Sketchy Birthday Celebration

So how much of a whiner did I sound in my last post? I didn't mean to!! I was just tellin' it, you know, but when I re-read it just now, it sure sounded whiny. Sorry!

For today's project I got to play with some new Stampin' Up goodies that came this week. I am in love with this new Haiku patterned paper. Talk about happy colors!! I wasn't planning on getting the Upsy Daisy set yet, but when I saw that it was on sale, I took a few things off my order to make room for it. And I'm so glad I did!

The layout today comes from Jen del Muro's Sketch for You to Try. You'll find the sketch, Jen's sample, and guest designer Bonnie Sharp's sample at i{heart}2stamp. Then be sure to check out the samples from Amy, Shannan, and Susan. Carole is playing too, but not until Sunday, when she gets back from a weekend getaway. Hope you can play along this week! If you upload to SCS, remember to use keyword: SYFTT.

This is also my sample for this week's challenge over at Our Creative Corner, which is to make a birthday card. I have quite a few birthday cards to send out (both overdue ones and upcoming ones), so this was a great challenge for me. We'd love to have you play along. You'll find all the details, along with samples from the other OCC designers (Cindy Haffner, Dawn Easton, Denise Marzec, Jennifer Meyer, Laurie Schmidlin, and Lynda Benden), plus guest designer Julee Tilman's sample, over on the Our Creative Corner blog.

I used Nestabilities to cut the circle window and to create the scalloped border. The top layers are mounted on 1/8" foam squares over the Very Vanilla stamped panel. For the stamped image, I inked the stamp in More Mustard, then used a sponge dauber to add Tangerine Tango to the edges of the flowers. The Tangerine wasn't quite dark enough after I stamped, so I used an aqua painter and ink from the lid of the Tangerine pad to deepen and intensify the orange edges. It really made a difference! While I had the aqua painter out, I painted some Angel Wings Shimmerz Glitter Paint onto the flowers as well. A very cool product available at Jacksonbelle Embellishments. (I don't see the Angel Wings color listed anymore, but there are a bunch of other colors.) Here's another shot of the shimmer that adds:



On the inside, I repeated the stamped image in the lower left-hand corner on a layer of Very Vanilla matted with Tangerine:



Have a fantastic holiday weekend!



Stamps: Upsy Daisy (SU!)
Paper: Old Olive, Tangerine Tango, So Saffron, Very Vanilla, More Mustard card stock, "Haiku" designer paper
Ink: More Mustard, Tangerine Tango, Old Olive
Accessories: classic and scalloped circle Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Floral Screen cuttlebug folder (Provo Craft); large oval punch, Tangerine Tango ribbon, aqua painter (SU!); Angel Wings Shimmerz; foam squares, paper piercer