Celebratting witth the Watercooler Gang

This month, the Watercooler Gang is all about celebrating. If you are following our Hop in a circular route, you've just come from celebrating with Priscilla.

We all have times of the year that we want to make special - birthdays (everyone has one!) - Mother's Day, Father's Day, weddings, anniversaries - the list goes on. And what better way to mark a special occasion than with a lovingly hand-crafted card?

My first card could be used for almost any occasion. It is also the one I struggled with the most. I wanted to use the 3-step rose image from the Picture Perfect stamp set. For the colours I picked Tangelo Twist and Crushed Curry. Tangelo Twist was used for the first two layers - the first layer it was stamped off once and on the second layer I used it full strength. The leaves are Mint Macaron - again, the first layer is stamped off once.

I was happy with how the colours looked. Then, I was stumped as to what to do with it. So, it didn't get finished until this morning, when I was inspired by none other than Stampin' Up! co-founder and CEO - Shelli Gardner. She had posted what she called Super Simple Cards on her personal blog So Shelli. It was just what I needed.

I'm loving the look of black & white - or in this case, black & Very Vanilla - with a pop of colour. The striped Designer Series Paper is from Farmers Market and the other piece is from Timeless Elegance.

The two pieces of DSP are layered onto a Calypso Coral cardstock base. On the rose are some touches of Clear Wink of Stella and the sentiment from Work of Art is stamped with Archival Basic Black onto Very Vanilla.

Coincidentally one of my sisters is celebrating a birthday this week and I had to make two birthday cards. Spoiler Alert, Barb, if you see this before the weekend!

The first one uses a background piece I had not used for a previous project - read about that here. My inspiration was a Mixed Media class my Mom and I had recently taken.

Using an acrylic block, I sponged stripes of colours using Pacific Point, Mint Macaron, Tempting Turquoise and Perfect Plum. After spritizing with water, I stamped the block onto a piece of Whisper White cardstock.

Since Mixed Media is all about layers and texture (at least it seems that way to me), I used the flourish stamp from Timeless Textures and stamped it with Crushed Curry. The fern leaf from Butterfly Basics is stamped in Mint Macaron and the greeting, also from Butterfly Basics is stamped with Archival Basic Black. The butterfly is Crushed Curry and Clear Wink of Stella with Rhinestone Basic Jewels.

Actually, this came together pretty quickly. I liked the white border around the image and simply mounted it on Crushed Curry for the card base. For more texture, I used the dots stamp from Timeless Textures.

For my second birthday card, I decided to have a little bit of fun! The idea came from a sample I saw posted somewhere - sorry, I didn't make note of where I saw it or who it was created by. If by any chance you happen to see this post, please let me know who you are so I can give you credit.

The stamp set is the adorable Honeycomb Happiness from this year's Sale-a-Bration. I stamped the little chick with Crushed Curry and coloured him with an aquapainter. The cone is Crumb Cake stamped onto a piece of Perfectly Artistic DSP. For the scoops of ice cream I used Early Espresso, Mint Macaron, Daffodil Delight and Cherry Cobbler - all coloured with the aquapainter. I used the sprinkles stamp from Sprinkles of Life on each scoop.

Another one of the fun texture stamps from Timeless Textures inked with Mint Macaron hints of a patch of grass under the chick. Leaving the 'O' off the Hello and using the 'OH' inked with Archival Basic Black they were stamped onto the Crushed Curry marbled pattern from Perfectly Artistic and cut out. The words at the bottom are also from Sprinkles of Life.

And the celebrating continues with Deb - just click on the 'Next' button below.