though I usually do add a few items) which is certainly cheaper than Hallmark.

Inside I repeated a strip of the Washi tape, and used some Papertrey Ink products for the inside sentiment. (Tremendous Tags die, and 2012 Birthday Tags stamp).

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There’s been quite a bit of blog conversation about what reader to use once Google Reader disappears this summer. I’ve been using Feedly for a month now, and can highly recommend it. I have it on my desktop, iPhone, and iPad, and blogs read seamlessly on all three. I can actually say I prefer it to Google Reader. I love the small photos and summaries of the posts on the desktop, so if it’s a blog where there are only certain posts I read carefully, I can work through them very quickly.

I also switched my browser to Chrome which I like as well. Safari was giving me a hard time about comments on several blogs, so I moved to Chrome to see if things would improve. It’s very fast, and the only feature I miss from Safari is the ability to “save” blog posts or websites to read later without having to add them to your bookmark system. On my agenda is to set up a bookmark folder in Chrome for that purpose (and to clean out the old bookmarks I no longer want!)

 

Papertrey April Blog Hop Challenge

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Today is the monthly blog hop at Papertrey Ink. I couldn’t participate last month since we were in Oregon, so I really wanted to play along today. Here’s the challenge:

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Papertrey Ink is frequently right on top of trends, and tilted is definitely one I’ve seen around the internet for the last couple of months. I managed to get two cards completed for today’s blog hop. The first one was a get well card for a dear friend who had eye surgery on Monday. She is required to keep her head face down forty-five minutes of every hour for at least a week, and most likely two weeks. She has a special chair, but to say it’s uncomfortable is to put it mildly. Fortunately she isn’t in any pain.

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I haven’t place a PTI order in awhile, but I did this month and ordered “Rosie Posie Step 2” stamps for the “Rosie Posie” set. I’ve always loved “Rosie Posie,” and the second stamping brings the flowers alive. The patterned paper is an old one from my scrapbook stash: Basic Stripe by Reminisce, and the sentiment is from “Communique Sentiments.” I colored the pearls with a Copic marker. Here’s a closer look at the flowers.

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Last night after dinner, I tried used another of my new purchases, the “Wonderful Words: Birthday” die. I cut thin strips of Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Simply Chartreuse, Hawaiian Shores, and Raspberry Fizz, and layered them diagonally on Select White cardstock. “Birthday” was cut from True Black and the Happy is stamped from “Birthday Bash Sentiments.” The pearls are from Michaels.

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You’re sure to find lots of inspiration for beautiful cards here today. Edited to add a link to this week’s CASual Friday challenge: Birthday Bash!


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Wish Big

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One of my favorite card designers, Cristina Kowalczyk, recently posted a challenge on her blog to create a card using one of the smallest stamps in a given stamp set. It’s a technique I’ve wanted to try for a while. I chose Mama Elephants “Trifecta” set, chosing one of the small triangles.

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I stamped it multiple times using three Fresh Inks from Impress:  Ginger, Celery, and Sky Blue. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s “Stylish Sentiments: Birthday,” a set I find myself using over and over.

I’m linking this to the CASual Friday challenge: Birthday Bash.

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Congratulations!

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A friend of ours recently moved into a new apartment. She’s just starting out, so we wanted to send her a gift card for Target, knowing you always need something you didn’t count on when you planned your move. 

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I started with a Hero Arts envelope, cutting out a partial circle with a circle punch. I paperpieced the little house with papers from my scrap drawer, and stamps from “Love Lives Here” by Papertrey Ink. The sentiment is from Papertrey’s “Enjoy the Ride.” The twine is from Paper Source.

Happy Birthday & 52/50: Week 15

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Yesterday was Adam’s birthday, and although I did get a phone call in to him, I didn’t get a blog post up because I ended up driving to Syracuse to spend a few hours with my brother. (More about that later this week.) Here’s the card I left with our gift for him when we were in Ashland.

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I’m a big fan of Papertrey’s Stylish Sentiments: Birthdays, and thought the bicycle image from Studio Calico was a perfect match for it. The arrow is a Papertrey die, and I hand cut the banner. I think I cased the design for this card from one by Joy Taylor, but I can’t for the life of me find it on her site or in my Vi.sualize.us account.

We’ve had a very busy week and dreary, dreary weather—enough rain that we ended up with some water in the basement. It made for slim pickings for the 52/50 project this week. I had hoped a visit by Betsy and Skylar Friday night would add some good images, but Skylar was feeling under the weather, so I’ll save those for a weekend recap post later this week.

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My favorite image from the conservatory last Saturday, taken with the 50 mm.

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A rather winter-worn deer showed up in the yard one morning.

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I was happy with the clear focus on the raindrops since it was taken through the kitchen window. It was much too wet to take the good camera outside.

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There was a break in the rain the day I after I found the helleborus blooming in the backyard. This is the pick for Kent Weakley’s P52 project.

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Simon Says Birthday Challenge

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I have another card for the Simon Says Birthday Challenge. April is a big month for birthdays and although I made a few before we left for Oregon, I still have three or four more to go. Here’s a second masculine one for another brother-in-law.

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Cardstock: Pure Poppy, Vintage Cream (PTI); Patterned Paper: Studio Calico 6X6 February card kit;Stamp: 2012 Birthday Tags (PTI);Twine: Pure Poppy (PTI)

 

Two Challenges

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My brother-in-law has a big birthday coming up, and I decided to see if I could get his card made in time to post it for two challenges:  Simon Says “Birthday” Challenge, and the current CAS(E) This Sketch challenge. I’m just under the wire for the second one.

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Here’s my card. I used papers from the April Simon Says card kit, the Typewriter dies from Memory Box, Tremendous Tags by Papertrey Ink, and an inside sentiment (no photo) that says, “. . .  years ago on what otherwise might have been an ordinary day, THE WORLD GOT YOU!” from Papertrey’s Big Birthday Wishes set. 

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I have another card for the Simon Says challenge which I’ll be posting later today.

Blog Update & 52/50 Week 13

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First off, Happy Easter! I hope you’ve had a wonderful holiday. After days of sunshine and warm weather, we awoke to much cooler temperatures and a steady rain. It cancelled the Easter egg hunt in the church yard, but one was held in the Celebration Center. Caleb gathered about eight eggs before he lost interest. 

If you’re reading this in a reader, hop over to see the new blog design. Random Reflections has been in need of an update for quite some time, but I’m always reluctant to mess around with it for fear I’ll do permanent damage. So I signed up for Jessica Sprague’s “Bloom Your Blog” course. Like every class I’ve taken with her, it was wonderful. Lots of great information, clearly presented on both videos and pdfs. 

One of the first things I decided I wanted was a two-column blog instead of a three column one. It turns out that to have the dimensions I wanted I would need to upgrade to the next level at Typepad which I’m not yet willing to do. Typepad offers a variety of premade themes, and I found one that I liked a lot except for the overlay on the banner. Once again, in order to eliminate it, I’d have to upgrade. Thanks to Adam, I was able to get a new banner designed that works with it, and I think I’ll be able to use other photos as well. Along with quite a bit of frustration, I’ve learned a lot and have more confidence about how to make changes on the blog. It doesn’t pay to let it go for so long.

I deleted a few items from the sidebar that were outdated, and updated my Photo-a-Day blog. That’s another frustration as it clips the photos, so if you want to see the whole photo, you need to click on the sidebar photo within that album. But it’s a great place to keep my Project 365. If I get time, I’ll get January and February up as well. 

Next on the agenda is to get some social media buttons up and add a signature for the blog posts. I thought they might be done by now, but we were on a road trip yesterday to Crater Lake (more about that later), and we’re having a guest for Easter dinner tonight. Hopefully, I’ll get it done tomorrow. For now I need to get my link up for my 52/50 Project. Here are the contenders—Caleb again—but, sadly, this will be the last week as we’ll be headed home on Wednesday.

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I loved this reflection of Caleb in the sliding glass door, watching his dad work on the patio.

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Concentrating.

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At North Mountain Park wearing Dad’s sunglasses.

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At the top of the slide.

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And this week’s pick for 52/50 posted on Kent Weakley’s Project 52 post.

CASE Study Challenge #133

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When this week’s CASE Study challenge appeared in my blog reader this week, I knew I had the perfect card for it. I made a few cards before we left for our trip to post while we were away, and this is one of them. Here’s the inspiration piece:

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Here’s my card. It’s amazing to me how many of the elements are the same:  bike, sunshine, clouds, and even the striped paper. I cut this from a chevron pattern much like the inspiration piece. 

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As soon as I saw the Memory Box die of the bicycle, I knew I wanted it. It’s taken me awhile to put it to use, however. The patterned papers are from a Studio Calico kit, and the chipboard clouds are also Studio Calico. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink’s set by the same name:  Enjoy the Ride. The Pure Poppy cardstock and button are also from Papertrey Ink.

 

Color Blocked and Colour Q

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Thanks to Cassandra, I woke up this morning to find out I’d been named the Colour Queen for last week’s challenge. That was a nice surprise! Today I’m back with another ColourQ Challenge as well as the latest challenge for CAS-ual Friday: use color blocks. The two challenges went together perfectly.

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I’ve been wanting to try die cutting a word from strips of cardstock for awhile. I’ve seen it popping up all over the card design blogs. It wasn’t as easy as it looks. Next time I think I’d do it a bit differently, but I do like the effect.

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I needed to get a thank you note in the mail before we leave. One of my friends goes to the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra concerts with another friend. Louise couldn’t go last Thursday and offered me her ticket. It was a fabulous concert, and I wanted to send her a gift certificate and note since she wouldn’t let me pay for the ticket.

I started by cutting strips of New Leaf, Simply Chartruese, Smoky Shadow, and True Black. I adhered them to a piece of copy paper, and then die cut the “thanks” from a Memory Box die. Next time, I’d apply a lot more adhesive to the copy paper before I did the die cutting. Getting it apart and onto the card took longer than it should have. The card is one I purchased from Impress a long time ago–Saavy, I think. Then I added a few gems since I liked the gem in the ColourQ inspiration piece.

Very windy and snowy here right now. Enough already!

Three Simple Cards

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I have three simple cards for you—typically my favorite kind. Two of these were made during the mad month of February between all those layouts, and there wasn’t time to post them. The first one is another card made mostly with the Simon Says March card kit—my favorite of the bunch.

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Two of the flower stamps and the papers came from the kit. I added the sentiment from Paper Smooches’ Sentiment Samper, and another enamel dot by MME. I’m going to need to find some more of those.

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It would be hard to be more simple than this card. I stamped one line from a block stamp from Sentiment Signs (PTI) on the striped paper and added a gem from A Muse. Here’s the inside, done the same way:

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Nothing like the inside being more elaborate than the front. The recipient really liked this card though!

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One of my favorite dies by Memory Box, some patterned paper, cardstock, a bit of twine, and more enamel dots.

We’re madly getting ready for two big trips. The first is to Oregon to visit Sarah, Adam, and Caleb. We’ll be gone nearly three weeks, and although I expect to blog occasionally it will be much less frequently and I may not get as many comments made on your blogs while we’re away. Then in May we’re going on our first international trip. It’s very exciting, but also a bit overwhelming. I’ll fill you in when it gets closer. Both are taking lots of time, and I do have a couple of creative projects I need to finish (start). I’m quickly running out of time.

Another Bit ‘O Green

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I don’t usually post more than one card for a challenge, but here’s another one for Simon Says’ Bit ‘O Green Challenge. 

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We have a St. Patrick’s Day birthday in our house, so this is the perfect color for a birthday card. The sentiment came from the stamp set included in the January card kit from Simon Says. and the patterned paper was in the scrap folder. I hand-cut the smaller sentiment and bumped it out a bit with 3-D tape.

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We’re off this morning with our friends to Niagara-on-the-Lake. We’ll purchase tickets for a show at the Shaw Festival for our annual fall weekend there, have lunch at The Irish Harp, and most likely, visit a couple of our favorite wineries. It will be good to be away for a day, and the forecast is for sunshine and warmer temperatures! Yay!

Yay! It’s Your Birthday

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I got a card made yesterday just in time for the latest Retro Sketch Challenge. It also fits the current Simon Says Challenge for “A Bit ‘O Green.” 

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The sketch is so similar to several cards I’ve made in the past, and the card comes together so quickly. I didn’t set a timer, but it probably would make the 10 minute challenges I see around the web.

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Here’s my take on it. Once again I reached for the new Papertrey Ink set, Stylish Sentiments: Birthday. This is clearly going to be a favorite set.

 
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I started with a piece of Rustic Cream cardstock (PTI) and added three strips from the Very Vintage Double Dots paper pad by BoBunny I picked up in Buffalo last month. The pads were tucked into a revolving rack at the back of the store, and I’m so glad I found them. A little ink distressing on the edges, and it was done.