Sometimes creating a card comes easily; other times not so much. Today was a not.so.much. day, but I'm pretty happy with the overall outcome. Friday I spent some time with two stampers and had a chance to play around with some stamps and dies I don't own. It always turns out to be useful; usually I find some things I wish I had, and other times I discover I really don't need or want a stamp set I had on my "wish list." This time is worked both ways. The flowers on this card are from the Ink to Paper "Many Anenomes" set. I loved a lot of what I saw during the release, but decided after playing around with them, it was not a set I needed. I did stamp a few on Bristol cardstock, and last night watercolored some for the current Color Throw Down challenge: Blue, Orange, and Gray. Blue and orange flowers were easy to create, but it was adding the gray that turned out to be the real challenge. I tried all kinds of papers and dies, and finally settled on a piece of beautiful patterned paper by Pink Fresh Studio. 

The Geometrix Hexagon die I used from Ink to Paper was not on my list. It makes a delicate CAS frame which I like quite a lot, so it may eventually find a home here. The sentiment and banner are from the new Greetery release. I was given a gift certificate for The Greetery for my birthday, and have purchased several sets. Betsy Veldman was one of my favorite designers for Papertrey Ink, and her new company has a lot to offer already. This is the "Sentiment Suite:  Birthday" set, and comes with a great assortment of tag and banner dies that hold the sentiments perfectly.

In addition to the Color Throw Down challenge, I'm also entering it in the Seize the Birthday: Cover the Card (that's the topping,) and Simon Says: Anything Goes.

Last night our interfaith book group had a special guest who shared a wealth of knowledge with us. I wanted to write her a thank you note, and pulled out a new Altenew set I just purchased during a sale at Ellen Huston. After one use, I'm pretty sure you'll be seeing a lot of "Weekend Doodles." I love the sketchy look of the flowers and they are beautifully arranged, and perfect for coloring. This afternoon I decided to pull out my Copic markers, and chose the colors based on the monthly Altenew Challenge.

I didn't have quite the same purple as the stripe behind the photograph, but if you look at the pansies, you will see a more traditional purple which I used in the flowers.

The design of the card was also dictated by a challenge: the AAA Card Challenge: One Corner and Optional Twist: Flowers. I've got both of those.

After coloring the flowers, I die cut them and added some dimensional tape before adding them to the white cardstock where I had already stamped the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Thank You Kindly." 

I tried a variety of tiny embellishments, but in the end, decided to leave it truly CAS, and just added it to a top-folded card of Ripe Avocado.

I'm off to check out the other entries at these challenges.

The Library Challenge is an interesting one. The challenge is based on a book cover, and you can use the cover art, the title, or the story as your inspiration. In this case, I'm using the title.

Not long ago I purchased two dies from Reverse Confetti: the "On the Curve" cover plate, and "Over the Rainbow." The design team for Reverse Confetti highlighted multiple ways to creatively use the cover plate, and I'm always looking for interesting dies that might appeal to grandchildren. A rainbow seemed like a good choice. As it turns out, my first card with these dies went to an adult cousin who loved it! 

Admittedly, it took a bit of time to cut the cover plate from so many different colors of cardstock, but I now have a stash of bright colors all cut for the next card. Once I had the colored pieces, I die cut the cover plate from Select White cardstock and inlaid all the pieces. This was made much easier by applying a sheet of Stick It behind the die so that each strip immediately adheres to the background. 

The next step was to die cut the cute clouds and sun from the "Over the Rainbow" set, which does include the die for a much smaller rainbow. I did some ink blending around the sun rays and popped up the center of the sun and the clouds on the cardbase.  The sentiment is from Simon Says "Best Ever" set which I curved on an acrylic block to add to one of the rainbow stripes. I'm pretty sure I'll be using these dies for birthday cards as well as thinking of you cards. Who could resist smiling at such a bright and cheery card?

Yesterday we celebrated my mother-in-law's upcoming 90th birthday with a party for about 75. She knew about the party, but had no idea how many family members and friends would show up for it. Tracy's sister was the mastermind and planner for the event which she and her siblings had catered. It was a gorgeous day, and the event room where Ellie has her condo was the perfect spot for it. A nice big room that opened up onto a patio with lots of grassy lawn for the great-grandchildren who ranged in age from one to eight.

Here's Mom before the doors opened. You can see the stunning cake on the right, and the family tree that Tracy put together in the center.

Here she is with her five children and two step-children. Tracy (standing behind his mom) is the oldest of five born within five years! Bobbi and Marcy (on the left) are the daughters of Ellie's second husband. 

Making a card for this momentous occasion was a lot of fun. Jill had decided on black, white, and lime green as the color scheme for the party (Mom's favorite colors), so that's where I started. I also knew I had exactly the right stamp set and dies for the card: Papertrey Ink's "Big Birthday Wishes" and "By the Number."

After die cutting the numbers, I layered the top piece on a piece of patterned paper from Reverse Confetti's paper pad, "Fun Times." It's a pretty appropriate title, as yesterday was definitely in the "fun times" category.

I'm linking this card up at Seize the Birthday without the optional twist this time.

There were two anniversaries in May to celebrate: my brother-in-law and sister-in-law celebrated their 40th anniversary and Sarah and Adam celebrated their 13th anniversary. I made both couples the same card–a near total CASE of this card. 

As soon as I saw the Simon Says "Deco Heart" die, I knew I'd want to own it. I already had the very similar stamp set which has been a favorite all along–see here and here. The patterned paper is from MFT "Black and White Stripes," and the sentiment from Hero Arts "Everyday Sayings." I typically wouldn't post such a close CASE but my real reason for the post today are two anniversary cards that were created from the scraps and left-overs on my desk when I finished the one above.

I had one black die cut left, and cut a white heart as a frame for it, layered on a Pure Poppy card base. Same sentiment as above. 

I also had a white die cut heart and mounted it on a red heart. This time I used a premade card that came with a Simon Says kit some time ago.

I added a thin border of red cardstock on the inside of the card to accentuate the scallop on the bottom of the card. It's not often I get two more cards from the left-overs on the desk, but it worked out well this time.

I'm linking this up to the Wednesday Simon Says Challenge: Wedding/Anniversary.

Father's Day was celebrated here yesterday. This post was ready to go, but after celebrating with Matt and Betsy at her dad's and a long Face Time call with Sarah and her family, we got busy and it just didn't happen.

I'm always happy to make cards for three of the best dads I know–Tracy, Matt, and Adam. All three are hard-working, affectionate, loving, and kind. They've all been totally involved with raising their kids, and put in lots of quality time with them. I made three of the same card this year using Pink Fresh Studio's "Adore" alphabet die. The die cuts two images-a very thin outline and a chunky inner letter. 

I layered three of each letter and outline to provide some texture–once with Simon Say's "Smoke" and once with "Slate." To get enough of them for three cards, meant die cutting 54 letters, but I love the contrast so it was well worth it. After assembling the letters I arranged them on a piece of Simon Says "Fog" cardstock die cut with Simon Says "Stitched Rectangles." The sentiment was white embossed on black cardstock with a sentiment from W+9's "Super Star" set which has been a go-to for masculine cards for many years.

I attached the sentiment with dimensional tape, and then adhered the cardfront to a card base made of Simon Says "Slate" cardstock. Another CAS design that I hope all three will like.

I'm linking this up to the "Father" challenge at Addicted to CAS. It's been awhile since I played along with this challenge, and this is clearly CAS!

I have a birthday card to link up with two challenges. The first is a new challenge to me called The Library Challenge. Being an avid reader, I'm intrigued by this challenge which uses books as the inspiration. There are two current challenges open, and I'm joining in with "The Art of Stripes."

I'm also entering it in the Seize the Birthday Challeng: Anything Goes.

The Simon Says June Card Kit is wonderful—filled with leafy frames, flowers, and branches just calling out to be colored. I pulled out my Copic markers for this card.

After coloring the circular wreath, I fussy cut it out, and die cut a "Stitched Circle" from Simon Says for the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Day Dreamers."  I also die cut a piece of Carta Bella 'Botanical Gardens" patterned paper which also came with the June kit. After layering it on a white card base, I added the wreath, with dimensional tape.

The only embellishment was a few drops of Nuvo Crystal Drops that came with a previous kit.

Although I have a ways to go to perfect this technique, I finally gave no-line watercoloring a try. I used Ink on 3 for the stamping, and I was pleased with the way it worked. I used my MISTI to stamp the images, and that was a good decision as both needed a double stamping in order to be seen well enough. The lines remained clear until I touched them with the watercolor brush. Several days transpired between stamping and watercoloring the leaves.

Once again I used the Altenew 36 pan watercolor set which has wonderful colors for flowers, mixing together a couple of pinks, and using two different greens for the leaves. The stamped images are from my recent favorite set, Simon Says "Delicate Flowers." I fussy cut the flowers after watercoloring, but ended up ordering the dies when I got a coupon code for Simon Says, and waited for them to arrive before die cutting the leaves. The circular mat was die cut with Papertrey Ink's "Shape Shifter Circle #1," using just the two outer dies.

The sentiment is from a new set from Waffle Flower, "Label Greetings." I couldn't resist the font or the narrow border around the sentiment. I embossed it in white on the same Raspberry Fizz cardstock as the card front.

The final embellishment were three small white pearls.

Entering this at AAA Birthday Challenge: Use Watercolors.

I'm also linking this up to the sister challenge AAA Cards for their 5th birthday celebration. This gets in just under the wire!