Birthday Card - Word by Wilson

I'm cutting it a bit close, but I just finished this card for one of the supervisors in my office. We celebrate each month's birthdays at once, and he and I share the month of September. We're supposed to be celebrating with cake on Thursday and I just finished his card. :)

Christmas/Winter Holiday Card Swap

I signed up to participate in a Christmas/Winter Holiday Card Swap. This will be my first swap in a very long time, and my first as a Stampin Up Demonstrator. 

Needless to say, I'm extremely nervous and probably being a little overly judgemental of my work. I decided to use the Loads of Love set, adding in some stamps from the Loads of Love Accessories set. 

This is the first version of my card.

As I said, I was not happy with this so I worked on it a bit more, and this was the card I came up with.

As you'll notice, the only change between the two is that I used the same color ink as the paper and did a watermark kind of background using the tree stamp. 

This made me a little happier, but I was still not 100% happy with the card.

I thought about it a lot yesterday and today, trying to figure out exactly what it was about the cards that I wasn't happy with. Part of the issue was that it seemed a bit plain to me. Another part of me thought that all the extra detail I was adding was too much and maybe that was what I was having a problem with.

The card for the swap has to be made completely from Stampin Up products, and so this limits me a bit because I just became a demonstrator and a lot of my supplies are not Stampin Up. Thats when I realized that this was exactly what my problem was. If I could use anything I owned, I'd have used patterned paper, etc.

And so I redesigned my card and this was the next result.

I've found, I'm a LOT happier with this card.

You'll notice that I did the watermark background on both the rose red and the sage shadow cardstock and that the truck is stamped on the rose red paper, but I only cut off the wheels to have the others stand out.

Yes, I'm happy with this one and will be using the card for my swap. :)

Birthday Celebrations Card

Stamp Set

• Upsy Daisy

Paper

• Pacific Point card stock

• Baja Breeze card stock

• Very Vanilla card stock

• Muirfield Designer Series Paper

Ink

• Pacific Point Classic Stampin’ Pad®

• Baja Breeze Classic Stampin’ Pad®

Stampin’ Up! Accessories

• Baja Breeze 5/8" Striped Grosgrain Ribbon

• Sizzix Big Shot™

• Top Note Bigz Die

Happiness Always Card

Stamp Set
• Happiness Always (Hostess Set Lvl 3)

Paper
• Old Olive card stock
• Pumpkin Pie card stock
• Confetti White card stock
• Summer Picnic Designer Series Paper

Ink
• Old Olive Classic Stampin’ Pad®
• Pumpin Pie Classic Stampin’ Pad®

Stampin’ Up! Accessories
• Old Olive 5/8" Grosgrain Ribbon
• Earth Elements Colored Buttons
• Glassy Glaze Embossing Powder
• Stampin’ Dimensionals®
• Scallop Edge Punch