Grand Central Stamping

Welcome to InKing Royalty’s February Blog Hop! This year’s Blog Hop themes are inspired by a single word – and this month our projects are centered around BIRTHDAY. It’s always special to celebrate the birthday of someone you love, so handmade birthday cards are always fun to share. We are excited to share our creations with you today! After you read my post, I hope you’ll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

Are you one of those people who plans ahead and mails birthday cards on time? Not me. I’m notoriously late, but my theory is: If it’s going to be late, it better be special. So here’s the most recent Belated Birthday card I made:

Tips and Tricks

Watercolor Washed Happy Birthday. To create the watercolor wash I put a few drops of several pinks onto a large acrylic block. Then I spritzed it with water and let the colors run together. I placed a piece of Shimmery White cardstock on the block and ended up with a beautifully blended background. After it was completely dry, I used the Big Shot to make the greeting.

Shadowed Greeting. Multipurpose adhesive sheets are perfect for intricate dies. I used one piece of an adhesive sheet on the back of the watercolor washed background I made (above) and another on the back of a Basic Black piece of cardstock. I ran each of these through the Big Shot. I removed the backing from the Basic Black greeting and adhered it to the Whisper White background. Finally I removed the backing from the Shimmery White and carefully placed it on top of the Basic Black greeting.

Pieced Cupcakes. The color on the cupcakes came about in two different ways. For the icing and toppings, I ran the cupcake die through the Big Shot using different colored cardstock: once each for Powder Pink, Poppy Parade and Basic Black. These pieces of cardstock only had to be large enough to fill the specific area for that color. The Poppy Parade and Basic Black pieces were tiny scraps from my table. The base of the cupcakes were created by gluing small pieces of Basic Black cardstock behind the cups. Once the cups were done and the cupcakes were in place on the card, I pieced the toppings and embellishments into the corresponding spaces–a perfect fit!

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you’ll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, Robbye Hamilton at Miss Hammie’s Crafts. There’s lots of inspiration to be found in this group – and you don’t want to miss it!

Thank you for hopping along with us.  If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide: