SURPRISE Party Guest - Seize the Birthday

Awwwwww was I EVER flattered beyond belief when Nancy Leppeck of Scrapper@Heart reached out to me and asked me to be a surprise party guest for Seize the Birthday.

I've always admired Nancy's design aesthetic AND her incredibly lovely comments so of course my answer was a hearty HECK YES!

I don't know about you, but I'm always, always running out of birthday cards to send out. Playing along in Seize the Birthday's challenges on the regular keeps me in stock (mostly) with fancy-dancy birthday cards of all types.

 

Each week, they come up with new "Toppings" (challenge theme) to use for your designs. You don't necessarily have to use the toppings to play along though - any birthday card works. 

This week's toppings are BALLOONS and so I pulled out my trusty STAMPlorations A Snarky Birthday to You stamp set and inked up the balloons. 

I snagged the sketch from Just for Fun Rubber Stamps sketch challenge to inspire my design.

 

I hope you'll head on over to Seize the Birthday and check out the rest of the AMAZING inspiration!

Fusion - Truck Bouquet

We're over this week's hump and much closer to hippity hoppity Easter! But after Easter comes Mother's Day and that's the type of card I'm showing off today. 

Now... for those of you wondering how many mothers I have - no, I was not adopted by a tribe of roving gypsy women and I did not grow up on a polygamous commune.  I sell my cards at craft fairs and mother's day cards always fly off the shelves during this time of year.

This particular card is inspired by the newest Fusion Card Challenge.

I loved the big ol' bouquet of roses, and also chose to incorporate the sketch. If you haven't played along at Fusion, it's super duper easy! You can choose either the sketch, or the card, OR both and create a fusion! 

My card was pretty easy peasy to put together. I stamped a back panel using a floral burst from Unity and then stamped my focal panel once with the same design.

I watercolored my flowers with a combo of Distress Oxide inks and Distress Inks. 

To complete the look, I stamped a snarky sentiment from my brand new Sweet and Sassy Mom set, which will be released by STAMPlorations in the next couple of weeks! 

Taaaadaaaa!

I hope you'll hop over to Fusion and play along! 

I was inspired to play along in: 
CCEE Stampers - Humor
Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers - S is for Silly

Clean and Simple and Oh-so-Retro

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd been commissioned to do some cards and I have the other two cards to share with you today. 

By the way, a BIG thank you to those who took the time to leave advice or encouragement for my card-selling venture. It was very helpful!

The first card I'm going to share sprang from this request: "I want a birthday card for my boss and she's got a BIG sense of humor". When it comes to humor, my favorite way to create is with snarky retro girls. Horrible puns are a close second. 

Luckily, I just bought some new retro girl stamps from Viva Las Vegas stamps. 

I created a sweet banner with my favorite retro color combo - teal and red - and then paired the retro girl with a semi-snarky sentiment. Mission accomplished!

I'm sending this card over to:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - Use your Favorites
Seize the Birthday - ATG with option to use neutrals
Paper Players - Color challenge (just eeeking in!) 



Card number 2 was a little more challenging. She asked for a card for her friend who recently just lost her dog (heartstrings, you have been pulled!). She also didn't want the card to be too sad. 

For some reason, my sympathy cards are always clean and simple. I immediately got an idea for this card and ran to my craft room before I lost it. 

I used some very old (and I seriously couldn't tell you the manufacturer) paw print stamp set that I inherited from my Grandma and made it look like they were fading off into the distance by using an ombre effect. Then I tied on a big ol' chevron bow with ribbon from Pretty Pink Posh. 

Lastly - the sentiment. How to not go too sad? I thought about the Noteworthy stamp set from STAMPlorations and this sentiment seemed to fit perfectly. 

This card is going over to:
Addicted to Stamps and More - Clean and Simple (PS! Happy 3rd Birthday!)
Friday Mashup - Use stenciling OR create a monochromatic card

 

So these cards are a little different from my normal aesthetic, but I think they turned out perfectly for what the customer was asking for.

Thanks for popping by! I'm only >>25<< people away from reaching 200 followers and I would LOVE to hit that mark. A big thank you to all my newest followers! You make me so happy!

A Funny Mermaid Card - Crafty Gals Corner Color Challenge

Ahoy Mateys! I'm going to go all nautical today with my card and impress you with my mermaid skills. In real life, I'm slightly petrified of water that's deep enough to hold giant fish that can bite your leg off while you swim. This is a real thing. I'm convinced. Don't get me wrong, I will plop into the deep, murky water with the rest of them, but my stomach will convulse a little and, while I might appear to be smiling, I will only be thinking in my head "There goes my leg...".

But I digress!

This week at Crafty Gals Corner, we have a couple of sponsors and I got to work with a beautiful mermaid image from Nikki Burnette called Symphoni. I don't have a link for you because the fabulous Ms. Burnette is taking a short break from work because she's expecting! :)

Now, I could have done some pretty, beautiful things with Symphoni, but I decided to do a little snark:

This is the sentiment that I created to go along with my mermaid image. I love it! It makes me giggle every time I see it.

Crafty Gals Corner is having a color challenge this week: 

I don't normally work in pastels, so this was definitely a challenge for me! But I decided to incorporate the colors into the mermaid. 

I really TRIED to make it pastel... but this is as close as I got. haha. I added a little starfish in the corner and some bling (because who doesn't like sparkles).

So come on over and play at Crafty Gals Corner! Our prize is 3 digital images from Nikki Burnette.

Nikki Burnette

Prize : 3 Digital Images

As for me, I'm going to link this up to:

Sentimental Sundays - Funny Sentiment

Corrosive Challenges - Every Little Thing She Does is Magic

Thanks for popping by!

A Funny Birthday Card

This blog is gonna be quick and dirty because I have to run to a birthday party in 15 minutes! Yikes! Leave it to me to procrastinate, but I just whipped this card up for my cousin, Ryan.

Haha. This little skunk is so stupid looking since I added the googly eye! He makes me laugh! I love to add puns to some of my cards, and when I saw this stamp set from Lil' Inkers I just had to have it because it's full of snarky sentiments.

Upon closer inspection, you'll see that it's not ACTUALLY an insult. Which is why the inside of the card reads: 

I'm going to enter this into the following chalenges:

• Just Us Girls Challenge: "Celebrate"
• Seize the Birthday Challenge "Anything Goes Birthday"  Seriously if you haven't checked out this challenge - DO IT!! I don't know why there aren't more birthday-themed challenges when that's the primary form of cards I use. 
• A BIG thank you goes out to My Favorite Things challenge which provided me with a great sketch!! 
  

Thank you SO much for all your support. I read each and every comment and try to visit your blogs, too!