Gimme Some Lovin' Day 7 - whew!

I made it to the end of the week and did seven cards! Today has been tough and I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I have some sort of stomach thing going on and I'm just not feeling so hot. But I started this one earlier this morning and I was determined to finish it. It's been fun trying out some stamps I'd never used - I think I know which ones I'll reach for again and which I'll probably be passing on when they retire!

I combined three challenges again: my own challenge, Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge to use paper piecing, and the featured stamper challenge at SCS. Today's stamper is Laura (scrapnextras, which is her name on SCS and also her blog). I have noticed her beautiful cards before, so congrats to Laura! I'm not sure she'd recognize which of her cards I chose to CASE (click here for the original), but here it is anyway.

I picked this card because I liked having three different colors featured, and I had already decided to use the Bitty Birthday set. I thought having lots of colors would work well with the little bag stamp. It was really a trial and error card - mostly errors. I was playing with all sorts of glitter, stickles, embossing... nothing was coming out right. In the end I remembered Sharon's challenge and decided to try paper piecing. I'd picked up this SEI paper when I was thinking of what direction I wanted to take, and then I'd set it aside, but I came back to it for the final version and I think it adds a cute touch to the bags. It was a little fussy but worth it!

I still wanted some glitter so I went over all the stamped lines with my Sakura glitter pen and also added a little to the sentiment. It's hard to see in the photo but you can just catch a glimpse here and there. Before I added the paper piecing, I colored in the skinny stripes with my ink pads and blender pen, using a contrasting color from the stamped image. The four colors I used are pixie pink, pumpkin pie, tempting turquoise and certainly celery.

I decided to add a sentiment and this gave me a little trouble as well. I finally hit on the circle idea with the stamp from Think Happy Thoughts and my circle punches. I finished the card by attaching double grosgrain ribbon (wide in celery and narrow in turquoise). I didn't have room for a knot so I did without it. The gift bags are mounted on foam tape, as is the sentiment. How's that for a cute and cheery birthday card?

This coming week I will have some freelance work trickling in so you may not see me posting quite as much, but I'll hopefully be making Mother's Day cards and have a few things to show you. Have a great week!