Hi, There, Stampers!
As you know if you read my articles last week, this past Friday was my birthday. But it wasn’t just my birthday. My husband’s Aunt Margrit also celebrates here birthday on the same day! As you might imagine, we’re a few years apart in age. Not going there until I reach my next birthday with a zero. Nonetheless, I celebrate every single turn around the sun for me and those I hold dear.
Happy Birthday Card For Margrit!
Today’s card is the one I made for Aunt Margrit. I look through all my stamps and, as I’ve done so much lately, I ended up pulling out one of this year’s Sale-a-bration stamp sets, Beautifully Happy. It’s one of my favorite sets and a card made with it always looks wonderful.
Quick aside. There’s a story about this stamp set. Each year for the past several years Stampin’ Up! has had annual programs they call, OnStage. During the pandemic it was “OnStage At Home.” But otherwise it’s been a 2-day affair held in several cities around the world. I’ve been lucky to have been able to attend several. And each time Stampin’ Up! includes an upcoming stamp set in the OnStage materials. Without exception the stamp sets have been sets that (1) I’d have never bought for myself – just not my style – and (2) I haven’t used (to this day, I’ve not inked up the one we got for either the 2020 or 2021 OnStage; really NOT my style). So I didn’t have much hope for this year’s stamp set, Beautifully Happy.
Wrong!
This is a stamp set I’m not going to be happy to let go when Sale-a-bration concludes at the end of this month. It’s amazing, both in the design and in the way that it’s so easy to use! It’s one of those few sets that I may just keep around for a bit after it’s no longer in a catalog.
Stamp to Fill or Just Color It?
I love how the 2-step stamping stamps in this set allow you to color the larger of the flowers in this set just by stamping with the “fill” stamps. The outline is a single stamp. But there are THREE fill stamps: one for the full flowers; one for the larger leaves; and one for the buds at the top of the stem. You can see how the fill stamps work in this post from last month.
For today’s card, rather than use the fill stamps, I colored in the flowers and leaves. I wanted the flowers to have different colors for one thing. And I also wanted the two small leaves on the bud stem to be the same color as the large leaves at the bottom of the stem.
The Answer for Today’s Card Was Stampin’ Blends
Even though I really didn’t want to do any color blending for this card, I still turned to Stampin’ Up!’s alcohol markers, Stampin’ Blends. They color so well as they soak into the cardstock. When you use them with Memento Ink, the Blends also don’t smear the ink, especially when you’re not doing any serious blending. You can see this pretty clearly in this snippet from the card. Yes, there’s a little outside the line on one or two of the leaves. But that’s easily attributed to operator error.
How I Chose the Color
I knew almost from the start what the layout for this card would be. I wanted some Designer Series Paper to accent the colors that I chose for the flowers. So I did have to choose the papers before I colored in the flowers. I’m not sure where the Pretty Prints Designer Series Paper has been hiding in my stash of papers. But, when I pulled out some other papers, there it was. I’d totally forgotten that I owned it! And wasn’t that Calypso Coral print just perfect?! That’s what made me want to color the flowers different colors. Using the Calypso Coral Stampin’ Blends made that easy. I used the “dark” marker for some of the flowers and the “light” marker for the others. Yep, perfect!
Finishing the Card
To complete the card, I added some texture with the “sprinkle” stamp in the Beautifully Happy Stamp Set, angling from the upper left corner down a bit towards the right. I didn’t want to over do. For the sentiment, I chose one of the stamps from the Go To Greetings Stamp Set and die-cut it using one of the label dies from the Stylish Shapes dies set. The sequins are from the new Gold Faceted Adhesive-Backed Sequins. They look so good on just about anything!
I think that’s it for Birthday cards for a while. Oh, wait. Our daughter and one of our nieces have birthdays in March. I’ll have fun making those – and I’ll share them with you!
Happy Stamping!
