February Stamp of the Month Blog Hop

Why do the months fly by so much faster than they did when we were kids? It's blog hop time again! I hope you put us on your internet travels today. You can "hop" from blog to blog and see how the most talented Close to my Heart consultants turn a piece of plastic into a work of art! If you've arrived here from Deb's Blog, you're on the right track.

You're going to love this new Piece of Cake stamp set, it's just the right stamp set to have on hand for birthday, wedding and anniversary cards. I decided to make a postcard for my entry into the hop. I bought these ruffled edge postcards a few months back and just fell in love with them. The first thing you will want to do (if you like the look) is to distress with your sponge tool and some sorbet ink.

Caboodle is my new favorite paper kit. The colors just brighten my day. The colors are buttercup, sorbet, crystal blue and sweet leaf. They couldn't be better for a birthday card. Cut one of the pattern papers from this set 5" by 3 3/4" and round the edges with a corner rounder. Distress with the sorbet ink too.

My friend, Holly, has been asking me to make more complicated card so I thought I'd use a tile-like background for the sentiment from the stamp set. I had a punch that punches squares just under 1/2" by 1/2". Punch out about 25-30 using all four cardstock colors.

It helps to line up your squares if you don't force them into a pre-cut piece of paper. I put mine on an extra large piece of colonial white cardstock so I could trim to fit later. Distress and add your squares making sure to really vary them so there's no real pattern (or make a pattern, it's your card)!

Use a scallop punch if you have one that runs about 1 1/4" in diameter. To make it a little more fancy use a 1/16th inch hole punch to make it look like eyelet lace. Distress with sorbet.

Trim your large square to fit the small ones.

Cut a strip of the crystal blue cardstock 1/2" by 5", distress and glue it to the bottom of the pattern paper about 1/4" up from bottom.


If you have Magic Mesh, use a sorbet color and attach down 1" from right edge of the card. Cut it to only fit the pattern paper, not go up over the ruffled card front. Mat your "squares" piece with a 2 1/4" by 2 1/4" (or thereabouts) piece of sweet leaf cardstock.

Stamp the tallest cake on the stamp set in sorbet ink on some colonial white cardstock.

Color it in using a blender pen and the ink from the four different colors in the set. Remember to not go over and over the paper or it will get wet and ruin your look, use a light touch.

If you like you can use a piece of magic mesh to add texture to a piece of sweet leaf cardstock before attaching the cake. Just lay the mesh down and use your sponge tool and some crystal blue ink to make an interesting background. The cardstock should measure 3 1/2" by 1 3/4" and you can round the corners and distress.

Cut out the cake and glue to green piece, attach to right hand side of card 1/4" to the right of the "squares" piece.

If you have a larger scallop punch, use it to cut out some sorbet cardstock. If you don't have punches use a circle cutter. Glue Make a Wish circle to the center and attach both to the center of your "squares." Add a Close to my Heart window charm to the center and you're done. Have fun at the hop and check out Jamia Bankhead's Blog next. If you get lost on the hop, check out the list here.