it's birthday mania!!!

ok, strictly speaking, this week's challenge at shopping our stash isn't actually called "birthday mania"... but it could be... or at least, the brief is to make a card, layout, tag or any other papercrafting project with a birthday theme. since this week, as you know, niece riley is turning eleven, there was much joy and rapture; not to mention a certain amount of sewing, gluing and embellishing!

(pocket + chipboard: teresa collins, patterned paper: basic grey, echo park, amy tangerine, sei; bunting: basic grey;felt cupcake: recollections; rub-ons: EAD designs; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, gluedots, sewing machine)

i had A TOTAL BLAST making this, and for sheer elderly, forgotten-about-stash usage, i think it is kinda hard to beat, but i'll essplain that part in a minute. you see it all started with a sketch. this one, from deconstructing jen:

as soon as i saw it, i thought, "that center panel should be A POCKET!"; because, yeah, even when talking to myself i use a lot of bold print, all caps and exclamation points. :) then i unearthed a verrrrrry old sheet of teresa collins punch-out cardstock elements which mostly consisted of pockets and little cards to go in them, so i was all set. then i added a few more tags. then i embellished the heck out of everything! then i built the rest of the card around the pocket element. then... belatedly... i discovered that the pocket really really reallllllllly needed to be sewn on if it was going to be as overstuffed as this and still stay attached. then i discovered that some of my cards and tags had been a pretty tight fit and had to basically squeeeeeeeze them all back in. but they fit. luckily. phew.

(tags: teresa collins, heidi grace, cosmo cricket; stickers + elements: echo park, love elsie, sei, hello kitty, ; alphas: making memories, doodlebug; strawberry brad: doodlebug; washi tape: recollections, hambly; ribbons: american crafts, heidi swapp, michaels; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner)

you can see i used the colour q palette again, even though i knew that challenge would be over by the time i posted this. for one thing, my worktable was still covered with pink and red and smashing orangey bits.* for another thing, i just really like this combination!

speaking of combinations i really like, the SOS design team has done stellar work, as usual, and you will heartily enjoy seeing it! so off you go darlings, to check it out! ♥♥♥

*jaffa cake, anyone?! :) :) :)