I've been trying to complete all the cards I need for the many birthdays and anniversaries of friends and family that occur in May. The last two I needed to do were for anniversaries, and both cards meet the challenge at Mark's Finest Paper where the challenge is to create an anniversary card. The first is based on the Waltzing Mouse Sketch Challenge so I'm posting it there as well.

The cardstock is Simply Chartruese (Papertrey Ink) and a pale yellow (looks cream here) by Memory Box. The bottom half is embossed with a Sizzix embossing folder (I think it's called Snow Flowers). The stamps are Very Vintage Labels 4 by Waltzing Mouse Stamps and the greeting is from Fillable Frames #4 (Papertrey Ink). The ribbon is Simply Chartreuse. the pearls are Reflections (Michaels), and the heart pin came in a Scrapbook Circle kit.

This card was based on a simply beautiful card I found here by Heather Jensen. I love the Sending You stamps and dies (Papertrey) and used the same cardstock and ribbon that was lying on my desk from the previous card. The patterned papers are DeLovely by Cosmo Cricket, and the sentiment is the same as above as well. The leaves are a Sizzix die "Branch with Leaves" which I cut into two pieces. I have all the May cards addressed and in my bag to mail at the appropriate times when we're on our trip.

This week's challenge at Papertrey Ink was to use a die as a mask. It's not something I think to do often and it took me the better part of the week to come up with an idea. I ended up liking the card quite a bit, and think I'll try the technique more often. It occurs to me that this also fits the challenge for a collage card at Mark's Finest Papers.

I'm in love with these beautiful "Butterfly Garden" papers by Pinkpaislee which I stitched around and adhered to a piece of Sweet Blush cardstock. I cut a mask with the dress form die and inked it twice, overlapping the images. I used Tim Holtz's Distress Inks, "Antique Linen" and "Milled Lavendar" on the first, and "Broken China" on the second. Then I die cut another dress form from the patterned paper and layered it on top inking around the edges with "Broken China Distress Ink". The buttons and silk ribbon are from Papertrey as is the "Tiny Tag" with the sentiment.

I just recently discovered the challenges at Mark's Finest Papers. This week's challenge is to use the emboss resist technique. It's been a long time since I used this technique, but on Monday I purchased a few bottles of Tim Holtz's Distress Stains and thought it would be fun to try them. The card came together really quickly.

I started by stamping the floral image from Unity's Insightful Meadows with Top Boss ink and embossing it with clear embossing powder. Then I applied Antique Linen Distress Ink, but wanted more color. Fired Brick certainly solved that problem! I tore the sides of the image and adhered it to a card made from Fine Linen (Papertrey Ink). The sentiment is also from Insightful Meadows. I hand cut it and used Papertrey Ink's Chamomile Tea Dye ink to distress it before adhering it with dimensional adhesive.

I missed participating in last week's Make-it Monday at Papertrey Ink. I had this beautiful patterned paper from Emma's Shoppe by Crate Paper laying on my desk after finishing a scrapbook layout so decided to get busy with this week's challenge:  heat embossing. The card is so simple, you'd think it came together in no time, but it was one of those cards that had multiple iterations before I ended up with this:

I heat embossed the sentiment from Signature Greetings, one of my all time favorite sets from Papertrey Ink. The cardstock is also from PTI–Hibiscus Burst and Sweet Blush. I found a jar of these beautiful roses on clearance at Michaels last week. It needed a bit of color so I misted it with Tattered Angels Creme de Rouge. The trim is from my stash and colored with a RV32 Copic marker.