GOAT Milestone Birthday Cards from Art Impressions

 Hello Ai fans!
We're about to wrap up our Milestone Birthdays Challenge #400 here on the Art Impressions Blog.

I hope you were able to create and enter something for your chance to win one of 5 free stamp sets...some, retired Throwbacks!

I have 2 cards today. One is a 30th birthday card and one is my Father-in-law's 89th birthday card. I know we generally think of milestones as 40, 50, 60 but hey...once you hit 80? I feel like everything after that is a milestone and you are so fortunate.

I chose to go with GOAT cards.

For those of you who don't know, GOAT is an acronym for Greatest of All Time!

I used the current Dwellings Freebie barn and a retired freebie goat.

Inside I used 3 sentiments from the Mini Birthday Sentiment set.

The letter and number dies are a brand new release. You can find the links below. I love these new sets so much. You can literally spell out anything you want with these fun dies.

My FIL grew up in farm country. Although his parents owned a restaurant and not a farm, he enjoys all things country and is proud to call himself a country boy, even though he had a corporate job and traveled the world.

I colored my barn and goat with colored pencils and added the lines on the barn and some specks in the dirt with a good old #2 pencil.

You still have over 24 hours to enter. Don't miss out!

New Baby card from Art Impressions

Hello Ai fans!

One of my coworkers recently had a baby.
We didn't initially have time to plan a shower for her because Baby D came REALLY early.

Fortunately, everything was okay. She's back to work now and we had time to plan a shower this time.

I wasn't sure what type of card I wanted to make for her until I saw her invitations.

The Pooh on my card was cut out of her invite and I proceeded from there.

I knew instantly that I wanted a red and yellow card to match Pooh. The Valentine paper worked perfect for this. Then I used a die set from another company to make the HUNNY pot. I spelled out HUNNY using the Journal Letter die set.

Of course if there's honey on your card then you MUST have BEES!!
And how do bees make honey, from flowers of course.

I used Watercolor Paper from Art Impressions to create the pot and used Tombow markers to WC it.

I used cardstock and Tombow markers to color the bees and flower images. All colors and products are linked below.

I used Wink of Stella on the bees wings and then added some Glossy Accents to them and the honey pot.

 

New Belly Band Bunny card from Art Impressions

 Hello Ai fans!

There are some fun new releases on the Art Impressions website.

Today I've used the brand new 5804 – Decorative Belly Bands.
There was a delay in shipping initially, so my card is a bit late for Valentine's Day.

This would be SO CUTE as an Easter card though. Just swap out the sentiment with one from one of your favorite Easter sets. If the pink paper isn't your thing, Art Impressions has lots of pretty Easter sets or basic pads that have other beautiful spring colors and patterns in them.

Ai Paper Pads

I love that Art Impressions is offering so many die sets now. They really compliment their adorable images and help create such a finished and special look to your cards and craft projects. I don't think that I could pick a favorite.

Monochromatic With Sympathy

Happy Wednesday!

Today I have a card that I wish I didn't need to make.

The secretary at my school lost her 39 yr. old son last week after a long fought battle with cancer.

Our principal asked me for a card to give her.

I used an older With Sympathy embossing folder from Darice along with

Spellbinders - Vivid Expressions Collection - Dies - Vivid Blooms

Bee Shakers from Art Impressions

 Hello Ai fans!

We're almost a week into our current I Like to Move It, Move It! challenge.

What ideas do YOU have for a card or project that has some sort of movement?

I chose to create two shaker cards.

I love bees and yellow and couldn't wait to make a shaker card duo using 5925 – Honey Bee Set.

For my first card, I turned my heart on its side to add a little interest.

Don't you just love the new 5972 – BJ Decorative Margin Dies? The 7" length makes them great for larger cards which I prefer to create. My cards today measure 6 1/4" x 5".

I've watched Karen Day from our Watercolor Design Team create wax seals over the last year and have finally gotten brave enough to begin trying them myself. I am in LOVE!

I have to cringe sometimes when I see enlarged versions of my coloring. My eyes aren't great and they look fine to me in person. Then I see them blown up and yikes! I maybe need to start thinking about one of those magnifiers that I've seen some crafters use.

This bee stamp seal was my first one and was gifted to me from Diane Mason.

I hope I've inspired you to try making a card with some movement on it. It can be a shaker, sliders, wobble, wiggle etc. There are so many possibilities. You might just win a free stamp set.

Personalized Treat Boxes from Art Impressions

 Hello Ai fans!

At work I have a "Soup Group." There are 7 of us and every Thursday one of us makes lunch for the other 6 members. We do soups, stews and chili in the fall and winter, and switch to salads and things like pulled pork sandwiches with slaw in the warmer months.

 It was my turn last Thursday and I made Italian Vegetable Beef soup.

It was DELIOUS! I didn't have cabbage so I added some spinach and diced zucchini. I also use pink beans instead of kidney beans.

We always plan a little something sweet for dessert and I wanted to present my treats in a special way. I made a little treat box for each teacher with 3 chocolate squares inside. I thought maybe they could store paper clips or something inside when the candy is gone.

Each member had their initial on the top of the box for a little personal touch.
I used 5805 – Mini Journal Box Dies for the box, frame and butterfly. The letters are from 
5562 – Journal Letter Die Set and I held the little boxes closed with 5967 – Hook & Loop Fasteners.
The pretty little leaves and flowers are an old freebie die set from Art Impressions.
Everyone thought these were just the cutest thing!

I hope you're inspired to do something a little sweet for someone that you care about.
Enjoy your day and do something kind or crafty!

CASE That Card Winter Birthday from Art Impressions

Hello Ai fans!

Today I'm sharing my card for the CASE That Card challenge here on the Art Impressions Challenge Blog. I've chosen to imitate a card from Penny Black.

I fell in love with this card the second I saw it and I knew that I wanted to try something like it. Art Impressions to the rescue! I will link all of the Ai products I used at the bottom of the page.

This was my Mother-in-law's late January birthday card. She used to live in the north like me but hasn't been able to get back here for several years. Last time she was here she loved watching the birds at our feeders. I know she doesn't miss the cold but she misses seeing the pretty snow.

In addition to the Tombow markers listed below I also used the following colors from Marvy.

1 Black

12 Grey

32 Laurel Green

38 Oyster Grey

Happy Easter! Happy Spring!

 Hello Ai fans!

Today I'm sharing an Easter shaker card.

The 5274 Easter Bunnies Set is just so cute and has many main images to choose from as well as lots of sentiments to compliment the images.

I've already made a ton of shaker cards using the snowglobe domes from Art Impressions and I see many more in my future!

Maybe I'm just a big kid at heart because I kept shaking and shaking this. I think anyone would appreciate receiving this card.

Keep your head up, you've got this!

 Hello Ai fans!

Welcome to my second Highlights Challenge card post.

This time I have a sweet fox card.

She fit nicely in this frame with the exception of her tail so I used some scissors to trim up either side of her tail so that I could slide the frame under it. This way, the frame cuts around her but doesn't cut her tail off.

Once she was die cut, I created a mask for her. I splattered gold paint around her to give it some shimmer.

I also tried my hand at making a wax seal to go on my card. It started out being three colors to match lil miss fox. Unfortunately, it took me about 7 tries to get one I was happy with, therefore it wound up being one solid color. I really liked this color with the fox so this one was a winner.

This was one I wasn't initially happy with but the organic look is growing on me.

While I had my supplies out, I decided to try another snowflake that I have. I liked this one on the first try and it's stashed away for another day.

I watched a video that said keeping your wax supplies iced during the process helps the wax release easier. It seemed to really work for me so I'll continue to do this in the future.

I added some sentiments and more foxes to the inside of my card. I liked the "keep your head up" verse because of the image on the front.

I thought it would be sweet to place a tiny snowflake on her nose. My snowflakes all have some Diamond Stickles on them to give them some snowy sparkle.

My card was made for the current Highlights challenge. You can enter your crafty project using a white gel pen or white paint for the chance to win a free stamp set from Art Impressions.