Today I have my card for the new challenge over at Festive Friday and this week we are celebrating something very special:

Our 100th challenge - woohoo! Whilst you do not need to actually celebrate the occasion to play along - your goal is to simply use three or more items from the inspiration list on your project - this week's list is sure to generate lots of celebratory cards!  This week I really went to town with the inspo list; I used celebration, numbers, gold, sequins, patterned paper and splatters (I even included a cake on the inside!) and this is what I came up with:

 Here's the low-down on today's card:

A Special Party Puffin - I decided to add a puffin from the 'Party Puffins' stamp set as the focal point for my card today, but a special celebration definitely requires a special puffin, so this one is dressed to impress! I heat embossed him in black, colouring his beak and feet with gold Wink of Stella and fussy cutting him a hat from gold glimmer paper with black jewels for added pizzazz! This little fella is so sparkly! 

Two Reasons To Celebrate - You may be wondering why when we are celebrating our 100th challenge at Festive Friday, why my card has 50s on it. Well, later this year I will be celebrating a milestone birthday - my 50th, to be exact. I was the oldest in my year at school so will be the first of my school peers to reach this momentous occasion; what this means though is that starting in September I will be needing a large number of 50th birthday cards to send out during the 12 months thereafter, so I thought I'd start making now so that I was prepared! I created a fun faux-embossed star by cutting a bunch of 5s and 0s with my Playful Alphabet Dies and adhering them to gold foil, before cutting a star with my Stitched Star Dies to create a subtle nod to this birthday milestone:

I thought this would make a good masculine card design - what you do think?

Gold, Gold and More Gold - With a solid black background, I majored on gold to give this card birthday bling: gold foil, gilded gems, gold glimmer paper and a touch of black and gold (retired) striped designer paper, along with some subtle gold Wink of Stella splatters on the base of my card (difficult to see on the photos, but so sparkly in real life!). I also added a gold-on-black heat-embossed sentiment; and along with a simple birthday greeting inside my card, a birthday cake topped with gold icing and sparkly candles: 

So what do you think - a suitably glamourous sparkly birthday card to celebrate a milestone birthday alongside our milestone challenge this week? Do leave me a comment below - I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

How does our board inspire you? I can’t wait to see what YOU create! For more inspiration, be sure to visit the rest of the  Festive Friday Challenge Design team:

Ann Schach
Beth McCullough
Sharon Hashimoto Burkert
Melanie Hungerford
Helen Jennings
Stephanie Lanzalotto
Melva Peters
Jaydee
Diane Evans
Joanne James

I am also playing along with Color Throwdown (I used black, white and gold) and over at Try Stamping on Tuesday where they have a great sketch this week - and of course I'm playing with the optional theme of 'celebrate' too.

Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

PARTY PUFFINS CLING STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£19.00)	STITCHED STARS DIES (£35.00)	PLAYFUL ALPHABET DIES (£32.00)	GILDED GEMS (£6.50)	GOLD FOIL SHEETS (£4.75)	BASIC BLACK A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)
VERSAMARK PAD (£8.75)	METALLICS EMBOSSING POWDERS (£17.00)	BASICS EMBOSSING POWDERS (£17.00)	BASIC WHITE A4 CARDSTOCK (£9.00)

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous Jaydee to host this week and she has a Clean and Simple challenge for you to work with:

I decided to use Judy's Freshly Made Sketches layout for my card and having originally decided to go super simple, after yesterday's card I couldn't resist having another go at incorporating an interactive element so I'm having another go over at Just Add Ink too - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

The stars of today's card are the 'Party Puffins' stamp set - my go to for fun birthday cards - and the Give It A Whirl dies, with a rotating wheel of sentiments and images. You can see the first one above; here's the second one:

And finally, the third one:

Here's a quick video clip that show how the wheel rotates through the images:

A piece of Patterned Party striped designer paper adds a little coloured border and I used these colours to co-ordinate my coloured images too. A sprinkling of sequins complete my card.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

These dies are super easy to use and whilst they do add layers to today's card, my overall design is still clean and simple, with minimal embellishments and lots of white space.

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Enjoy your day; I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used: 

GIVE IT A WHIRL DIES (£36.00)	PARTY PUFFINS CLING STAMP SET (ENGLISH) (£19.00)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)	TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (£5.50)	POPPY PARADE A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	PATTERN PARTY 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) HOST DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (£17.00)
POPPY PARADE STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	PUMPKIN PIE STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	PETAL PINK STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	GRANNY APPLE GREEN STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	BERMUDA BAY STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	FLIRTY FLAMNGO STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)

It's Tuesday and time for a new challenge over at CAS Colours & Sketches. It's Shannon's last challenge this month and since it's the fifth Tuesday of the month we have a double - a trio of retired colours and an old sketch to be used together:

I was struggling to work out what to do with this trio of colours this week, then I had a brainwave - and ended up making not one but two cards! Both of which feature some cute party puffins - here's the first one: 

I substituted Peekaboo Peach for Peach Parfait, as I don't have this colour. I used the peach for my base and added Tangerine Tango banners on both cards, then stamped my puffin and cake onto a scalloped edge diecut piece, incorporating the pink into the icing on my cake and added a heat-embossed sentiment:

I chose another of the puffin images for my second card:

How cute is that little goldfish present he's holding?!

I also added a little detail to the inside of both cards:

So which one of these is your favourite? Here's a photo of them together:

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

As a reminder, for our colour challenges, you must use all of the stated challenge colours. You may also use neutral colours; however, the challenge colours should be the most noticeable ones featured on your card. We use Stampin' Up! color names for reference, but you are welcome to use any other companies' products as long as you match the challenge colours as closely as possible.

I'm a little late posting today; I have spent the last couple of days recovering form my second Covid jab, which truly knocked me for six. I'm thankfully feeling much better today and am now fully vaccinated, so it was worth it! Enjoy your day and I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

PARTY PUFFINS CLING STAMP SET (£19.00)

SCALLOPED CONTOURS DIES (£33.00)

Today it's Sunday and time for this week's new challenge over at The Paper Players! It's the turn of the fabulous Laurie to host this week and she has a fun clean and simple challenge for us to work with:

I finally received my first pre-order from the new annual catalogue on Friday so couldn't wait to have a play! I decided to take the current Fusion sketch layout and this week's colours over at Just Us Girls to test drive one of my new stamp sets - take a look:

Here's the low-down on today's card:

Party Puffins - Today's card features a trio of Party Puffins from the new stamp set of the same name. This is such a cute new set; for my card today I stamped and fussy cut two puffins and a birthday cake for the front of my card and popped them up on dimensionals. The third puffin? He was hiding out on the inside of my card:

Black and White ... - This week's theme is 'clean and simple', so a focus on white space, limited layers and little/no embellishments. With this in mind the Fusion sketch was perfect for constraining my design to no more than half of my card front. I used a strip of black-on-white geometric patterned paper from the True Love DSP pack to ground my design and tie in with the black and white of my puffins:

... And A Trio of Colour - I grounded each of my stamped elements on a stitched square in one of the JUGS challenge colours and used the same trio of Blends combos to add colour to my cake and the legs, beaks and party hat of my puffins:

Are these cheeky little chappies not the cutest?! I just love them! Not to long to go until they go on general sale; the new 2021-22 Stampin' Up! annual catalogue will be live on 4th May. I will be packaging mine this week to send out to those customers who have purchased from me in the last 6 months; if you are reading this and you're not on my mailing list and don't already have a Stampin' Up! demonstrator and would like a copy of the new catalogue, then do get in touch with your contact details and I will arrange to get one out to you too.

Here is the visual summary of the key products used on today's project for you to pin for easy reference:

You can see all of my Product and 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

Before you reach for your ink and papers, check out what our amazing team has created to inspire you this week:

You can see all of my 'How To' summaries on my 'How To - Tips and Techniques' Pinterest board in case you've missed any. 

The weather has been much brighter here in the UK the last couple of days so I am hoping to get out on my bike today with the rest of the James family. No other fixed plans; whatever you are doing, I hope you are enjoying some nice weather and fresh air too! I'll be back tomorrow with another project. Until then, happy stampin'!

Stampin' Up! Supplies Used:

TRUE LOVE 12" X 12" (30.5 X 30.5 CM) DESIGNER SERIES PAPER (£10.75)	BASIC WHITE A4 THICK CARDSTOCK (£7.75)	CALYPSO CORAL A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	CALYPSO CORAL STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	DAFFODIL DELIGHT A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)
DAFFODIL DELIGHT STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	FLIRTY FLAMINGO A4 CARDSTOCK (£8.25)	FLIRTY FLAMNGO STAMPIN' BLENDS COMBO PACK (£8.50)	TUXEDO BLACK MEMENTO INK PAD (£5.50)