Happy June crafty friends! We have a fun challenge at Seize the Birthday this week thanks to Barbara. It's double stencilling... I was nervous to try it (because I hadn't done it before) but it ended up turning out really well.  If you want a demo, check out this video. I realized that a more open stencil was best underneath and a smaller/finer/more detailed one was best over top. The bottom stencil is from the Hero Arts Petals duo and the upper one is Tim Holtz Splash.

Welcome to Seize the Birthday's last challenge of 2023. Wow! So hard to believe. It's been another fun year and I look forward to all the fun challenges in 2024. 

Barbara has chosen fall stuff for our challenge this week. I have some long retired pumpkin stamps that I pulled out for this.  I used some Distress Oxides with some water & paint brush and 'painted' right on the stamp.  I love how they turned out and made a few more cards similar to this for some fall birthdays. 

Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a terrific day.

Glenda

Card details:

birthday wishes - 4¼" x 5½" 

Stamps: Ellen Hutson/Julie Ebersole Totally Random Sayings Volume 2; A Muse pumpkins

Inks: Distress Oxides

Paper: Distress Watercolour paper, brown card stock

Accessories: brown paint, twine

Happy Thursday crafty friends! Hope you're having a great week so far.

At Seize the Birthday, our fearless leader Nancy has pick the theme of things in the garden. I recently got this ginkgo leaf stencil and I'm loving it.  I figure there could be ginkgo leaves the garden ... hopefully Nancy agrees.  I just did random blending with a few different Distress Oxide inks and I love how it turned out - CAS but striking.

It's so hard to believe that we at Seize the Birthday are on our last couple of challenges for 2022! This year seemed to fly by. First off, I'd like to welcome our new team member, Linda Snodgrass!  So great to have you joining us Linda.

This week's challenge, courtesy of Ashwini, is to use several of one thing. I made it easy on myself and used a stencil! The stencil, stamp and dies are all relatively new to my stash and courtesy of a couple of friends. 

I'm really having a hard time believing it's November next week. In the spirit of the end of October season (lol), Vicki has chosen Hallowe'en theme for us at Seize the Birthday this week. I quite love these colours together and even though I'm not really a Hallowe'en celebrator, I thought I would build a Hallowe'en-ish sentiment. A little hard to see but the card base is dark purple.

It's all about food over at Seize the Birthday this week.  It's a little sad because it was our former DT member Lindsey's turn to pick the theme.  :(  She wouldn't want us to sulk though... she would just want us to celebrate food - one her favourite things (mine too!). Much as I love food, I always have a hard time with food cards.  So I had to go in search of inspiration (see below for the card I CASEd). I did two cards because I wasn't sure if I was happy with the sentiment on the first one. The details that are hard to see are the Wink of Stella on the "scoops" in the first card, the Glossy Accents on the cherries and the cream coloured card stock in the second one.

At Seize the Birthday this week, we are joining our sister challenge, Color Hues Color Challenge to celebrate their 2nd birthday! Their colours are navy & lime green. 

I love this colour combo but am lacking a bit of mojo these days so kept things pretty basic. There is some Wink of Stella on the silhouette but it's difficult to see.

This post will be like any other, as far as the winners go, each challenge blog will pick its own winner. So double your chances!

A big welcome to our new Surprise Party Guest, Åsa Johansson! Be sure to check out the blog to see what she and the rest of the team have created.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a terrific day and a wonderful weekend.

Glenda

Card details:
Happy Birthday - 4.25" x 5.5"
Stamps: Ellen Huston/Julie Ebersole Totally Random Sayings Vol. 3
Paper: SU! Night of Navy & watercolour
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Oxide Twisted Citrus & SU! Night of Navy
Accessories: Tim Holz Die, Wink of Stella, green pearls

Over at Seize the Birthday this week, we are playing with our favourite techniques.  Thank you Ashwini for picking this! I really don't think of myself as a 'technique' person so I was a little intimidated at first. However, I realized I was likely overthinking things and pulled out my trusty Gelli Arts plate (and my craft apron because I get messy when I use my plate and paints).  I love using it but don't do it often enough. This is created with some paint and some new Tim Holtz dies.  Hope you like it! I confess to doing a lot of playing before I came up with one that I was happy sharing.

How did it get to be May? That is a rhetorical question of course but it feels like this year has been flying by! Still not very warm here.... getting a little impatient. LOL.

It's our first Seize the Birthday challenge in May and that means we have a new Surprise Party, the fabulous Lorraine Aquilina (of Simon Says Stamp Design Team fame).  Welcome Lorraine! Shirley has picked our challenge theme for this week and it is stitching (real or faux). I chose real as I always need an excuse to use my sewing machine (which it very close to my craft table).  Pretty CAS as if often the case with me.

I am joining Seize the Birthday's sister challenge, Color Hues Color Challenge, in honouring Ukraine today with a yellow & blue challenge (for the Ukrainian flag). My words are few about what is going on in the world.  I'm trying to find a balance between staying informed and keeping my mental health intact. That said, I am so glad to be joining them today... just to put some some crafty love out into the world.

After some false starts, I finally made a card that I'm happy with. I made a 'stencil' by running my sunflower (the national flower of Ukraine) die through my die cutter with some masking paper. Used some Distress Ink to blend this sunflower background.  Fortunately, a random scrap of blue paper I found just happen to match with a couple of enamel dots I had lying around.

Happy Thursday crafty friends! Over at Seize the Birthday this week we are playing with colour, but just two! Dichromatic is the theme courtesy of Ashwini! You know that if I will incorporate red as much as I can and I particularly like it with yellow. Kept this pretty CAS.

Happy 2022 crafty friends! Hope all is well.  I can just say that it's "been a week" and therefore I'm a couple of days behind on my Seize the Birthday post. Apologies!

There were many iterations of a blue and gray card before I came up with this one.  Should always just stick with CAS if I am struggling!

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend.
Glenda

Card details:
Happy Birthday - 6.25"x4.5"
Stamps: Ellen Hutson/Julie Ebersole Organic Elements & Totally Random Sayings Vol. 3
Inks: Altenew Sea Glass & SU! Smoky Slate
Paper: gray & white cardstock
Accessories: vellum, pearl, ScorPal, MFT Stitched Rectangle die cut

Over at Seize the Birthday, Jules has picked a beverages theme this week! No surprise... when it comes to a beverage theme, I picked cocktails! I used vellum for the martini glass and then some silver paper for the drink part - I've seen some shimmery drinks online lately but never actually consumed one.

We are playing with stripes at Seize the Birthday this week (courtesy of Vicki). I love stripes and normally I would use striped patterned paper (because I have a lot of it).  However, I had been wanting to try this technique from my friend Cheiron. Cheiron loves rainbows so decide to do rainbow alcohol inks in her honour. The stripes speak for themselves so kept the rest of the card clean and simple.

It was the 1 year anniversary for our 'shelter in place' this week. Wow - hard to believe! What do you do to occupy your spare time right now? I've been really good at reading, exercising and eating ... not so good at cleaning the house, yard work, or practicing languages and piano.  ;) Just grateful to be healthy, to be able to go outside, to be employed and to be able to see friends at a distance.

I got to pick the challenge for Seize the Birthday this week... so I pulled together a sketch.  Thanks Ashwini for "blogifying it"! I was inspired by this card of mine, just flipped on it's side.  This card was not at all what I initially envisioned... I like it but don't love it ... but I'm posting it anyway.  LOL!  Maybe I'll warm up to it.

Hope you are able to play along!  I always love sketch interpretations.  There are some brilliantly creative ones from our Surprise Party Guest Carol and the rest of the DT over at the blog.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Hope you are staying healthy and sane (mostly anyway)!

Glenda

Card details:
Oh happy day - 6.25" x 4.25"
Stamps: Mondo Gerbera from Ellen Hutson/Julie Ebersole, Loads of Wishes from AveryElle
Inks: Versamark, VersaFine Clair in Nocturne, Distress Oxides
Paper: watercolour paper, black card stock, SU! Granny Apple
Accessories: clear drops from Studio Katia, white embossing powder, clear embossing powder, SU! embossing folder, sewing machine

Playing along with another Color Hues challenge - orange & blue. I have to admit that I struggled with this one... took more than one try to come up with a card that I was happy with. As a note - there is Wink of Stella on the flowers but it's challenging to see. 

Playing along with Color Hues #3 - gold and cream.  I was inspired by this card from the CAS guru Jen. One thing I realized with this card is that gold is really hard to photograph!  LOL.

How did it get to be October already? Fall is not my favourite season but I really can't complain about the weather so far. I've been continuing my habit of the last 6 months of having my coffee outside in the morning... I'm a little more bundled up now and some mornings I have to be under cover but the fresh morning air is lovely. 

We are pulling out all the scraps at Seize the Birthday this week thanks to Lindsey! A couple of these strips were cut from a pristine piece of paper but the majority are scraps - including the white square (it is the negative of a die cut).  I have so many scraps so I love this challenge... it was so fun to pull together a rainbow with a variety of patterns. It's pretty simple but I'm happy with it.

Ack!  How is it almost September? I fell like the last two months have just disappeared! We've had a great summer so can't complain too much.  

At Seize the Birthday this week, we are all about the gold thanks to TaeEun! I had another card ready but then I got some new goodies (the Field Notes Kit) from Lori Craig & Taylored Expressions that I had to play with.  There is gold embossing & the little paperclip. I also used my new-ish set from Julie Ebersole & Ellen Hutson for the sentiment. Gotta love it when I can create with goodies designed by two of my favourite crafters!