Bright and Bold Build a Birthday

I just typed out the title for this post "Bright and Bold Build a Birthday" and that's a lot of Bs!  I figured that was the best description of this bright summery card.  We've got one week left of school around here, but things are definitely winding down.  I'm not sure what we'll be doing all summer besides a lot of swimming.  Hopefully I can manage to do more stamping with all of the kiddos around.  Maybe we'll be stamping together during naptime.

This card features NEW STAMPS and NEW IN COLORS!!!  I used the Build a Birthday set that is in the new 2015-2016 Stampin' Up Catalog that starts next Monday.  Even after 17 years of being a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator (yikes! has it been that long?), I still get excited for new catalogs!  I used the new In Colors Watermelon Wonder and Cucumber Crush along with some trusty old favorites--Daffodil Delight and Tempting Turquoise.  I stamped the "make a wish" from the Perfect Pennants stamp set.  The letter a is stamped and then punched out with the 1/2" circle punch.  I made the banner out of Watermelon Wonder card stock by punching a strip of paper on each side with the hexagon punch.  The candles are tied up with some Daffodil Delight cotton ribbon.  To mimic the cucumber and turquoise candles, I textured the turquoise background with the Decorative Dots embossing folder.

Today's card was inspired by the current challenge over at Stampin' Royalty.  The challenge is "what's old is new again" so I looked through my old cards for some inspiration.  I found this card that I made last year and used it as my "before" and my new card is the "after."  Hope you enjoy!

 

Stampin' Up! Butterfly Thoughts

Today's card inspiration is brought to you by the blog challenges over at Freshly Made Sketches and Stampin' Royalty.  It's fun to combine a sketch challenge and a color challenge and see what turns out.  I started this card with no set plan (except to incorporate the challenges) and I think it turned out nicely.  I grabbed the challenge colors (Pacific Point, Rich Razzleberry, Blackberry Bliss, and Smoky Slate) and then decided to turn the sketch sideways.

I started out by stamping the greeting (from the Perfect Pennants set) in Blackberry Bliss and then added the butterflies (from Papillon Potpourri) stamped in Rich Razzleberry, Smoky Slate, and Pacific Point.  I punched out the large blue butterfly---love those coordinating punches, and popped it up a bit with a Stampin' Dimensional.  The stamped panel is mounted on Pacific Point and Blackberry Bliss.  I added some texture to the Smoky Slate card base by using the chevron embossing folder and then added the polka dot stripes (Backgrounds DSP stack) along the side to complete the sketch.