Birthday Sugar Skull

I had so much fun making my framed Sugar Skull that I just had to make some cards using the same mix of paper-piecing and glow-in-the-dark glitter.

My dear friend form college has a birthday coming up, on Halloween. It's always a fun challenge for me to incorporate that two events into one card, and since he moved to L.A. recently (and loves Mexican culture), I used the  Framed Sugar Skull digi stamp by Dilly Beans to make this acetate-flap card:

For the presents in the eyes, I grabbed a clip art image off the web. The flower & leaves are colored with Copics, but the flower on the skull is covered with yellow flocking & the leaves are covered with green.

The nose & skull are covered in blue glitter. I adhered the glitters & flocking my running the cut pieces through my sticker machine. So easy, and it really sticks!

I used a Spellbinders die to cut the banner from copper foil, and heat-embossed the Dilo en Español sentiment stamp in white.

I couldn't get a good photo of the skull glowing, so please see my other glow-in-the dark card.

There are three layers of paper on the inside on the card, and although I glue the acetate to the paper (with a flap), I machine-sewed it all together with glittery thread.

Inspiration/Challenges:
Celebrate the Occasion Challenge #84: Male Birthday (must be a tall card)
Dilly Beans: Cute & Creepy
One Crazy Stamper: Clear or acetate

Update: This card was chosen as one of the winners for Celebrate the Occasion Challenge #84. Thank you!

Update: I won a free stamp from One Crazy Stamper. Thank you!

Thank you for visiting,

Pile It On #03 - Fuzzy Friends

Pile It On is sponsored this week by Di's Digi Downloads with the theme of "Fuzzy Friends" so I used her adorable Daffodil Fun digi, which is only $2 and has so many fun crafting possibilities. I made a birthday card appropriate for a child (for the Celebrate the Occasion Challenge), using my NEW Big Shot machine and Spellbinder's dies. Thanks Mom & Dad & Santa!!! I love its emboss/cut function (also qualifies this card for the Use Your New Stash challenge at Ladybug Crafts).

I actually printed this twice and fussy cut the colored image and glued it on top to give it some dimension. The image is colored with watercolor crayons, which give some a great effect! I even added a shadow in crayon behind the sentiment piece, which is raised with pop-foam.

Challenges:
Pile It On #3: Fuzzy Friends

Celebrate the Occasion Challenge #45: Child's Birthday

Ladybug Crafts Challenge #51: Use your new stash

Be sure to check out the gorgeous cards from the Pile It On DT and join us!

Autumn Camus #1

Paper Makeup recently offered a Wordart freebie with a lovely quote by Albert Camus: "Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower." A sentiment so nice, I used it thrice! (Thank you Paper Makeup!) I'll be posting the other two soon.

This was the first card I made; I really wanted to make a vase with leaves in it, so I cut a vase with my Cricut using the Walk In My Garden cartridge, and added some stamped & colored leaves.I wasn't working with a set color theme, but the main images are on kraft paper, and the off-white background is a leaf-embossed cardstock.

The window element was actually an afterthought... it seemed like a nice way to set the scene, and it gave me a chance to incorporate the cute carved tree digi stamp by SJ's Little Musings (see more photos below).

I cut the window frame on the Cricut, but everything else was done with punches.

I'm entering this card into the Forever Autumn Oldie But Goodie Challenge as well as the Fall challenge at Celebrate the Occasion. One of the requirements at the Oldie bu Goodie Challenge is to use a stamp older than 6 months... I've had the tree digi stamp about 8 months, and the leaf stamps are years old!

That's my not-so-mini schnauzer Allen in the photo above. Here's the card closed:

And the inside:

Hope everyone is doing well. The weather is acting up all over the world it seems; sending you all warm, dry, and safe wishes!

Stamping celebration

I'm all about butterflies now that I have my Stampin' Up! stamp set with matching punch. I especially love how you can easily stamp on both sides.

I always check out the challenges at Flutter By Wednesdays, but since you must include a butterfly or fairy or angel and I have few of those stamps for some odd reason, I was really excited to be able to participate in their current Celebrate! theme.

Feeling celebratory, I also followed the sketch at Celebrate the Occasion (right).

It's difficult to see some of the details in this photo. The top section was created by punching 2 butterflies out of the music-patterned paper, adhering the paper to white paper, and sponging it all with two shades of blue ink. Then I stamped & heat-embossed the butterflies in black. The bottom white paper is pre-embossed with party balloons; I printed a dotted border onto it, which I used as a guide for the faux stitching (I used a dark blue gel pen). The bottom butterfly is raised off the paper with Glossy Accents, and the sentiment is heat-embossed in blue.

This is the first time I've tried this ribbon technique, where you create the ruffle atop double-sided tape.

Hope everyone is having a great day.