I am continually challenged by taking part in these sketch challenges and today’s card is no different.

The inspiring ladies at The Friday Mashup have combined with the Paper Lovin’ Gals for this week’s sketch challenge.

1. Make a project for “Mom, Grandmother, Aunt etc…”.
2. Or Make a project with a ” Pop-Up Element ”.*
3. Or “Mash it Up” and create a ” Pop-Up Project for Mom”.
4.  Or join in Both challenges and create a ”Pop-Up Project for Mom using the inspiration photo above.”

My card:

I decided to throw caution to the wind and attempt both challenges and my first pop-up element.  The first picture shows the outside of the card and the second card shows what happens when you open it up – you get a beautiful flower bouquet. The card base is a little larger than I normally would make it (closed it measures 5×6) but it was necessary in order to get the full effect of the bouquet and still have room to write a nice sentiment to Mom.

I can’t take all the credit for the pop-up element as I found it here on Martha Stewart’s website and knew as soon as I saw it, it would be perfect for this challenge.This was such a fun card to make and I can’t wait to give it to my Mom!!

Thanks for taking a look!

Here’s what I used:

Card Stock: Whisper White, Calypso Coral, Wisteria Wonder, Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral and Wisteria Wonder DSP Paper Stack and Love Patterns DSP

Ink: Wisteria Wonder, Calypso Coral, Pretty In Pink

Stamp Sets: Triple Treat Flower, Loving Thoughts, Teeny Tiny Wishes

Tools & Embellishments: Big Shot, Square Lattice Embossing Folder, Scallop Oval Punch, Fancy Flower Punch, Petal Flower Punch, Large Oval Punch, Basic Pearls, Calypso Coral Ruffled Ribbon, mini glue dots, sticky strip, and Stampin’ Dimensionals

The big Harry Potter birthday party has come and gone (and I now have a 9 yr old and a 6 yr old!) and it was a huge hit. So much so that my kids have asked for another one next year!

I will admit to being a big Harry Potter fan myself, so I had a great time planning and creating everything for the party.  We did get a lot of great ideas from the internet but also came up with a few great ideas of our own. So as I promised in a previous post, I plan to document everything we did with a series of posts. I’ve shared with you the invitations and now I want to share with you what we came up with for the decorations.

I always like to have a birthday banner at the kids parties and I used the invitations as the inspiration for this one. Although the party decorations were heavy on the Gryffindor side, I knew I wanted to have every House represented in the banner. This is what I came up with.

Hogwarts Birthday Banner

Next, no Harry Potter party is complete without some sort of Platform 9 3/4. I found this great sign here, printed it and attached it to a heavy piece of plastic then hung it over the door.  I had originally planned to take an old bed sheet and turn it into a brick wall (as they did here) but I was lucky enough to stumble upon some plastic brick-like tableclothes at a dollar store and used those to create the brick wall. I thought it looked pretty good and the kids had a great time going through the wall to see what awaited them on the other side.

Platform 9 3/4

We also tried to recreate the Enchanted ceiling that graces the Great Hall at Hogwarts. So we hung mini lights from the ceiling and it looked great.  I also found this great Gryffindor banner here, cut it out and hung it in the “Great Hall” . Was perfect for the party and now it hangs in the kids Gryffindor inspired bedroom.

Enchanted Ceiling and Gryffindor Banner

We also had other signs hung up around the house that I found here.  I will share with you the Potions Class held by Professor Snape (aka my husband) and the trip to Honeyduke’s the kids had, in upcoming posts.

Various signs

To complete the look, the kids made this great Hogwarts sign and thought their party wouldn’t be complete without including their versions of Scabbers, Crookshanks and Hedwig.

Scabbers, Hedwig and Crookshanks

The next Harry Potter post will feature all the treats the kid picked up at Honeyduke’s. So come back, you don’t want to miss it.

It’s Friday and the only thing that would make it better would be a little sunshine.  Hopefully that will happen sometime this weekend, otherwise I see a crafty weekend ahead.

I thought I was done with card challenges for the week, until I happened upon this fun one from The Paper Players .

I thought the Tic-Tac-Toe idea was so fun that I couldn’t resist entering the challenge. And I think the Bright Blossoms Gift Set I created this week, fits the diagonal Flowers – Your Choice – Designer Paper perfectly.

Here it is: 

Thanks for taking a look.

Here’s what I used:

Card Stock/DSP: Island Indigo, Whisper White, Summer Smooches DSP

Stamp Set: Bright Blossoms

Ink: Real Red, Island Indigo, Tempting Turquoise, Lucky Limeade, Daffodil Delight, Rich Razzleberry, Tangerine Tango

Tools: Big Shot, Oval Designer Frame Embossing Folder, 3/16 Corner Punch, Scallop Edge Border Punch, Sticky Strip