Happy Birthday Lil' Inkers: Bunches of Birthday Wishes

Lil' Inkers Designs is hosting a third birthday celebration!  Happy Birthday Lil' Inkers!!  There are lots of prizes just for creating a birthday card from an inspiration photo.

I have used some of my favorite Lil' Inkers products - the Stitched Circle dies and the Balloon Builders stamp sets and dies.  The balloons are really cute - different shapes and patterns - they make it so easy to make a cheerful birthday card!  Lil' Inkers has so many great products that would work for birthdays - really cute party hat dies and stitched bow dies - ALL on my wishlist!

• Stamps: Lil' Inkers Balloon Builders
• Paper: Stampin' Up Island Indigo, Poppy Parade, My Mind's Eye Hip-Hooray Boy dsp
• Ink: Stampin' Up Poppy Parade, Crushed Curry, Soft Sky, Distress Inks Broken China
• Accesories: Lil' Inkers Balloon Dies, Stitched Mats: Circles, MME Ginger Twine

CAS(E) this Sketch! Bundles of Birthday Wishes

It's Thursday!  And time for a new sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch!

My family has a favorite family iPad app called Show of Hands.  It asks a variety of questions - from current political issues to choosing between peanut butter and jelly - then it shows you the nationwide results grouped by state, age, income and political affiliation.  We think, we laugh, we have intense discussions.  Just this week, one of the questions was your favorite geometric shape.  You should have seen my family's faces (remember...all men and boys) when I started getting all excited and shouting "hexagon".

Having told that story - I didn't use hexagons on my card.  I had planned on it, I really did.  But every so often I get a strong mental image of a card and I just have to go for it (all the rest of the time, my cards are a lengthy series of trials and errors!)  This bouquet of balloons just called my name!


CAS(E) this Sketch is having a design team call.  Check it out!  Of course, your cards have to be CAS - the link has tips on that - but CAS sketches are so very flexible.  You aren't locked into a specific number of layers or sizes or colors.  This sketch had five elements and a sentiment - you can go a lot of directions!

• Stamps: Li'l Inkers Balloon Builders
• Paper: white
• Ink: Stampin' Up Crushed Curry, Melon Mambo, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive, Tangerine Tango
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Candy Dots, L'il Inkers Balloon dies

The Color Throwdown 5th Anniversary! Love Is In the Air

The Color Throwdown has been giving us color inspiration for five years!  I haven't even been in the blog world for 5 years.  My blog opened on November 13, 2010.  My first color throwdown card was just 4 days later on November 17th.  So they have been an important part of my crafting career!!

I've waited a little long to participate in their fifth anniversary - it's closing by end of day today!  They are having a big party with lots of prizes and a ton of great inspiration from current and past design team members.

I played around with a number of ideas.  Most of what I was playing with involved coloring images. Have any of you had the experience that lots and lots of your Copic markers are going dry all at once? I think we all jumped on the bandwagon at about the same time - and so my markers are all about the same age and are all failing.  Sadly, even though I had a cute image for this challenge - my markers coordinating with Crumb Cake and So Saffron aren't functional.

So...new direction...I also had new-to-me dies on my desk (NBUS!!! Never Before Used Schtuff!).  I have loved the stitched squares and rectangles from Li'l Inker Designs.  When I decided to order the stitched circles I also filled my cart with a number of other basic dies - sun, clouds, balloons and the instant camera die.  I love the added interest of the stitching on their dies!


Thank you to Color Throwdown for five inspiring and fun years!!

• Stamps: Li'l Inkers Balloon Builder, Hero Arts tweed background
• Paper: Stampin' Up So Saffron CS and dsp, Bermuda Bay, Melon Mambo, Crumb Cake
• Ink: Memento Black, WPlus9 White
• Accessories: Li'l Ink dies: Stitched Rectangles, Large Sunshine, Rainbow and Clouds, Balloons; Trendy Twine Strawberry Cupcake twine, misc heart gem

Peace, Love and Flip Flops!

It's a busy day today - lots of fun stuff!  An afternoon stamping with friends, an evening at dinner and then my friend's choir concert and it's finals week in my current class.  So I had a half an hour this morning to play - and it's a very rare card that I can finish in half an hour.  But I had a plan to use flip flops for a niece's birthday.  (Sadly, this plan changed when I realized the stamp set didn't have a birthday sentiment - but it was still a plan.)  First, I saw the sketch at Freshly Made Sketches - perfect space for some flip-flops.  Then I saw the colors at color throwdown - perfect colors for my favorite sentiment in the set!


So I'm all done - and then I noticed my mistake - anybody see it?  This die set comes with a number of toppers for the flip flops.  I didn't use the actual flip flop topper because it would have been hidden by the bow that I wanted to use.  So I don't think these are technically flip-flops, are they??  Flip-flops have the little strappy thing for the big toe - can they also be little slip-ons like these?  It's just like me to obsess over stupid things like this!!

• Stamps: L'il Inkers Flip Flop Sentiments
• Paper: Stampin' Up Night of Navy, Little Yellow Bicycle Just Because 6x6
• Ink: Stampin' Up Night of Navy
• Accessories: L'il Inkers Flip Flop Dies, Divine Twine Maraschino, misc sequins