Welcome to InKing Royalty's February Blog Hop! Today's Blog Hop is filled with projects inspired by a Birthday Bliss theme.  What fun!  Stampin' Up! catalogs are filled with fun, festive and beautiful ways to make birthdays special - and we are excited to share our creations with you today.  We are also excited to welcome guest designer Michelle Last to our team's blog hop this month.  After you read my post, I hope you'll hop over to the next person on the list at the base of this post.

Balloon Adventures is a new stamp set in Stampin' Up's Occasions catalog. It contains several balloon stamps with strings, confetti and lots of sentiments!! While I have seen the set used to make cards with balloons of lots of bright colors, I decided it would be fun to use it to make a more classy card! I thought black and white with "gold" would be a great color combination and was inspired by Canadian demo Sandi MacIver's take on this card from Stampin' Up!. What a difference changing up the colors can make!!

I decided to use gold embossing powder on the balloons of various neutral colors and then picked my three favorite ones. Here is my card.

One of the things I like about this card is that it could be used for either sex and for various occasions! I stamped the confetti with Versamark on the sides of the black cardstock base and then embossed it with Stampin Up!'s gold embossing powder. Next I stamped and embossed the dotted balloon on three different colors of cardstock (Soft Suede, Whisper White and Crumb Cake) and punched them out with the coordinating Balloon Bouquet punch. I arranged them on a white layer and stamped It's Your Birthday in black at the bottom of the white layer. I then drew "strings" from each balloon with a Basic Black Marker.  

From now until March 31 you can receive one free Sale-a-bration item for every $50 you spend. If you purchase the stamp set and the punch you will almost reach the $50 amount. Add some Stampin' Up! gold embossing powder and you are there! Check out all the free options by clicking of the Sale-a-bration catalog on the right. 

Thank you for stopping by today.  I hope you'll hop along to the next stop on the blog hop, my stamping buddy Imogene Thomas at MomoMakes.com. There's lots of inspiration to be found in this group - and you don't want to miss it!  

You can email me privately with any of your papercrafting questions or ask them in a comment below!

 I ♥ comments and would love to hear what you think!!

Thank you for hopping along with us.  If you get stuck during the Blog Hop, please use this line-up as a guide:

1. Brian King at Stamp with Brian
2. Julie DiMatteo at The Paper Pixie
3. Denise Hoepfner at The Mountain Magpie
4. Candy Ford at Stamp Candy
5. Karen Browning at StampWithMeKZB
6. Katie Ferguson at Cottage Paper
7. Imogene Thomas at MomoMakes.com
8. Michelle Last at MichelleLast.co.uk
9. Jennifer Spiller at Westside Paper Creations
10. Lory Robinson at The Robins Nest Designs
11. Shawn de Oliveira at ShawnStamps
12. Pam Morris at Tap Tap Stamp
13. Lisa Pretto at Ink Big Academy Stamps

Supplies I used:

142823 Balloon Adventures Stamp Set

140609 Balloon Punch

121045 Black Cardstock

100730 Whisper White Cardstock

115318 Soft Suede Cardstock

120953 Crumb Cake Cardstock

102283 Versamark Ink Pad

132708 Tuxedo Black Memento Ink Pad

109129 Gold Embossing Powder

100082 Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker

  

Faceted Valentine Box!

A few weeks ago the papercrafting site Splitcoast Stampers posted a written tutorial and on how to make a faceted box. The tutorial required a 12"X12" piece of cardstock. I thought the box would be a good one to use for Valentine's Day treats to send to one of my granddaughters and her friends but I wanted to try to make the boxes out of a standard 8 1/2"X11" piece of cardstock. After a little bit of playing I came up with the measurements. Here is one of the finished treats that I sent.

This is the SCS video on how faceted boxes are made. 

This is my finished and decorated box before assembly.

 And here is a diagram with the measurements I used. 

I cut Flirty Flamingo cardstock to 7 1/2" X 10 3/4" and then scored as indicated and cut away the shaded areas. Next I cut the flaps for the top and bottom along the score lines as seen on each side of the diagram. I then decorated the box with stamped and embossed images from the Sealed with Love stamp set which is available in the new Occasions catalog. Depending on how your box is decorated, it can be important to do this step before you do any actual folding! I also decided to use the Gift Box Punch Board to cut away part of each flap on the bottom of the box. I felt this made for a more finished bottom but this step is optional and it also could be done with scissors. You want to use a strong adhesive to assemble your box. I used Stampin' Up! Tear & Tape. In lieu of decorating the top of the box I decided to cut a circle in the top and cover it with an acetate sheet. That created a window which allowed the candy inside to become part of the decoration. Due to this window it was necessary for me to trim the two flaps on top closer to the sides of the box so they would not show through the window in the top. I then made a tag using another image from the Sealed with Love set. I stamped the image with Versamark and Flirty Flamingo inks and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I put the box in a cellophane bag and tied it with the new Gold Metallic Ribbon from the Sale-a-bration catalog that I received free with a $50 order. 

Supplies I used:

142815 Sealed with Love stamp set

141416 Flirty Flamingo Cardstock

141397 Flirty Flamingo Ink Pad

102283 Versamark Ink Pad

109132 White Embossing Powder

109130 Clear Embossing Powder

142314 Window Sheets

138299 1 1/2" Round Punch

138995 Tear & Tape

143601 Metallic Ribbon

The Sealed with Love stamp set is available individually or as part of a bundle with the coordinating Love Notes Thinlit Dies. Check out the cute tiny love note and envelope dies that are part of this set! If you order the bundle you will be close to the amount needed to receive a free Sale-a-bration item - the Metallic Ribbon maybe?!

I love comments and would enjoy hearing what you think about this interesting box.

You can also email me privately with any of your papercrafting questions or ask them in a comment below!