Bold Bright Whimsical Balloons

I can't believe that I forgot to tell you some very exciting news regarding the new SAB sets when I made my post on Saturday! The SAB stamp sets are all die cut!!! It was a nice surprise to me when I opened my package. I had recently read an announcement that all future mini catalog sets will continue to be die cut like they were in the Holiday Mini, but it didn't occur to me that the SAB sets were included in that. I just loved how bright and cheery the first two cards I made with this set turned out so I decided to make a few more using the same color scheme. I also added a punched design from the new So Many Scallops set. I know I'll be using that set a lot! I cut out each balloon, but before I adhered them into place I lightly penciled in the curved lines of the string. Then I paper pierced along the lines, erased my pencil lines and connected the dots with my white gel pen. This mimicked the swirled motif of the stamp and turned out pretty darn cute...if I do say so myself!

Since it's always so much easier for me to make girly cards than manly cards, I challenged myself to also make a more masculine version of each of the birthday cards I make using this set.

For this one I used the It's Your Birthday set for the main image and framed it with the balloons. Since guys like hardware I added the brads in each corner for a manly touch. The orange balloon it mounted with pop dots. I also tied a bit of thread onto the balloons to finish it off. Both cards use card stock and inks from the Bold Brights color family, plus the Canvas background stamp inked with White Craft ink.