Woodgrain Birthday

There are lots of January birthdays in my family so I'm having a busy couple of weeks getting them all made. It's giving me a chance to use some of the stamps I received for Christmas too, so I'm having a great time!

This one is based on the sketch over at Hand Stamped Sentiments

I stamped my grunge background stamp onto some tissue paper for the background layer, then used my new SU woodgrain stamp for the next layer which I gently distressed.  The small polka dots were stamped onto tissue paper so that the wood pattern can still be seen through.  I keep all sorts of bits of ribbon in my stash and (mostly) have no idea where it all comes from - I thought this blue one provided a nice pop of colour.  I chose to stamp the sentiment in a matching blue, this final layer is raised up from the card with some sticky pads.

Paper pieced cupcake card

Two challenges for this card -
CAS-ual Fridays #86, Long and Short
and the last ever (sob) CR84FN colour challenge - use aqua, tan and light yellow

The cupcake stamp was stamped onto some patterned aqua colour paper for the base, and onto some stamped yellow polka dots for the cakey topping.  The candle was from another stamp set.  I coloured in some of the cake decorations in a darker aqua colour, and added some pale yellow and aqua pearls for the sprinkles.

I always find CAS cards challenging because there's always something else I want to add - I hope I held back enough on this one!

The Meaning Of Life

I've made this card for my brother-in-law.  I couldn't resist taking a page out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for this birthday!
The sketch is from Sketch Saturday #241

And the colours are from Paper Players #128, Pacific Point, Basic Gray and Daffodil Delight.

The number 42 has been stamped in my closest blue to Pacific Point, cut out and stuck onto a circle of acetate.  I've stuck a circle of white tissue paper which was stamped in grey with big polka dots to the other side of this acetate
.  The sentiment was stamped in a Daffodil Delight-ish yellow and I inked the paper twine with this too to match it into the card's colour scheme.
Added a few grey sparkles and staples, and a blue faux stitched border, and bosh, tis done!