Black and White Birthday

My fellow Kitchen Sink Stamps design team member, Sarah, has started a new weekly challenge on her blog this week. She's posting challenges that incorporate a sketch, a color palette, and a theme, along with helpful tidbits about design. I really have no background in art or design (I can use all the help I can get in this area), so I'm looking forward to learning lots from Sarah.

I was inspired by her card using the Happy Birthday Cupcake set from Kitchen Sink Stamps, so I did my own version. All of the patterned papers here are from a huge paper pad from DCWV. I went through the pad and pulled out all of the black and white ones and cut little strips from them, arranging and rearranging them until I found a combination of patterns and widths that I liked.

I used two different sentiment stamps from the Happy Birthday Cupcake set--the bold "Happy Birthday" at the bottom of the card and the much smaller "make a wish" stamped repeatedly on the piece of gray ribbon. I also used a stamped image from the Backgrounds and Borders set--the dotted strip at the top of the card. I like how it contrasts with the black paper with white dots on the lower section of the card.

The newest Kitchen Sink Stamps release (with a Valentine's Day theme, I believe) should be coming up very soon--I'll pass on the exact date as soon as I have it. But, to tide you over until the new release, be sure to check out design team member Nicole's blog for the Kitchen Sink Stamps project of the month--an awesome tutorial on stamping on silk--and a very generous blog candy giveaway from Nicole and Maria (owner/designer of Kitchen Sink Stamps--the head chef, I guess!). I can't wait to give this project a try.

Materials Used:

Happy Birthday Cupcake and Backgrounds & Borders stamp sets (Kitchen Sink Stamps); Graphite Black ink (Brilliance); Basic Gray and Basic Black cardstock, black grosgrain ribbon (Stampin' Up!); gray brads (Creative Memories); gray grosgrain ribbon (Michaels dollar bin)