Handstitched Cards

What's with all of my married friends being born in pairs?! Kim and Eric are born in June. Susie and Gus (and now Lauren) have August birthdays. So it's more coordinating cards from me! (See K&E's travel birthday cards here)

Lately, I'm loving a neutral background with pops of color, mixed alongside a bold graphic design. So I custom made a boy and a girl version using paint, mist, black and white washi and stamps.

For Susie's card, I was inspired by the Mama Elephant Photo Challenge again. I love the white with the pops of pink and black. And instead of the yellow as in the inspiration photo, I used gold.

Tim Holtz Distress Paint is pretty awesome. The dauber makes it so easy to smear across a stencil. This pink is Picked Raspberry. It's so vibrant IRL (and in this photo thanks to RadLab). 

To back the sentiment, I used a few date stamps and gold brilliance ink to create a text block. I wrote the word "happy" on a scratch piece of vellum and poked holes where I wanted them over the text. Then I stitched through with black thread.

For Gus' card, I knew immediately that I wanted to create an argyle pattern. He's a sock guy and so that pattern just seems him to me. I used my Silhouette to cut a diamond out of scratch paper and then used it as a mask for the blue blocks (that's Distress Paint in Salty Ocean).

I traced more diamonds with a pencil and poked another round of holes. This time I stitched them in teal and finished the card off with tape and a die cut that was misted with Heidi Swapp Color Shine in Bronzer.

The "Happy Birthday" stamp is by Papertrey Ink, a set I had totally forgotten about but still completely love! Might need to place another order with them sometime soon, they have the best stamps!

Happy belated birthday Gus! And happy early birthday Susie! The month of the Cruz celebrations is almost complete =)

cheers & besos,