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Monday, June 9, 2008

Pssst!!! New card but please don't tell my Mom! (Embrace Life Birthday card)


I can't believe that I actually remembered to get a birthday card specifically stamped and in the mail on time (I hope!) for my mom's birthday. She will be 78 on June 11th and I intentionally made this card to send for her birthday rather than desperately grabbing a card leftover from class or stamp club samples in my usual fashion of card sending. I love the flowers and sentiment from Embrace Life and when I saw this card layout done by Sharon Rogers, a "cyber friend" from Splitcoaststampers, I couldn't resist "CASE'ing" it. I've always said that I'm not creative but I am a darn good copycat! I did change the colors and added a wee bit of ribbon but the sketch layout was all Sharon's.

I used Pretty in Pink and Always Artichoke for the main colors, stamped the flowers first then masked them and stamped over with the leaves. I love the effect of masking and it's really very easy, not sure why I don't do it more often! Here's a little tip about masking....which is covering a stamped image and stamping over it to make the images you stamp last look like they are "behind" the first image, in this case the flowers were stamped first and masked and then covered while the leaves were stamped last. To make it easier to use the same stamp again later, I stamp an image on a post it note or on regular bond paper (so it's thin) then cut it out. I put a tad of repositionable adhesive (e.g. post in note stick um) on the back of it so after I use it on the project, I can just attach it to the back of the wood block and use it over and over again.

My new favorite way of adding ribbon is to adhere a strip of grosgrain fastened with adhesive underneath the layer (rather than wrapping all the way around and tying) and then tie a little snippet of ribbon onto the long strip. I have always been "bow impaired" (which I claim is because I have 3 boys and no girls...well, at least not human girls, the canine daughters don't much like wearing bows and frills!) and my bows look 100% better since I learned this little tip from my friend Katrice. Saves on ribbon, too and that can't be bad!



Believe it or not, this is the very same card....it just looks like Cameo Coral because I took the photo at night with artificial lighting. I used the edit feature to brighten the colors of the first photo...hard to believe there is such a contrast. I really need to make sure I take my pictures during daylight hours but since I made the card at night and needed to mail it out asap (to arrive in time for the big day!) there wasn't much I could do about it but apply the filters. I do kinda like the look of these colors together and might have to do another one with Cameo Coral just to see how it comes out.
Rats! I thought I had saved these with my "watermark" applied but it isn't showing up on the second photo so....to satisfy the "legal beagles", all images are by Stampin' UP! copyright 1990-2008. Hope you enjoyed my Mom's birthday card! Jan




2 comments:

Terri said...

Nice job. I bet your mom will love it.

Anonymous said...

Jan, I love how soft your sponging is on this! Mine always comes out too dark, too far in, too....something!

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