New Year, New Supplies

I was very fortunate this year, as I am every year, to receive such thoughtful gifts from loved ones. I'd imagine that I am pretty easy to shop for. Everyone knows to get me craft supplies :)

This is just a highlight of some of the craft supplies I got this year. After spending month on Christmas crafting it was a nice break to play with some of my new toys! I got a three pack of birthday themed embossing folders so I thought that would be a good place to start. I also got some birthday stamps, new ink and some awesome patterned paper in fun colors.

I developed three different card ideas using almost exclusively my new products. After looking through everything and getting a feel for what I wanted to use, I sketched out some layouts.

Next I used my embossing folders for my focal points on my cards and also a background for one of the cards. After the papers got embossed I used some of my new ink to add a shimmer to highlight the raised edges. I used this technique for the celebrate and the candle card. By doing this, I am accentuating the texture created by the dry emboss and also making plain paper look special. 

As for the balloons, I used my Prismacolor markers to add some extra color to the card. The other cards have a green and orange theme so I wanted this card to be a little different in it's color pallet.

I had fun background paper for two of the cards but I needed to create a background for the candle card. I used my new ink and stamps to create a typographic background. I started by stamping the word "celebrate" in different colors. Positioning the word in lines. To add excitement I have the word in different colors and positions on the line. I added the dots to fill in space between the lines of text. They add to the linear quality I was going for and also add more variety. I inked them with all the colors "celebrate" is found in to create a nuance from orange to green.

After some cutting and embellishing, here are the finished cards.

I stamped "wish BIG" and used a 3D mounting technique to pop it off the card. I added star confetti to the celebrate card for some added sparkle. You can really see the shimmery ink on the candle card.

Gotta have one of these birthday cards? They are all for sale at my online store, here.