First up--a quick and easy card using Kristina Werner's Happy Every Day stamp set. I wanted to make a birthday card for Simon Says Stamp!'s Wednesday Challenge: Happy Birthday! They are celebrating 5 years of challenges and giving way a $100 gift card so you know I had to try my luck with this one. I chose this set (Happy Every Day) because it's the FIRST set that I ever ordered from Simon Says Stamp. I have loved Kristina Werner for years but as I kinda fell off the stamping grid there for a while, I missed that she had begun designing products for SSS. I happened to pop by her blog one night and saw this card which I fell in love with so I ordered that set and the rest is history. Now, I'm a Simon junkie. I love this big, bold sentiment and the other versatile pieces included in the set--the stripes are a nice easy touch to add with almost any card. Now, clearly I did not clean my strip stamp very well the last time I used it as my ink has a pinkish undertone...grrr...but I left it as is since I didn't have any other cardstock or inked pieces it needed to match. If I were to make this card again, I would bump down the sentiment and stripes just a tad and use smaller enamel dots...live and learn!
Since I had the set out anyway, I decided to make a second card using the same sentiment. One can never have enough birthday cards. I had this new Kaleidescope Designer Series Paper from Stampin' Up! that I wanted to use so I chose a couple of patterns to layer along the bottom and then popped the sentiment above mounted on some Bermuda Bay textured cardstock left over from a few years ago. I wish they still offered the textured papers but being the hoarder I am, I have plenty left of this particular color. I used my little Sale-a-Bration banner punch to add a little accent flag to the side of the sentiment--love that punch! I could not find my thin black Washi tape so I added a black line using one of my American Crafts journaling pens across the top of the papers for a little finishing touch.
Make sure you check out Madeline's card for the challenge over on her new blog :-)