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Flourished Christmas Tree

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It's not unusual for me to purchase a Christmas stamp, or in this case, a hot foil plate one year, and not put it to use until the following year. This Spellbinders hot foil plate, Flourished Tree, is one of those products. I spent an afternoon with my hot foil machine earlier this month, and am now getting them made into cards. I foiled three panels, so have three more cards in my stash.

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It's so pretty it didn't need any embellishment. I die cut it so I could have a red metallic border around it, and added one of Memory Box's Black Greeting Tabs. which work with so many designs and are a great time saver.

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I'm adding this to the gallery at AAA Cards: Anything Goes/Christmas and Festive Friday where I'm using red, green, glimmer, trees, and Christmas sentiment from the Inspo List. (It hits a lot of the boxes there!)

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CAS Christmas

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The Paper Players have a challenge that is right up my alley: CAS Christmas! I'm running close to the end of the challenge, but we were in Wisconsin for ten days helping Sarah while Adam was away for a week. 

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I purchased the foiling plate and dies for these Triangle Trees from Waffle Flower last year, and never got around to using them. They are perfect for a CAS Christmas card, but they are definitely a challenge to photograph. I have three variations on the theme:

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This one has an embossed gold sentiment from The Greetery's Tagged Elegance.

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The sentiment here is also from The Greetery, Sentiment Suite: Christmas.

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Just the same as above with two trees and a gold star punched with a very old punch and bumped out with a bit of dimensional tape.

I was happy to be in Wisconsin, and enjoyed being with Sarah, Caleb, and Hannah, but have to admit being away for 10 days in November puts a time crunch on getting ready for the holidays. I only have to provide pies for the Thanksgiving dinner, but Christmas looms in the not too distant future, and I am NOT at all prepared!

 

 

Festive Friends

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I've done a pretty good job resisting all the new holiday stamps and die cuts that have been released this year. I did break down and purchase the Festive Friends die cuts from Spellbinders. It was the October Die of the Month Club set so it was a great value. I just could not resist this cute bear wrapped in lights and his happy penguin friend. This is the first card, but it definitely won't be the last.

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I die cut most of the pieces from scraps of card stock. The bear's sweater was die cut with some patterned paper in my stash (no longer sure of the manufacturer,) 

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The background was created with Lifestyle Craft's tiny star embossing folder on gray cardstock. I added some dimension between it and the card base. The bulbs for the strings of light were die cut from silver glitter paper. 

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The star was die cut from gold metallic paper. All that glitter and gold led me to the Sparkling Holiday sentiment banner from Pinkfresh Studio which I embossed in silver.

I'm sending this off to the current Tic Tac Toe Challenge, where I went across the bottom row: Die Cut, Metallic Element, Festive Sentiment.

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Woodblock Wednesday-October

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It's the last Wednesday–and nearly the last day–of October, so time for Woodblock Wednesday.

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This month I chose one of my favorite autumn stamps of any kind, Annette Watkin's Pumpkin Harvest. It's one of the few woodblocks that I've always used with some kind of regularity. 

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This time I brought out the Copic markers. It's been awhile and it took a few tries before I got the hang of it again. Using X-Press Blending cardstock made a huge difference. 

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Once I finished coloring, I die cut the stamped panel and a black framing panel with Hero Arts Infinity Rounded Rectangles which I added to a card base of Orange Zest by Papertrey Ink. The white embossed sentiment is from Pink and Mains Special Day set. 

Thanks, always, to Amy Tsuruta, for hosting this fun challenge every month. There are three other challenges with pumpkin themes this month so the card is off to: The Card Concept: Pumpkin Season, Colorful Options: Orange, and Double D: Use a Pumpkin.

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Autumn Tags

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The Paper Players have a fun challenge-Clean and Simple: Add a Tag! I've always enjoyed making cards with tags so I wanted to play along. Since I need quite a few November birthday cards, I chose an autumn theme for both of my cards. 

I organize my stamps by theme so I have all my autumn stamps and dies in one place. When I flipped through them, I found some beautiful leaves that I had already colored from The Greetery's Curio Autumn Findings so I started there. I also have a pretty large collection of pre-made tags–all of which are years old. I picked out two different ones.

The first card uses a pretty standard dark kraft tag, and I arranged three of the leaves on it, adding a die cut sentiment in gold from The Greetery that I also found in the box. For the background, I chose a piece of Papertrey Ink's Rustic White cardstock and ran it through the die cutting machine with Altenew's Deck Plank 3-D Embossing Folder.  I stamped the sub-sentiment from Pink and Main's Special Day stamps in Dark Chocolate ink on a tag cut from the same cardstock. Adding a double bow from Altenew's metallic threads and a few gold pearls from Pinkfresh Studio finished off the card. 

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Although I would classify the first card as Clean & Simple, the second card is a much more Clean & Simple design. I have no idea where I picked up this tag, but I just love it, and it was perfect for a autumn card. I used two dies from Spellbinders' Essential Squares die and embossed them on another piece of Rustic White cardstock. I adhered the leaf with very thin dimensional tape, and stamped the sentiment from Gossamer Blue in Dark Chocolate ink. That stamp dates back to my scrapbooking days when I often purchased a monthly kit from a company. I don't think anything besides this stamp set has survived the multiple purges I've done since I quit scrapbooking. I trimmed that panel down and added it to a card base of Dark Chocolate (Papertrey Ink.) The autumn light is already causing problems with photographs. I couldn't get a sharp close-up photo for either card this afternoon. If you click on the photo, it will enlarge it a bit so the details are clearer.

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These cards are off to The Paper Players as well as Inkspirational where the challenge is Seasonal.

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Happy Halloween

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It's been taking longer than I expected to get my mojo back after our fabulous trip to Northern Italy, but I have managed to get all the Halloween cards completed that I need for my grandchildren. Not unexpectedly, there are a couple challenges looking for Halloween cards, two of which end today so I thought I'd best get busy and write the blog post. (Oops! Missed the deadline on one of these.)

The first card was created for my twelve year-old grandson. I thought he'd like the eerie feel to this stamp and stencil set by Taylored Expressions called Halloween Scene.

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I used some purple Distress Oxide inks and the My Favorite Things Clouds stencil to create the sky, adding some silver metallic ink splatters before stamping the bats. The stamp set comes in two parts, the jack-0-lanterns on the bottom and the sky with the bats for the top half of the card.  There's a stencil for adding the orange glow to the jack-o-lanterns. The sentiment is a die cut one from Papertrey Ink, Tricky Trio.

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The card ended up being 6X6, so I got out some Halloween paper left over from my scrapbook days, my Envelope Punch Board, and created an envelope for it. Hannah's card was created for an earlier Color Hues Challenge, and both of the cards went in a padded envelope to Wisconsin. Last year, I mailed both cards on the same day, but Caleb's card didn't arrive until two weeks after Halloween. Now the cards get mailed together in the same envelope.

I made three of the next card for the three girls here. They like getting the same card, and I know they'll be happy with this interactive one. Skylar's birthday card in September used some the The Greetery's honeycomb balls, and all three girls loved it. 

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The web in the background was stamped with Papertrey Ink's Caught in the Web stamp. All the rest of the products are from The Greetery. I used a double layer of dimensional tape to made the spider pop off the card.

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The sentiment is from the Hey, Honeycomb Sentiments and stamped on a Tear Strip Banner die. The directions for creating the spider's body were from the Hey Honeycomb Halloween sentiment set. The final touch was to add a few rhinestone stars to the background. 

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These cards are off to Just Us Girls who have a fabulous Halloween moodboard this week. 

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Clean and Simple Florals

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Knowing full well I'd be away when the latest Pinkfresh Studio Create & Connect event took place, I signed up anyway. The truth is I have a terrible time keeping up with the live videos. And too frequently, the card the designer is sharing is a bit over the top for my taste. By doing it this way, I could watch the videos and make some decision about what and how to create with the (always) fun product that comes with the class. 

In addition, I can watch the videos in any order I want. This time I started with a cling stamp, stencil, and die called Modern Botanicals. I colored two sets of the florals, knowing I want to eventually create the first card Kristina Werner designed for her class. For one set, however, I decided to make three CAS cards, using a variety of precut card fronts and dies I had in my stash.

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The black piece was dry embossed with The Greetery Crimped Circle dies. I thought I was going to use it on a previous card, but ended up putting it in my envelope of card fronts instead. I trimmed off the top and bottom and added a thin strip of black cardstock as a border, and added it to a bright pink card base. All the florals are from Modern Botanicals. The sentiment is a Betterpress one from Spellbinders' Always and Forever Sentiment Strips.

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The background for the next card was die cut and given to me by a friend several years ago, and I'm just now finding the perfect use for it. It's Scalloped Stackers: Medium from Papertrey Ink.

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Teal isn't a color I often choose, but it was perfect for this floral. I added a Stitched Circle from Simon Says and a another Betterpress sentiment from Always and Forever Sentiment Strips. I added some dimensional tape to it before adding it to the circle.

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The last card uses some Stitched Scallops from The Greetery. A friend loaned these dies to me, and I die cut a good stack of them in several colors. It didn't take me long to find a use for these.

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This sentiment, too, came from the same Betterpress plate by Spellbinders. I added some thin dimensional tape to the smaller Stitched Scallop for a little interest. I gave thought to embellishing all three with some pearls or enamel dots but in the end, decided I liked them as is. (Easier to mail, as well.)

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I'm sending these off to The Flower Challenge: Include a Stamped Image.

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We're off on our next adventure tomorrow. I have a group of posts written, and depending on my time and internet access, I may get a few posted. For sure the next Color Hues Challenge will go live on October 1. I gave some thought to totally getting off the internet while we were away until Tracy asked me how many emails I thought I'd have on my return. I shuddered at the thought. I'm taking my iPad so I can read my Kindle books on the flights, but because I usually use a laptop, I'm not terribly adept at using the iPad for much other than reading. 

 

 

Just A Note

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Yesterday I had time to create a card for three different challenges. The first is Addicted to CAS: Just a Note, and as soon as I saw the challenge I knew what I wanted to do. Then I realized that the card fit both Freshly Made Sketches and the Word Power challenges. I've never played along with the Word Power Challenge, so I was happy to finally have a card where the focus was on the words. This makes my second post for the day, but the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge ends today, so I couldn't wait. 

The card was created with just dies from The Greetery. I had already die cut and assembled some of the pens from the Pen Pal die, and I also had precut several panels from the Postal Frame die. All I needed to do was the stamp and die cut the fabulous sentiment from Scripted Sentiments.

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I liked this one so much I found two more assembled pens and created masculine cards with those. 

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What I really like about these cards are all the sub-sentiments that are included in Scripted Sentiments which means I can use these for birthdays, anniversaries, or encouragement cards–to name a few. I'm quite sure I'll come back to this design in the future. 

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Blue and Pink for Color Hues 95

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Cindy has a great color combo for us on the Color Hues Blog this round: 

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I pulled out two new products (NBUS) from Alex Syberia: Garden Tweets and Signature Tags for my card, and I'm really happy with how it came out.

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I chose two Papertrey Ink papers for the main blues: Blueberry Sky and Spring Rain. The foliage was die cut with one of my favorite neutrals: Soft Stone. The pinks all came from my scrap box as most of the die cut pieces were very small. After assembling the bird and flowers, I arranged them on one of the two large tags from the Signature Tags set cut from a piece of patterned paper in an older My Favorite Things paper pad, Road Tripper. I like the subtle light blue pattern which adds some interest but doesn't detract from the main images.

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After tying a bow with gold thread from Altenew, I added a sentiment that was hot foiled in gold with Spellbinders Better Press Plate, Fancy Sentiment Strips. I used some dimensional tape under the sentiment strip, and adhered the tag to a card base of Spring Rain cardstock. 

There's always a lot of inspiration from our Guest Designer and the Design Team at the Color Hues Blog, so hop over and see what might inspire you to join us in the gallery.

This is off to Darnell's NBUS Challenge.

 

 

With Sympathy

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I don't tend to make sympathy cards ahead, so when I need one in a hurry I head to my envelope of card fronts or embossed panels. This time I found two pieces I had previously embossed with embossing folders, so made two cards. Now I have one in the stash.

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Altenew's Magnolia Ballerina 3D Embossing Folder is so beautiful, it needs no embellishment. I decide to off set the oval and trimmed off the excess.Then I added a simple die cut sentiment from The Greetery's All Occasion Script Sentiments which I embossed in gold.

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Gina K's Tapestry Embossing Folder is also beautiful. I cut down the panel, and added a narrow gold border and then used dimensional tape to add it to a white card base. For this card I used an already gold foiled sentiment from Spellbinders, You Are Everything set. I did add three gold pearls from Pinkfresh Studio.

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These will be two more entries into the Can You Handle the Pressure Challenge and I'm also adding them to the AAA Card Challenge that's looking for CAS sympathy or get well cards. 

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Just Because

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My blogging friend, Darnell, posted a card using Altenew's Streamlined Sprig die for her I.D.E.A.S. project–D is for dies. When I saw it, I told her I'd try to get a card up that week, but it's taken longer than I anticipated. But looking at the current challenges I saw two that might help me get this die into use. Time Out Challenges: Friendship or Encouragement, and Can You Handle the Pressure? I'm not using the Optional Leaves theme, but it's always using an embossing folder. I had one of those in my NBUS box along with the Altenew die. 

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I have to admit I just love this die. The die includes the stem and outline but separate die for the fillers behind. I chose my colors from scraps in my scrap box, and did some ink blending for dimension.

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The graphic nature of the embossing folder (Spellbinders' Geo Screen) was just perfect for this stylized flower. 

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The sentiment is a Betterpress one also from Spellbinders, You Are Everything.

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Hope you are having a day filled with sunshine! It's cool here, but very bright and likely to warm up by the afternoon.

Color Hues #94

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I knew September would show up long before I was ready to say goodbye to summer. I remember Tracy once saying that now that we're retired "it's  endless summer." Sadly, not. I will miss the long hours of sunshine, the pretty flowers in my yard and garden, and the warm weather. It will still be nice for a few more weeks, but once Labor Day arrives, summer seems to end for me.

Knowing fall is on its way, Carol has a wonderful color challenge for us at the Color Hues Challenge blog:

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For this challenge, especially, remember that this is a color hues challenge so there's always room for a variety of hues. I chose two hues of cardstock for rust and two hues of green. I also included some dark brown and white–neutrals are always welcome. I immediately thought of two die sets in my NBUS box:  Spellbinders' The Botanical Solarium and Altenew's Through the Window. 

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After die cutting all the elements, I added a bit of ink blending to the greenery and backed the window with a piece of cloud vellum. When I started to consider what I could use I remembered some of this, but I had no idea if there was any left. I had plenty for the window, and enough for several more when I use this die again. 

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I had several contenders for a rust card base but chose Papertrey Ink's Terra Cotta Tile. The rust cardstock for the pots is Gina K's Rusty. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things, Sunflower Sweetheart. The only embellishments were the pearls for the flower centers and one for the butterfly. I had a few die cuts left over, and decided to use a few of them on the inside:

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The sentiment here is from My Favorite Things Sweet Birthday Wishes. I'll bet there are a few stamps or die in your collection that would make for a great entry to our Rust and Green gallery. Be sure to check on the Color Hues Blog for more inspiration, and come join us!

As noted above, this card definitely benefited from my NBUS box, so it will be an early entry to Darnell's September NBUS challenge. I'm also adding it to the gallery at Addicted to Stamps and More: Die Cuts and Stencils.

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Pinkfresh Studio August Challenge

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I was excited to see the theme of the Pinkfresh Studio Challenge this month: Washi tape. I immediately knew what I wanted to use, but had to wait until my friend received the card before posting it.

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I hadn't pulled out the beautiful, gold enhanced Pinkfresh Studio Washi tape, Sunflowers, in a very long time. They are perfect for a summer birthday. I used a card design I learned from Anett Gelencsér during the Create & Connect event held in February. It creates a middle portion that "pops up" when the card is released from the envelope.

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To create the card, we used two of the Notched Corner Frame dies as well as the Stitched Octagons coverplate. I did some light yellow ink blending on the coverplate die and chose two dies from the washi tape collection to decorate the frame. You can see the dimension better in the photo below.

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The sentiment is also from Pinkfresh, Perfect Sentiments, hot-foiled in gold. 

I have more Pinkfresh Studio washi tape, but my crafting time for August is just about up, so another entry is probably unlikely. We're off to Michigan this weekend with our daughter and her family, and then to visit with friends we met on our tour of Portugal and Spain last year.  So many ideas, so little time!

 

Color Hues #92

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Another month has flown by, and we're at the top of August already: time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Stef has chosen:

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Last month, Jill Foster for Penny Black presented ten videos in a series call "Permission to Play." Each video featured a different layout design, and I chose the layout from the second video.

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You'll quickly realize I made one major change, using a circle frame rather than an oval. Much to my surprise, I didn't have any decorative oval frames, and no circle ones that I was happy with either. I ended up creating my own using one design from Pinkfresh Studio's Braided Circles and using one of the Ellen Hutson Essential Circles.

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I've always love Penny Black's hedgie images, but only own one set. This cute critter rushing off with his package is from the Critter Delight set, and is one I've owned for a long time. Jill Foster used watercolors for all the images in her 10 video series, but I chose Copic markers for this guy.  After adding some ink blending to the background circle, I added the frame with dimensional tape.

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The sentiment from The Greetery's Inflated Sentiments was curved to fit inside the frame (and doesn't look as close to the frame IRL.) I added a small butterfly (an embellishment used by Jill on several of her cards.) I didn't have a small die so fussy cut this one from an older Papertrey Ink set, Life is Beautiful. 

There's lots to see at the Color Hues Blog so hop over and take a look at the creative designs by the Design Team. 

Pinkfresh Studio Challenge: Geometric

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The Pinkfresh Studio Challenge this month is Geometric. There's a lovely inspiration board, but fortunately you can use the photo, the colors, or the theme. I definitely went with the theme.

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The PFS geometric stamps and hot foil plates are some of my favorites. I reach for them time and time again, and especially when making cards for guys. This one fits the bill.

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This time I foiled the Quadrant Backdrop in gold on black cardstock. It really packs a punch, I think. The sentiment is Simon Says It's Your Birthday, cut from gold metallic cardstock.

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Aside from a narrow gold metallic frame, this card didn't need any embellishment.  In addition to the Pinkfresh Challenge, this card is off to Inkspirational: Use products from 2 or more companies, and Addicted to Stamps and More: Birthdays. 

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