Birthday Fun!

Happy Saturday!!  Well, it's the day after my birthday and I'm officially into the final year of my 30's.  It was a great day and I'm super lucky to have such amazing friends and family to celebrate with me.  Thanks for all the well wishes and happy birthdays!

I have been making cards like crazy lately and I'm so happy that my mojo seems to be firing on all cylinders.  Hopefully, that means you can expect many more post from me and a little more activity on my blog.  That's my goal anyway!  I hope you will visit often and see what I'm up to.  For now, here's a birthday card I created last week.

I bought this awesome 12x12 paper from Simon Says Stamp and it is the coolest pack ever!  It is the Simple Stories The Reset Girl Basics Kit and it is AWESOME!  Talk about an amazing set of papers.  I love papers and I especially love blacks with cream or white.  They are just so handy and every card pops a little more with a hit of black.  Once I had my papers picked out the rest was easy because I knew I was going to use the Concord and 9th Lace Leaf set.  I've been dying to ink it up ever since I ordered it and I finally had some time on my hands!  To say it's gorgeous is a serious understatement.  It's AMAZING!  I stamped the inky image in black and I love the depth it gives with one stamp.  How did they do that?  Next, I embossed the leaf image in gold over top.  Next, I grabbed some more of that fabulous paper and stamped a sentiment created from stamps in the Sweet & Cool stamp set.  I trimmed the green at a jaunty little angle and added some torn black and cream paper beneath to help it pop.  That's it.  Simple, elegant, and pretty masculine if I do say so myself.

Here's a little close up:

Thanks for checking out my card and I hope you guys have a great weekend!