You Rock Banner Card

This card uses paper from Little Yellow Bicycle called "Generation Z." There are so many pretty flower, butterfly, cute or pink papers out there. I'm always on the lookout for interesting paper that is not so feminine. Generation Z is great for that. 

I cut the banner shapes by hand. The stamps are from Inkadinkadoo.  I stamped the top one in black Hero Arts ink and the lower design in a charcoal color from Hero Arts. 

I'm entering this card over at the Mod Squad Challenge Blog where the challenge is to make the sentiment the focal point.

Gelato Watercolor Card

If you haven't tried them, Gelatos are a type of watercolor crayon made by Faber Castell. There are lots of ideas on Pinterest for different ways to use them. 

For this card I heat embossed the sentiment (Verve Stamps) on watercolor paper. Then I mixed a little water with three different Gelato colors. and used them to paint washes of color over the sentiment. 

The idea for this card came from the Calling All Sistahs Challenge. Calling All Sistahs is a new challenge created by Cas-ual Friday Stamps. The purpose of the challenge is to make encouraging cards and also to help raise breast cancer awareness. 

I'm also sharing this card over at the Mod Squad Challenge Blog where the current challenge is to make the sentiment the focal point. 

Scrappy Background Card

If you do a lot of projects with colored paper you inevitably end up with many colorful paper scraps. My favorite thing to do with these scraps is to make a scrappy card background. Although Operation Write Home has closed up shop the tutorials are still available on their website. The Scrappy Background tutorial is still there as well. Click on the link if you want to know how to make cards like this.

For this card I used the colors from the latest Calling All Sistahs challenge. The stamp is from Verve. This card is also going in the Mod Squad challenge which is to make the sentiment the focal point. 

Layered Birthday Card

I'm using Kristie's tutorial for using up 6" x 6" paper pads. Her website is great because she includes the measurements she used for reference. This card uses Kristie's measurements for Mojo Monday sketch 353.

The paper I'm trying to use up is Amy Tangerine "Ready, Set, Go"

The gift was cut out using a Sizzix die. The little fringe on the right was made using a die from Whimsy Stamps.

I'm entering this card in the current Dies R Us Challenge, which is "Lots of Layers."

Dots and Stripes Birthday

I'm trying to follow Kristie's advice for using up 6" x 6" paper pads. Every time I get close to finishing, I seem to get bored and move on to other paper So, this time I'm trying Really Hard to use up paper called Ready Set Go from Amy Tangerine. 

This card uses Mojo Monday sketch 456. Mojo Monday is closed, but their sketches are still great and fun to use. I used Spellbinders dies for the circles and a Sizzix die for the gift. 

I'm entering this card in the Dies R Us challenge. The current challenge is to use lots of layers 

Citrus Colors Card

I made this card using Basic Grey paper from a collection called "Lauderdale." 

The layout comes from Sketch 340 from My Favorite Things. The stamp is also from My Favorite Things. 

I used the citrus colors from the most recent Your Next Stamp Challenge. 

Distressed Balloons

I used a cute set of dies from Whimsy Stamps to create the balloons on this card. Because the papers had lighter colored cores I sanded a little on the edge of each one to create dimension. 

This card uses the layout from Sketch #67 from Your Next Stamp and paper from Amy Tangerine. 

Feather Quill Card

This card features a stamp from Riley and Co. and paper from Amy Tangerine. The layout came from sketch #67 from Your Next Stamp. 

The feather die came from Whimsy Stamps. 

More importantly, the design was a team effort. My son was watching and giving input, pushing me to use a combination of colors that I wouldn't normally choose.