Welcome crafty friends! Ashwini is hosting this week and has chosen frames as the topping for us this week at Seize the Birthday. I thought these underwater tunnel dies from Spellbinders would make a perfect frame. This card was also a great way to use up a bunch of scraps for the coral, fish & seagrass.
22 May 2025
fabulous frames
08 May 2025
fantastic flowers
Happy May crafty friends! Hope this month is treating you well so far. Nancy is hosting our flowers topping for us this week at Seize the Birthday. I bought this gorgeous foil plate in January and my first try with it ended up as this card! I have made several others like this - foil on patterned paper with a simple sentiment. Definitely a winner design in my mind.
24 April 2025
stunning stencils
Hey crafty friends! So hard to believe that it's getting towards the end of April. Spring has arrived here on the west coast of Canada... I'm just hoping it sticks around. Gotta' hate 'fake spring' - lol!
Shirley has picked stencils as the topping for us this week at Seize the Birthday. I used a new-to-me stencil from Lavinia (with 2 different white inks) and also a new-to-me Spellbinders foil plate (shout out to my local-ish craft store - Crafty Capers - where a purchased these). Confession: I made a card for this challenge back in January but looked at it earlier this week and thought "uh nope". Haha. I'm not sure if this counts as 'bokeh'? Oh well, even if not, pretty happy with how this turned out.
10 April 2025
lovely layers
Welcome to April at Seize the Birthday! Nancy has picked "layer it" as the topping this week. I'm always afraid that I'm going to overdue it when it comes to layers and it's going to get too cluttered ... so I just decided to dive into head first and embrace it. I love these cone flower dies so did four of them!
27 March 2025
big birthday
Happy crafty Thursday friends! Jenny has picked 'milestone birthday' for our Seize the Birthday challenge this week. I have a set of chipboard map letters/numbers that I thought would be fun to use for this card. I tend to hoard collect travel themed stuff so found some map paper to layer in behind. I have friends everywhere from 30 to 70+ so picked the middle - figuring that someone's 50th birthday would likely come up eventually - lol.
13 March 2025
anything that flies
Hey crafty friends... welcome to March at Seize the Birthday! Our first challenge of the month is anything that flies courtesy of Linda. I was thinking a little differently and went with airplanes. I never seem to have enough belated birthday cards and it's good to have some on hand. This layout is a Case from this card from the wonderful Kristie Goulet.
27 February 2025
stamp free
Today Jules has a super fun challenge for us at Seize the Birthday - no stamping! I feel like I can do no stamping without thinking about it but when I have to think about it - feels like way more pressure (LOL). I decided to just focus on the sentiment and pull out some alcohol inks.
13 February 2025
birthday heart
It's JoAnn's turn to pick the topping at Seize the Birthday and she wants us to add at heart to our card. I have a couple on mine. The hearts are both dark purple but as usual, it's hard to photograph.
02 February 2025
color hues: red & pink
Happy February! I just got back from a crafty retreat with my friends - so nice to just chill and craft for a few days. Decided to play along with Color Hues again... I struggle with pink but thought I would give it a shot. Thanks to Tracey for challenging me! In love with these dies so decided to use them again.
Edited to add (thanks Carol!) - also joining in for the Inkspirational Challenge (also red & pink).
23 January 2025
red & kraft
Lucky me! It's my turn to pick the topping at Seize the Birthday and no surprise, it incorporates red! Our topping is red & kraft. The other exciting part of today is we have a new design team member, Jenny Martin! So excited to have her join us. Welcome Jenny!
Red is my favourite colour and red & kraft is one of my favourite colour combo. I recently got these new dies and they suited the colour combo well. I inked up the 'behind' section so it would look a little darker.
10 January 2025
color hues: red & kraft
Color Hues is starting off the year with one of my favourite colour combos - red & kraft! I haven't used this fun die set very much but thought it would suit this combo well. Sending this card off to a friend who is having a tough time right now. The red hearts are the same shade as the rest of the red paper but they look different in the photo - not sure why. Thanks to Sheri at Color Hues for this combo!
09 January 2025
new year new crafty stuff
Welcome to 2025 crafty friends! Hope everyone had a peaceful and relaxing holiday season.
With our first Seize the Birthday of the year, we say goodbye to long time team member Colleen (we'll miss you!) ! I missed saying goodbye in November - some unexpected events kept me from getting my last post up (nothing too serious - some travel plan disruptions - everything worked out. We welcome our new Surprise Party Guest - Amanda Mertz! So glad to have you join us.
Cathy's challenge for us it to use something new. I've had this martini set from Spellbinders for a few months but this is only the second time I've used it (*gasp*!). The sentiment is also new and also from Spellbinders.
14 November 2024
focal one
Hey crafty friends... welcome to another Seize the Birthday challenge. This is the second last one of 2024 as we take December off. Ashwini has chosen the challenge this week - for the focal image, use only one stamp and stamp it only once. No more stamping is allowed on the focal image.
I used one of my favourite big floral stamps and coloured it with watercolour pencils. To liven it up, I splattered with some pink (! I know, I know) Distress Mica spray. Happy with how this fun card turned out.
12 November 2024
red & black
Hey crafty friends. I couldn't resist playing along with one of my favourite colour combos - red & black - over at Colour Hues Challenge. I recently took a fall leaves watercolour painting class and couldn't resist putting some of those techniques into this card. I used Distress Ink for this card... since I made it, I've picked up some watercolour paints (always more crafty supplies to buy - right?). I've also accumulated many leaves in my jacket pockets - lol.
24 October 2024
fine feathers
Welcome to another Seize the Birthday Challenge! Vicky chose feathers as the topping this week. I don't have any feather dies or stamps so I went with a bird. Tried to just make it simple and elegant. The card base is a dark purple - oh purple, how I love you but how difficult you are to photograph.