Happy Belated Birthday, Mary Beth!

     I have a very special post today as I am participating in a surprise birthday blog hop for an amazing, creative, crafter, Mary Beth (aka MaryBeth's Time for Paper). Her cards, tags and banners are so beautiful.
Although I have never met Mary Beth personally, I feel a connection with her as she too is a grandmother.

So here is my card posted in honour of Mary Beth.

 Once again I turned to my current favorite stamp set, Balloon Bash. However, this time I used Glitter Glitz on each balloon. At the stamp convention I attended 2 weeks ago, I saw a demonstration on creating a rainbow effect on a die using glitter. I attempted it here using one of The Birthday Trio die.

Mary Beth, I hope you enjoyed this special surprise hop and that you had a wonderful birthday. Although we  missed your real birthday we hope with this hopthat your celebration was extended a wee bit.

Follow along:

Joyce The host
Cathy co-host
Ally
Bev
Bonnie
Carol J. that's me
Carol S
Christina
Darnell
Helen
Jeanne
Jill
Kara
Kelly
Kim
Lisa
Nancy
Renee
Sharon
Sue
Tracey
Vickie

Stop by Mary Beth's blog to send her some wishes.

Merry Monday Sketch

 I'm slowly (very slowly) getting my Christmas cards made. My goal is 2 a week, but I have not been hitting it lately. I am so busy making birthday decorations for my granddaughters who each have a birthday in August & September.
The sketch this week at Merry Monday is awesome.

Here's my take:

 I am really enjoying my new Craft-Dee-Bowz maker. It is fantastice. It only takes seconds to make a beautiful bow. I am also submitting this to their August Challenge: Anything Goes With a Bow

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

Candy Cane Christmas

  Back again with another  MIM challenge. These backgrounds are so quick, easy and mistake proof. Love it! I only used two colors. I think using 3 or more colors really knocks this technique out of the park.

    Finally came up with an idea for the Festive Friday Element theme Challenge: Candy Cane

   I didn't really have anything with a candy cane theme so I secured a printable image from the internet, formatted it, cut it and stamped it with the Super Stripes stamp set.

  On Saturday I went to a stamping convention. I met the sweetest lady who devised a bow making tool. It is so quick & easy. A perfect bow everytime.Usually when I come home from a convention, I unpack my goodies (if my husband isn't home as I don't want him to see how much I bought) and wait several days to possibly use them.  Well, I immediately unpacked the bow maker and made several bows within 5 minutes. If you are looking for a fairly inexpensive bow maker, check out her website

 I am also entering this card into her August challenge: Anything goes With a Bow. 

Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

MIM: Stamping Random Backgrounds

  I love this week's MIM: Stamping Random Backgrounds.  Ashley was right when she said it would take no time to stamp the background. I think it took me longer to find the right size of stars I needed for the card. My brother-in-law has a birthday next month. Since he will be in Europe on his birthday, I thought I would send it before he left.

 
I decided to use  sketch # 75 from this week's Retrosketches challenge.

Here's a close up.

   I just love the recently released Balloon Bash stamp set & dies. I can't seem to put this set down when making a birthday card.  Hopefully, I'll have a chance to make another card for MIM. Love how this turned out. Thanks for stopping by to take a peek.

A Trio of Challenges

     This year I have been trying to make my Christmas cards throughout the year and have been participating in both Festive Friday and Merry Monday Christmas challenges.  However, I haven't been doing so well lately as I've been busy making birthday decorations for my granddaughter's birthday in August.  However, I found some time to make a quick Christmas card. I designed my card by using the color scheme from the current  Festive Friday Color Challenge.

  I think these non-traditional colors look so pretty together and will make a great card. I decided to use the sketch from this week's Retrosketches.

 Here's my card.

The pine leaves are embossed in silver along with the sentiment and inside decoration of the ornament. A ribbon and crystal finish off the ornament.   The picture does not do this card justice. It is so pretty IRL.

   I also decided to submit this to Merry Monday's Month long Christmas challenge

   Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek. 

MIM: Double Backgrounds

My nephew has a birthday coming up early next week.  After viewing the MIM "double Backgrounds, I thought I would give this technique a try. It also gave me an opportunity to use one of my newly released stamp sets, "Balloon Bash". I paired it up with BB: Birthday Fun. If the color scheme looks familiar, you might recognize it as one of the Fruits of Summer palettes from the July Blog Hop.

 A close up shot.

    I really liked how this card turned out. The double background is a cool technique. Hopefully, I'll be using it again.  Thank you for stopping by to take a peek.

PTI July Blog Hop

 The 25th of the month is one of my favorite days.  Why? It's PTI's Blog Hop.  I get to see so many beautiful cards made by some of the most creative crafters. The challenge this month is awesome.  One is to create a project using one of the Fruits of Summer color schemes. They were all so yummy! Since I was planning on using Delightful Dahlias Additions, I chose this one:

  I used the smaller dahlia image.

The limeade/new leaf combination was too harsh for me. I still used the two colors for the leaves, but stamped off first on each color creating  lighter shades that seem to complement each other a wee bit better.

  The sentiment is from Mixed Messages stamped onto a tiny tag.  Thanks for stopping by to take a peek. Enjoy the Blog Hop.