Today is Papertrey Ink’s May 2016 Blog Hop Challenge. The inspiration photo was awesome and as soon as I saw it, I knew what I wanted to do. Here is the inspiration:

And here is my card:

Even though I knew what I wanted to do, I still had trouble! On my first try, I picked 3 shells and repeated them (2 to a row, not 3), but I found that I didn’t space it very well and the repetition didn’t layout well. So I tried again, but messed up immediately by stamping in the wrong space.

This card is my third try and even this had problems. The pink shell was stamped in the wrong order so the third layer is hard to see. While I paid more attention to the spacing when stamping, I still left too big a margin on the left so I trimmed 1/8″ off (still is a bit off center, but not as badly).

I thought the sentiment die would just go right on, but because it is two lines, it made the spacing of the seashells feel off. So I die cut the sentiment twice and trimmed the words apart and laid them between the seashell lines.

Despite all the trouble – I love this card (and the stamps & die)!!

Thanks for taking a peek!

I need to send a birthday card out this week. It was fun to make a bright cheery card (it has been snowing here for 3 days – no accumulation, but cold and dreary).

I used a few challenges to help me decide what to do. The layout is from the CAS(e) This Sketch. I used pattern paper for the Less is More challenge. And finally, I added a few sprinkles to my cupcake to play along with the CASology challenge.

             

I decided to use the sketch to make my card look like a gift. To keep the twine in place I figured out how I wanted it to run, and cut tiny notches into the layer.

All the challenges are CAS style challenges, so I kept it very clean by just using white for my base and main layer.

Thanks for taking a peek!