Making Birthdays Oh So Sweeter!

Using the great embellishments and papers from Little Yellow Bicycle's Cupcake Love collection  can make any birthday card just that much sweeter! See for yourself in these easy to create card samples.

Felty cupcakes are just so yummy!

On the card below I added some rhinestone bling to my verse to coordinate with the heart rhinestone on the cupcake. For bright cheery cards, try this color combo: hot pink, yellow, magenta and white!

The card below also combines a new patterned paper from Stampin' Up!®, a wonderful sample from my demonstrator friend, Ree Nathan.

Sunny Sweet
I just love it when I can mix together a bunch of scraps, some new patterned cardstock, pull a few elements from my vast cardmaking stash pile and turn it into something cheerful to wish someone a wonderful birthday!

Hope these ideas sweeten your day and help you to..

All about Sharing

Today is all about sharing...sharing inspiration, sharing tips and sharing news!


Sharing Inspiration...Sometimes certain paper collections inspire me by their colors, the mood they convey or the wonderful designs and embellishments in the set. When this happens, I just can’t seem to stop using items from these in my cardmaking, even long after their debut release. One of these collections is Cosmo Cricket’s DeLovely collection. It has some of my favorite bright colors combined together with some super cute chipboard elements. Another is Crate &; Company’s Recollections collection. Love the warm, vintage feel of this collection along with the amazing color combinations. Another amazing line of papers and accessories is Little Yellow Bicycle’s Cupcake Collection. The colors and cute embellishments can’t help but bring an immediate smile the second that you look at them.


For these assorted handmade cards, I used two of my favorite collections and a few of my digi art designs, but one thing that these cards have in common are that they are all bright and cheerful. Two of these are hybrid cards (they mix traditional cardmaking elements with digitally produced & printed art) and the other two are traditional cards made using stamps and other embellishments.

The Hybrid Cards

Caring Owl Card

This hybrid card was created using a printout of the night owl from my Owl Love U 4ever clip art set. I trimmed around the image and mounted onto cardstock from the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely collection and added a flower, button and ribbon as embellishments.

https://picasaweb.google.com/110695546779084486087/CheriWengerDigitalDesignProducts#5702296605428644450

Hummingbird & Flowerpot Card

Hybrid card created using my Ain't Love Tweet digital stamps collection with 

Cosmo Cricket’s DeLovely collection papers. Can be used as a sweet 

everyday greeting or a special get well card for a friend.

https://picasaweb.google.com/110695546779084486087/CheriWengerDigitalDesignProducts#5696772910695400018

The Traditionally Made Cards

Little Late Turtle Card

Used a chipboard image mounted onto squares of Coordinations cardstock. 

Stamped verses added with stamps from Stampin Up!®. A cute cupcake from 

Little Yellow Bicycle's Sweet Shop Collection of Fabric Favorites was added 

with a ribbon to dress up this cheery, belated Birthday card.

Birthday Sweetness Card

For this traditionally handcrafted card, I used an adorable felt embellishment mounted 

onto a tied ribbon and scallop floral diecut from yellow Coordinations cardstock. 

Stamped an old birthday verse with a stamp from Stampin Up!®. 

Sharing Tips...Since this post is getting longer than anticipated, I will keep this tip short. It is a tip on how to integrate digital artwork into traditional cardmaking; something that I used on one of the cards above. TIP: Use Selective Matt Cutouts of Clip Art to add to your cards. Can you guess which card uses this tip? If you guessed the Caring Owl Card, you are correct! The easiest way of doing this is to place your print out onto a cutting mat, and use a sharp cutting knife (like an Xacto knife) to selectively cut around the contour of the image/design. You can leave as much of a white border as you like. Printouts can be done on cardstock or paper, although beginners may find it easier to cut through paper rather than heavier weight cardstock. Don't own or fear a cutting knife? You can do this with a pair of short blade paper snips.

Sharing News...Just couldn’t resist sharing news of a cool blog giveaway! My super talented friend and fellow crafter, Melissa Bove has a blog giveaway. For complete rules and instructions, check her Giveaway Time blog post on this event. You can win a $50 gift card and goodies from the Echo Park Graceful This and That collection! Here is a peek of just one of the items you can win! Be sure and mention that you heard about the giveaway here! (The neat thing about this collection is that it reminds me of a blend of Crate & Company’s Recollections collection with a mix of my favorite softer color hues!) Good Luck!

Project 365 Challenge/Days 40 & 41 - Think Storage!

The theme for these past two days of projects is storage minded. Another common theme is repurposing...making a container into something completely different than it was.

Day 40 - Love Birds Keepsake Box

The focus of this project is on Fancy Pants Designs’ completely adorable Love Birds Collection combined with Glue Arts Adhesives, of course! For Valentine’s day, I wanted to make my daughter a box where she could keep all her memorabilia from her relationship with her beau. She is very creative so I knew that she would appreciate having a nice place to keep photos, ticket stubs, letters and other memories. I used papers and stickers form the Love Birds Kit and paired it with some other yummy stickers and chipboard from Little Yellow Bicycle’s Cupcake Love Collection...along with flowers and other bling, of course you know I couldn’t make anything plain. hehehe!  This project will be featured as my design team project on Glue Arts’ blog. So keep checking in there for it and be sure to leave a comment. Who know's you may just win something on their blog for doing it! Here are a few photos. You can check out my gallery for more showing the steps in making this. Big thanks to J.B. & K.W. for being good sports and letting me use their photos and allowing me to post on the internet. ;D

Day 41 - Sweet on You Container

In an effort to be more eco-friendly and eco-minded, I decided recently to turn the packaging from some Glue Arts’ refills into some fun Valentine’s containers. I shared the first one with you just the other day, Day 39’s May Arts Gift container, and now here is one I made for my sweet niece for Valentine’s Day.

A peek inside the lid!

Here is what it looks like filled with some goodies!

Project 365/ Days 35 & 36 - Digi Art & A Hybrid Card

What do you get when you combine a digi design with traditional cardmaking techniques? In this case, you get two days of creativity and one hybrid card! What I didn’t mention is that this Sweetie Gumball card uses a different digi stamp from the one I designed on day 35.

Some of you who are my facebook friends know that it is has been a rough month of January searching for answers to some health issues my daughter has been battling. They say that art can be healing, and for me, it has kept my mind focused on things other than being a worrying mother. After a rough night on Thursday and wondering which direction to turn next for answers, I woke up with a cheery little image in my mind of a bug peeking through some flowers. I know that God put that image there to help Kylie and I get through the day ahead. It was a long day at the doctors followed by barium shakes, a CT scan and some blood work. I told her I was so proud of her acing that test, as we got some fairly good news. Now we just sit back and wait on the labwork results to see if we will have more clues before going on to the next specialist. So as you view this snippet of the digi art (can't show the whole image just yet!), if you will please send up a prayer for answers and healing. We would greatly appreciate it. I spent the rest of Friday evening working late to turn my sketch into a new digi stamp. Hope you like this sneak peek.

Day 36’s project uses a couple paper and a cardstock sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle. I can't get enough of their fun collection of sweet papers and embellishments filled with hearts, cupcakes and yummylicious colors!

To create this card, I scaled the gumball machine to size I wanted to use on this standard size card. I colorized the heart in red with the I Luv You verse in black, then printed these out with some other images from the Sweetness Collection, one of my current digital collections on www.mygrafico.com. I love working with blender pens and markers which is how I colorized the heart gumball machine. Afterwards, I used some 2-way glue on top of the hearts with some iridescent glitter to sugarize them and add some sparkle. I also added some shiny framing around the heart and sweetie sticker by re-using some silver mylar cardstock that I saved from some perfume packaging. It made these two items stand out a little more. On my next card, I plan to do some silver embossing on the digi stamp to make the gumball machine extra metallic.