Celebrate Today & Make a Wish

Hi everyone!  Hope your Sunday is a little brighter and sunnier than ours is.  

It's currently cloudy and on the verge of rain.  One good thing about the weather not being so enticing outside is that I get to play in my stamp room today...........yeah!

Last Tuesday when I was making cards with my bestie Sheri, we were working on a Colour Challenge put out by Just Add Ink.  The colour mix was Calypso Coral, Pear Pizzazz, Pool Party and Crumb Cake. Nice combination right? 

Well, as I sometimes do, I suckered myself into using Pear Pizzazz for the background on my card, even though my better judgement was screaming "go neutral" keep it "clean and simple".  

In the end because of my misguided decision followed by my indecision and dissatisfaction, I missed the post time for this challenge.  Urrrrrrrrgh!!! The final birthday card was finally finished a few days later after much creative angst and major revisions, but the good news is it did get finished and even though it was late for the challenge I decided to post it here.  


Here's the card I came up with: 

The card in MHO is overwhelmed by the Pear Pizzazz background which I tried to make more interesting by embossing with the Lovely Lace embossing folder.  I'm pretty sure that if I'd stuck to a Whisper White background for the card base and the stamped layer I think it would have worked better. Sometimes as the saying goes "less is more".

Along with the colour challenge we were eager to try out a new to us fancy fold technique called a "corner fold card".  This is a great card technique and takes very little time or effort to accomplish.

I'm not going to give you the dimensions and details for completing a corner fold card in this post as you can find several good examples on Youtube .  The one we chose to follow was done by Linda Bauwin.

Supplies:
Stamps:  Celebrate Today, Perfect Pennants
Ink:  Calypso Coral, Pool Party
Card Stock: Calypso Coral, Pear Pizzazz, Crumb Cake and Whisper White 
Accessories:  Balloon Framelit Dies, Lovely Lace Texturized Embossing Folder, Trimmer, Big Shot, Basic Rhinestones, Dazzling Details Glimmer Adhesive in Dazzling Diamonds, Note Tag and 1/2" Circle Punches, Snips, Crystal Effects, Adhesive, Dimensionals

Some Details:

Originally I stamped the birthday balloon from Celebrate Today in Pool Party ink on the whisper white layer, and coloured in the word happy with Calypso Coral blendabilities.  I also stamped the sprinkled stars image over top of the balloon and added some Dazzling Details glimmer adhesive to the stars.

One thing about the 17-piece Celebrate Today set is that you get so many creative options and can combine individual stamps to build the final image you want in the colors you want.  I decided to use some more of the images  to dress up this card.  I stamped 4 of the shaker images on Pool Party card stock with the matching ink.  I layered two of the shakers and then cut small strips below the tab part to make them look 3 dimensional.

The banner was stamped in Calypso Coral on Whisper White card stock and then cut out using the Balloon Framelits (love those).  To add a lacquered look to the banners I covered them with Crystal Effects and let them dry before adhering some small rhinestones. 

I fussy cut the balloon tail which was stamped in Calypso Coral on Crumb Cake cardstock and used dimensionals to adhere it to the card base.   I finished it off by adding basic rhinestones in every second tail.  

I stood back, looked at the card and I still wasn't satisfied.   By now I'm sweating because time is ticking on the challenge clock and I so wanted to enter my card.  "What's a girl supposed to do?"

Well, I'll tell you, in frustration I went back to the drawing board, removed all the added details from the card front, that's right stripped it right back down to just the balloon image, and then I stared at it.   I hummed, played on the computer, looked at other stamp sets, planned dinner, and still nothing.  

Then, failing inspiration and in desperation, I did what all good stampers do when they get stumped............. I went and ate a bunch of chocolate and pondered what to do.  And finally the "ah ha" light went off in my head as inspiration hit me!  

It was while I was "wishing" for an idea to hit me that I remembered the "Make a Wish" sentiment stamp in the Perfect Pennants stamp set.  

Bingo this would be the perfect sentiment to layer onto the balloon and I could use my Note Tag Punch to cut it out.  I stamped the image in all four of the colours from the challenge to see which one would work best on the card front and chose to use a Calypso Coral on Crumb Cake.  I punched out the "a" from one of the tags I'd stamped in Pool Party with a 1/2" circle punch and then  mounted it with a dimensional to the center of the tag.  

The rest was easy peasy.  I re-attached the shakers, banners and balloon tail, and stamped the inside of the card with another balloon image.  I missed the challenge but, I did finish the card and that was important to me, along with being satisfied with the second attempt. 

I hope you enjoyed this card and the journey I took to finish it.  How about you, have you experienced my "I'm not satisfied" feeling, and if so what did you do about it?  I'd love to hear your story.  Please share and links to your card if any.  

Happy Stamping!
Penny Tokens

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