Seize the Birthday: Ocean Creatures

It's time to start a new challenge at Seize the Birthday! If you know my teammate Glenda at all, it will not surprise you to learn that she is the mind behind our current "topping": Ocean Creatures. Of course, if you like to stay on land, we always like to see all newly-created birthday cards in our gallery. I decided to go cute and CAS for my card: 

My ocean is double-stencilled, first with the abstract shape and distress ink, and then a second time, leaving the first stencil in place and using the same colour ink to add waves and bubbles. Before I took away the stencils, I sprayed and splatted some sparkle mist over. My crab is coloured with Copics and die cut. I wish I'd had a small wobbler in my stash, as wouldn't that make for a fun element? But I didn't, so I had to make do with some foam tape. The strip of patterned paper along the bottom may not have been my wisest move, but overall I'm still happy with how this came out. 

There is an ocean of inspiration on the StB blog, from the design team and our current surprise party guest, Deepti! I hope you'll make a card and join us. 

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, MFT dots & stripes neutral patterned paper, MFT Beach Buds stamps and dies, Versafine onyx black & salty ocean distress ink, Copic markers, MFT watercolour wash free & Heffy Doodle bubble waves stencils, Tsukineko shimmer sparkle mist, foam tape

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Happy Little Stampers CAS: Water

It's time for a new CAS challenge at Happy Little Stampers and for March our theme is WATER! Lots of ways to interpret this, and I tried for a few different ways on my card: 

My whittle shark and sun are both watercoloured; my bit of ocean is die cut from a smooshed and plastic-wrap-technique watercolour panel; and I even managed to put the word right on the card as part of the sentiment. To keep my card CAS, I left the white space of the card base unadorned. 

My HLS teammates have beautiful interpretations of our prompt! Be sure to check them out, and then I hope you will join us! 

Supplies: Neenah white cardstock, Canson watercolour paper, Poppystamps Whittle Sealife Sentiments stamp, Simon Says Stamp island blue & tumbled glass, broken china & salty ocean distress ink, Poppystamps Whittle Shark, Whittle Sunshine & Whittle Wave Background dies. Zig markers

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Addicted to Stamps and More: Any Occasion

Addicted to Stamps and More is back and it's time to make cards for any occasion! Even though our last challenge was a birthday one, I felt like making another: 

I also decided it was time to play with a blueprint stamp, and this one is perfect for a birthday. It's stamped on very textured watercolour paper, which I seem to forget doesn't really take well to stamping. In this case, I thought the little bit extra distressing of the image was okay. I wanted a loose watercoloured look, but with a brush I'm not always freewheeling enough for that, so I went with watercolour powders instead. I'm really happy with the result! 

If you need a card for any occasion at all, why not join us? 

Supplies: American Crafts textured green cardstock, Master's Touch watercolour paper, Simon Says Stamp/Tim Holtz Stamptember 2014 blueprint stamp, MFT extreme black ink Magenta Nuance spring green & bright yellow watercolour powders, MFT blueprints 24 stitched rectangle die

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A Special Double Color Hues

We are starting a very special double challenge today at Color Hues! Besides our already-scheduled colour pairing (picked by me!) we wanted to join the many cardmakers out there that are making cards in support of Ukraine and its people. And since the Ukrainian flag has two colours, blue and yellow, it's a perfect tie-in for us. 

I decided if I was going to make a card in support, I'd make my support obvious: 

The trickiest part of this card was, of course, adhering those letters in a straight line. ;) Some washi tape along the right edge helped a lot with the alignment. The flowers are stamped in two shades of yellow, and the textured paper got even more with an embossing folder. 

Back to regularly scheduled programming, and my choice of colour duo starting today: GREEN and GOLD.  I was looking ahead to St. Patrick's Day when I made my selection, and my card is influenced by that: 

I don't actually have much in the way of St. Patrick Day images, but the set that my two-part sentiment comes from just happens to have shamrock stamps! I started by heat embossing the large part of the sentiment in sparkly gold embossing powder. Next I added the smaller sentiment in green, embossing it as well, but didn't emboss the shamrocks in a show of restraint. ;) A scattering of gold bling and a green card base finished it off. As usual, an angled pic shows the shine better:

Blue and yellow? Green and gold? The choice is up to you, and of course we'd love to see you make cards for both pairings. Lots of inspiration on the Color Hues blog, so be sure to check it out! 

Supplies: (Ukraine) Neenah white & Fabriano textured cardstock, Papertrey Ink Simple Sunflowers stamps & dies, Catherine Pooler tiara & sauna ink, Spellbinders grid embossing folder, MFT Birdie Brown Alphabet & (?) heart dies; (good luck) Neenah white & Hero Arts green layering cardstock, Simon Says Stamp/CZ Designs Great Things stamps, Versamark & Catherine Pooler garden party ink, gold tinsel embossing powder, MFT stitched rounded rectangle die, Studio Katia gold sparkle crystals

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Using Stencils at Scrap 'n Stamp

I'm playing with a stencil and what is probably my favourite bunny stamp set ever on the Scrap 'n Stamp blog today... I hope you'll check it out! 

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The Sisterhood is Quirky

Q is for Quirky is our newest challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers! I would never have guessed that Edna could pull off quirky the way she has for our challenge badge. I did my best to go quirky myself: 

I think this is the quirkiest of the crazy birds, with the bonus that I hadn't played with any of them for a long time! And this is definitely among the quirkiest of Shakespeare quotes. :D My bird is watercoloured, die cut and grounded with a little patch of grass. 

Wait until you see the quirkiness that awaits you on the Snarky blog, from my sisters and our current Queen of Snark, Beverly! Feel the quirk and join us! 

Supplies: Fabriano cream & Bazzill green textured cardstock, Canson watercolour paper, Stampers Anonymous/Tim Holtz/Sizzix Bird Crazy stamp & die, Versafine onyx black & MFT extreme black ink, Wow clear gloss embossing powder, Zig markers, MFT grass & Sugar Pea Designs cardfront element builder dies 

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