Happy Days Blog Hog (Stamping Symphony)

The dreary days of winter are definitely upon us--between the bitter cold and the ice storms I am ready for Spring!  We may not be able to rush Mother Nature, but our theme for this month's Stamping Symphony Blog Hop was to highlight the "cheer" in the new Occasions and Saleabration catalogues, and I think my card fits the bill!

Nothing says cheery to me like a rainbow. :)  I just received a package of the 6x6 DSP in Bright colours and couldn't choose just one to use, so I made a rainbow background of five of my favourites!

Wondering how I managed to get such perfectly spaced and lined up sentiments?  I used my awesome Stamparatus!  This hinge technique is definitely my favourite use of this tool, and I was able to clean my stamp to switch colours super easily with my Stampin' Shammy.  Definitely a wow look in my opinion. :)

I coloured my layered cake in matching(ish) colours....I didn't have all of the colours in Blends but I think the ones I had were close enough in such small amounts that no one will be the wiser.  ;)

I popped up my finished cake, mounted on a Gray Granite stand, with dimensionals on top of the ribbon and added a tiny little bow to finish it off.

To keep my rainbow theme going on the inside of my card I sponged three shades of ink onto my sentiment, going from pink to blue to purple in one fell swoop.  I added another rainbow cake in the bottom corner to complete the look.

Ready to check out what everyone else did this month?  Links are below, and keep scrolling to see a Bonus Card I made!

A La Cards (Leena)

LollyandSand (Sandy)

JustBStamping (Barb--you're here!)

Stampingjen.BlogSpot.com (Jennifer)

Hofkissed (Stephanie)

Bonus Card:  I didn't want to waste any of that fun rainbow background, so before assembling my card I used the new Stitched Rectangles dies to cut a piece out of the middle (which gets covered by my front panel).  I used this rectangle as the mat for a second card--two for one!

I used another one of the cake stamps from the Piece of Cake stamp set (there are 6 total to pick from) and tried a tie-die affect with my Blends.  This was just an experiment but I LOVE how this turned out!  I coloured the cake stand with my blends as well to highlight a shadow, and added some candy cake toppers and a ribbon to finish it off.

I had so much fun with the tie-die technique I coloured one more cake for the inside. :)

I think either of these cards would help the recipient feel cheery despite the awful weather.  They certainly raised my spirits and the sun did come out today for a little bit, so here's hoping we are on the upswing now!

Barb

Encouraging Cake International Blog Hop

Hello Everyone!  I am stepping way outside my comfort zone and participating for the first time in Kylie Bertucci's International Blog Hop!  If you like my project, please vote for me as I vie for a spot in Kylie's Top 10...I'd sure appreciate it. :)

The theme this month was "encouragement", and I thought for a long time about what that really meant to me.  I finally decided that it would mean celebrating a success in your life, even if you're only part way there (ie. passing your first high school exams even though you still have 3.5 years of school ahead of you).  I think we tend to only celebrate the big milestones in life, when really every big goal is made up of multiple small goals, and we should celebrate those too!

In the spirit of the new Stampin' Up! "Simple Stamping" initiative, here is my card of encouragement for someone who is one step closer to the big prize:

I am really loving the look of word art as a grounding feature!  I used the "Let's Celebrate You" sentiment from Broadway Birthday in Gray Granite, stamping twice before reinking to get some variation and depth to my background.  I intentionally stamped so a full line of the sentiment was visible at the bottom of my word art, so that it led right into the main sentiment, "You Deserve It" (also from Broadway Birthday).  That sentiment I heat embossed in white on Gray Granite cardstock, hand cut, and adhered directly onto my thick Whisper White base.

Those of you who follow me on Instagram (@justBstamping, and I hope you do!) know that I am having a love affair with the new Piece of Cake bundle.  Colouring those cakes just makes me happy!  :)  

I added my cake, coloured in Flirty Flamingo and Smoky Slate with hand drawn white get dots, on top of my word art with dimensionals.  Because I just can't make a card without dimensionals!

So much fun!  And I hope inspiring to the person who is chipping away at that big goal one step at a time!

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today!  If you would like to vote for my card, please click this link and check out the competition while you are there--it's a great gallery of stampers from all over the world for you to view.

And I leave you with one more view of my card.  Have a wonderful day!

Barb