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Happy Birthday!

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Yesterday was Caleb’s and Hannah’s birthdays. They were born on the same day, five years apart. I waited until today to write this birthday post because I got a good photo of Caleb and his annual poster yesterday, but not of Hannah with her poster. Every year their dad creates a poster for their birthday. The first one was drawn when Caleb was two. Many of them were hand drawn. Now Adam creates them on the computer but still colors them by hand. They used to display all the posters each year on their birthday, but there is clearly no longer enough wall space for that! 

Age 14

Age 9

In November, their cousin, Ella, also had a birthday, and I’m posting all three of their birthday cards today. When I first saw the Concord and 9th Accordion Birthday Dies, I couldn’t resist buying them. All three got a variation of the same card. I didn’t want to post Ella’s earlier, even though I was pretty sure neither Caleb nor Hannah would see it. 

When I made Ella’s card, I die cut many, many balloons, assembled a lot of presents, and die cut several birthday cakes. That made assembling the other two a bit quicker. All three were quit happy with their card, and I really had fun making them.

Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe we’re turning the page on another year. I’ll be back tomorrow with the first Color Hues Challenge for 2026.

A Birthday Happy Dance

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One of my favorite images from the Joyful Season release is the Happy Dance Bird. I’ve seen a variety of wonderful cards on the internet using it for holiday cards, but I thought she could do a happy dance for a birthday as well. 

I die cut the bird from white cardstock and colored it using finger dauber with a variety of inks. I wanted a focal point for her, so die cut two circles from the Circle Basics dies, one from bright yellow cardstock from the Sunrise paper pack, and one from bright pink from my stash to coordinate with the bird’s scarf.

I thought it would be fun to create an easel card for the Happy Dance. I chose a pretty pink cardstock, created a top folding card and scored the front at the halfway point. I ink blended an ombre pattern on some scrap cardstock and die cut the sentiment from Warm Wishes Stylish Script to use as a stopper for the easel card, adding it to the yellow shadow die. I stacked several more shadows to create a thicker stop so the easel will stand up. easily. Next I arranged the Happy Dance Bird, some gifts from Plentiful Presents, and a birthday greeting from the Happy Birthday Greeting Tabs to the circle, The final step was to carefully add the circle to the bottom half of the card front.

I think the Happy Dance Bird is sure to bring a smile to any birthday celebration!

Merry Christmas!

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The sentiment on this card, created with products from The Greetery, Honey Bee Stamps, and Ellen Hutson is my wish for all of us. Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, may peace, joy and love be yours today and in the new Year!

Santa’s Sleigh

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I’m back with my last holiday card from the Memory Box “Joyful Season” release.

I started with a red card base and die cut the largest Fan Stitch Scalloped Frames from cream cardstock, adding it to the card base. I assembled the sleigh using the Festive Sleigh dies with papers from the Memory Box Blush paper pad, the Delicate Pastel Glitter pad, and gold metallic paper from my stash. Next, using scraps, I die cut and assembled a variety of presents and bows from the Plentiful Presents dies. I die cut many more presents than I needed, and you’ll be seeing them pop up in the future.

I arranged the gifts in and behind the sleigh on my desk. Once I had an arrangement I liked, I used I used a piece of Press ‘N Seal to pick up the arrangement. I turned it over and used some tape to hold all the pieces together before gluing and adding the gifts to the card panel. The sentiment was die cut from gold metallic cardstock with the Merry Christmas Marker Script dies. I cut the shadow from red cardstock and carefully added the letters. I wanted some gold pearl accents, so I used two paper punches and created tiny gold circles. I added Nuvo Crystal Glaze to the tops creating 3D “gems.”

This is a second entry to the Christmas Kickstart Challenge, I still have some Christmas cards I haven’t shared since I wanted to be sure they were received before I posted them, so maybe I’ll get them up before the New Year.

Brilliant Poinsettias

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The holidays are upon us, and the new Memory Box blog hasn’t gone up yet, so I’m posting here and on Instagram. The Spring Release is already here, so I have one more holiday card, and then I’ll move to the new products.

These Memory Box dies couldn’t be more perfectly named. I diecut them from red cardstock in the Memory Box Blush paper pack, adding leaves from the Greenery pack and gold metallic centers. I added some ink blending to the centers of the flowers and to the base of the leaves for some dimension.

On a black background I adhered two circles die cut from Basic Circles – one from cream cardstock and the next largest from metallic gold, and then added them to a cream card base. Once the poinsettias were assembled, I added them to the edge of the circles, along with one of my fave Memory Box Black Tab Greetings from the Holiday Wishes set.

I’m sending this off to The Flower Challenge where they’re looking for Christmas flowers. Sadly, this is the last of their challenges, and I’m hoping to be back with another card before they close their doors. The challenge will definitely be missed!

It’s also headed to the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown where the challenge is to pick a previous thems challenge (September’s was Poinsettias) and to Christmas Kickstart: Any Christmas Card.

It’s getting down to the wire. Most of the essentials are taken care of, but I still hope to get some gift card holders made, but I’ll be back soon with another holiday card for Memory Box.

Gifting

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The current Paper Players Challenge is “Gifting.” I took a very literal interpretation because I had three gifts I intended to decorate with some of my new Greetery products. 

The gifts are small Kraft boxes filled with note paper. I think I bought them in 2019 at Impress in Seattle. They’ve sat in my box of paper goodies for all those years until I rediscovered them hunting for something else.

I was correct that the Capsule Basic products would work perfectly for these. I die cut the background from paper in the Honey Bee Merry Moments paper pad. Then I die cut the matching oval from the Capsule Filagree Borders from gold metallic paper.

The poinsettia from Bigger Holiday Botanicals is so easy to put together, I used a bright red for the flower and a pretty green for the leaves. The leaves ended up being very close to the green in the background, so I added a gold metallic bow. That was die cut from the Christmas gift from The Greetery. The bow has long tails, but I trimmed them off.  Here’s a look inside the boxes. 

I’m still waiting for some wish lists to appear from some of my grandchildren, and the baking will begin on Saturday when the three girls come to make and decorate sugar cookies. It’s a tradition that they still are unanimously eager to participate in. I’m grateful the high school freshman hasn’t wanted to opt out. 

Color Hues #123

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Tracey has chosen a very versatile color duo for this month’s Color Hues Challenge:

I have two wildly different cards to share that showcase these colors versatility. Both cards were created with the new Pinkfresh Studio products released in October. Not many companies offer a prize of the whole release, but PFS does every month. I was the lucky recipient of October’s amazing prize. 

The first card is the more traditional one and the one I posted on the challenge site. The new products I used are two that I had put on my wish list before I knew I’d won a prize. I love the elegant and beautiful Freesia Flourish. The product suite included a stamp, a die, a stencil, and press plate. I used the press plate to foil the image and the sentiment in gold and colored  the freesia with PFS inks using the stencil. 

Next I die cut the Diamond Lattice Coverplate in white and created the oval with an older PFS Nested Elongated Ovals die. I used the Nested Elongated Ovals Blanket Stitch to create a frame. I mounted it on a pale gray card base and added the floral and the sentiment with dimensional tape. Three pale pink Essential Jewels from PFS finished the card.

Here’s another close-up that shows the pretty foiling.

The next card is super bright and fun. I die cut the new Octagon Grid Coverplate three times: once each in black, green and pink. Then I added the green layer to a black card base and paper pieced the pink and the narrow black frame back into the die. I also added the four diamond shapes in black.

The sentiment is from an earlier PFS release, You Are My Rainbow. I die cut a stitched rectangle with Simon Says Stitched Rectangles and trimmed the sentiment piece to fit. I added four black jewels to this card.

You’ll find lots more inspiration on the Color Hues blog. There’s just one challenge for the month of December so you have lots of time to play along!

I’m planning to add the second card to the December Pinkfresh Studio Challenge which is always Anything Goes. That’s good because they’re looking for Christmas cards this month!