#cbriggs

Happy Anniversary Shaker Card. 

Ya know, every family has that one family member who is hard to buy for, figure out, or quess their real personality. Come on, admit it. Well, this card is intended for one of my sisters. She’s a School Principal and Coordinator of Services for a general area in her locale. She’s quippy, whitty, quick with comebacks, and snarky. To come up with something for HER birthday was extremely tiresome. But, thanks to a fellow Pinterester, Deena, I think I have come up with something. Deena re-posted a blog of hers from 2014 featuring a backpack card. That got my attention! I’ve had the basic card constructed for about a week now and finally decided how to finish t just this morning. I modified it from the tutorial to incorporate educational themed experiences. In the small outer pocket of the “Backpack” are two small inserts that contain a checklist of “To Do’s” and a ;list of books to carry. As seen in the second picture, the first page of the backpack has handwriting/alphabet recognition exercise sheets hung from string. Well, supposed to be student examples of excellent work for others hung from “whatever”.  I found free clipart of handwriting/alphabet sheets ( each different), copied them onto a Word document, printed them out, and filled in the letters needed to complete “Happy Birthday”. I placed them back on the printer, scanned them to the computer and reduced them to the size I needed and made my own cut outs. The small brown pieces of paper are supposed to be small clothes pins attaching the worksheets to a line in the “room” for display. “Excellent work”, “Good Job”.  On the last page is the Happy Birthday Greeting, which has been stamped to another clipart, affixed to card stock. It’s all held together by a small velcro dot. So if you are looking for a card for a teacher who isn’t into flowers, or the cutesy stuff, try a backpack card!!!! Modify to your heart's content. I just might do a video on this one????

My son, a fan of Friends, loves Hugsy. If you are not familiar with Hugsy, he is the stuffed penguin companion of Joey. I searched high and low for a stuffed Hugsy for him last year for Christmas. Believe it or not, he was on backorder for three weeks. I had a hard time figuring out what do to do for his Birthday card this year and I came up with this. Everything on this card is a Stampin’Up! product except the penguins. The three misfit penguins are from Frantic Stamper.  Hugsy, is completely homemade starting with two small circles and the help from the stampin’up! Owl maker punch.  This is a slider card, so Hugsy hides behind the cake until you pull the tab upwards to bring him up. Surprise!!!

This card will be sent to my mother and father for their anniversary. I have to give credit to another crafter f cards for the idea. I modified it slightly for the season of my parents anniversary in the fall so I used used darker colors. All materials used for this card are Stampin’Up! products. 

Now this has got to be one of my favorite cards I have made so far. The base of the card is “Coastal Cabana” decorated with the leafy paper from the Natures Poem designer series paper.  This is a Twist-n-Pop card. This card was made with a variety of stamps and thinlits from Colorful Seasons, Beautiful Bouquet, Waterfront, Timeless Textures, and Birds and Blooms. The greeting pieces on the cards front were embossed with the Woodland embossing folder. I used a variety of techniques on this card and it was time consuming, but well worth it. 

I am just thrilled with the way this one came out. This is one of my new embossing folders I just had to try. The card is all white and I used “Sahara Sand” ink. the stampe set is Petal Palette by Stampin’Up!. Just perfect for a wedding. 

This is the third card I did using the block ink watercoloring technique. You can see where the ink did not seep into the paper leaving this unique texture. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do this one. I almost threw it away.  I did the same thing here, tore away the hard edges of the watercolor paper before the paper dried, giving it that vintage look. With the stamp set “Timeless Textures”, I ever so lightly stamped some grid marks random spots. The stampe set for the display is “Varied Vases” with a Navy blue vase and graduating flowers. The centerpiece is embossed in white crystals. 

I had fun doing this card. tried a new watercolor technique where the ink was applied to the stamping block then turned over onto the damp watercolor paper. I used a heavy weight watercolor paper and inked the heavy textures side.  You can see on the left side of the paper, the ink did not absorb leaving the splotchy white texture. That’s cool. I sponged up the excess ink with a tissue and around the edges I came in a little further to mellow out the right side of the paper. I really like that effect. the stems for the flowers are embossed in yellow and the flowers are  SU “Berry Burst”. I embossed over the flowers with crystal embossing powder.