Thinking of Inking

Once again, I’ll be making birthday cards for the faculty and staff members of our local elementary school on behalf of the PTA Executive Board.  I’ve been looking for card layouts that are going to be quick and easy for me to make, and I think I’ve found two that will work.

Today’s card shows the design I’m probably going to use for the resource teachers, aides, cafeteria workers, and other school workers who don’t have a homeroom class.  This particular card was meant to be masculine, but it would be super easy to change the patterned paper and color scheme to something more feminine.  The layout is cased from a card here; I just added a little more ribbon and changed the shape of the sentiment panel.  Thanks for the inspiration, Taylor!

Supplies:
Stamps: Birthday Wish (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: white Paper Basics (Papertrey Ink); Going Gray and Night of Navy (Stampin’ Up!); “Buckle” patterned paper from Boxer 6″ x 6″ pad (Basic Grey)
Ink: Night of Navy (Stampin’ Up!)
Other: navy grosgrain ribbon, mini corner rounder (Stampin’ Up!); rectangle and scalloped rectangle dies (Nestabilities)

I’d love to have some feedback about the way I’ve been presenting my photos on here.  I’ve been playing around with pixel size and thumbnail vs. full size image, trying to get the photos to look clearer when you first see them on here.  I know they’ve been rather blurry, and that has really been annoying me.  So please leave me a comment and answer the following questions:

Do you like the current thumbnail-size images with the text wrapped around them?  Would you rather have a larger photo to view?  Do you ever click on the image to see it larger?  Even if I had a larger preview photo, would you click on it for a better view?

Any other opinions or comments you’d like to make would be greatly appreciated!  Brutal honesty isn’t going to hurt my feelings, so say what you mean.  Thanks in advance. 

Now, on to today’s card.  One of the teachers at our elementary school is expecting a little boy any day now.  Here is what I made to send her on behalf of the PTA Executive Board.

I just received Stampin’ Up’s Delicate Dots designer paper and decided to put it to use right away.  The color scheme is taken from Splitcoaststampers’ weekly color challenge #213, and the layout is this week’s sketch challenge, #224.  I wanted to use my scalloped Nestabilities for the mat for the two narrow strips of designer paper, but the largest die I had was still a little too short to reach across the entire width of the card.  I love paper piecing the onesie!

Stamps: By Ones & By Twos, Hugs & Wishes (Stampin’ Up!)
Cardstock: Bashful Blue, So Saffron, Close to Cocoa, Delicate Dots designer paper (Stampin’ Up!)
Ink: Close to Cocoa
Other: Nestabilities scalloped rectangle die; Cutterbee scissors; dimensional adhesive