Make a Wish

As you may have noticed, I've been making a lot of birthday cards lately.  One of my problems in doing this is that I tend to use and reuse the same stamp for the birthday sentiment.  I need to remind myself to take out ALL my stamps and use the different birthday sentiments I have.  This way, I'll be far less likely to give someone a card using the same stamp I used on their card the year prior.  So for this card, I pulled out one of my stamp sets from V's Sweet Ideas that I haven't used in a really long time.  It's from V's Birthday Wish Stamp Set.  I heard from Vanessa that she has some new stamp sets coming out soon, and I look forward to seeing those.

My card was created using patterned papers from My Mind's Eye On Trend collection.  The papers are beautiful mint and coral with touches of gold in them.  They're very different from what I usually use, and they were a lot of fun for this card.  I used three different patterns from this set.  One is the background, and two other patterns were used to cut six small squares that I machine stitched and attached by following this sketch from Sketch Saturday Challenge Blog.  I added a mint button, and some bows of Gold Metallic String as an accent.  The sentiment was stamped in Black Soot Ink by Tim Holtz onto a strip of vellum that I attached with some tiny gold accent stickers.

Following a sketch is a great way to get started when you're stuck.  It gives you a starting place, and yet you're still completely free to put your own twist on it as you can see from the DT Members' sweet sample cards.  They really inspired me to play along this week with their great cards.  Well, that and the fact that Simon Says Stamp is their sponsor, and I am such a huge fan of theirs as well.  Isn't the gold in these papers beautiful?

Here are the links to the challenges where I'm sharing my card:

Sketch Saturday Challenge Blog - Challenge #407 - I really had fun with this sketch

Little Scrap Pieces - Saturday Linky Party - Anything Goes

Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog - Simon Says "Happy 7th Birthday" to their amazing challenge blog.  I have loved playing along all these years, and some happy day I will be a winner.  I wish them the HAPPIEST birthday, and sincerely hope that they'll be around forever.  This is my 4th entry.

Well, that's all for now my friends.  I look forward to hearing your thoughts on my card, and I will be stopping your blog as soon as possible to see what you've been creating this weekend.  Enjoy yourself, and thanks for visiting.

Karen