big day

Maple Leaf Birthday Card

/ Jodi / 26 Comments

PP266

It’s a color challenge at The Paper Players this week, and the colors are “cucumber crush” green, “crushed curry” gold, and “real red.”

I took a bit of a different twist with them for my Design Team inspiration card this week.

For my card, I took sponge daubers and dotted a sheet of very vanilla card stock with all three colors to pretty much completely cover it.  I then heat embossed maple leaves in white over top it, allowing the colors to seep through like Autumn leaves.  I then sponged Memento black ink over the entire thing, and rubbed it off the embossed parts with a baby wipe to give this dramatic masculine effect.

PP266 2

I layered this on top of real red and crushed curry card stock to frame it.

On a strip of vellum, I heat embossed Happy Birthday in black, wrapped it around and glued underneath, adhered to a very vanilla base, and added three black candy dot embellishments.  Oh – and a Wink of Stella 😉 to give it a bit of sparkle that you cannot see in the photo, but adds just a nice shimmer and festive spirit to the card.

PP166 inside

I added another green maple leaf on the inside, and this is a birthday card for my dear oldest son, Jake, who turns 28 this week!   Where did the time go?!  Seems like yesterday I held you in my arms for the first time.  One of the best days of my life!  Love you Jake!  More than you could possibly know! ❤

Hope my stamping and paper crafting friends will join us at The Paper Players this week and you were inspired to create something from my post.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi

Stamp Sets Used:

  • StampinUp Big Day Stamp Set for Happy Birthday sentiment
  • Inkadinkadoo Maple Leaf Stamp

I’ve been asked to be a “Designer”

/ Jodi / 45 Comments
Birthdays are for the Birds! Child Birthday Card Punch Art SU Bloom with Hope

My Most Pinned Card on Pinterest – Birthdays are for the Birds!

How about that?  Pretty exciting stuff – eh? (at least in my little corner of the world)…

I am so honored to be asked and super excited to participate as a Guest Designer for the next three months at ThePaperPlayers.

SUO 114 Dots Big Day

My second most pinned card on Pinterest – Dots Big Day Birthday Card

The Paper Players is a fun community of artsy crafty paper peeps who love to stamp or draw or paint handmade paper crafts.  The design team is a group of amazingly talented, inspiring individuals that are as kind and encouraging as they are artistic.  They truly embody creating HeARTwork!

I originally discovered The Paper Players when I started stamping, and for those that have been with me here a while know this is a weekly challenge I often participate in – – – and have actually won a few times!

I added "Jodi McKinney" to an #inlinkz linkup!https://lifeinbetween.me/2014/09/14/the-colors-of-fall/

One of my winning cards

I will be creating one card per week as “inspiration” for the challenge in hopes that others will join in and play along.

I hope some of you that love or would like to try paper crafting will check it out and join in with us weekly or as you like from time to time.

Stampinup By the Tide

One of my faves – Stamin Up By the Tide Hello There Card

The guidelines are very simple:

1. Create a new paper or digital project.
2. Upload your creation to your blog with a link back to ThePaperPlayers. (Please provide a direct link to the post featuring your challenge entry as opposed to you blog home page.)
3. We also ask that you link your project to no more than three challenges.
4. Have fun! 

Wish me luck, and I hope this inspires YOU to do more of what makes YOU Happy!

Happy Life Stampinup Watercolor Technique

Happy Life Watercolor Card

 

Cheers & Hugs,

Jodi

 

Discovering Dots

/ Jodi / 23 Comments

SUO 114 Dots Big Day

Sharing a fun little card today that I was inspired to make from the SUO Challenge (#114) to make a card with dots.

Who doesn’t love some fun polka dots?!

This was my second “go” at making a dot card for the challenge.  I made the one you will see below first, and I like it, but not sure I LOVE it.  You’ll have to let me know…  I so struggle with “simplicity” and “clean and simple” designs that I so admire others do!

But I do kinda love this one.  It screams happy and celebrate and big day to me!

And…. it’s covered with DOTS!  I sponged some on the background white piece using the Stampin Up (SU) circle background stencil with Real Red, Tangelo Twist, and Crushed Curry [ red, orange, and yellow in “layman” terms 🙂 ].

The sentiment from SU’s “Big Day” stamp set has some more dots on it, and then I added matching colored candy dots as an additional embellishment.

The silver metal buttons – a smaller one stacked on top of a larger one and held together with some red and white striped baker’s twine add just a few more dots.

I first had it laid out all lined up and symmetrical, but I thought it gave it some more interest and whimsy by offsetting the the angles of the layers a bit.

Here is the inside…

SUO 114 Dots Big Day inside

where I snuck one more orange candy dot in!  🙂

I added some Wink of Stella over top of the colored words on the front, but it is so hard to capture in a photo.  Under the right light or with just a slight twist or movement, it sparkles with delight though!

SUO 114 Dots Big Day Close up

Here is the first one I made that I mentioned above.

This one was made with the Stampin Up Cheerful Critters Stamp Set.  (They are so stinking cute – there are three that I’m sure I’ll feature in future posts.)

SUO 114 Dots Cheerful Critters

Again, it is hard to see, but after coloring the little critter’s polka dot “shirt,” I hit it with my Wink of Stella pen for a bit of glitz and glitter, and I also love the softness and plushness of the Blackberry Bliss thin velvet ribbon trim contrasting with the cool metal button.

closeup of SUO 114

Can you tell I was dying to use those metal buttons this week?  I really like them and the contrast they give.  It’s all in the little details kids!  🙂

Wishing you a Big and Happy Day discovering things you love.

Cheers & Hugs,
Jodi