Sneak Peek: Express Yourself meets Quatrefancy

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday… Oh! yes!  We are on the countdown to the weekend!

I have another birthday card for you tonight.  This one didn't start out being a birthday card.  I was creating a card for the deconstructed sketch challenge (oops… missed the deadline).  I had the idea for the card, and the papers that I would use and went to my Whisper White folder to get some card stock to use for the focal image.  However, when I opened the Whisper White scraps folder, out dropped this really cute digi image that I had printed yonks ago.   I looked at it and decided that would be perfect for the focal image instead.  

Anyway, here's the sketch

It's an unusal sketch for me because all of the elements are in the top left corner.   I never do that with cards and decided that this sketch would push me out of my comfort zone and that was a good thing.

I knew that I wanted to use Strawberry Slush…. LOOOOOOOVVVVVING this color.   As does Rach.  So, I pulled out the card stock and ran it through my mosaic madness embossing folder.  I then looked at the matching DSP and pulled out two corresponding patterns that went with the Strawberry color scheme.

I had great fun coloring the little birthday doggie and especially enjoyed coloring the balloons.  Once I was done doing that, I realized I needed a sentiment and remembered my brand new set – it's a hostess set from the new catty – called Express Yourself.  It's a super useful set with basic sentiments and the Happy Birthday sentiment was the perfect size for the digital image.   However, I realized I needed another element on the bottom of the focal image to match with the sketch.   I had a lightbulb moment!  I would use my Mosaic Madness punch and create that element – and use the Designer Typeset photopolymer set to add the "2U" on it.

Here's my card:

I love that the shapes on the DSP echo the shapes from the embossed background and the punched element.   See how perfectly sized the sentiment is for the image?  I think I'm going to get a lot of use out of this new sentiment set.  Oh… I'll probably get a let of use out of the embossing folder, too!

I know you can't see it, but I did add a little bit of gel roller pen to the eyes, tongue and nose of the dog.  I also did the same to the highlight section of the balloons.  This card will definitely go in the next round of OWH cards 🙂

On a personal note:

Another gorgeous day here today.  I got to spend about 10 minutes sitting outside whilst I had my lunch.  I also caught sight of the Oriole.  YAY!   Good to know that he is still around.

I was woken up at 3.30 this morning.  We had a raider in the garden.   I heard something rattling and then the fall of metal.  Sam our ever vigilant norwegian growled and went rushing to the bedroom window.  I got out of bed and looked out, but couldn't see the culprit.  This morning I noticed that someone had pulled one of the bird feeders from the feeder system and that it was sitting in the wetland – minus the peanuts it used to contain!  I'm guessing it must have been a raccoon as we don't have a raccoon baffle on that feeder system, just the squirrel baffle.  I think we might have to move that particular feeder to the other system.

Rain is forecast for tonight.  I'm really happy about that.  it means that the frogs will be singing up a storm tonight and I must admit, I love being seranaded to sleep by the sounds of the frogs calling!

Oh… this week I have been kissed by Boris Becker, Pete Sampras, Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.  yep.  All in one week.  No, Lou isn't jealous!  It's just that I've been playing a lot of Grand Slam Tennis on the Wii and have been trying out different doubles partners to see who matches my game the most.   So far, Pete and Roger are my favs.  Boris was for a while, but he makes too many mistakes with his serves :-)  I must admit, my little avatar is much lighter on her feet that the real version.  Oh… ans she's skinner, too!   But, the whole point of getting up and playing a quick round of tennis in between conference calls is to get me moving more during the day and I must admit I'm loving it.  If I can spend just 10 minutes several times a day playing a quick game, I free up the cobwebs in my head and release a little tension.  The added exercise doesn't hurt either!

Rach, I hope little Bit is doing OK.

As always, thank you for stopping by my neck of the stamping woods.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.   I'll be back on Friday with another card.   In the meantime have a blessed Thursday

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients – all SU unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Strawberry Slush.  Xpress it blending paper
• Inks:  Copic markers.   Basic Black for the sentiment
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Mosaic Madness embossing folder.  Mosaic Madness punch
• DSP:  Mosaic Madness