Birthday haul and a card!

My  birthday was a couple weeks ago.  I turned 50.  I was, and am still not, happy about it. But I guess the alternative is worse.

My friends and family threw me a surprise party.  The kind of party every respectable 50 year old woman should have!

Spongebob Squarepants!

There was Spongebob as far as they eye could see!  Even a Spongebob cake and Spongebob pinata!  I was in my glory.  Best party I ever had!!

Besides the awesome party, my friends blessed me with some great gifts, namely gift certificates to my favorite online stamp and craft stores!  So I wasted no time using my certificates, and the first one I spent was Tiddly Inks!  I am ashamed to say it really didn't take long to pick out everything I wanted, but I didn't have enough to buy everything in the store...so I narrowed it down to these!

In no particular order, the ones I picked were:

Hang in there

Friends are Flowers

Flying High

Celebrate Joyfully

Sweet Tooth - Let us Eat Cake

Of course I had to start playing with them immediately.  Luckily, Tiddly Inks posted a new challenge at their blog - a cute Sketch Challenge.  

I decided on this card to play with my Spectrum Noir colored pencils.  I love this little image from the Hang in There set.  The birds make me smile!  Of course after coloring the image I masked it off and then sponged the background with Tim Holtz Distress Inks (Faded Jeans).  Such a cute card if I must say so myself.

Friday the 13th!

Ugh...it's Friday the 13th.  But tomorrow is Valentine's Day so let's focus on that.

I'm again participating in the challenge at Case(e) this Sketch.  I love their sketches and I always get inspired.  The simplicity of this week's sketch (sketch #110) really got my creativity flowing and after only a few moments, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.

So first thing I did was grab this awesome stencil from Simon Says Stamp.  I positioned the stencil in the lower left hand corner of the card and used three different shades of red ink to create a subtle ombre effect.  Then I stamped the sentiment in Versafine black ink..and it didn't look right.  So I tried it again.....and it didn't turn out right.  So I finally wised up, stamped the sentiment first with the Versafine ink, embossed it with clear embossing powder, then used the stencil and ink.  Much easier and I was thrilled with the simplistic and elegant outcome! Happy Valentine's Day!