Two Cards, One Sketch - Making Spirits Bright

My friend Holly at Rubber Redneck STAMPede is quite creative and I love checking in with her blogs to see her latest creations. This week she posted some great projects and a Sketch Challenge that piqued my interest. Inspired by Holly, this morning I stamped today for the first time in three months! My stamp office is on the main level of our house and has been waiting for me to visit. I have passed through and even stopped occasionally to oversee kids' homework projects that require table space or paper and Big Shots, but haven't sat down to stamp in quite some time.
Holly's Sketch Challenge got me stamping these two cards, one Birthday card using the December 2014 Paper Pumpkin stamp set All Shook Up, and the other a Valentine's card using the Making Spirits Bright stamp set and the Bokeh Technique.  (Unfortunately, the photos are taken with my cell phone, because my camera battery was dead and neglected like my stamp room.)

The first card is using an old standby color combination of Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive and Daffodil Delight. For Stampin' Up! fans who have been around for awhile, these (except Daffodil Delight) are colors that have been in the family for quite some time. I love the happy-ness of these colors together, which made it easy for me to reach for a birthday sentiment. This fun one is one of the stamp in All Shook Up, the photo polymer stamp set that came in the December 2014 Paper Pumpkin. I also stamped, in VersaMark ink, the happybirthdayhappybirthday repeating block stamp from this set on the Daffodil Delight strip.

Recipe:
Stamps: All Shook Up
Cardstock: Rose Red, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White
Ink: VersaMark, Rose Red
Accessories: Polka Dot TIEF, Island Indigo Baker's Twine, Circle Thinlets

For the Valentine's card, I used the heartini stamp from Making Spirits Bright stamp set with a Bokeh Technique background. I love this technique! So pretty, so soft and so easy! I sponged Rose Red ink onto a piece of Shimmer cardstock. Then I punched a few different sized circles from a Window Sheet to use as a circle template for sponging the bokeh. I placed the template here and there over my Rose sponged background and sponged White Craft ink into the circles. I finished with a few tiny circles using the eraser tip of a new pencil stamped in White Craft ink. I also did this on the Pink Pirouette strip using Illuminate ink to give a little shimmer.
The heartini martini is colored with a few markers and then I covered the martini in Crystal Effects for lots of shine and some glitter on the stir stick, too. The heartini sentiment is die cut with one the Teeny Tiny Banners Thinlets. Remember when you use Crystal Effects to set the piece aside somewhere safe until it is well dried, about 30 minutes unless it's really thick layer of CE. See the NOT smoothness of my martini Crystal Effects in the close-up at the beginning of my post? That's what happens when you se your piece inside your workspace to dry and set something on it while it's still wet - so sad!
Recipe:
Stamps: Making Spirits Bright
Cardstock: Rose Red, Shimmer White, Pink Pirouette
Ink: Rose Red, Whisper White Craft, assorted markers
Accessories: Heart strip (retired) TIEF, Venetian Crochet Trim, Crystal Effects, Circle Thinlets, Dazzling Details, Sponge Daubers

Which card do you like better? The Valentine card is my favorite and I'm thinking about re-creating it, using fat, round hearts for the Bokeh background.