Happy 30th Stew!

Curry-tastic

My stampin' upline and genuinely awesome friend Heather made me the BEST birthday card. She die-cut 30 huge cupcakes and made them into a great big accordion card. Well, it's her birthday next week and after some deliberating, I decided not to try to compete with that level of fabulousness. I have, however, made my favourite card to date!

Heather is one of those people (like me I guess) who would give you the shirt off her back. She was sorting her ribbon out the other day and gave me tonnes of polka-dot grosgrain ribbon, as well as a load of cardstock in Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango and Bermuda Bay. Well, she told me she hated the ribbon and the colour Crushed Curry.

I guess I am a naughty friend, but I chose to use Crushed Curry as the predominant colour on her birthday card, paired with the Bermuda Bay polka dot ribbon. I made one concession - the base of the card is Crumb Cake which is her fave. Anyway, I am so chuffed with how this card turned out.

I stamped on Whisper White lots of the flower stamp from the set "Punch Potpourri" (retired Hostess set). I used Crushed Curry, Daffodil Delight and So Saffron just to give some depth. Then I punched those out, and did a few more flowers on CC and SS cardstock. I stamped the sentiment (from Swirls and Curls Verses - Summer Mini L1 Hostess) in Bermuda Bay. I coloured the balloons in yellow.

I punched the edges of the WW cardstock with the Scallop Trim punch but needn't have bothered. Matted it onto Crumb Cake and punched holes with the larger Crop-a-dile hole punch. Set that aside, then ran a border embossing folder through the Cuttlebug to give a bit of texture. I cut a 3" strip of Daffodil Delight patterned paper and set that between the embossed edges. Then I stuck my sentiment piece on using Dimensionals, and tied the ribbon using a bit of white linen thread. Matted the Whisper White piece onto Bermuda Bay textured cardstock and onto a 5x5" Crumb Cake card base.

Then the fun bit - sticking all the flowers on! Some were stuck on using dimensionals, but most were just glued on any which way. I put a few diamantes on and a bit of sparkly gel pen on a few other flower centres, and voila!

Inside the card is another Whisper White piece matted onto Bermuda Bay, with a load more flowers just for fun. It's actually the first time I've decorated the inside of my card as well as the outside and I love how it turned out, so I will be doing it more often!

Here's hoping she likes it!

Expedit Divided

After seeing on someone's blog (sorry, I can't remember whose!) the rationale for storing SU! clamshells on their sides, I decided to have a go at dividing my IKEA Expedit unit's shelves to make more storage room.

I measured up (it was Bexx-measuring though, hmmm, looks about yay big) and set out for Lowe's with Jake. We bravely navigated the wall fastenings aisle (there was a whole AISLE of nails, screws, brackets, and goodness-only knows what) and found those little dooberrys that you put into your kitchen cupboard. Bought a shed of those, then off to the lumber department!

Located some OK looking wood (not too pricey, reasonable finish) and got it sawed by a pleasant fellow with a big beard and wearing shorts. Lowe's must be a cool place to work! J wasn't too pleased with the noise of the saw but we battled through it!

Got home to discover Stew hadn't bought any drill bits when he bought the drill (really?). So went back to Lowe's. Stew drilled the holes (as he didn't think much of Bexx-measuring) and voila!

I am loving it as I suddenly have loads more room for stamps. Also, as we use my Expedit as a room divider, the stamp stacks invariably fell down through into the dining room when I tried to get a clamshell from the bottom of the stack. So this way works much better for that reason too!