Studio Katia's FIRST BIRTHDAY Blog Hop!!!!

Hi All!!!  Welcome to this special blog hop in honour of Studio Katia's First Birthday!!  I am so thrilled and honoured to be a part of this amazing design team.  I have the utmost respect for Katia who does this all by herself.  She has accomplished so much in so little time with much more to come!!!

So let's get this party started, shall we??  The theme for this hop is SHAKER CARDS!!!  Shaker cards are so much fun but to be honest with you, I rarely make them.  So they are actually a challenge for me.  It takes a lot of planning on my part and I usually end up throwing the first one away :)

I started by going through my SK dies, I knew I wanted to make a shaped card.  So I picked one of my favourite sets, Stitched Creative Squares.  I die cut two of the largest square, scored one of them 3/4 inch from the top, applied Scor-Tape and adhered the two pieces together.  Next, I took the two smaller squares, nested them together on top of another piece of cardstock and ran them through my Big Shot.  This created a frame.

I immediately added my acetate to the back of the frame, applied two layers of foam tape and filled 'er up!  For my bits and bobs, I used the crazy beautiful Crystal Rainbow Fusion, Silver Stars Confetti, and Silver Foil Seed Beads.  I placed another die cut piece of cardstock (using the medium die) and cover the back of my shaker.

After adhering the shaker portion to my cardbase, it was time for the sentiment.  Insert mistake here:  I wanted to stamp INSIDE the shaker part.  And because everything was already put together, I knew stamping/heat embossing on the acetate was not going to work.  Plan B:  I took a "happy" die from an older My Favorite Things set and die cut it from white cardstock.  To co-ordinate with the sequins, I sponged some Jelly Bean ink from Simon Says Stamp on the sentiment.

This die is an "on the edge" die so it doesn't cut the letter right off.  I left a wide enough strip on the bottom so I could stamp the word "birthday".  Then, to get all matchy-matchy, I ran it through using the medium square die so I could get the stitching detail.  The tiny flower comes from Sunny Studio Stamps.  I sponged some Doll Pink Ink (Simon Says) onto some cardstock and cut that out and also cut it out using some teal glitter paper for the centre.  I adhered both the sentiment and flower using Multi Medium Matte adhesive.  And here it is:

This card was totally fun to make!!  You know what else is fun?? Giveaways and Discounts!!!!! 

Here are all the details...

GIVEAWAY INFO:

- You can win a $20 GC to Studio Katia at every stop on the hop! Make sure to leave a comment by Sunday, May 7^th for your chance to win! The more blogs you visit, the greater your chances of winning.

- You can also win (1) Simon Says Stamp goody bag and (1) Kuretake ZIG Clean Color Real Watercolor Brush Pens, 80 Color Set. The winners will be chosen from all the comments along the hop.

- Studio Katia is offering 15% off all purchases to their online shop (link http://www.studiokatia.com) using the code "SKTURNS1" through Sunday, May 7th at midnight EST.

*Comments must be left before 11:59 PM EST on Sunday, May 7th and winners will be announced on May 10th.

The next stop on the hop is the super talented, super amazing:  Amy Kolling