Neon Happy Birthday - Virginia's View Challenge #5

I have been following Virginia Lu's blog for a little while, inspired by her creativity and card designs (as well as her hilarious antics involving her DH, Dr. John). In fact, when she started her "Virginia's View Challenge" blog recently, I had every intention of playing along.

Five months later, I have finally managed to make a card to get in on the incredible fun (where does the time go??). And what could be better than this month's challenge than to use die cuts??? I mean, seriously, you should see my die collection! I have a terrible addiction to those lovely metal things, and there is no end to the fabulous designs coming out all the time. Can one ever have enough dies? I have yet to discover the answer to that, so in the meantime, I'll continue to buy the ones that catch my eye ;-)

This card uses the lovely Memory Box Blissful Butterfly Border, paired with the Papertrey One Liners: Happy dies -

I've also been wanting to play with some neon cardstock I picked up a while back, so took the opportunity to use the colours with the butterfly border die. I gave the white panel some texture by running it through my Cuttlebug with the Papertrey Linen & Canvas Impression Plate die, glued the border die on a slight diagonal, filled each pocket with the neon cardstock diecuts, then adhered the "Happy" diecut at the base. I can't tell you how hard it was to leave the top portion alone ... have I mentioned how difficult I find it to make a CAS card??? LOL

The inside of this card completes the sentiment with "Birthday".

So there you have it ... my entry into this month's Challenge - to use diecuts. Why not join in on the fun?

Trillium Gift Card sets

If you read back on a previous post in which I featured a Retirement card for a dear friend, you'll know that I picked up the My Favorite Things Die-namics set "Lily" as I thought it would work nicely for a "Trillium" flower, the official flower of our Province of Ontario. My SIL requested a card set to give as a gift when she visits a B & B this summer.

I came up with a couple of designs that feature this lovely die set. This is my first:

The first design uses Stampin' Up's Hardwood Background stamp on the main panel stamped in (SU!) Crumb Cake ink on Kraft cardstock, then stamped again on white cardstock for the inner circle that holds the flower die image. I surrounded the circle opening with a Spellbinders Stately Circle die in (SU!) Garden Green cardstock, the same colour cardstock also used in the flower & stem using the Die-namics Lily die.

The sentiments on all the cards were stamped in (SU!) Garden Green ink using PTI's Wet Paint Stamp Set, a current fave :-)

Of course, thinking perhaps she wouldn't like it, I went back to the drawing board and came up with another design:

The second design I decided to leave as blank cards to be used for any occasion ... but using some of the same elements (i.e. Garden Green cardstock, the exact same flower).

A Spellbinder's Floral Oval die surrounds the lovely "Trillium" flower, and I used some neutral designer paper that I had in my stash. I added a bit of bling around the upper right corner of the oval by gluing 3-3mm Yellow Gold Pearls purchased from Pizzazz Aplenty, my favourite supplier of bling in so many amazing colours & sizes! (Pssst! By the way, they also happen to be having one of their BOGO sales, so head on over to their site & stock up!! You have until the end of the month, or until supplies last.)

Hope you like my "Trillium" cards & Happy Canada Day!