Viva la Tuesday Trigger

Good afternoon friends and followers.  :)  Today I have four (count 'em) cards for your viewing pleasure. The first is for this week's Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger Challenge, using this picture as inspiration:

I was inspired by the jar image and the turquoise, orange & white color palette.  I came up with this card:

I used Papertrey Ink's 'Studio Style' set, and let me tell you, it was pretty tricky trying to ink only the jar in turquoise and only the buttons in orange without bleeding.  Then I wanted to create a frame of buttons playing off of the buttons inside the jar.  At last, a sentiment that will be perfect for one of the many thank you's I need to send to all of my supportive and kind crafty friends.  (Card one, clap clap, done.)

I am happy to say I was successful in completing cards for all of the Viva la Verve! challenges at SCS this month.  I had such a block with Week 2's Sketch by Charmaine, so I did what I always do when this happens, I rotated it and flipped it over for a fresh perspective.  And I thought 'Hey, that circle in the corner kind of looks like a balloon..." and I came up with this card:

The balloon was punched out using a Mega (purple) Marvy Uchida punch from this pretty pre-glittered sparkly paper by Making Memories.  I cut the 'balloon tail' out of the same paper and tied some twine by Martha Stewart around the end to substitute for the ribbon in the photo.  For the side strip I found this brown piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock that had been embossed using the CB 'Branches' embossing folder and though it resembled bark and would make a good tree trunk behind the balloon (light bulb -> at this point the idea for the next card popped into my head).  I stamped the cute little birdie from Verve's 'Wordy Birds' set onto Real Red cardstock and colored in his wing for a little depth and positioned him as if he was holding up the greeting.  Another birthday card for my stash.  (Card two, clap clap, done).

Here is the card that was conceptualized while making the previous card - when I was adhering the trunk I thought "Hm, I should have just made this a tree instead of a balloon..." and (ding! ding! ding!) realized I could do this using a few scalloped punches and thus became the card above.  I turned the bow from the sketch into a yellow ribbon (You all have "Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree..." going through your heads now, don't you?) and created a bird nest for another little Wordy Birdie to nestle in using some scraps that resulted from trimming down the tree trunk.  On both of these cards I created the cloud background by sponging Bashful Blue ink around a scalloped oval punch (I kept the one from before - every day is Earth Day!)  (Card 3, clap clap, done).

My final card was made for the Week 3 Viva la Verve Challenge by Maureen.  This one took me a while to come up with but I am happy with the final result.  It uses both Verve's 'Glad Tidings' and 'Merry Wishes' sets.  The white berries were embossed onto Real Red cardstock and the red berries were stamped with Real Red ink.  The snowflake-poinsettia was stamped twice - once embossed on red cardstock and one onto white cardstock with red; both were cut out and layered.  I attached a velvet ribbon and bow and some rhinestones to random red berries and to the center of the snowflake-poinsettia.  (Card 4, clap clap, done AND all five of the Viva la Verve challenges are now complete - so I am a Viva la Verve Champion for the month of March - WOO HOO!...Now you hear Queen's 'We are the Champions...." in your head, right?)

Holiday card count: 15 (As a personal goal, I try to complete at least 10 holiday cards every month so that I am all set when the holidays arrive and I do not have the stress of trying to create a gazillion cards in addition to all of the tradition holiday shtuff we all have to do, and I usually have plenty left over to send to family, friends and Operation Write Home; I am a little behind at this point because of my surgery, but I am confident I will be able to catch up as my healing progresses, even if I have to take the CAS approach - hey, they are easier and cheaper to mail anyway right?)

Thank you Cath, Charmaine and Maureen for the cool challenges and inspiration, and thank you all for taking the time to read my blog and look at my cards.  Have a great day!
~Crafty Math Chick