Celebrate Your Birthday Card - Retro Style

I love working with retro things, vintage embellishments and fun patterns so the monthly challenge at STAMPlorations is sah-weet for my cardmaking inspiration. 

I wanted to have some fun with the colors and patterns of the late 60s and early 70s so I broke out some of my vintagey papers. 

I chose this rich gold-brown and used a white pigment ink to stamp a subtle pattern using balloons from A Snarky Birthday to You.

I layered on funky patterned papers, adding some texture with with CUTplorations Art Edges for a little bit of visual interest. 

I used the CUTplorations Celebrate Word Die and double layered it for dimension, stamped a sentiment using SENTIMENT BUILDERS: Celebrate, scribbled on some x's using a white gel pen, and splashed the whole thing with some Picket Fence Distress Spray Stains. 

A Punny Valentine's Day Card

Ah, February, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways:
1) You give me reasons to make tons of punny cards
2)  I can fully express my love of all things hot pink
3)  You're short - just like me

 

If you haven't guessed by now, I've got another Valentine's Day card to share with you! Actually - two of them! I loved the first one so much that I made it in duplicates. 

But before I get toooo far ahead of myself, let's talk about where I'm drawing my inspiration from. It's time for a brand spankin' new STAMPlorations theme & sketch challenge. 

As lovely as the sketch is, I saw the theme "Stamps & Retro" and could see no further than that. Especially since I just got the new Hello You 5x7 Stamp Club set and <3 <3 <3 everything about it!

I could not WAIT to ink up that typewriter. I also wanted more of a V-day lovey dovey sentiment, so I decided to make my own. 

I verrrrry carefully (because stamping is such an exact science right? <-- please see sarcasm in the dictionary for a full definition) drew a tiny little sheet of paper and then hand-lettered a punny typewriter-related phrase. 

I layered and layered and layered following the sketch from the Hand Stamped Sentiments challenge. 

Figuring out how so many patterns could go together and not clash was so fun, that I decided to do it a second time in order to create a more masculine version and used the color challenge from The Color Throwdown.

Taaaaa-daaaaaaa! 

My cards are also going to play along in:
Simon Says Wednesday - Color of Love
Craft Rocket Challenge - It's a Love Thing
Cute Card Thursday - Be My Valentine

Thanks for popping by!!

Clean and Simple and Oh-so-Retro

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd been commissioned to do some cards and I have the other two cards to share with you today. 

By the way, a BIG thank you to those who took the time to leave advice or encouragement for my card-selling venture. It was very helpful!

The first card I'm going to share sprang from this request: "I want a birthday card for my boss and she's got a BIG sense of humor". When it comes to humor, my favorite way to create is with snarky retro girls. Horrible puns are a close second. 

Luckily, I just bought some new retro girl stamps from Viva Las Vegas stamps. 

I created a sweet banner with my favorite retro color combo - teal and red - and then paired the retro girl with a semi-snarky sentiment. Mission accomplished!

I'm sending this card over to:
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday - Use your Favorites
Seize the Birthday - ATG with option to use neutrals
Paper Players - Color challenge (just eeeking in!) 



Card number 2 was a little more challenging. She asked for a card for her friend who recently just lost her dog (heartstrings, you have been pulled!). She also didn't want the card to be too sad. 

For some reason, my sympathy cards are always clean and simple. I immediately got an idea for this card and ran to my craft room before I lost it. 

I used some very old (and I seriously couldn't tell you the manufacturer) paw print stamp set that I inherited from my Grandma and made it look like they were fading off into the distance by using an ombre effect. Then I tied on a big ol' chevron bow with ribbon from Pretty Pink Posh. 

Lastly - the sentiment. How to not go too sad? I thought about the Noteworthy stamp set from STAMPlorations and this sentiment seemed to fit perfectly. 

This card is going over to:
Addicted to Stamps and More - Clean and Simple (PS! Happy 3rd Birthday!)
Friday Mashup - Use stenciling OR create a monochromatic card

 

So these cards are a little different from my normal aesthetic, but I think they turned out perfectly for what the customer was asking for.

Thanks for popping by! I'm only >>25<< people away from reaching 200 followers and I would LOVE to hit that mark. A big thank you to all my newest followers! You make me so happy!

Polka Dotty Hills - STAMPlorations Sketch Challenge

Today, I've got a card that brings out the bright and fun. This weekend was 67 degrees here in North Dakota, which is practically tropical weather! So I was inspired to do a little summery number on my card stock. 

I'm using the new sketch challenge going on over at STAMPlorations:

One of the things I love to do is to mix and match funky, retro patterns. There's just something about putting two things together that shouldn't work, but do. The way these rolling "hills" light up the foreground of the card makes this girl super happy! 

To go with the funky hills, I have a funky house from The Bee's Knees - Houses STAMPlorations set. I also used the Clouds ARTPlorations stencil and some Salty Ocean Distress Ink to make the bright sky. 

You should totally go play along at STAMPlorations! We've got some great prizes for you to win, including a guest design spot. 

Speaking of,the fiesty and talented Monika Reeck is joining us this week with another version of a funky card with mixed and matched patterns. Stop by and say hello!

I'm sending my card over to:
Craft Stamper Magazine - Take it Make it Challenge
Chocolate, Coffee, and Cards - Spring has Sprung
Try it On Tuesdays - 1960s retro
Little Red Wagon - "B"lieve it (my b is for Blue Skies)

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On a more personal note, many of you know that April's been a crazy month for me. It seems like everything I need to do all year long is packed into this one little month. I know I haven't been able to leave as many comments because of this, but I do want you to know that things will be slowing down. I have one trip next week to D.C. for work, but then I'll be able to breathe a little (fingers crossed). 

This weekend was truly spectacular darlings, and I thought I'd share a little bit about what I've been up to. 

This was my Saturday:

  I've been working with my local Young Professionals Chapter to plan and orchestrate a community-wide clothing and necessities drive that would help 7 local nonprofits including our battered women's shelter, homeless shelter, and organizations that help New American Families. We distributed 1000 orange bags door-to-door two weeks ago and on Saturday we went to collect them from people's houses. 

As you can see, we got an amazing response and were able to help out some families who really needed it. 

After that, I did a quick change and got 1920s glam for the evening:

This is my gorgeous cousin, Amber, and myself all decked out. The Dean of the medical school where I work gave me two tickets to a charity ball and I have to tell you it was F-A-N-C-Y. Probably the fanciest thing I've ever been to. You know... one of those awkward situations where you don't know which fork goes with what dish... or whether the utensil you're holding is a fork at all... :) It was a ton of fun, though, and I felt very Daisy-ish with my updo. 

So... yeah! It was a busy weekend. Like I said, I have one more week of running around like a chicken with my head cut off and then I'll be back to the normal Miss-stalk-your-blogs-for-inspiration self. 

Thank you for popping by! 

A Little Retro Snark

Happy Sunday, my lovelies! This has been a super weekend for me, and I hope the same can be said for you. My cousin came for a visit and we had a great time hanging together... even put on my dancing shoes last night!  

My card for today, however, will be to give away during the work week when I just need a little break: 

The talented Taheerah runs the Cure for the Monday Blues - which I've never participated in before. But I saw this aaahhhmazing inspiration image, filled with retro mod shapes and colors and I couldn't not play along this week!

So I pulled all of my colors and started finding every bit of modern retro patterned paper that I could find and then sorted and mixed and matched and second-guessed and mixed and matched again and finally - VOILA! A card!

I loved the color scheme, but I also wanted to include these cool retro silhouette stamps from the Unity stamp company. And that sentiment just cracks me right up! I stamped them in Shabby Shutters Distress Inks and then colored over it with some Spectrum Noir markers because I really wanted an intense color. 

 

I'm also sending this over to Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, where you can pick any of their past challenge inspirations. I picked the V is for Vintage inspiration. And Naughty or Nice because this is definitely just a little bit naughty/snarky and their challenge is New New New! Since this is my first time using this stamp set, it totally qualifies. 

Now speaking of needing a nap, those dancing shoes wore me out last night, and I think I might just go indulge in one. Thanks for stopping by! Follow my blog or leave me a comment and I'll be sure to return the favor!