Happy Birthday!

It's a dreary, rainy Monday here in Atlanta, which seems fitting since it's my 50th birthday AND we have a water leak in our house that was running from the first floor into the basement right over the bar in our home theater room.  We had to turn the water to the whole house off last night and we have a plumber coming later this morning.  Ugghhh...not such a happy birthday so far!

On a happier note, this adorable little Pure Innocence girl made her way down to my friend Silke's to wish her a happy birthday last Wednesday!  The patterned papers are from October Afternoon's Thrift Shop collection and BasicGrey's Lemonade 6x6 pad.  Her dress and the present are paper pieced and in Silke's honor, I added a couple of silver pearls for the buttons on her dress. 

For the inside, I used some more of the Thrift Shop papers and a sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Birthday Basics set.  The buttons on the inside were made using a button die from My Favorite Things and were attached to a scrap of the gingham ribbon and tied with some twine.

That's about it.  Hope your week is getting off to a better start than mine!  Be sure to come back on Wednesday for another Belli Challenge!

Thanks for stopping by!

Belli Challenge #100 - Birthday Girl!

Welcome to another Belli Challenge!  This week's challenge is to include anything with begins with a 'B' (think buttons, brads, bows, bracket, etc....).  My card has a bunch of 'B' things - a big bow, a butterfly button, the Birthday Girl sentiment, the Bloomer rose balloon and the rose blooms on the patterned paper!  I believe I nailed this challenge!  The funny thing is, I didn't even make this card for the challenge, it just worked out that it fit the theme!  This is the birthday card I sent to my mother for her 90th birthday this past Monday.

The patterned papers are all from Webster's Pages, as is the green rose bloomer that I used for the balloon.  A group of my mother's friends nicknamed her Rose many years ago, so I like using the rose theme when I make cards for her.  The shirt and dress for my Pure Innocence girl were paper pieced and I colored her hair and skin using Copic markers and used Spica markers on her shoes, dress trim and barrette.

The button on the left side of the image is a butterfly, but it's hard to tell in the photo.  I stamped the image directly on the patterned paper. For the inside of the card, I thought this 'Make A Wish' sheet of the Webster's Pages set was appropriate.

If you would like to play along, just make a card that includes anything that begins with a 'B' and upload it on today's post over at the Creative Belli blog.  And be sure to head over there to check out what the rest of the design team has made for this challenge!

Thanks for stopping by!

Feel Better (CPS170, CTD96)

Happy Friday!  This morning I decided to make another card using the CPS170 sketch along with the colors from this week's Color Throwdown 96 (So Saffron, Cool Caribbean and Pumpkin Pie).  I inked up this cute little Pure Innocence image from the My Umbrella set and went to town paper piecing!   The patterned papers are from October Afternoon's Ducks in a Row and Piggytales' Cinderella Collection.

The boots and raincoat were paper pieced using the same paper, then I colored a second set of hands and pieced them on top.  The umbrella was cut out of yellow paper and popped up on foam squares, and I colored the handle with a brown Copic marker and an opaque silver marker.  The wooden flower was added on top of the umbrella. 

I cut one of the cute little ducks out of the patterned paper and added him to my sentiment panel, also with foam squares.  And, in keeping with the rain theme, I added a few tear drops from The Robin's Nest in the upper right corner.  Finally, I thought she needed to be standing in some grass, so I took a strip of grass paper and cut it with a Martha Stewart grass edge punch and added it to the bottom of the main panel.

For the inside, I matted a sheet of white paper with the same patterned paper I used for my mat on the front, then added another piece of the big ric rac ribbon and a leftover square of the patterned paper with some of the baby ducks - can't waste it!

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy your weekend!

Sketch Plus Three Challenge

I made this card to play along with Joanne Basile's Sketch Plus Three challenge, celebrating her 500,000th hit on her blog.  Joanne provided the sketch and a list of nine options you could include on your card, you had to pick at least three. I thought that was a fun and creative challenge and managed to use four of the items on my card - text printed papers (the peach background paper), kraft paper (the card base), bling (Stickles in the heart in her hair and black and gold Spica pens to color her shoes) and paper piecing (her dress).

I used two different Pure Innocence stamps - My Basket of Eggs and Flower Girl.  I stamped the flower from the Flower Girl image three times and placed it, along with some grass paper in the basket in place of the eggs.  Then I covered the flowers with some Spring Flower Soft.

The patterned papers are from the Webster's Pages Lullaby Lane and Life's Portrait Combo Pack and the ribbon roses are from Webster's Pages Bloomers Spring 2010.  I cinched the Bloomers up between the flowers, added the buttons and tied the bows with twine.

Hope you're enjoying your  Memorial Day Weekend!  Thanks for stopping by!

Have a Sunshiney Day!

My niece is going on a mission trip to El Salvador this summer and needed to raise some money to help fund her trip, so I whipped up this little card to send to her, with a check enclosed.  I love these little Pure Innocence stamps from My Favorite Things - they are really easy to paper piece, which is what I did for her outfit, using the same papers I used for the two strips behind the main image. 

I used last week's Sketch For You To Try for my layout and the color combination from last week's Color Throwdown #91, which were Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise and Kiwi Kiss.  These BasicGrey Lemonade papers were perfect for those colors.

I used two different border punches for the mat layers under the strips, matching the punch design to go with its corresponding patterned paper, and added three rhinestone flowers in the bottom corner. The background was airbrushed using a Copic marker.  Pretty simple, but fun!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great weekend!

CC260 & OCC - Love You Muchly

Happy Wednesday! I decided to play along on last week's Color Challenge (CC260) over at Splitcoast Stampers (Always Artichoke, Crushed Curry, Basic Gray) and with Silke's sketch challenge this week over at Our Creative Corner, although my card is A2 (4.25" x 5.5") rather than square like the sketch.

I just picked up a couple of these Pure Innocence stamps from My Favorite Things. They are not my normal 'thing', but they are fun to paper piece like I've done on this card, plus I think the images are adorable and the sentiments that go with them are perfect. I used Cosmo Cricket Early Bird papers (Apron Strings and Sunrise). I added lots of bling (too much maybe...) to my image where it had hearts and a flower. For the Basic Gray component, I stamped my image and sentiment using Memento London Fog and I used some pewter self-adhesive nail heads in the top right corner.

Here's a peek at the inside. I just used my scraps from the front. I punched the borders using a Martha Stewart border punch.

Hope you like it! Thanks for stopping by and for your sweet comments - they really mean a LOT!

Enjoy the rest of the week!