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Birthday

Autumn Birthday Card

There hasn’t been a single Shortbread Shape embossing folder from The Greetery that I haven’t loved. Shortbread Shapes: Autumn was perfect for making this fall birthday card. I die cut a Kraft cardstock panel with the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle Die and embossed it with the embossing folder. Then I die cut two more panels with Cocoa Bean cardstock and created a shaped card base by scoring one panel about 14” from the top and gluing them together. The Kraft panel was glued to the front.

The Shortbread Shapes Rectangle was die cut with Cocoa Bean cardstock, and I gold embossed the sentiment from The Greetery’s Simple Everyday Mini Sentiments at the bottom of the label. The Bigger Autumn Botanical: Pumpkin 2 was die cut with Bristol paper and ink blended. I layered the pumpkin on the label, and added the label to the card front with dimensional tape.

I have another card planned with this embossing folder for my sister-in-law so you’ll see it again soon. I’m sending this over to the AAA Colorful Challenge: Autumn Hues and to Darnell’s NBUS. 

Celebrate!!!

I must admit I’m pretty addicted to The Greetery’s product suites that revolve around their Capsule Basic products. I love the Party Scene dies and the Capsule Star Studded Borders that were released in May, and I think they are a great for any kind of celebration. I made this card awhile ago, but waited to post it until my friend received it.

The balloon and star panel were die cut from white cardstock and colored with finger daubers. I added a pinked frame die cut with silver matte cardstock and attached them to a pale blue panel with dimensional tape. That was added to a yellow card base. The sentiment was stamped and die cut with the Laid Back Basics Sentiments, also by The Greetery. Lastly, I added a few Iridescent Dew Drops by Pinkfresh Studio for a little sparkle.

This is off to A Cut Above (another challenge I often forget to link to considering how many of my cards rely on dies), Seize the Birthday (Anything Goes), and NBUS.

Gilded Glass

I’ve long been a fan of Art Deco, so when I saw Concord and 9ths Gilded Glass dies I didn’t hesitate to purchase them. After I made my first card, I decided to die cut multiple colors out all at once so I’d have different possibilities available when I wanted one. 

I’ve made two cards. For the first card I chose navy, a dark red, and an olive green inlaid with a gold metallic frame. The sentiment is from the accompanying stamp set embossed in gold. It makes a lovely and elegant card.

For the second card I chose a black frame, two hose of turquoise (or teal,) the olive green and dark red. This card feels more dramatic and more masculine to me. Once again, the sentiment is from the Gilded Glass stamp set.

The process of inlaying dies is quite relaxing for me, and I still have a stack of the die cuts to pull out when the mood hits. 

I’ve waited to post these until both cards arrived at their destinations. Both went off to very good friends–the first a woman and the second to a man.

For a long time, I neglected to link my birthday cards up with the Seize the Birthday Challenge, but I’ve been a lot more consistent recently. Their challenges always include an Anything Goes choice. The current challenge is Fall Colors, and although I think these use some fall colors, I’m linking up with the Anything Goes option. I’m also linking up to NBUS--another unused product put to good use–and not for the last time, I’m sure.

Happy Birthday!!!

Today is my sister-in-law’s birthday. We had breakfast with her and Tracy’s brother yesterday so I was able to hand deliver the card. The beautiful die cut is from Concord and 9th. I needed (wanted) a die for a Christmas stamp and some cardstock from Concord & 9th. Somehow the Layered Lotus stencils and die landed in my cart as well. I’ve yet to use the stencil, but the Layered Lotus flower is so pretty on its own. The pretty frame also came with the set. 

The inner piece of the frame was cut from C & 9th’s Powder cardstock and the larger “frame” from metallic gold. The flower was die cut from Almond cardstock and ink blended with Watermelon ink—a combination Carissa Wiley used in her introductory video. The leaves and stem were cut with Avocado cardstock and I added some ink blending with the same color ink. The center band was cut from Vintage Cream cardstock (Papertrey Ink) and backed with a narrow gold border. The sentiment is from The Greetery’s Oblong Octagon Labels. I’ve been struggling with light recently, so sadly the gold doesn’t shine in the photo.

The simple elegance of this card design makes it appropriate for so many occasions and it’s likely to be reproduced again. 

This is off to Seize the Birthday and Simply Clean & Simple where both challenges ca be Anything Goes, and to NBUS-it’s a new month over there.

Color Hues #142

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Stef had given us a color combination perfect for fall–and as you’ll see on the Color Hues Blog–any number of other ocassions.

This card is definitely not the card I intended to make. I knew I wanted to use the Magnolia Wreath from The Greetery, but the intent was to make a CAS card. This is not CAS! I also wanted to use one or more of the new Greetery products laying on my desk. That didn’t happen either, but it morphed into getting the Capsule Basics out and this where it ended up.

Most of my cards are A2 or square so a %X& shaped card is unusual for me. The first wreath was die cut using a piece of watercolor paper that was laying on my desk. I colored the leaves with Fossilized Amber and Lumberjack Red Distress Oxide Inks (which looks quite a bit brighter in the photograph than it does in person) and went back with a tiny brush to color the stems with Gathered Twigs. Using the Capsule Basics Large Borders I created the border with woodgrain paper and the Pretty Picado embossing folder.I chose Dark Chocolate cardstock for the center panel. When I laid the wreath on I realized I needed a second wreath as well as a Capsule Basics Filagree Border. I cut both from Kraft cardstock, and used some Gathered Twigs ink at the bottom of the leaves. 

I arranged the wreaths and then spent more than a little time trying to decide on a sentiment. I tried a variety of banners, but ended up adding a small sentiment on a circle die cut that nestled in among the leaves. Both the amber and red wreath and the sentiment were added with dimensional adhesive dots. I could have stopped there, but ended up using the largest of the Capsule Basic dies to create the card base.

So there you have it, a much more layered and detailed card that I usually create, but I’m quite happy with it. Be sure to visit the Color Hues Blog to see where our Guest Designer, Crystal, and the Design Team have created. And then, please join us in the gallery! 

This is off to two challenges: Seize the Birthday: Use Fall Colors and the TicTacToe Challenge: down the middle: Die Cuts, Free, Embossing.

Happy Birthday!

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Today is my oldest granddaughter’s fifteenth birthday. We celebrated last night because tonight she had horseback riding lessons. On Tuesday and Wednesday nights, she’ll play in varsity field hockey games. She’s busy, happy, and doing well in school. Here she is with her youngest sister this summer when they both were playing in regional field hockey tournaments.

I purchased the dies for her card because the black hair of the Super Woman reminded me of her beautiful long, black hair. And because, of course, I do think she’s super!

The You Are Super die is from Spellbinders. The background is the Reverse Confetti, Stitched Rays which has long been a favorite of mine. It was die cut with some white shimmer cardstock from Papertrey Ink. The starts and sentiment are also part of the You Are Super dies.

I added some dots of glitter with a Gelly Roll glitter pen. The panel was added to a sheet of black glitter paper from Pinkfresh Studio.

This is off to Seize the Birthday: Add a sentiment strip, A Cut Above: Anything Goes, and the September NBUS gallery.

Color Hues #141

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Welcome to a new Color Hues Challenge:

Sheri has chose a wonderful color combination, and I had a lot of fun with it. 

As you can see, the purples I chose are more toward blue than pink. I think purple may have one of the widest ranges of hues. I did experiment a bit with the purples, but I had a larger selection of inks to choose from leaning toward the blues.

Once again I went rummaging through my Pinkfresh Studio collection, and came upon another product I received for a Create and Connect event (August 2025) but never used. I wasn’t particularly inspired by the samples for this product, but I am a huge fan of it now.

Pinkfresh Studio has some of the best stencils in the industry. I chose four purple inks and one green to color this stunning Chrysanthemum Bloom image. Once the stenciling was done, I die cut it as well as die cutting the image from a sheet of fun foam for dimension. It’s been a long time since I used that technique and it worked wonderfully. 

You can see that dimension here in a closer look. The sentiment strip is from Altenew’s One Go Birthday Greetings and added with a piece of thin dimensional tape. 

Please check out the Color Hues Blog for lots of inspiration from the Design Team and our Guest Designer, Amanda.

We’ve been out of the country for the last two+ weeks. It was a fabulous trip, but I’m always ready to get back into the craftroom when I return. So many ideas. . . so little time! I’m sending this card off to three challenges: Seize the Birthday: Add a Sentiment Strip, Stencil Fun, and the September Pinkfresh Studio Challenge: Anything Goes.

Magical Fuchsias

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We almost always have a hanging pot of fuchsias on our side porch during the summer. When Alex Syberia released the Magical Fuchsia suite of products I knew I wanted them in my collection. Since my birthday was coming, I put them on my wish list. I received a very generous gift certificate, but by then, the products were out of stock. They were worth the wait. 

I’ve made three cards so far—two identical ones with the 3D embossing folder and stencil combo, and one with the Betterpress/Foiling Plate. I like both versions. There’s also a die set which I haven’t gotten to yet. 

The embossing folder also has a die that will cut out the whole branch. I foiled it first, colored it with the stencils, and then ran it through the embossing folder. Spellbinders Color Block Accent Arches made a pretty frame for this card. The sentiment was gold foiled on black cardstock with Spellbinder’s Fancy Sentiment Strips.

The embossing folder also has a die that will cut out the whole branch. I foiled it first, colored it with the stencils, and then ran it through the embossing folder. Spellbinders Color Block Accent Arches made a pretty frame for this card. The sentiment was gold foiled on black cardstock with Spellbinder’s Fancy Sentiment Strips.

The embossing folder also has a die that will cut out the whole branch. I foiled it first, colored it with the stencils, and then ran it through the embossing folder. Spellbinders Color Block Accent Arches made a pretty frame for this card. The sentiment was gold foiled on black cardstock with Spellbinder’s Fancy Sentiment Strips.

Color Hues #140

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Nancy is our hostess for the September 1st Color Hues Challenge. When I saw her color combo, Dusty Blue and Brown, I immediately thought of The Greetery’s 3D embossing folders that I’d seen embossed with brown woodgrain cardstock, so that’s where I started.

I’d like to say it came together quickly, but I started with one embossing folder, played around with some options, and then started over with the Pretty Picado suite of products. This is the first time I’ve used the Pretty Picado Stencils, and I also pulled out the Capsule Star Studded Borders for the first time. 

Once the border was embossed I swiped a bit of white ink over it to soften the color and enhance the beautiful embossed pattern.  I used a couple of different blue inks for the stenciling. For the star border, which I love and think I will use a lot, I chose Matte Silver cardstock. The silver embossed sentiment is from the Pretty Picado Stamp set and I added some tiny silver pearls for a bit of shine on the stenciled panel. This shaped card is bigger than an A2 card, but fits nicely in an A7 envelope.

Check out the Color Hues Blog for more inspiration my wonderful Design Team and our talented Guest Designer, Michele, and join us in the gallery. 

I’ll be away when this post goes live, but will send this off to the September NBUS Blog when I get a chance. It’s always good to use a couple more new products!

Another Punny Fish

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Earlier I made a card using Concord & 9ths Fish Friends stencils. There are also dies that will cut out the stenciled fish as well as dies that work on their own. This is a CASE of one of the cards on Concord & 9ths blog made by Carissa Wiley. 

I found a great piece of patterned paper to work as the water. It was a single sheet separated long ago from its paper pad so I have no idea where it came from. I added some ink blending to the bottom of the paper to darken the water. I trimmed the panel down just a bit so I had a narrow frame of the dark teal cardstock. I used scraps of C&9th cardstock to cut out the underwater plants and the fish, adding ink blending to all of them.

Once I had the placement figured out, I went to work on the sentiment. The one in the circle is from The Greetery’s Hey, Honeycomb Summer Sentiments and the sub sentiment is from the Something Fishy Sentiments, also by The Greetery. Finally I added quite a few Iridescent Dew Drops from Pinkfresh Studio for water bubbles.

This is my second card for the Seize the Birthday: Punny Sentiments Challenge. It’s off to NBUS as well. The is the debut of the Fish Friends dies and the Hey, Honeycomb . . . Sentiments. The Card Concept is hosting a dual challenge: Summer By The Sea and Christmas in July. I’ve entered twice with Christmas cards, but now I have Clean and Layered card for the summer challenge.

Birthday Fishes

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Two of my favorite challenges have coordinated challenges. At Just Us Girls it’s Water, and at Seize the Birthday the challenge is Punny Sentiments. Now they aren’t necessarily coordinated but I have the new Greetery Something Fishy Sentiments so I knew I could put the two together.

Initially, I had another card in mind, and if I have time, I’ll be back with another Punny Fish card. On Monday, however, I got together with two friends, and one of them let me die cut a few of the Something Fishy dies from The Greetery. I die cut them with white cardstock, and then colored them with a combination of ink blending and Copic markers. I love that the fish come with party hats included. I added some glitter to the pom-poms with a Gelly Roll Clear Star pen.

The background was stenciled with a variety of blue/aqua inks and the Simon Says Waves stencil on a panel of Concord & 9th’s Powder cardstock. Once that was done, I’ll out my Sheer Shimmer Sparkle spray and lightly sprayed the background. I like the sublte shimmer and the “water” spots. Tiny black pearls from Amuse were perfect for the fishes’ eyes. The fish were added to the card with thin dimensional tape

The sentiment was stamped with aqua ink on a piece of Powder cardstock and stacked with two additional sentiment dies. Finally the panel was added to a white card base. In addition to JUGS and Seize the Birthday, this is another card for the August NBUS gallery.

Pretty Picado on Repeat

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I don’t get tired of making these Pretty Picado birthday and anniversary cards. Just changing up the color scheme creates a whole different look. There were several pink and orange cared during The Greetery release in May, and I thought they were particularly festive. 


Die cutting takes care of all the elements of this card except for the stamped sentiments. The larger sentiment was stamped and then die cut with a coordinating die. The only trick to putting together this version of the card was being sure the white die cut layer matched the orange embossed layer perfectly. It took two tries. 


All the products work together seamlessly: Capsule Basics, Pretty PIicado die, Pretty Picado Embossing Folder, and the Pretty Picado Sentiments.

I’m sending this off to A Cut Above and Seize the Birthday—both to their Anything Goes category.


We’ve been busy the last two weeks. After the week in Rochester with my daughter and her family, we all came to Lake Diane in Michigan for a week. We haven’t had the best weather, but we’ve rented a large cottage with a variety of table games (ping pong, pool, etc) in the basement. I’m not terribly interested (or very good) at any of that, but I’ve finished two good books. Despite some rain every day (and some heavy downpours), no day was a total wash-out, so we were able to take a boat out, swim, and do some tubing every daylight. We head home tomorrow. 

Happy Birthday!

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Today is my daughter’s birthday, and lucky for us, she’s visiting this week. Her brother and his family are coming for dinner, and we’re having some family photos taken as well. 

I’m doing a much better than usual job of creating with recent purchases. One of the products I liked the most from the recent Greetery release was the Checked Out die. I thought it would be very versatile, and I’m convinced that I was right after making just one card! 

I die cut two from a bright blue cardstock and layered them over a cream card base. I pulled out The Greetery’s Best Bouquets Detail die that I enjoyed using for a recentColor Hues Challenge, this time with pretty yellow and blue flowers. I added some ink blending to the flowers as well as the leaves. This is a nother top notch product from The Greetery. The floral elements as well as the whole bouquet are so easy to assemble.

I wasn’t sure where I wanted to put the sentiment, and tried a variety of dies and banners, but once again, the Gold Foiled Black Greeting Tabs were the perfect answer. It’s elegant and doesn’t cover up much of the bouquet. All in all, it’s a quintessential summer bouquet for an August birthday,

This is off to the AAA Birthday Challenge: Flowers and to NBUS since this is the debut of the Checked Out die.

Woodblock Wednesday-July 2026

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It’s Woodblock Wednesday, and I’m on time this month! When I started this card I thought it would be a second entry into the current Paper Players Sketch challenge. These squares seemed too large for that sketch so I went in a totally different direction. 

The woodblock stamp is one of two sunflower designs by Annette Watkins. The other is a full sunflower, but was definitely too large for the challenge or even this card. After stamping the flower three times, I colored it with Copic markers and die cut each with one of Ellen Hutson’s Essential Squares. I love these dies because each one cuts a frame as well as the square. I thought the framing was especially nice with these flowers.

The striped pattern paper has long been separated from the 6X6 paper pad so I’m not sure of its origins. The sentiment was stamped in dark brown and is an old favorite from Papertrey Ink’s Banner Sentiments. The card base is 6 X 4.5.

Thanks, as always, to Amy for this monthly event. It’s a great reminder to look more closely at the woodblock stamps I saved. Must admit, I wish I’d saved a few more. 

Shortbread Shapes Tiled Birthday Card

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Knowing that the end of July through the middle of September is incredibly busy, I’ve spent most of my crafting time making sure my obligations to the Color Hues and Memory Box Design Teams are completed. Now what time I have can be spent on using some wonderful new products I’ve acquired this summer. 

The Greetery’s Shortbread Shapes: Rectangle Tiles was top on that list. I experimented with a few design ideas, but ended up with a monochomatic card that I’m quite happy with.


After die cutting the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle in Vintage Cream cardstock, I ran it through in the Shortbread Shapes: Rectangle Tiles 3D Embossing Folder. The details are so beautiful, the card doesn’t need much embellishment.


For the sentiment I die cut the Shortbread Shapes Rectangle Label and added just one of the embossed tiles narrowly framed with gold cardstock and a sentiment from the new Simple Everyday Mini Sentiments embossed in gold. I didn’t center  the sentiment top to bottom, so I added three Pinkfresh Studio Gold Pearls. That was a mistake that actually improved the card, and when I make another (as I surely will) the three gold pearls will be right there. 


This card is off to a very special event at Darnell’s NBUS site—be sure to click through to read about the amazing number of cards submitted from 2020 until today created with Never Before Used Stuff! I’ve contributed quite a few myself, but this is the first one for July. It’s also off to Seize the Birthday: Anything Goes.