I'm honored and surprised every time I win a challenge, but I was super-excited to win at Seize the Birthday! Although I don't participate as often as I could, it's always been one of my favorite card challenges and is run by one of my favorite card makers. So this win was a special one, and now I'm thrilled to be the Surprise Party Guest for the current challenge!

The challenge this round is a great one–right up my alley:

It didn't take me long to come up with a plan. One of my favorite embossing folders (dry embossing) is Altenew's 3-D Magnolia Ballerina. I chose to emboss an arch die cut from Ellen Hutson's Essential Arches. I die cut the arch and then placed it in the embossing folder exactly where I wanted the design to be. I used Fluid Cold Press watercolor paper which I dampened slightly using a baby wipe before embossing. I love the way it came out.

I then recut the arch from black cardstock and added just the frame when I adhered the floral to a card base created with the same watercolor paper. I embossed the greeting from Pinkfresh Studio's Nothing But the Best with rose gold embossing powder (wet embossing) on black paper and die cut it, adding it to the card with a bit of dimensional tape.

I love the depth of 3-D embossing folders ,and this one is especially gorgeous. I used a Jane Davenport Golden Age Ultimate Colour pen to add some gold to the centers of each flower. Although the floral takes up most of the card, I think this turned out to be a very Clean and Simple design–one I'm sure to use again. I'm also a fan of the watercolor paper–thanks to Cécile Ribon who kindly answered my question about what kind of paper she uses. It has a beautiful, though subtle, texture. 

Be sure to hop over to Seize the Birthday and add a card to the gallery! If you're like me, birthday cards are one of the most frequent cards you make.

I'm sending this one on to two other challenges where they are looking for birthday cards: Double D and The Paper Players.

In November, my entry into the Tic Tac Toe Challenge was the Designer's Pick, and today is my turn at guesting with them. As soon as I saw the new Tic Tac Toe board, I knew I had a perfect opportunity to create a birthday card for my husband.

Tracy was born on St. Patrick's Day, so the middle row (Die Cut, Green, and Layers) worked perfectly. I had already settled on the die and stamp set I wanted to use before I saw this board, but it worked out perfectly.

I've owned this You're My Type from Sugar Pea Designs for several years. A friend borrowed it once and made a card, but I'd never used it before. I die cut the typewriter in three colors: green, gray, and matte silver. 

After assembling the typewriter and message, I remembered an old Impression Plate, Book Plate, by Papertrey Ink. You can see the typewriter style words embossed on the light gray layer. I opted for a narrow green border before adding the main panel to a darker gray card base. The hearts were added to coordinate with the inside greeting:

The stamp set didn't come with quite the message I wanted so I used the computer to generate the sentiment which I die cut with Hero Arts Infinity Heart dies.

There are lots of ways to play Tic Tac Toe this time, and I hope you'll join it. 

Time usually goes by quickly for me, but it seems amazing that today is my last post as the February Guest Designer for Just Us Girls. It's been a real pleasure, and I received such a warm welcome from their Design Team. The last challenge of the month is a Clean and Simple Challenge asking for coloring.

And that's right up my alley! The only decision was what to choose. Another of the stamps I discovered as I was working on an inventory of my stamps was Flowers in Bloom from My Favorite Things. I love these poppies, and it's been a long time since I colored them. They lend themselves beautifully to a CAS design.

I love poppies and especially the red/orange ones that grow in the George Eastman gardens during the summer. We don't get enough sunshine for poppies in our yard, but I've photographed the ones at the Eastman Garden multiple times. 

I pulled out my Copics for this one, and I'm very happy with the results. I added some black gel pen to the stamens which give just the slightest bit of dimension. The beautiful sentiment is from The Greetery's Spring Mix. All that was needed was adhering it to a card base created with Gina K's Asparagus cardstock—another favorite of mine.

I'm quite sure there will be a lot of great inspiration from the Just Us Girls Design team. This is really a very open challenge–so many ways to interpret it. I hope you'll find just the right thing and join in the fun. Thanks again to the JUGS team for inviting me to play along this month! I've had a great time.

I'm also entering this in the CAS on Friday Challenge: Flowers.

I'm honored to be the Guest Designer at the Christmas 25 Card Throwdown Challenge this time around. The challenge is their Technique Challenge, and it is a bit of a challenge since I don't often made pop-up cards. 

As usual, I tried a couple different things and had a pop-up card I thought I'd share, but then I tried something totally different which I like so much better! I turned to My Favorite Things, "Present Time." One of the things I particularly like about this set was how well two of the sentiments worked for the outside and inside of the card. 

I used the largest of The Greetery's Nordic Circles for the front of the card. I started by coloring all the snowmen and the trees with Copic markers and die cutting them. I used three of the snowmen for the front and arranged them behind two snowdrifts die cut with Papertrey Ink's "In the Meadow–Snow and Hill" dies. The white embossed sentiment is adhered with some dimensional tape.

I love the inside sentiment–finally!–the presents can be opened! These happy snowmen and the tree were arranged behind some snowdrifts as well. When the snowmen are popped up, the inside sentiment appears. I'm quite sure this card would appeal to any one of my five grandchildren, but I think I'll need four more interactive cards if one of them gets this one.

Thanks to the DT at Christmas 52 Throwdown for the opportunity to guest with them. It's been a lot of fun.

I'm delighted to be the Guest Designer for this week's Tic Tac Toe Challenge. Here's the board for the challenge:

I chose the diagonal from top left: Stencil, Any Sentiment, Berries. I had the perfect stencil for this: Pinkfresh Studio's  "Holiday Botanical Background." I actually made three versions of the card before I arrived at this one, my favorite:

I used four different green inks for the leaves and holly: PFS Fresh Pear, Key Lime, and Olive. The darkest green was Papertrey Ink's Pinefeather. For the red berries I used PFS Berrylicious and added a touch of Candy Apple. After stenciling, I die cut the panel with one of the nested dies in Hero Arts "Infinity Rounded Rectangles," and layered it onto a red card base.

Neither photo truly shows the pretty shine and dimension of the translucent Glaze that I added to the berries. The last touch was to take a white gel pen and add some details to the berries and the leaves. In fact, the photo almost makes it look like some of the gel pen was streaked across the berries–not! that's the reflection from the light. The beautiful sentiment is from Waffle Flower–a premade foiled sentiment from the set "Essential Christmas." I purchased two sets in gold and two in silver–one of the best investments for holiday cardmaking I've made so far this year.

Thanks so much to the TTTC team for choosing my card as a Designer's Pick and the honor of guesting for this challenge!

It's the fifth Saturday of the month, so it's Wild Card Week at JUGS, and my last week as Guest Designer. Thanks to the DT at JUGS for giving me this honor. I've truly enjoyed it!

They're looking for WORD die cuts, so I turned to one of my all-time favorites from Savvy Stamps. I think I've had this in my Christmas collection for over five years—maybe a lot longer than that. 

As usual, capturing the glitter on a card is difficult. JOY is die cut with some beautiful silver glittery paper, and each of the snowflakes was coated with the Spectrum Noir clear glitter pen. Clicking on the image should enlarge it, so the glitter might be easier to see. 

The beautiful snowflakes are from My Favorite Things "Stylish Snowflakes," and the silver embossed sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Sending Joy." Once again I used Gina K's "Master Layout 1" dies to cut the snowflake panel and the narrow silver border. 

Hop on over to the JUGS blog to see what the Design Team has to share!

I've become a fan of the rotating challenges at JUGS: colors, trends, words, photos, and occasionally a wild card week. This week is the photo challenge:

I was inspired by the color of the flowers and the wooden tray and table.

The cluster of flowers on Simon Says "Thankful Flowers" seemed to be a good fit. I stamped them on Arches Cold Press watercolor paper and watercolored them with my Daniel Smith watercolors. I decided to fussy cut just around the bottom flower and then carefully cut to the edges with a craft knife. That allowed me to layer the woodgrain paper beneath the flowers.

I added a narrow strip of black cardstock to separate the watercolored flowers from the woodgrain paper.

A sentiment banner from Taylored Expressions "Sentiment Strips" finished it off. I found a bronze metallic envelope from a Simon Says kit which goes well with the card, so the recipient will get a little glitz along with the card. 

Take a look at what the Design Team has created at Just Us Girls this week.

I am thrilled to be the Guest Designer for the month of October at the Just Us Girls Challenge. Ever since I discovered it in August, it's been a favorite challenge site, so it's going to be lots of fun to play along as the GD for a month. 

This week's challenge is:

I figured I had lots of plaid patterned papers to choose from, but I was wrong! I had very few, and although my initial idea was to create a Christmas card with a red plaid background, you can see that I didn't end up there at all. I am, however, really happy with what I found.

This awesome black and white plaid came from The Stamp Market's "Color Crush" collection. Once I got the triangles cut out, I added a narrow strip of black cardstock along the edges. 

The die cut sentiment is also from The Stamp Market, "Handwritten Hellos," and despite the very thin die cut word, it's remarkably easy to attach to the black shadow. The white embossed sentiment is from W+9's "Handlettered Thanks." The plaid is so bold that I decided against any embellishments, which will also make the card masculine-friendly.

Do hop over to the Just Us Girls blog to see what the Design Team has come up with!