Male birthday card

Pals Paper Arts has a sketch challenge... 

...and Aud Sentiments has anything goes.  So here is my card:
Made for my FIL who loves to hike.  He's even gone to Nepal twice!

I used paper and stickers that definitely suit a mountaineer type!  I got a kick out of the "difficult trail ahead" sticker since it is a birthday card - subtle punch at age.  The block with the happy birthday on it is raised with pop dots.
I used two pieces of raffia.  The first I opened a bit and glued down.  I glued the 2nd down after I tied two little knots in them.  (This was actually plan b.  I put 3 staples in the brown paper but they were crooked.  I love staples as accents for male cards but it just didn't work this time.)  And now I love the knots in the raffia look.  I will def do this again!

Thanks for swinging by!

Christmas in pink!

I follow a blog called Always Playing with Paper.  She makes beautiful cards.  She's on a design team for another blog called The Paper Players.  They had a challenge to use 3 shades of pink and I was inspired to do something with those colors!

Then I saw that Aud Sentiments wants to see "Merry Christmas" on a card.  Since I want to make my cards this year, I thought I better start!  I love when inspiration strikes!

I started by going thru old Christmas cards I received and had stashed away to repurpose.  Finding pink among all the green and red was tricky!  But I found this little gift box on a card and cut it out.
I chose the dark pink card base from there.
The green layer of paper is from a stack and feels like velvet.  Love the texture.
Merry Christmas is stamped but I'm not sure why I stamped it crooked.  Just ignore that.  hehe
I marked fake stitching on the sentiment.  Added two pink jewels.  And a lighter pink ribbon for my 3rd shade of pink.  Voila!

Thanks for swinging by!