It's Tuesday and today I have a card using this week's sketch over at As You See It Challenge:

I saw this sketch and decided to use the Birthday Bouquet product suite for my rather pink card today - take a look:

There are three key elements to today's card - taking each in turn:

Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper - I chose this piece of ribbon-festooned paper that mirrors the horizontal lines of the sketch for the background for my card today. It's quite a busy pattern with some strong colour added with the Mossy Meadow, my chosen accent colour for this otherwise pink card, and is the perfect backdrop for my feature sentiment.

Birthday Blooms Stamp Set - I decided to use Blushing Bride cardstock for the focal circle that houses my sentiment. Using a coloured circle instead of white can be an interesting way to ring the changes on a card. Here I stamped my circle with the flower bouquet from 'Birthday Blooms' in Blushing Bride too for a subtle tone-on-tone effect with my sentiment in Mossy Meadow to stand out. I bordered this circle with a circle of Whisper White to frame it and lift it from the busy background.

Embellishments - I used a selection of embellishments to finish my card today: some simple 1/4" Blushing Bride cotton ribbon, pepped up with some twists of silver metallic thread, a few rhinestones and a sprinkle of sequins from the Love Blossoms embellishment kit to add just the right amount of sparkle.

Here's today's visual summary of the key products used to make today's card for reference:

I hope you like today's card - I even remembered to decorate the inside and my envelope too! I'm off to start preparing for the next of my Coffee and Card Classes at Bell of Northampton tomorrow - you can read all about them here and if you are local I'd love you to join me. No booking required - just drop in!

I'll be back tomorrow with another project; until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Birthday Blooms Wood-Mount Stamp Set	Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper	Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad	Mossy Meadow A4 Cardstock	Blushing Bride Classic Stampin' Pad
Blushing Bride A4 Cardstock	Whisper White A4 Cardstock	Big Shot	Circles Collection Framelits Dies	2-1/2" Circle Punch
Love Blossoms Embellishment Kit	Blushing Bride 1/4" Cotton Ribbon	Silver Metallic Thread	Rhinestone Basic Jewels

Hello everyone I hope you have all been enjoying your weekend so far. I managed to snatch a quick hour between chores and swimming lessons to make a quick card today for a couple of challenges:

Before I share today's card I would like to say thank you to the team over at Stamp Ink Paper, and in particular Sandy, who chose my white wedding card as a winner in their 'love' themed challenge last week (if you missed it, you can see that card here) - it's always great to be recognised for one's creative efforts! This week the team have a sketch to play with and since I chose to feature balloons on my card it's also perfect for a link up with the Global Design Project who have these as their theme this week and The Friday Mashup, where the theme is birthdays (with the optional mashup of stencils - I'm coming back for this one!) We have so many balloon-related products currently; I chose to use an annual catalogue mainstay, the Cherry On Top Designer Series Paper Pack, as the inspiration for today's card:

I just love the bright little balloons on this paper pattern so I decided to cover my whole card front with the paper. I added a frame to my sentiment from the 'Birthday Blooms' stamp set (the swirly sentiment reminds me of the balloon strings!) which I cut with my Big Shot and Tags and Labels Framelits - these are on this week's Wednesday Weekly Deals if you want to grab them at a bargain price! For my embellishment, I chose to echo the balloons and cloud pattern of the paper and punched a cloud in Whisper White with my Tree Builder Punch and a trio of balloons with my punch from the Party Punch Pack, which I added some silver metallic thread string to, which I loosely tied together. I added in a thin banner of Cucumber Crush to complete the sketch. I just love the bright and happy colours of this card - and balloons are the perfect way to celebrate a birthday, whether young or old.

For those of you who like a visual summary, here's something new that I will be featuring in my blog posts - a labelled photograph of the key products required to make today's card: 

These images are perfect for pinning to give you a visual reference of the supplies needed to re-create this card which can be useful if you want to come back to it at a later date. I will be pinning these to my new 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Board on Pinterest too, which you can find here.

I hope you like today's card; I'll be back with another card for tomorrow's new challenge over at The Paper Players. I'm hosting this week so you won't want to miss it! Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Cherry On Top Designer Series Paper Stack	Party Punch Pack	Tags & Labels Framelits Dies	Big Shot	Birthday Blooms Clear-Mount Stamp Set
Tree Builder Punch	Whisper White A4 Cardstock	Cherry On Top A4 Cardstock Assortment Pack	Crushed Curry A4 Cardstock	Bermuda Bay Classic Stampin' Pad
Silver Metallic Thread

Happy Monday everyone! I've had the first of my classes this year this morning (I'll share one of those cards with you tomorrow) but for today I have my last sneak peek for you, this time featuring some of the gorgeous new Birthday Bouquet designer series paper from the forthcoming Spring-Summer Stampin' Up! catalogue. This set has some beautiful patterns, featuring everything from confetti to ice creams, balloons to spots and stripes; my card today highlights one of the two flower patterns in the set:

I used some simple layers in Old Olive and Soft Sky to co-ordinate with the designer paper and stamped a sentiment from the co-ordinating 'Birthday Blooms' stamp set on a wide cross panel of Blushing Bride. I finished with a small Itty Bitty Accents punched flower and that's my card - done! I did add a little stamping on the inside but this card really was so quick I made two at the same time as it really didn't take twice as long. I love it when the paper does all the hard work for you!

So only one more sleep to go then it's here - the new 2016 Stampin' Up! Spring-Summer catalogue and the start of this year's Sale-A-Bration promotion! The catalogues have all been mailed to my online customers and my local customers will receive theirs either at their classes this week or at my open house next week on Thursday 14th January 10am-2pm. If you live in or around Northampton and would like to attend, please get in touch for details.

That's all from me today; back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

Available 5th January:

140557 Birthday Bouquet Designer Series Paper

140658 Birthday Blooms Stamp Set (clear mount)

Itty Bitty Accents Punch Pack	Soft Sky A4 Cardstock	Blushing Bride A4 Cardstock	Old Olive A4 Cardstock	Mossy Meadow Classic Stampin' Pad
Neutrals Candy Dots