Treat Yourself to a Cupcake

Today's featured stamper on SCS, Seewah/Sarah, has an amazing, distinctive style. Her cards are very simple and clean, which is a big contrast to the style of last week's featured stamper. You can see her SCS gallery here. Sometimes, I find that simple and clean is much harder to do--it can be hard to stop and let the simplicity of an image or a layout speak for itself. Sarah does that so well.

I made a 5 1/2" by 5 1/2" square card based on this card. I kept the layout the same, but changed the images and colors. I used the cupcake stamp from one of the dollar sets of clear stamps from either AC Moore or Michaels--can't remember which store this set came from. Since the image is clear and was stamped with a clear block, it was SO easy to line the images up straight (or pretty close to straight) and space them (kinda) evenly. I started in the center of the white panel and worked out from there. Since I had decided I'd be working with blues and browns, I stamped the cupcakes using SU!'s Basic Brown ink. I colored the images with my Watercolor Wonder Crayons and an aquapainter. I couldn't resist adding some Stickles to the candle flames.

The original card had a dotted panel on the top and a coordinating solid panel on the bottom and I liked how that looked, so I kept that in my design, but changed the colors completely. I used a piece of paper from the Cosmopolitan Collection by Making Memories. IRL, it is a much closer match to the Close to Cocoa cardstock on the bottom of the card than in the photo. The scalloped piece is a textured "flat" from a DCWV package. The flats come already cut (scallop or ric rac edged) and ready to put on a cardfront. This one is a close match to SU!'s Bordering Blue, which I used for a panel under the cupcake imags and for the sentiment. I love the look of blue and brown together and who doesn't love rich, chocolatey cupcakes (except me!)?

The sentiment is from the soon to retire set Treat Yourself. It is actually on two lines , so I used the Stamp-a-ma-jig to (try) to line the sentiment up into one long line. Not perfect, but pretty close . . .

Materials Used:

From Stampin' Up!: Basic Brown Classic ink; Close to Cocoa, Bordering Blue, and Whisper White cardstock; Watercolor Wonder Crayons; aquapainter; Stamp-a-ma-jig

Other: cupcake stamp (Studio G); dotted paper (Making Memories--Cosmopolitan Collection); scalloped flat (DCWV); brown brads (Joann); Gold Stickles (Ranger); gingham ribbon (Michaels dollar bin)