SAY CHEESE!

Today's tutorial is a card for Shelli's Creative Challenge! I'm so excited about these challenges! At some point I'm going to need a secretary to keep up with all the challenge schedules! This one was to make a project that included the word "Celebrate".

The inspiration for this card is an INCREDIBLE birthday card I received from Tisha Copeland, the insanely hilarious, pretty and talented creator of the Say Cheese Blog - link in my sidebar.

And just a warning - this entire project and my post were created with a sleepin kitty in my left paw!!! now THAT is a challenge!!

Start with a piece of your favorite DSP. I chose Georgia Peach - I'm obsessed with the geometry! Yes, I realize its not blue.. :)

Fold the DSP and place it on your Top Note Sizzix die as shown.

Being able to make folded cards from these fun shapes just makes me super happy and makes the dies twice as valuable.

When you are done running it through the sizzix you will have this cool folded top note card.

Then, you are going to cut a single top note from Old Olive. You will cut one edge off so that you can line up the spine of your folded DSP note against the edge.

Then you will take your folded note and cut along the perforations so that it's slightly smaller than the Olive note which is the mat.

I used a ruler and a bone folder to score the top layer of the notecard so that I would have a little spine to make my ribbon hinge.

Now the colors in this DSP are Old Olive, Regal Rose, Pirouette Pink, So Saffron and Whisper White. BUT, the new Kiwi Kiss Satin ribbon looks beautiful with it, so I used that. After tying my bow the first time, I decided I liked the vanilla side of the ribbon so much that I wanted it to show too. So I retied the ribbon so that one half of the bow was flipped, showing that pretty combo of green and white. This is gorgeous ribbon. I can't believe I'm not hoarding it more!!

Maybe my hoarding disorder is in remission.. :)

Next, stamp the little champagne glasses from Cheers to You in Basic Black on Whisper White and on the saffron DSP from Georgia Peach. I chose this pattern because I thought the little dots looked like bubbles.

Then very carefully cut out the contents of the glasses. What's cool about this stamp is that you can cut them out and keep them all in once piece, since they touch. Much easier than cutting the two teeny glasses out separately and adhereing them.

But once I have them all cut out, they look astonishingly like a tiny hiney!! :) Oh my!

How completely scandalous! My card is mooning SHELLI!

Then you stick the paper pieced hiney onto the glasses, and mount the white panel to a Regal Rose and then an Old Olive panel.

Stick this assembly down onto your folded Top Note Card.

The base of the card is a 5.5" x 4.25" Old Olive layer, with a 5.25" x 4" piece of Georgia Peach DSP on top of that. I totally dig those dots.

Stamp the "Let's Celebrate" stamp from On Your Birthday onto the DSP and mount your Top Note focal point onto the card.

Voila! Very quick and easy card.

Now - check out the super sassy inspiration card from Tisha - I LOVE THIS SO MUCH!! LOOK AT HER RHINESTONE BELT!!!!!

She did her top note fold vertically - and even though I was trying to reverse engineer hers I put mine in there sideways and so I got a different shape, which is very fun but an accident. Look how she colored this girl!!! What an adorable card. On the inside it says "On your birthday, remember that big girls don't cry" - then, on the inside of the big card it says "They might drink too many martinis and eat a whole cake, but they don't cry."

Hysterical. THANK YOU TISHA!! Big hug! If you are going to Leadership, we need to hang out!

RUH ROH - do you know what time it is? Time for some shameless kitty cuteness and a story about your ditzy author.

Yesterday morning at 5:15 AM, I stopped at our group mailboxes on my way to work. A note about group mailboxes - you know how I feel about them since the wasp incident. But can I just say again that they are an evil plot by our lazy government to beat us all into mindless submission so that they can go out on their yachts and giggle about how they lure us to communal places to do their jobs for them? I'm positive that's what happens.

Anyway, like a good little dumb animal, I stop there on my way to work and here's where it gets all hairy. First of all it's 5:15 so at this point I'm not really the sharpest tool in the shed anyway, since Starbucks is still 15 minutes in the future. I put my key, which is on a beloved, old alien lanyard I got in Roswell in the door of my way too small stupid communist box and open it. Inside is the equivalent of the Willy Wonka gold wrapped candy bar - A KEY TO YET ANOTHER BOX, WHICH MEANS I HAVE A PACKAGE. Yes, God forbid that they make our mailboxes any larger than a nest containing 11 wasps - we wouldn't want any MAIL to fit in there. Let's tease the citizens we've trained and make them go to yet another, adjacent box, which is large enough to hold, say FORTY wasps. So I trot obediently over, open the second box and THERE ARE FOUR STAMPING RELATED PACKAGES IN THERE!!!

I think you can appreciate that at this point, all other thoughts vanish from my foggy brain. Like, for example, the thought "Hey dummy, your mailbox is open, the key is in the door and all your mail is still in there, including, unbeknownst to you, this gorgeous card from Tisha Copeland."

Instead, I hop happily into my car with my stamping goodies, drive on to Starbucks, and go about my day.

Upon leaving work at lunchtime to get an oil change, I settle into the IMedic massage chair at the BMW dealership - it was tough deciding between that and the recliners in the mini movie theater, or the computer bars where I could have blogged, but I went for the massage chair - and I SHORTLY THEREAFTER REALIZE WITH HORROR WHAT I'VE DONE!!! It totally ruined the rest of my day. I was in a panic. And immediately after work I had a pedicure appointment so I knew it would be a long time before I knew what happened.
Happy that they washed my car at the dealership, I parked in my usual remote spot near the nail place so as not to get a door ding. However, while I was in there, a giant toad strangler, gully washer of a thunderstorm moved in. I had forgotten my flip flops, so I walk outside in those fake flip flops they give you, and discover when I'm suddenly and indelicately doing the splits on the sidewalk, that those are very slippery when wet!!! So the only thing I could do is take em off so as not to crack my skull or break my ankle. So there I am, all Britney Spears'd up, walking barefoot for a good distance through pouring rain and ankle deep water to my very distant and no longer clean car. I was so soaked when I got there - my jeans had absorbed water up to above my knees and the rest of me was just as bad.

I make a beeline, all bedraggled, for the mailbox. The door is closed - no key, no mail. Scared and mad, I go back to my house, get some confetti white cardstock and write a note, stick it in a ziploc and head back to tape it to the front of the box, begging for mercy and the return of my mail. After getting back to my house, which at this point is 15 minutes before our dinner guests were to arrive and behold my glamorous appearance, the world's nicest man rings the doorbell and is beaming at me with mail and key in hand. He said the postman - THANK YOU U.S. GOVERMENT FOR YOUR EXCELLENT SERVICE - just put my new mail in there on top of my old mail and did not bother to close my door or do anything approaching human, caring or falling into his sacred duties to safeguard the US Mail. I'm sure he was late for the yacht party.

Now I freely admit that I am the ding dong who started this hideously embarassing chain of events, but can someone remind me why we pay taxes again?

Signing off for what is going to be a very busy day. I hope you guys have a fun weekend lined up.

L.