a2z Scrapbooking Birthday Blog Hop Bash

Hello everyone, and welcome to a2z Scrapbooking Birthday Blog Hop Bash!!! You should be arriving from Greta's lovely blog. If this is your first stop you'll want to begin at the a2z Scrapbooking blog so you don't miss out on any of the fun and beautiful creations we are sharing today.

I love a good party, and what's a good party without balloons?? 

I started with lots of white cardstock. Lots. You'd never tell now, right? ;) So, the card base is a standard A2 top-folding card that I cut from a piece of 8.5"x11" paper. The remaining strip I then cut in half and trimmed a bit, giving me my 4"x5.25" card front that I added texture paste to with the Arrow Pattern stencil. The last piece I smooshed with my Hero Arts neon inks in Green, Orange and Yellow. I love these bright colors, especially popped against the white. When the ink was dry I die cut some balloons and then added the stars in black for contrast. Where did they come from? The versatile Hero Arts 'Thanks' stamp and cut set.

I love all the texture and layers! I die cut a banner for my 'Happy Birthday' sentiment from the Glow Girl stamp set, then heat embossed it with some gold embossing powder. I added some fun foam behind my card front for uniform support, then added on my balloons and sentiment with foam tape. I left the balloon strings loose for added fun!

Now your next stop will be Kelly's blog!

Be sure to leave a comment on every blog to be entered into the random drawing to win a $25 gift certificate to the store. You have until Sunday, April 26th at 11:59pm EST to leave your comments and the winner will be announced on the a2z Scrapbooking blog.

Happy hopping!

Wedding Roses

Tired of all of my wedding-related posts yet? ;) Now that I'm quite sure my sister and new brother-in-law have received their card, I can finally share it with all of you!

Funny story; this card was sort of done before the wedding. Kind of. Ok, a few pieces were and then I packed up everything else I needed (including the heat gun) and brought it to the hotel with me and finished it the morning after the ceremony. What, am I the only one who's ever done that? Hey, I had 75 fan programs to finish first!!

I bought the new Ranger Texture Paste and simply went to town with my stencils one night playing with it, so that lovely background was already sitting in my stash. The red ribbon was actually part of some packaging from an online order (yay for reusing!) so all I had to really create were the roses. My dear friend Annette over at Feeding the Soul with Art handed me her DeNami rose stamp and said "here, this is what you need for a wedding card" and she was so right.

I heat embossed two of the roses with the gorgeous Ranger Liquid Platinum embossing powder; OMG is this stuff beautiful! I almost could have left the roses alone, but instead went in with the Distress Markers in  Fired Brick and Peeled Paint for just enough color. After letting the markers dry for a moment, I fussy-cut them out and used my favorite foam tape on just the rose buds and some of the leaves to stick them to the card. The stems were tied with the ribbon and then tacked down under the ribbon. Made them more three-dimensional and made it so that I didn't have to try and glue down those little stems!

I opened up my brand new Wink of Stella clear pen and proceeded to get a HUGE drop of it right on the card. ACK! I freaked out, looked again, and added 3 more to balance it all out and make it look intentional. Yup, when in doubt, act like it was intentional. Then I added it to the rosebuds as I had planned all along. All done!

We have two more weddings to attend this month, so better be prepared for more wedding posts! I'm also blogging over at Mountain Plains Crafters today about a stunning (if I do say so myself) fall card I made up for our latest card challenge. Be sure to stop on by and say 'hello'!

Linking up to: Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge; Bold

Happy Crafting!