Center Step Card – Stamped Smiles

**I have 2 posts coming up today! This is post 1 of 2**

Hello friends!! Happy New Year to you!! I hope you’ve enjoyed the celebrating with your famly and friends! Are you excited about a brand new 2019?! I sure am! I’ve got lots in store to share with you this year! Hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am!!

Let’s start this year off with a brand new challenge over at 2 Crafty Critter Crazies, shall we? Every first of the month there’s a brand new “Anything Goes” challenge…BUT you must use a critter somewhere on your project is all!

Vicki-2CCC22-Bugaboo

Isn’t this guy adorable?! I have used one of our sponsor’s image for my card today from Bugaboo. This is the Critter Balloons – elephant digital stamp. I have actually cut him out twice and colored him in, but I cut just his head and the balloon to pop them up with some foam tape for a little dimension.

I’ve made a Center Step Card for my design today. I kept the dimensions at an A2 standard size when it lays flat so that it will still fit inside an A2 envelope for mailing.

I’ve used some fun birthday style papers from my old stash and then I’ve used a sentiment from My Favorite Things More Essential Sentiments and white heat embossed it over a piece of black cardstock that I cut out with the Die-namics Essential Fishtail Sentiment Strips. Lastly I added some silver ribbon above that.

Here’s a bit of a close-up to see the dimension over the image. I’ve also taken a glue pen over the balloon image and added some clear sparkly glitter over it.

Hope that you’ve enjoyed my card today and please be sure to stop in over at the 2 Crafty Critter Crazies challenge blog to see more inspiration from the rest of the design team! We look forward to seeing what you come up with this month!

I’ll be back very quickly with a second post today!

Challenges:

QKR Stampede – Anything Goes #328
A Perfect Time to Craft – Anything Goes

Hello friends! It’s Thursday once again and time for another new challenge over at the Cute Card Thursday blog! I really enjoy creating with challenges as it gives me inspiration and a push to finish a design in a way I might not have thought about doing otherwise. If you haven’t done this yet with your card making, I encourage you to give it a try…you never know what you might come up with!

I know we are in the heat of August, but I think this month is going by fairly quickly and the Autumn Season will be here before you know it! I was inspired by this along with another GORGEOUS image released this month from Whimsy Stamps, so check out my card for this week’s Cute Card Thursday challenge:

Vicki-CCT543spotanddots-WSAutumnHarvestRide

I have used this stunning Fall image From Whimsy Stamps called Autumn Harvest Ride by Crissy Armstrong. I had some older Fall papers from my stash that had this fun dotted print on them and used these for the theme of the challenge to combine it with this wonderful Fall image as well.

The special card design I’ve used is called a Center Step Card. (Click on the link to see the tutorial on how to make one for yourself on Splitcoaststampers.)

Vicki-CCT543spotsdots-WSAutumnHarvestRide

Upon a closer look at the design, I have also used a brand new (to me) elegant die cut by Spellbinders that I received as a prize winning from a fellow blog friend at Granny’s Attic. (Thank you Connie, love the die!) I’ve cut that with some garden green color and used that as a “back-drop” for my main image panel. I’ve taken the Whimsy Stamps Pierced Border Trio Dies and cut another garden green piece for the image to sit. I’ve also stamped out the sentiment with the Whimsy Stamps Everyday Mini Sentiments set and cut it out with an older Whimsy Stamps tag die to attach on the image panel with some twine. I popped up the image panel with craft foam and layered this on the center panel of my card design. I’ve also added a couple of Prima leaves between that. I’ve attached some other dotted papers to the other panels including the bottom long panel and wrapped some gold ribbon around the bottom one before attaching it. Lastly the gold ribbon and twine bows were added along with the button in the center gold bow and then I’ve added gold enamel dots on the side panels.

Here’s a closer look at the image and the coloring I’ve done with it. I’ve mainly used my Copic markers to color it in and then added some gold gel pen coloring to the carousel pole, the saddle and bridle with the gold parts on them. I took some Tinsel Stickles glitter to add to the “dots” on the saddle and bridle. I then fussy cut it and attached it over the white dotted background and garden green border panel at the bottom.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my creation today and inspired you in some way to come and play along with us over at the Cute Card Thursday challenge blog! Be sure to stop by and take a look at the rest of the wonderful creations from the design team.

I’ll be back again soon to share more creations! Have a great day!

Here are the Whimsy Stamps products I’ve used on my card today. Click on the photos for a direct link to the product.