birthday chick

Do you know how intimidating it is to stamp a card for someone who's been stamping for a living for 8+ years?

I found out sort of at the last minute that my SU! demo's birthday was this week. I knew I wanted to make a card for her, but I was paralyzed in deciding what to do. I've only been back into stamping since the beginning of this year and a lot has changed since I stopped stamping in 1998. In the end, I used last Sunday's sketch challenge from Amy Westerman (a stamping blogger I {heart}), with my favorite Basic Grey paper and my current favorite stamp. I like how it turned out. Hopefully she will too, even though there's only one little SU! stamp on it.



Stamps: Autumn Leaves Rhonna Farrer Bird, SU! Riveting
Paper: Basic Grey Phoebe (Angel Island, Pacific Heights, Sausalito); Bazzill
Ink: SU! Regal Rose classic, VersaMagic Tea Leaves chalk ink
Accessories: American Crafts ribbon; Sakura Stardust gelly roll; Cuttlebug slider dies; SU! ticket corner punch

Inside sentiment: Happy Birthday to a groovy chick!

card class

Last week, I took a card-making class at a local scrapbook store. My mom joined me. It was interesting...

The class was supposed to be 2 hours, but it ran much longer than that. Mom and I didn't leave the store until 10pm—the class started at 6:30pm—but admittedly, we were the last to leave. We worked on 2 designs, 4 cards of each design. I liked the first design, and worked on finishing all 4 of those. (see below) It was basically cutting and pasting the elements and embellishments. I chose not to use the suggested sentiment "Happy Spring" because I didn't feel the color scheme was all that "spring-y."

The second design wasn't really my style, but I at least attempted it. It included stamping of the bathtub image from the "Time for the Bubbly" set from My Favorite Things. I stamped my 4 images, with a lot of trouble getting a clean image. I think it was the weird surface on the table I was at, but I just couldn't get even pressure. We were also to make an embossed background using a QuicKutz goosebumpz die, however, the die was a small one, not a full card-size image. I didn't like how the embossing didn't reach the middle of the sheet of cardstock. I know that it was going to be a back layer, but it still bothered me. At that point, I decided not to finish the second set of cards and went shopping instead.

I picked up one of these: JustRite Round Monogram Stamper. I've never really had the urge to make my own monogrammed stationary, but I thought it would be great for making gifts. Mom agreed and said she'd like to borrow it. I also bought a little something to alter for mom for either mother's day or her birthday. I spent most of my time scouring the store for a good small alphabet stamp set. The Technique Tuesday ones were too big. The rest I found were too ugly. I want something fairly clean and simple, not roughed-up edges or grungy. I didn't find anything. I think I'm still leaning towards the Karen Foster Snap Stamps, but I'd have to buy them online, sight unseen. I've heard great things about them, but I'm just not ready to buy them yet.

Ok, enough rambling...

Here's the card I finished:


I can't really give details about the papers, etc., because all supplies were provided by the store. All I know is that the flower cutouts are "Elsie Flannigan" style.