Surprise!!

Hi there!!

I'm so very excited to be writing to you today, because it's a very SPECIAL day. Today is Joy Taylor's birthday!!! :)

A little while ago Joy and I were discussing how as December babies (my birthday is just after Christmas), our birthdays tend to be a bit of a non-event. Everyone is so exhausted after Christmas or gearing up for New Years (or both!) birthdays in December have a nasty habit of either being forgotten, blended with christmas (anyone born this month will be nodding I'm sure) or just generally minimised. (Not that we're complaining lol)

Anyhoo, after our talk I thought it would be nice to make a *bit* of a fuss over this lovely lady and so, I contacted some of Joy's favourite artists and twitter friends to do a bit of a blog hop in honour of her birthday. 

Here is the list of gorgeous (and may I say UBER talented) ladies who I'm honoured to be hopping with;

Linda <<---that's me!
Jennifer
Mary Dawn
Latrice
Laurel
Britta
Jill
Kathy
Danielle
Chari

If at any point during the hop you get lost or encounter a broken link, please come back to my blog for the whole list :)

And on with the card!

Very simple, I used distress stains on the stamp which I spritzed with water before stamping. Then I added the Papertrey Ink diecut Dress form.
Next I stamped the sentiment on a strip of My Minds Eye paper, added some twine and adhered it all to the notecard on top of a doily which I trimmed the edge off.

Finally (in true Joy Taylor style), I added some bling :)

Here are the products I used:

InLinkz.com

Hope you enjoyed!

Please hop along with me to the amazingly giving, super talented Jennifer McGuire's blog to see what magic she has whipped up!

Thanks so much for stopping by and 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOY!!! XXX

Linda xx

Day 4 of Inspired by Kristina Werner with Joy Taylor

Hello again dear friends.

Today is the final day we'll be bringing our Inspired by Kristina Werner week to you. I'm so sad it's over already. 

We thought we'd mix things up a little today, and bring you two cards!

For this first one, Joy and I chose the same card to be inspired by (as always) and the second card, we drew a number out of a hat, so we'll be showing you two totally different cards (as they're inspired by different cards that Kristina made--hope that makes sense!)

Here is the card Kristina made on Day 18

Ummm, hello gorgeous?!

Here is my take:

Every year I like to mix up my Christmas colour-theme, so apparently this year I'm going with pink! lol. 

I used the diecut that Kristina offered for sale on her blog and printed it out on my Silhouette machine. Then I temporarily adhered it to the card and spritzed over the top with Mr Huey's Calico White. I LOVE the effect.

 It's amazingly crisp.

I added a little glittery star to dot the i.

 A tiny bit of Ali Edwards awesomeness to finish the card off with a sentiment!

I love this great pink bow!!

Here are the products I used:

InLinkz.com

And here is card #2!

I drew out 'day 12' from the hat, which is this card by Kristina

 I really like what Kristina did with this card. So elegant and understated.

Here is mine:

 I wanted a combination of elegance and fun with this card.

I wanted to use glitter on the Hero Arts flourish but didn't have any of the special 'glue' that Kristina used, so I improvised. As you can see in the photo below, I mixed some Doodlebug glitter in with some AC Aqua Zing Embossing powder. I really like the effect!

The steps for this card are pretty self explanatory, but if you have any questions, PLEASE feel free to ask in the comments below!

Here are the products I used:

InLinkz.com

as well as white cardstock, ribbon from my stash and a paper doily!

And that's it for me! Thank you so much for coming by my little piece of bloggy-paradise and seeing what I've made!  

Now come on over to Joy's blog with me. I can't wait to see what she's come up with (genius I'm sure!)

Take care and may your days be filled with glittery magic!

Linda xx

Day 3 of Inspired by Kristina Werner series with Joy Taylor!

Hello friends!

Today's card was my favourite of all the cards Kristina made this year (and that's sayin' something because I loved ém all!) so I'm going to jump right in!

Here is Kristinas SUPER cute card for Day 14 of her series.

 SO cute. I love the little scarves the birds are wearing.

Here is my take:

I used the Lawn Fawn Christmas lights from Cozy Christmas, the birds are from Critters on the Farm (don't tell anyone they're actually chicks lol)'. 

I really wanted to add a 'girlie' something to one of the birds, (to make it look like a girl and a boy on the wire) so I used the tie from the stork's bundle in Lawn Fawn's "Plus One" set. It turned out to be the perfect hairbow! I also coloured the boy bird a darker shade of brown to make the girl that bit more feminine :)

Given that this card is so simple design-wise, I wanted to add an extra element so I heat embossed snowflakes falling all around the birdies but kept it in clear embossing powder so that the snowflakes wouldn't detract from the scene.

Well that's it from me for today--hope you liked it!

Here is what I used:

InLinkz.com

*Papers were from Kaisercraft's 6x6 "Christmas Carnival" collection

Now hop on over to Joy's blog with me to see what she's made! I can't wait.

See you tomorrow where we'll be sharing TWO cards!!

*hugs and cute little birds on a wire to you *

Linda xx