Sweet Shop, Buttons and Balloons

As promised, here is the card I made for my husband's "graduating" soccer player. Yesterday I showed you the one I made for her Mom (see it here.) 

As this card was for a 6 year old girl, I knew I wanted it to be fun. What's more fun than candy? The Sweet Shop DSP in the Occasions Mini is perfect for making fun cards. Here's what I came up with.

The card base is Whisper White card stock onto which I've layered pieces of  Lucky Limeade and Wisteria Wonder card stock and then two different patterns from the Sweet Shop Specialty Designer Series Paper. I stamped images from Button, Button in Island Indigo, Calypso Coral and Pool Party then used a matching brad from the Printed 2011 In Color Designer Brad collection to jazz it up a bit. The last little bit of detail is the Lucky Limeade 3/8" Ruffled ribbon I attached to each side of the button strip.

Here's a close up of that ribbon and the stamped button strip.

Inside the card I wanted a sentiment that reflected Greg's feelings of "wishing her well in her future endeavors". Since I didn't have anything  that said that specifically, I went with this sentiment and some images from Up, Up & Away.

My Birthday Cards for All Ages class on April 13th will be featuring this stamp set and I have been having fun creating all sorts of examples. Please head on over to my Events page to get more details on the class and to RSVP. Use your coupon - if you got one! If you want to be in the running to get future coupons take a moment now to put your email address into the box on your right and get my monthly newsletter. You'll get  tips, sneak peaks and first dibs on all my classes so sign up today!

Sweet Shop Birthday card

Today is my youngest daughter, Christine's 3rd birthday. She is such a darling little scamp so I decided to make a fun card for her. I think it was using the Big Top Birthday DSP last week that started an obsession with making pin wheels. For whatever reason, I can't get them out of my mind and keep coming across them in my (too frequent) BLOG surfing sessions!  

What do you think? Fun, huh?

I started with a piece of Calypso Coral card stock then layered a piece of Pool Party card stock that I'd run through my Perfect Polka Dots Textured Impressions folder on my Big Shot. On top of that is a piece of Whisper White card stock stamped with the Sweet Cake stamp set and dressed up with my fun pinwheels (3 of them in honour of her 3rd birthday!)

The pinwheels themselves are made out of pieces of the Sweet Shop DSP and are held in place with a brad from the Sweet Shop Jelly Bean brads.

Here's a fun tip to create some added interest on your cards. When you have an image like this one where the sentiment is added separately from the main image, stamp the sentiment onto a different piece of card stock and then use Dimensionals to pop it off the first stamped image.

Well, I've got a cake to finish and a house to clean for a family celebration later this weekend so I'd better run! One last thing though... the products featured on this card today (Sweet Shop Suite of products) are in the Occasions Mini Catalogue and will only be available until April 30th. Get them now!! Stampin' Up! has changed their catalogue schedule so there will not be a Summer Mini this year. Instead we will be seeing the new 2012-2013 Idea Book and Catalogue as of June 1st (I'll get a sneak peak starting May 1st). As a teaser they are releasing a look at their Summer Smooches Suite starting April 1st. Take a look ...

To see a PDF flyer about the promotion, click on the link. Can you say YUMMY?!

Big Blue Eyes

I've got another layout of one of my beautiful daughters to share with you today. I've mixed several paper lines - just proves how versatile Stampin' Up! products are!!

This is Paige and the final of the portrait shots that we had taken this past December that I plan to scrap. 

I'm planning to enter this layout into Elle's Studio Thursday sketch challenge so here is the sketch we were given.

For my layout I started with a piece of 12x12 card stock in Bashful Blue. I inked the edges with Concord Crush and then layered  a piece of Sweet Shop DSP on top. The photo and journaling block (just a piece of Whisper White card stock) were mounted on Concord Crush card stock and then I added strips of papers from Cheerful Treat and Flirtatious DSP. 

One of the papers in the Flirtatious Specialty DSP is these awesome laser cut doilies so for the title I cut out three of them, layered them over some more Cheerful Treat paper and a piece of 1/2" Stitched-Poly Ribbon in Concord Crush and adhered my letters on top. The word BIG is from the Word Play stamp set and originally said 'Wish Big' but I only needed the second word so just cut off the top of the stamped image.

I treated my letters in the same way as this layout. These are from the Alphabet Soup On Board set. First I inked them up with Bashful Blue, then I coated them in Crystal Effects and finally, to accent the word 'blue', I added a bit of Dazzling Details while the Crystal Effects was still wet. NOTE: I would do a second coat of ink before adding the other products next time. I'm not super happy that the letters look more grey than blue. But ... it is what it is.

For this embellishment I cut out another of the laser cut doilies and added a plastic flower (from my Twelve embellishment tin so not Stampin' Up!) and a Glimmer Brad. I also added a couple other brads from the Sweet Shop Jelly Bean and Everyday Enchantment collections. The Everyday Enchantment Ribbon and Brad pack is exclusive to the Sale-A-Bration catalogue so I can't provide you a link but to view the catalogue please click here.

Here are more of the brads I used on this layout - more than I normally use, to be honest! The green one is another from the Sweet Shop Jelly Bean brad collection and the lighter purple one is from the IN COLOR Printed Designer brads.