Springy Birthday Wishes

I've been getting projects ready for the new Stampin' B's DT challenge (check back tomorrow for my sample!) and Mark's Finest Papers March Release Blog Hop which will be taking place next week on Tuesday through Friday, March 8-11. Busy, busy!! But I squeezed in a springy birthday card today. Still gathering birthday cards for all those March birthdays we'll be celebrating!
Last week while making this card, I ended up with an extra scallop-framed panel containing a square of text from a vintage book page (it was too big to use on the card I originally made). I've been mulling over how best to use it ever since. Well, today it hit me and I decided to try stamping directly on the text. LOVE how it turned out! Perfect for my 5" x 5" square birthday card.

This week's PTI Make It Monday Challenge #4 is to use fun foam (craft foam). The video tutorial that accompanies the challenge shows cutting sheets of foam into shapes using dies. Well, I'm a simple gal. When I started off down the road on my extended papercrafting journey, I made a conscious decision to avoid investing in expensive tools and equipment. There just isn't money in our budget or space in our house for extras like these. So, no dies, embossing folders, die cutting machines, or Copics for me. I do have some punches (and I make do with colored pencils or watercolor painting for coloring images), but otherwise I look for creative design solutions, make do with what I've got, or do without. Anyway, back to my PTI challenge story. So, die-cutting craft foam was out for me, and I quickly found that sheets of craft foam are too thick to fit in my punches. Not to be deterred, I fished around in my kids' craft supplies and dug up a few pink foam circle shapes--and not a whole lot else. Those reminded me of my PTI Button Bits stamp sets, and the rest of my design fell into place!

In addition to the PTI creating with fun foam challenge, my card was shaped by these challenges:

• My colors were inspired by this week's CR84FN17 color challenge:
• My hot pink flowers were inspired by the photo inspiration for this week's jac-inks Challenge #3:
• Simon Says Stamp Challenge: 1 image (the PTI leaves image), 2 DPs (my text background and my chartreuse gingham), + 3 types of embellishments (foam circles, brads, ribbon)
  
• Stamptacular Sunday Challenge: Frames
• Stamp Something: Flowers
• OneStop Craft Challenge: Spring Flowers
• Critter Sketch Challenge: Use a sentiment
• A Spoon Full of Sugar: Tag (I made my sentiment tag by stamping inside a ticket.)
• Tuesday Throwdown: Tag (I made my sentiment tag by stamping inside a ticket.)
• Papertake Weekly: Anything Goes
• Clear It Out Challenge: Anything Goes {for using up your stash}. I'm using up foam circles, a ticket, ribbon, brads, and hot pink card stock scraps from my stash.
• ABC DT Challenge: Happy Birthday

In other news, over the weekend I spent a bunch of time clearing unneeded stuff out of our attic. Wow, I was amazed by how much baby and little-kid stuff we had accumulated!! Now I am working on getting it ready to donate so we can get it out of the house. There's a {huge} pile waiting to be sorted and itemized for our records, but it feels SO much better acting on this. My kids were a huge help hauling stuff down the attic ladder and then down another flight of stairs. Of course, they were so curious about what was in each bag and box. It probably felt like Christmas to them!! (Especially since so many of the boxes and bags held toys and books--now that's exciting stuff.) It was a blast seeing what items they remembered and what things they had completely forgotten.

I also came across a few boxes of books that were mine when I was growing up. We found an old Pink Panther comic digest that my 8YO son claimed (along with some Encyclopedia Brown books) and this book of paper dolls that my 12YO daughter snagged. She has been having a ball clipping out the movie star paper dolls and their elaborate costumes and dresses, working a little bit on it each day before school and again before bedtime. She's getting quite an education in 1930s fashion--and loving it. :)

Well, thanks for stopping by for my little slice of bliss today. I hope you'll come back later to check out the new StampinB challenge!
Emily

Card Recipe:
Stamps: PTI Blooming Button Bits, PTI Everyday Button Bits (sentiment)
Paper: SU chocolate chip CS, SU pretty in pink CS, Jillibean Soup DP, various unknown scraps, book page ripped from a vintage history book
Ink: Marvy LePlume II black marker, Ranger tea dye distress ink, Palette chartreuse
Accessories: SU 1/2" circle punch, foam tape, sponge dauber, pink foam circles from my stash, pink brads, satin-edged sheer ribbon, ticket, sewing machine
Techniques: machine stitching, ink distressing