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Happy Birthday, Skylar!

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Today is Skylar’s 14th birthday. In the last year she has blossomed into a beautiful teenager.

She’s an accomplished horseback rider,

a varsity field hockey player,

and one of the nicest people I know. (These fabulous photos were taken by her cousin, Nadia, @Nxdiaphotography.)
I thought it would be fun to make her an easel card using the #spellbinders Gorgeous You Make-up dies.

I started with an aqua card base and embossed the front with Taylored Expressions Dotted Lattice embossing folder. I die cut the largest of  the Pinkfresh Studio Nested Oval Blanket Stitch dies and added the make-up die cuts with some flowers I found in my stash. The sentiment is from Ellen Hutson’s Cake stamp set

To create the easel, I die cut the eyeshadow palette, assembled it, and then die cut the base twice more so it could hold up the front of the card.

The sentiment here is from Concord & 9th’s Fashion Shoppe Stamps.
We’re on the road so we’re missing the chance to celebrate with her. I hope she has a great day!

Color Hues # 118

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Jules has chosen the colors for our mid-September Color Hues Challenge:

Initially, I was a bit puzzled about these colors wondering what papers and inks I might have that matched. It didn’t take long to find Faded Jeans and Bundled Sage Distress Oxide inks which were a pretty close match. I also had a Waffle Flower Postage Collage Wild Flower set that I had only used once before, and I was happy to get it out again.

To achieve some variation in the color, I simply used a light hand for the first floral stencil, and a firmer hand when stenciling the second. Concord & 9th came out with new colors this year, and the Pistachio is a beautiful sage green. After stenciling I added some of the postage images from the Waffle Flower Postage Collage stamp set. I die cut a panel of the cardstock with The Greetery Postal Frames before arranging three of the images with dimensional tape. The sentiment and die are from Waffle Flowers Postage Collage Circle Sentiments. 

For the border I pulled out The Greetery’s Airmail Border stencil. I purchased it a long time ago, but this is it’s debut. One more item out of the NBUS box. I ended up liking this color combination a lot. One of the things I love about card challenges, including ours, is that I try things I wouldn’t have thought to use. This is one of them, and I think it will end up on repeat in the future.

I hope you’ll join us this round, and I’ll look for you in the gallery! Be sure to check out the inspiration waiting for you from our Guest Designer and Design Team on the Color Hues blog.

Blooming with Happiness

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Just Us Girls Challenge this week is Stencils: Anything Goes and the Stencil Fun Challenge is for Nature.  I have one of my favorite ever stenciled cards to share. This was made mid-summer for a friend’s birthday. She lives in Canada, and I’ve waited until I knew she received it before sharing it here.

The color choices were easy–my friend loves the color pink. The stencil is Papertrey Ink’s Wild Blooms. It’s been in my NBUS box for a long time, and once again, I’m chagrined to see how wonderful and versatile it is. Change the colors and you have a totally different feel. 

The sentiment is from the Bloom and Grow stamp set from The Greetery, and die cut with My Favorite Things Stitched Oval STAX.  I die cut the floral panel with Gina K’s Master Layout #1 as well as the narrow pink mat. In addition to Just Us Girls and Stencil Fun, this is off to NBUS–my first September offering, and to Darnell’s I.D.E.A.S. where Week 1 is Inks/Color Mediums.

Color Hues #117

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I'm the hostess for the September 1st (where did summer go?) Color Hues Challenge, and I chose:

CH #117-Orange and Green.001

When I chose the colors, I had nothing particular in mind, but I had recently purchased a geometric design die from Concord & 9th, and thought it would be fun to use. I was right. I loved playing with this die, and came up with two cards. Here's the card I posted on the Color Hues blog. It's the more dramatic of the two.

CH117Black

The Pattern Play die comes with a background coverplate, and six smaller dies that cut out pieces to play with. You can see that I die cut two hues of orange and two hues of green, and started to play around with different placements. On this card the sentiment came from the Pinkfresh Studio "Basic Banners: Celebrate" which stamps and die cuts twelve sentiments with one go.

Here's a cleaner version of the card on a white background. The background color makes such a difference.

CH117White

The sentiment here is also from a one-go set by Altenew appropriately titled "One Go Birthday Greetings". I think either card would work for guys or girls, teens or adults , and I'm quite sure I'll have this out to play with other color combinations. It worked well with just two colors but using a bigger variety of colors would be fun too. 

With fall looming, orange and green might lead you to some autumn themed cards and florals would certainly work. I'm looking forward to seeing all of your creative cards in our gallery this round. As always, check out the inspiration from our Guest Designer and Design Team at the Color Hues Blog.