A Beachy Birthday

Hey, everyone! Happy Friday! I had a fun time at the GKD release party last night. You can find all the new stamp sets here. I made this card for to share at the party last night, using Melanie's new Gifts From the Sea stamp set.

I didn't get photos for a tutorial. It was during my last minute stamping frenzy. The background was sponged. The images were colored with Copics and cut out. The texture on the sand was done with the sand texture stamp from the set, stamped in Rich Cocoa and pigment white. Layers are Pure Luxury Black Onyx, Turquoise Sea and a Kraft cardbase.

Tonight is the VSN (virtual stamp night) mini at SCS. If you aren't familiar with VSN, there are a number of challenges posted, one each hour. Participants get 45 minutes to complete their projects and 15 minutes to clean up, upload photos, etc, before the next challenge is posted. You don't actually have to play right as the challenges are posted. You get all weekend, as long as you limit yourself to 45 minutes to make your card. I like to play along as they are posted, one after another. Somehow, knowing the next challenge is going to be posted soon, really gets my blood pumping.

Anyway, tonight, I will be hostessing a challenge for VSN and I want to invite you all to come play along. The mini tonight is just a warm-up for the big event in May. The big one spans two days with tons of challenges. I rarely get the time to play along, but I always have fun when I do. It is also good practice for me, since I tend to take way too much time planning my cards and fussing over layouts. When you only have 45 minutes to make the card, you really have to move.

I also have a sketch challenge going over at StampTV. I would love to have you play along there, too and there is a random chance to win a free stamp if you play along. Be sure to check out all the challenges and contest questions for more chances to win.

Here is the sketch for my challenge.


I also want to give a should out to my wonderful guest designers this month, Mary Anne K and Melissa Shultz. I'll be sharing some wonderful projects from these talented ladies, soon.

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you have a great day!