3rd Birthday Blog Hop for Topflight Stamps

Hi everyone and welcome. Today is a special day for Topflight Stamps as they reach their 3rd birthday!!! To celebrate they are hosting a Birthday Blog Hop, showcasing birthday cards created by a team of Guest Designers using the unique products available at Topflight Stamps. Please hop along with us and see all the beautiful talent from this group of amazing designers! You should have arrived here from Ericka Strange's blog. If not, no worries, catch the details at the end of this post.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a birthday celebration without prizes! Topflight Stamps is giving one lucky winner a $50 Gift Certificate to the store. But wait, there is more, each stop on the hop has an additional $15 Gift Certificate up for grabs for some lucky commenter. For a chance to win, make sure to visit every stop on the hop and leave a comment by March 28th. Winners will be announced on the Topflight Stamps blog on March 31st. Good Luck!.

And with so many of us having to shop online now you'll be pleased to see this...

So following the birthday card theme I made this non-traditional collage style card using Sara Naumann's stamp set ESN36 from PaperArtsy, available from Topflight Stamps.

Here's a quick tutorial to show how this card came together;

The background card was made by taking a Gel Plate print from brayered layers of PaperArtsy Steel Grey, Cloud 9 and Granny Smith Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints.

The torn textured paper pieces were created using a combination of Mahogany/Toffee and Mahogany/Caramel Fresco Finish Acrylic Paints.

I used a small Gel Plate to apply Guacamole Fresco Finish Paint onto a tea stained piece of copier paper as the basis for this section. After stamping the nail and script image from the set with Tea Rose Archival Ink I used an embossing ink pen to draw over the nail, covering and heat setting it with a layer of Seth Apter's Chunky Rust Baked Texture Embossing Powder from Emerald Creek Crafts.

The ledger image was stamped onto more tea stained copier paper using Jet Black Archival Ink.

The small leaf and script image from the set was stamped onto white card with the same black ink before being heat embossed with Seth Apter's Dusk Baked Velvet Embossing Powder from Emerald Creek Crafts.

Left over from a previous project I had some more painted copier paper, this time brayered with layers of Gold Rush, Sorbet, Rose and Blush Fresco Finish Paints. Having cut into it to create a layer underneath the nail and script piece, I stamped the leaf from the smaller leaf and script stamp with embossing ink onto the paper and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder. After cutting around the leaf I layered it over the Dusk embossed image.

As can be seen below I took all of these stamped/painted pieces and combined them over a 5 1/2 inch square white card base, adding a little Brushed Corduroy Distress Oxide Ink to all the edges. The little piece of cotton lace trim was coloured with Buff Fresco Finish Paint and the sentiment from the set was stamped onto more tea stained copier paper, mounted onto thick card. Adding extra mats and layers to a card always helps to give them a more polished and cohesive look so I used a pink card layer in between the white base and the kraft coloured card base, machine stitching the edges of the white card for added texture.

Here are a couple of close ups of the finished card;

That's all from me. Follow along with the rest of the Birthday Blog Hop by hopping over to Autumn Clark's blog here and if you get lost you can always start at the Topflight Stamp Blog. And don't forget to comment on each of the blog posts to be in with a chance of winning!

• Topflight Stamps
• Lisa Hoel
• Jennie Atkinson
• Cornelia Wenokor
• Jenny Colacicco
• Karen Bearse
• Dina Kowal
• Kathi Rerek
• Connie Mercer
• Toni Maddox
• Lindsay Weirich
• Ericka Strange
• Jenny Marples (you are here)
• Autumn Clark
• Rachel Greig