Dillon's 3rd Birthday

Back again to share a layout made for Dillon's 3rd birthday (ya know since he's almost 5 lol).  The lucky boy got to have his birthday meal a few days early @ The Crystal Palace in Walt Disney World with the entire 100 Hundred Acre Gang.  I documented the character greets in our (as yet unfinished) WDW 2013 album but saved these photos for his own album.  These beautiful topiaries of the gang were just begging to be photographed so of course I had to oblige ;-).

Unfortunately it's been storming most of the day so my usual natural light photo spot is dark so I had to settle for a desk shot :-/.

For me at least, The Crystal Palace - especially with these flowers - would usually call for soft, almost feminine paper & embellishments but because this layout is for his own album I decided to go for a bolder design.  My Mind's Eye Boy Crazy is one of my all-time favorite collections, especially for my robot-loving boy :-).  Since I horde every scrap of this collection, this sketch was perfect because I didn't have to use any full 12 x 12 sheets.  Instead I pieced together smaller pieces to make my 12 x 12 layout.  All the sides of each piece are lightly edged with Hickory Smoke  Distress Ink for that more rough-n-tumble boy look.  I also sanded the yellow "h" & colored the sides with Hickory Smoke Distress Marker to help it stand out better on the yellow background.

This layout uses ScrapbookSteal's Mid-Week Mojo Lilac #5 sketch & also entered to Simon Says Stamp Wednesday "Anything Goes" Challenge.

When is a stamp not a stamp?

I've been experimenting with using tools or other things lying around differently then how they were designed.  Most recently I've realized that the mini blending tool makes the perfect polka dot stamp!  So I utilized this to make (yet another) birthday card ready to send out this fall.

Super-saturated my blending foam(s) with distress ink (Abandoned Coral, Cracked Pistachio, Mermaid Lagoon & Squeezed Lemonade and stamped them on smooth watercolor paper & sprinkled with water for a softer effect.  Layered that on top of a piece of vellum & attached it to a cardstock card base.  For the cupcake, I stamped & die-cut it from specialty stamping paper and then embellished the icing with clear glitter & the candle with texture gems.  The sentiment is stamped on a scrap piece of watercolor paper cut into a banner.

Entered into Simon Says Stamp Monday "No Ordinary Paper" Challenge :-)

Sparkle and Shine

As a kid, I wasn't much of a glitter or sparkle kind of girl but I've come to enjoy using both in my crafts after having my glitter loving daughter ;-).   So I decided to embrace this week's Wednesday Challenge over on Simon Says Stamp to use "sparkle & shine" on what else - more cards for the autumn!

I was playing with watered-down Gelatos on watercolor paper and really liked the sploshy look, so built the rest of this card around it.  Die-cut the butterflies out of Tim Holtz's Melange tissue paper, sprayed them with Perfect Pearls & some leftover watery Gelato and then made the thoraxs with gold Faber-Castell Texture Gems.  Attached the butterflies with a spot of glossy accents on the thorax so it looks like they're flying off the card.  Finished it off with a stamped Hero Arts sentiment in Jet Black Archival Ink.

Making cards for all the autumn birthdays in our family made me realize that Halloween is just around the corner as well!  On the first card I started with the zig-zag paer from My Mind's Eye Halloween Basics collection, then distressed & inked the edges to make the card base.  Then inked up a piece of kraft paper from MME Haunted with multiple orange & purple distress inks.  With my Cameo cut out the pumpkin, made the faux-stitched borders and cut out the bat (then coated it with Distress Stickles).  Outlined the pumpkin with foam tape & filled it with American Crafts sequins.  Finished it off with a second generation stamping of Tim Holtz's Halloween stamp.

On the second card I wanted to play with texture & dimension, so I cut out several different pumpkins (on Cameo) from various MME orange patterned papers.  Some of the papers had pre-embossed designs so to help the other ones stand out I coated them Distress Stickles.  Stacked & layered them on a piece of green cardstock and adhered it to the card base.  The card base is the same kraft paper from the other card, inked with brown & green Distress inks.  To keep with the rustic feel, I cut down a piece of burlap & stamped it with the same Halloween stamp - but the ink barely showed up on the burlap.  So I coated the stamp with Distress Paint (Black Soot) and stamped it over the inked image which worked much better (except for the spiderweb for some reason).  Finished it off with a piece of twine.