Birthday cuppies and a card

The current Stamp With Us challenge is to make a birthday card - good timing as it was my dear mum's birthday yesterday so needed to get one done anyway! My mum is passionate about gardens so a garden-themed card it had to be - in the end I chose to make a flower-pot card (measurements on Splitcoast).

This....


becomes this...



Fun isn't it?!! I stamped flowers from Cause for Celebration and Best Wishes and More, cut them out then sponged the edges. Leaves are also from Best Wishes and More. The flowers and leaves were adhered with dimensionals, then added various matching buttons and brads to their centres.

Recipe:

Stamps- Ink - Always Artichoke/ So Saffron/Pretty in Pink/Bashful Blue
Card - Kraft/Whisper White/Always Artichoke/So Saffron/Bashful Blue paper from Summer Picnic papers
Other - buttons/brads/Very Vanilla Grosgrain ribbon/linen thread

And where there's a birthday there must be cake right?! As I always like everything to be matchy matchy I wanted to co-ordinate the card with a cake so started planning a flower pot cake, time was against me though so I changed plans to these:


MMMM! I love how these turned out!

The toppers are made by stamping the same flowers from Cause for Celebration in So Saffron, Pretty in Pink and Bashful Blue. Cut them out, sponged their edges then adhered them to cocktail sticks.


Then stamped HAPPY BIRTHDAY with Papertrey's Fresh Alphabet set, punched out each letter with a 3/4 inch circle punch, sponged the edges and adhered them to the flower centres. This is such a fun idea - you can spell out people's names, special messages or stamp monograms for parties!


Edited to add: Cupckae recipe is from the fabulous Kate Shirazi

Have a great weekend everyone!!!
Kate

Thank you!

... to everyone who sent me birthday wishes and cards on Friday - I was so touched! I had a lovely day and received some gorgeous handmade cards from some of my blogging buddies so I'll show you them when I've got them photographed.

Speaking of photography...lookie lookie at my new toy:


I've always been passionate about photography but as a hobby it's slipped recently so it was a new years' resolution to get back into it again. A few years ago I took some photography classes and would love (and need!) to take more. While I totally embrace the digital revolution I'm glad I learned the traditional darkroom methods and was able to experience the deeply satisfying creative process of taking a photograph and carrying out the whole developing process by hand.

I hope those skills stick around, but for me now it's all about the digital! So here's introducing my new SLR - I'm so grateful to my family who helped me to buy it and I can't wait to get cracking with it! As a kickstart I started on Friday a 365 project - I know most people start these on Jan 1st but mine will be a personal photographic document of my 35th (eek!) year starting from my birthday. Don't worry I won't bore you with them all hehe!

I'm fascinated by the power of images to tell a story and often think had I not chosen to be a journalist and tell stories in words I would have liked to have told them in pictures. Re-awakening this hobby is also making me more interested in how we can combine our images with our papercrafting so am planning to do more scrapbooking and photo-cards in the future.

Ok - to today's card. Another valentine's with an old Splitcoast colour combo which I just love - Real Red, Basic Black and Kraft. I love love Kraft - projects take on such a different feel with it, I really must use it more!

I used a Julee Tilman sketch for this and again used the hearts from Stampin Up's Best Wishes and More set - cut them out by hand and mounted them on the circles which were created using nestabilities. The kraft circle and the upper half of the kraft background layer are embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder (can't get enough of it!).

I used the paper piercing tool from the Crafter's Tool Kit to pierce along the bottom of the card and top and bottom of the red layer. The brads are from the Hodgepodge Hardware kit and mounted onto circles of basic black cardstock punched out with the 1/2 inch circle punch. The sentiment is from the Best Yet set.

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!


Recipe:

(All supplies Stampin' Up)
Stamps - Best Wishes and More/ Best Yet (Level 1 Hostess set)
Ink - Real Red
Cardsotck - Kraft/Basic Black/Real Red
Other - Hodgepodge Hardware/ circle nestabities/Cuttlebug/Swiss Dots embossing folder/Crafter's Tool Kit/Dimensionals/Stamp-a-ma-jig

Thankyou birdie

Morning! Well I'm already feeling a bit tired! I got up at 4.30am to watch the American election, a crafting blog isn't the place to get political tho I guess... Still, no matter which party got their backing it was so wonderful to hear how many people in the US turned out to vote.

Who's got plans for bonfire night?! I love getting wrapped up and going to ooh and aaah at the firework displays!

OK, onto the card - this is for last week's SCS colour challenge (CC190). Old Olive, Pixie Pink and Pumpkin Pie! Have to admit I wasn't sure about it when I first saw it but now I just love it - so zingy!

The stamp set is Best Wishes and More from Stampin Up. The flowers, leaves and bird were stamped, cut out and mounted with dimensionals. The middle of the flowers and the birdie's wing were also stamped in a different colour, cut out and mounted.

The background is embossed with my favourite Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder - the strip of ribbon covers the join.

Thanks for stopping by, have a fun and safe bonfire night!

Kate

Recipe
Stamps - Best Wishes and More/Wonderful Words (both Stampin Up)
Ink - Pumpkin Pie/Old Olive/Pixie Pink/Whisper White (all SU)
Paper/Card - Pumpkin Pie/Old Olive/Pixie Pink/Whisper White (all SU)
Other - Pumpkin Pie ribbon (SU)/cuttlebug/swiss dots embossing folder/dimensionals