Hi, everyone! I’ve got a simple, yet colorful birthday card to share today, featuring stamps from Mathia design. I was actually inspired by a card I made a couple of years ago for this one. It featured a couple of Papirdesign stamps, and I made the card very similarly to this one. You can find that blog post (written in Norwegian) here.
This time I used a Gratulerer sentiment and plenty of inks. From top to bottom they are Plum Pudding (Papertrey Ink), Autumn Rose (Papertrey Ink), Picked Raspberry (Distress Oxide), Worn Lipstick (Distress Ink), Spiced Marmalade (Distress Ink), Fossilized Amber (Distress Oxide), Twisted Citron (Distress Oxide), Cracked Pistachio (Distress Oxide), Peacock Feathers (Distress Oxide), Salty Ocean (Distress Oxide) and Blueprint Sketch (Distress Ink). Distress ink and clear stamps aren’t the best of friends, but if you put VersaMark on the stamp first, then distress ink, you’ll get a better result. The distress ink will stick to the VersaMark and won’t bead up as much.
I stamped and white heat embossed a sentiment from another Mathia design stamp set and popped it up on black foam tape from Gina K.
Behind the black cardstock piece I put a nest of angel hair. It’s a very very thin thread, and it has actual silver in it. I buy mine at the flower shop, one bag will last a looooong time. I finished off my card with some crystals of unknown origin. I know the brands of most of the stuff in my craft room, but these are a mystery.
I printed my image onto X-Press It blending card towards the bottom left corner of a quarter sheet. I colored it in with my Copics, before trimming it down to 5 3/8 x 4 1/8″. I wanted the Melon Berry cardbase from Papertrey Ink to show around the edges, and this size panel creates the perfect 1/16″ border on all four sides.
If you’ve seen a card or two from me previously, you’ll no doubt know that I’m a fan of adding clusters on my cards. They vary in size and some are simpler than others, but they tend to have three things in common: a piece of a paper doily, fishtail banners and enamel dots or sequins. I also usually put my elements on straight, but this time I went for a less rigid look. I went through my patterned paper scraps and found a green piece from the Vintage Garden collection by Pion Design and diecut it using a fishtail flag frame die from My Favorite Things. I thought I’d have to go for just a piece of cardstock for the other banner, but then I remembered that I have a paper pack from Sunny Studio with pastel colors, and one of them fit perfectly.
I stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment onto the green banner using My Favorite Things Extreme Black ink and stapled the two banners together before gluing them onto the card. I added a string of Green Apple divine twine to the top of the card and a few My Mind’s Eye enamel dots to finish it off. In real life, the green dot looks closer to the greens I used in my image. Photos sometimes lie.
I colored up this image from the Sending Sweet Celebration Wishes for day 8 of the last round of Kathy Racoosin’s 30 day coloring challenge on Instagram. I’m not usually good at turning images from that challenge into cards, but I’m trying to be better. I decided to fussy cut this one and put him on a vellum circle.
I followed a sketch from MFT and glued a piece of patterned paper from Sunny Studio onto my cardbase, before cutting a white cardstock piece from Papertrey Ink on an angle and adding lots of foam adhesive on the back. I am not shy with my foam adhesive, I tend to cover the entire back, which I did this time as well. I stamped a sentiment from the same stamp set in VersaFine Onyx Black ink. I like the color and the crispness of this ink, but am no fan of that hinged lid, it’s a pain to work with.
I glued my vellum circle to the white cardstock (I put my liquid glue strategically behind the bunny) and added a couple of Papirdesign enamel dots for a finishing touch.
I did what I usually do by diecutting the panel with the hippo using the largest of the stitched rectangle dies from MFT. This is the one die I use more than any other, and it gives such a nice look with that faux stitching around the edge and the 1/16″ border of the cardbase (in this case Berry Sorbet cardstock from Papertrey Ink) showing.
I diecut a word die from Kort & Godt four times from Aqua Mist cardstock and glued them all together for a stacked look. There was just enough space above the head of that hippo for the word to fit nicely. I stamped and white heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment on a piece of that Berry Sorbet cardstock and added three more layers behind that, so it’s flush with the word above.
The small birds were also colored way back in 2018 for that same challenge as the hippo with the balloons. They didn’t have cheeks colored in, so I just went in with a couple of red markers and then a white pen on top to make them look like the first bird. I fussy cut both and added them to my sentiment to form a visual triangle. A few enamel dots from My Mind’s Eye finishes the card nicely. I usually know exactly where to put my enamel dots (or sequins or other small embellishments), but I was really stuck on this one and couldn’t find a good placement until 
Last, but not least, the Copics I used for this card.
I printed 
I’m no stranger to adding clusters on my cards, so I pulled out half a paper doily from Doodlebug Design, more scraps of Maja Design patterned paper (the Vintage Summer Basics and Vintage Autumn Basics collections) and diecut a couple of banners using the Fishtail Flag Frames die set from My Favorite Things. I also stamped and white heat embossed a Norsk Stempelblad AS sentiment, before punching it out using my 1″ circle punch from EK Success. I added a pebble on top for an extra bit of dimension.
I also added some sequins (from the Ice Water mix) and a couple of heart shaped drops (from the Crystal Collection – Glass mix) from Little Things from Lucy’s Cards, and my card was done.
I used a very limited color palette for this one.
I was able to scrounge up scraps of paper from three different paper collections from Pion Design: Grandma’s School Book, Till Mor, and Play Time. I wet and curled the edges to soften the look a bit, and also added a paper doily from Bo Bunny.
Til konfirmanten is a stamp from Norsk Stempelblad AS. I stamped it using Espresso Truffle ink from Memento, I didn’t want it to be stark black, and that ink is a nice mix of grey and brown that I really like. I used some tiny letter stickers from Kaisercraft to add the girl’s name below the banner, and fussy cut a few butterflies from one of the patterned papers and glued them on.
I kept the insides fairly simple. The sentiment stamp from Stempelglede is a Goethe quote (Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can make anything happen). The panel on the right side is perfect for a personal message.
I decided to also keep the back of the card simple. I added another butterfly and stamped “Handmade” below in the same color ink that I used on the front of the card.
This card was a bit of an evolution. You might even call it remotely controlled cardmaking. I’ve been coloring so much lately, but not made a lot of cards, so I was really unsure of what to do when I sat down to create this. 
The first decision was to diecut those monsters from My Favorite Things. I usually like fussy cutting, but Liz decided that diecutting was the way to go with this one. She pretty much ran the show, I just did as she asked. I made my little frame and decided where it needed to go before going in with orange and yellow inks on the cardbase.
I had four monsters, so Liz urged me to put the last one on an ink blended circle on the inside. I asked her if she wanted paint splatters on the inside too, before I removed my circle mask. She wanted water splatters, so I added water splatters. I had a great time being remote controlled by her!
The sentiment (by Mathia Design) was a story in an of itself. By the time I got that far, I was super tired, so I struggled to decide where to put it. My “remote control” had also run out of batteries at that point, so I needed to sleep on it. This morning, it was a lot easier to decide. I added a few enamel dots close to the frame, and that finishes off my card. Or our card, I should say, I probably wouldn’t have gotten this done if it weren’t for Liz helping out!
I printed 
Once I’d finished coloring, I went back in with a 0.03 black Copic multiliner to bring back the original linework that was covered in layers of pencil, before stamping a sentiment (Enjoy every second of your day) from Mathia design in VersaFine Onyx Black ink. And that finishes my card. A one layer card, even, I don’t make many of those, but I really wanted that image to shine.
This is one of Mo’s birthday fairies. Her name is Dee, and you can find it in the store 
I diecut my panel using the largest of the faux stitch rectangle dies from My Favorite Things. I think it’s the perfect size as it creates a 1/16″ border when I add it to my cardbase. The color scheme might not be typical of me, but the layout definitely is. I added half a mini paper doily from Doodlebug Design, diecut some scraps of pink patterned paper to go with my image using another favorite MFT die set (Fishtail Flag Frames) and stamped a Norsk Stempelblad AS birthday sentiment using Papertrey Ink Hibiscus Burst ink. The ink matches the cardstock, which is also Hibiscus Burst from Papertrey Ink.
I added my banners using foam tape and embellished very simply with some sequins from Pretty Pink Posh. I even used my scissors on one to cut a little bit off and tucked it underneath that sentiment banner. Laura Bassen would be proud, haha.
Det er ingen tvil om at jeg liker å lage enkle kort, men mine enkle kort er ofte ikke så enkle som man skulle tro ved første øyekast. Dette er et sånt kort. Jeg startet med å stemple monstrene fra 
Jeg lagde bakgrunnen ved å maskere alle fire kantene, før jeg gikk inn med forskjellige farger Distress Ink med 
Mer pirkearbeid. Jeg stanset ut en 
Til slutt gjensto kun å lime fast monstrene med 3D-puter og å få på en hilsen. Jeg stemplet og embosset en 
Papirmølla 