For my first card, the hipster glasses and the adorable wrinkles on the Pug’s forehead, seemed to scream out for a partial, top-only stamping with a cute accompanying saying, “Just popping up to say…” with the inside of the card saying, “Happy Birthday!” (or it could be finished off with so many other sayings, like “Hello!” or “Surprise!”) (the sentiments are from the Neat & Tangled “Out of the Box” stamp set).

I kept the vast majority of the card front crisp white, and Copic colored the image (E51, E53, W5, W7, and B41), including reflection lines on the eye glasses with a Uniball Signo White Gel Pen. I also added Black Sakura Glaze Pen for the eye glass frames and Ranger Glossy Accents for the eye glasses.

For the second card, I wanted to play off the concerned expression of the Pug so I used a sentiment from the Mama Elephant “In My Heart” stamp set that says: “MISS YOU more than just a little.” Because I wanted to keep this card super simple, I used VersaMark Ink and Ranger Super Fine Black Embossing Powder to stamp the image and the sentiment. Then, to add a pop of color, I heat embossed a little heart by the sentiment and the eye glass frames with Ranger Adirondack Brights Watermelon Pigment Ink and clear embossing powder. This bit was somewhat tricky in that I had to hand fussy cut the inside and outside of the eye glass frames and then heat emboss this tiny, delicate piece; but it was well worth the extra effort for this added dimension and interest.

For the third and final card, again, compliments the Pug dog’s worried expression. This time, I stamped the dog head at an angle at the lower right corner of the card front and doodled in the top part of his body with Copic Multiliner Pens in 0.1 pt and 0.03 pt. Then I Copic colored the full image (E51, E53, W5, W7, R27, and B41), adding Uniball Signo White Gel Pen reflection marks on the glasses.

Then I used the “So Sorry I Forgot!” sentiment from the Gerda Steiner Designs “Howl Are You?” stamp set. The inside card liner is stamped with “Happy  Birthday,” and “BELATED” both also from the same Gerda Steiner set. For a bit of whimsy, I spaced out the words so that I could use a Red Ultra Fine Point Sharpie marker to add a red carrot to indicate the insertion of the “BELATED”.

I think this Pug dog stamp is so sweet, and I hope that the personality exuded from these Puggy CAS cards will bring smiles to the recipients. 🙂

Disclosure: Many of the supplies I’ve used for today’s project are linked. Some may be affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. I truly appreciate your support toward the costs of running this blog!

Click on the following picture to watch the process video of creating all three of these CAS cards:

These cards are being entered into the following challenges:
Happy Little Stampers Smile CAS Challenge
613 Avenue Create Anything Goes with Optional Buttons and Bows Challenge
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge
Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge
Creatalicious Anything Goes with Optional Flowers Challenge
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes Challenge
Through the Craft Room Door Anything Goes Challenge
Crafty Gals Corner Anything Goes Challenge
The Corrosive Anything Goes Challenge

For this card, I used the cow grinning from ear to ear under the sentiment, “My grandfather was a knight,” which I printed from my computer. Inside the card liner continues, “His name was Sir Loin.” (yuk yuk) And under that sentiment, I stamped out the steak stamp from the Lawn Fawn “Let’s BBQ” stamp set (yes, I know that’s a T-bone, not a sirloin, but how would one draw a sirloin without it just looking like a blob?).

I used the following Copic colors to bring these stamp images to life:
Cow: W0, W1, W3, W7 and W9 with R30 for udders and C1 for teeth and horns
Grass: G43, YG25 and YG17
Steak on inside liner: R14 and R17 and W1
For a little shiny detail, I also added Ranger Glossy Accents to the cow’s teeth and horns.

This card is being entered into the following challenges:
CASology Farm Challenge – WINNER
Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge
Creatalicious Anything Goes with Optional Photo Inspiration
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes Challenge
Through the Craft Room Door Anything Goes Challenge
Crafts Galore Encore Anything Goes Challenge
613 Avenue Create Anything Goes with Optional Use Buttons or Bows Challenge
Penny Black and More In the Garden Challenge
Crafters Castle Anything Goes with Optional More than One Fold Challenge
Stamping Sensations Anything Goes Challenge

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I’m so excited to be part of the Topflight Stamps 1st Birthday Blog Hop! The designers had free reign to use any of the products from the shop, and I am in LOVE with these whimsical Katzelkraft Jungle Animals Stamps so I knew I wanted to create a set of fun, anytime cards with them.

These are the Copic colors I used for each animal:
Polka Dot Horse: Body and Main: 0, W0, W1, W3 and W7; Rainbow Sweater: R35, R37, YR02, YR07, Y11, Y15, YG07, G09, B12, B16, B69, BV13, V04 and RV09; Eye: E25 with Uniball Signo white gel pen highlights
Exhausted Elephant: Body: N0, N2, N4, C0, R30; Eyes: B34 with Uniball Signo white gel pen highlights
Lion with Bird: Bird: YR07, E97 and E07; Lion Body: E50, Y212, E53, YR24 and W3; Lion Main: W3, W5, W7, YR24 and E15; Teeth: C0; Eyes: YR24

After coloring them, I fussy cut out each of the animals and inked all the edges with a Momento Tuxedo Black Marker for a finished look. I also coated all the teeth, tusks, and eyes with Ranger Glossy Accents for shine. I’ll admit that after struggling to fussy cut out those super fine detailed curly whiskers of the lion and the legs of the bird, I ended up cutting them off; they just looked too scraggly. Instead, I re-stamped the image onto the card front and glued the colored and fussy cut lion and the bird over top to regain those delicate details in a much cleaner looking form for the finished card.

Because I also wanted to play with the AWESOME Clarity Stencil Brushes (also available at Topflight Stamps), I decided to stencil backgrounds for each animal. For the polka dot horse, I used a Dylusions Bubbles Stencil and blended on Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Squeezed Lemonade and Tumbled Glass. Where the two colors blended together, it created a beautiful citrus green. For the elephant, I used the Tim Holtz Splatters Stencil to create a coffee or tea stained look with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Scattered Straw and Tea Dye. Lastly, for the grumpy lion, I wanted the focus to be on his wonderful facial expression so I used a DecoArt Andy Skinner Tornado Stencil with the center of the spiral being where I positioned the lion’s head. To add some energetic color, I used Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Squeezed Lemonade and Festive Berries, and where the two colors blended together a glorious tangerine orange color appeared.

Next, I wanted all of the animals to look like they were sitting or laying on a floor of some sort, so I dug through my collection of washi tapes and picked out some fun patterns and colors that I thought would coordinate with the animals and their backgrounds. The polka dot horse got a plain yellow, a white and cornflower blue stars, and a thin teal and black chevron. The elephant was grounded with wide wood grain and super thin rope patterned washi tapes. The lion got his footing on an ombre black, thin yellow and a bold red, white and black plaid.

I was struggling a bit, thinking about what sentiments would work with and highlight these animals that were so full-of-personality, when I remembered some funny Dylusions sentiment stamp sets that I had fallen in love with and had to have in my stash but had never used. The sentiments for the horse and the lion are from the “Quote Bubbles” Stamp Set (this link is a different set, but has these quotes). The horse with the rainbow colored sweater says, “I’m a rainbow sprinkle in a vanilla world,” and the exasperated lion with a bird on his head says, “Pretending I’m a pleasant person is exhausting.”  The quote for the elephant comes from the Dylusions “Quote Medley” Stamp Set (this link is for a different set, but has this quote) and says, “I don’t like morning people…Or mornings.. or people.!” I mean really, these quotes seemed made for these animal stamps! To give these sentiments a bit of visual weight, I heat embossed them with charcoal colored American Crafts Zing! embossing powder, fussy cut each segment out, inked all the edges with a Momento Tuxedo Black Marker, and popped them up on thin double sided foam dots.

To create coordinating card liners, I matched the washi tapes used on the card fronts with the card liners and/or I used the same stencils and Distress Inks to stencil matching backgrounds for the insides of the cards. I like how the cards are finished both inside and out.

GIVEAWAY ON MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL: To celebrate my birthday, I’m giving away a $25 gift card to the craft store of the winner’s choice. You must subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a comment on the video (not on this blog post) by April 7, 2018 (12 pm ET).

GIVEAWAYS FOR TOPFLIGHT STAMPS 1ST BIRTHDAY BLOG HOP: Be sure to comment on this blog (please include your email so I can contact you if you win). Each of the designers on this blog hop are giving away a $10 gift certificate to Topflight Stamps. PLUS all the blogs on the hop to be eligible for the GRAND PRIZE $50 Topflight Stamps store credit!!! You have until March 31, 2018 (12 pm ET) to comment. I will announce my $10 GC winner here on my blog on Monday, April 2. The $50 Grand Prize winner will be announced on the Topflight Stamps Blog the same day. Be sure to check out all these blogs and comment for your chance to win the grand prize!

• Topflight Stamps
• Donna Bowman
• Lindsay Weirich
• Clare Messenger
• Julia Stainton
• Jenny Colacicco
• Veronica Zalis
• Tenia Nelson
• Lisa Hoel
• Teri Anderson
• Jenny Marples
• Nathalie Fournier
• Karen Bearse
• Kristina Song – YOU ARE HERE

SALE: Topflight Stamps is having a Special Birthday Discount from March 27 – March 31, 2018. Get 20% off your entire purchase by using the code: BDAY20

Disclosure: Many of the supplies I’ve used for today’s project are linked. Some may be affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. I truly appreciate your support toward the costs of running this blog!

This is not a nesting die set, nor is it a die set with separate flowers in varied sizes. This was an actual single die that had the flowers all connected together. How cool, right?!

I made the first card into a shaker card by cutting out two card stock card fronts, layering in a piece of plastic to create a kind of sandwiched window. Then I cut two fun foam layering pieces to adhere to the back of the card front assemblage to add enough depth to create little floral wells for shaker pieces. To make a rainbow of flowers, I filled each flower well with different colored seed beads, confetti pieces, vase fillers, well, you get the idea–little bits and pieces of whatever I had on hand in the right colors. After all the flower wells were filled, I adhered a card stock card base, careful not to disturb all those shaker pieces from their positions. For the sentiment, I used a Lawn Fawn stamp from the “Color My World” mini stamp set, and used the MISTI to make sure that I got good, solid ink coverage.

For the second card, I basically took advantage of the design of the die and cut out a card front and a single layer of fun foam to make floral windows in ascending size order. I thought about backing each flower window with a different colored patterned paper in rainbow order again, but then I came across a scrap of watercolor paper that I had in my scrap box that had some lovely mottled blues and blue-violets splatters. I backed all the flower windows with this one scrap, which just fit to cover all the openings. Then I adhered the whole front to a card base. For the sentiment, I stamped a simple phrase from the Cardz TV “Just Saying” stamp set that reads, “Just saying…” Then for the inside sentiment, I used an Inkadinkado “Kids Quotes” stamp set that reads, “If you’re feeling blue — try painting yourself a different color.”

Easy peasy, clean and simple floral cards and will be nice additions to my handmade card stash — ready to go when I want to send a little uplifting note to someone. 🙂

Diemond Dies SALES: My readers can get 15% off and free worldwide shipping at Diemond Dies through June 19, 2017 by using the coupon code spring15 (no minimum purchase required). Additionally, if you are interested in buying the whole May 2017 Bundled New Release, there is a special bundled sale price of just $59 (which is lowered to $50 if you also use the spring15 code — that’s 44% off the individual die prices!), good through June 25, 2017. After June 19, 2017, you can use my coupon code thankskristina for 10% off and free worldwide shipping on all orders of $35 or more. 

These cards are being entered into the following challenges:
Lil Patch of Crafty Friends Anything Goes Challenge
Simon Says Stamp Monday Touchy Feeling Challenge: shaker card
Creatalicious Anything Goes Challenge with Optional Die Cuts or Punches
Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge
Cards Galore Encore Anything Goes Challenge
Not Just Cards Anything Goes Challenge
613 Avenue Create Anything Goes Challenge

I stamped the dogs directly onto Strathmore Bristol Paper that I cut down to 4″ x 5.25″ and stamped out all the accessories onto scraps that I die cut out with the Crazy Things Coordinating Dies (I am a huge fan of these dies because they don’t leave any white border around the images so they don’t disrupt the look of any scene building) to mix and match with the dogs on the cards.  The following are the colors I used (dogs listed clockwise from top left in main picture):
Weimeraner: Blue Gray (090) and Gray (092)
Dachshund: Dark Brown (062)
Boxer: Brown (060)
Scottish Terrier: Gray Brown (094) and Dark Brown (062)
Bulldog: Light Gray (091), Oatmeal (064), Dark Oatmeal (066) and Light Pink around muzzle
Shaggy Mutt: Brown (060) and Dark Brown (062)
I also colored in the accessories with Geranium Red (029), May Green (047) and Black (010) and added Glossy Accents over the candy canes, iridescent glitter glue on top of the white fluffy areas of the Santa hats, and gold Distress Stickles over the dog tags.

I had positioned each of the dogs in the lower left or lower right of each card front so that I would have the option of stamping out a sentiment just to the left or right of the dogs. Most of the sentiments are from the C.C. Designs “Snarky Christmas” stamp set (sorry, this is from 2014 and is retired), although I have one from My Creative Time “Christmas Doggy” (I smeared this one so I had to heat emboss this on black card stock to cover up the oops) and another from Prima “Merry Nice” (the “Naughty or Nice” inside the card with the Shaggy Mutt).

I also wrapped some red and white baker’s twine (from the Dollar Tree 3 pack!) 3 times around the card fronts and added a bow before popping up the whole card front with double sided foam adhesive onto green card bases from a Michael’s Hot Buy cards and envelopes set. Lastly, I added some well-positioned sequins onto each card with Glossy Accents and topped each sequin hole with silver Distress Stickles for a finished look.

The following is a short share and watercoloring tips video of a couple of the crazy dogs:

These cards are being entered into the following challenges:
Word Art Wednesday Anything Goes Challenge
Simon Says Stamp Monday Thinking of You Challenge
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Thinking of You Challenge
Fab ‘n’ Funky Animals Challenge
Crafts Galore Encore Anything Goes Challenge
Creatalicious Anything Goes Challenge
Craft Your Passion Anything Goes Challenge
Addicted to Stamps and More Holiday Challenge – WINNER
MarkerPOP Sketch Challenge #107

You can’t pass up the opportunity to switch “wish” for “wisk” when you are making up puns.  I made the silly birthday card by coloring up a cake stamp from the Fiskars Birthday Party stamp set with Distress Markers in Spun Sugar and Worn Lipstick.  I also used those inks to do a little water coloring to create a base for the cake to sit on.  To add a kind of festive confetti thrown into the air feeling (as well as connect the pink and black from the cake and whisks), I also splattered Worn Lipstick, Pumice Stone, and Black Soot onto the card with a wet paint brush.  Just adding the whisk dies illustrates the pun sentiment, “Whisking You a Happy Birthday.”

I’m a 70s baby and grew up rockin’ to 80s tunes, like Devo’s “Whip It” and Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” So when I first saw the whisk die I knew that I had to use it with lyrics from one of these songs. This “Whip it. Whip it good” card could just as easily been captioned with “Beat it. Just beat it.”

I just love that whisk die so I decided to highlight the delicate lines of it in this next card.  I saw the idea in google images and just made it my own by embellishing the spoon with a plastic mustache, top hat and bow tie and the spatula with a red rose. It’s a little goofy, but I thought it would be a good card to send when someone wants to send a note of encouragement about everyone having a special something about them. 🙂  The sentiment reads: “He might not be the handsomest or prettiest, but Whisk has great hair!”

The small card with the damask pattern base was super simple but may be considered a little crude by some. If you are one of those folks, I apologize. However I thought on certain occasions this “WT [fork]” card would be just the right thing to send.

My favorite of all these CAS cards is the super simple one that includes a reference to a famous Star Wars quote (yes, I’m a geek at heart). The line of 5 forks with the sentiment, “May the forks be with you” is such a horrible pun, but I love it! To add some visual allusions to the movie I also added some pale pink pearlescent sequins and silver sequin stars. I thought this would be a good card for someone fighting multiple sclerosis to give or receive.  It’s also a great all-occasion kind of card that I know I’ll be making again. 🙂

The following is a video share of these cards:

The Whisking You a Happy Birthday Card is being entered into the CAS-ual Fridays Watercolor Challenge and
Less Is More Pink and Grey Colour Challenge

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day! WOOF

These cards take advantage of the negative space created by small dies. I used the whole 7 piece set of the Diemond Dies sugarplum flower die set. [DIEMOND DIES COUPON CODE: thankskristina is still active for 10% off your entire Diemond Dies purchase and free shipping on orders of $35 or more!] Then I “back-filled” each cut out with some small scraps of patterned paper (If you recognize some of these, it could be because they are the bits left over from the Steampunk Scarlett tag I made last week), using strips of foam tape to add a little depth and shadow interest.  The papers I used were from My Mind’s Eye “Everyday Tango” and Graphic 45 “Bohemian Bazaar”.

For the sentiments, I used the Lawn Fawn’s “Critters at the Dog Park” and “Love You S’more” stamp sets.  For the “love everyday”, I had to do a little masking, as it was two different stamps, but it was quick and easy (the tutorial video below shows how easy!).

To add a little more interest, I used a Faber-Castell M size PITT artist pen to draw in some faux stitch lines.  On one of the cards I also added some teal and white bakers twine.  Finally, just to make the gift set a little more special, I took some washi in a similar color family to the patterned papers I used and put a little banner all around the envelopes.

The following is a video share of these cards including a step-by-step tutorial:

This card is being entered into the Lawnscaping Patterned Paper Challenge and
The Paper Nest Dolls Anything Goes Challenge

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day. WOOF!

The frame dies I used were the 4th and 5th smallest dies from the Diemond Dies Top Note Die set. I kept one in the square orientation and used one in the diamond orientation. I used the “hello” word die from Mama Elephant, and the “hope” word die from Little Yellow Bicycle.

Coupon Code: As a Guest Design Team member of Diemond Dies, I’m so pleased to be able to share the coupon code: thankskristina for 10% off your entire purchase (including sale items) and free worldwide shipping on orders over $35!

Other than that, I just had fun picking and choosing some little details to finish off the cards. I rounded the corners to mimic the top note die roundness on most of the cards.  I added some faux stitching using a metallic pink Gelly Roll pen around one card. I dropped some tiny liquid pearl dots on the more muted hello cards.  I had fun “sprinkling” carefully chosen color coordinated sequins for some sparkle on all the cards.

The following is my video share of the cards:

These cards are also being entered into the Friday Mashup Die Cut Challenge,
the Stampin’ Royalty Letters Challenge
and the Pretty Pink Posh Cutting Edge Blog Hop

Thanks for stopping by! Please subscribe if you wish, and have a great day. WOOF