Hello Baby!

Hi Everyone.  Happy Monday night.

Tonight's card features one of my favorite sets from the new catty – Baby Bundle.  I just love this set.  You may remember my diaper/nappy card – well, I used some of the same DSP (retired from the SU clearance rack) just because I love it with this pram.

I saw this great sketch on sweetstop. 
I don't often do square cards, but loved this layout and decided to use it for this card.  It really allowed me to play around with some of the cool DSP that I have in my stash and bring out some new colors.  I cannot tell you how much I am enjoying the color renovation.  I am sooooo pleased that SU did it… and… you know I have said this before – I wasn't too impressed at the time….. but now that I am playing with it.  Awesome!

Pop along to sweetstop and check out the challenge, as well as the design team and submission cards.  I know you will find something to inspire you.  So, here's my take on the sketch.

I named this baby… his name is Charlie… why?  I have absolutely no idea – but I just love him ! 🙂

I'm also in love with this color combo – I think the Riding Hood Red and the Baja Breeze go beautifully together.  The dots on the paper led my color choices for the rest of the card.  I also love the checkered background paper from the retired DSP kit!  I can't tell you how much fun I had making this card!

I bought a couple of English crafting magazines for Trish and had a quick look through them at the bookstore before I bought them and sent them off.  One of the things I noticed was that they were using a lot of charms as embellishments.  I realized that I had seen some of these beady things at the local craft store and decided I would give them a try on a card someday.  Well, the little scallops seemed just the right place to put 4 of them and made a great change from the normal sentiment.

Card recipe:

• Card stock:  Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Riding Hood Red
• Inks:  Riding Hood Red, Wild Wasabi, Baja Breeze, Daffodil Delight, Going Grey
• Accessories:  alphabet beads from LSS, Whisper White satin ribbon, died with my Baja Breeze marker – again I wanted the white lines on the edge to stay white, so used my marker to color it instead of my brayer
• Tools, big shot, nestabilities (large square), mini glue dots for "baby" and ribbon.  Dimensionals for both layers of the focal image.  Scallop border punch.  Stam-a-ma-jig for pram, "Charlie", bottle and rattle

Card instructions:

• Cut card stock to make a 5 1/4" square card
• Stamp image with StazOn and color with your favorite colors.  You can see that I used two other stamps from the stamp set – the rattle and the babies bottle.  I placed them both on the ground, because that's what babies always do…. and I thought that the look on "Charlie's" face seemed to say… ooooops 🙂
• The blue checkered paper is 5" square.  The spotted paper is 3" W x 2 1/5" H
• The scallop border finished size is 5 1/4W x 2H
• The checkered strip is 5 1/4"w x 1"H

So, I hope you like Charlie's card.  Luckily I do have somewhere to send this card – but the baby isn't named Charlie! 

Don't forget – the Paper Players easel card challenge is going on through Friday.  We'd love to see what you create – and they really are easy cards to make and can get pretty addictive.  You can find the details on the challenge here

On a personal note:  I have to say that the postman must think it is my birthday.  4 boxes arrived via USPS today… Lou couldn't work out what I'd ordered – especially as two parcels arrived from SU earlier in the day (catalogs for my customers and the long lost Itty Bitty Buttons!).

Well,  the 4 boxes are 4 boxes of cards for the OWH card drive… Oh YEAY!!!!!  So, thank you to Beth, Rach, Soozie and Cam.  I can't wait to open them up and take them out and admire each and every single one of them.  I promise you all that I will take pics from cards chosen at random from each of our fabulous contributors and post them on my blog for you to admire.  I don't know who was happier – me or Bailey and Bilbo.  They inspected each box, rubbed against them and then sat on them!  So, I know they approved.  I think it's their way of saying thank you to you all.  In addition, Trish let me know via an electronic card today that she has also posted cards for the drive.  WOW, Trish.  with all that you have going on, I cannot thank you enough!  Adelle and Terri also let me know that they are sending cards… You have already seen some of Lynn's and I still have to show you Brenda's….. So, I think it's going to be a bumper crop to send to OWH.  The next few days are going to be very exciting.  Bilbo is looking forward to drawing the winner of the $100 shopping spree and I can promise you that spending $100 on stuff from the new catty is going to be easy for you!  So huge thank you to all of you – and to others who may have sent cards that I haven't received yet.

I did get to spend some quality time in my stamping space this weekend.  I made a few cards for challenges – rare that I seem to get those done these days…. but I mostly concentrated on making cards for the card drive. 

Here's one that I made using a non-SU set.  It's very rare that I buy non SU sets and working with this set made me realize why…. it took me 6 goes to get the image stamped evenly.  Now, it's not as though I'm a novice stamper – and it's not as though I don't make a lot of cards…. so, it really is just the stamp and not my stamping ability.  I almost never mis-stamp a card using an SU set.  However, the image was worth it… you all know that there was no way that I couldn't water color this cat using shades of orange… Bailey wouldn't have it any other way!  It also gave me a great excuse to pull out Cajun Craze… I am SO loving this color.

I know you can't see it in this pic, but I did use a glitter pen on the flowers, his eyes and nose and his collar.  Of course, I had to pull out the polka dot embossing folder, because it really echoed the spots on the pussycat's coat.  I hope someone gets a kick out of receiving this card from their loved one/friend in the forces.

Well, I am off to make some more cards and to finish packing up the care packages for my SU customers.  My catalogs arrived today and I will be putting them together with some cards made with the new goodies, new color paper samples, information sheets, and a couple of surprises.  It's my way of saying thank you to my customers … thank you guys!   Then, we will get to sit outside on the deck and have dinner tonight.  Finally!  It hasn't rained the whole day…. AMAZING!

On the prayer list tonight, Trish, Lynn, Arthur, T, Pri, Germaine and Rach – so please keep them in your thoughts.

Tomorrow – I'll be posing a question for you all.  I really want to know what you would like to see on my blog that you don't see today and what you like, and wouldn't miss if I it wasn't there.  So, tomorrow, I will ask that question and ask you to please leave a comment – or send me an email.

As always, thank you to all of you for spending time in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Your visits, your support and your comments are always greatly appreciated.

Don't forget – smile at a stranger, it may change their life.

Hugs

Jaydee