Welcome to the second edition of Carole’s Creative Commotion! A couple of months ago, when Karen & I were putting our heads together, trying to come up with what has become CCC, she asked me to pick a number between 1 and 31. Since my favorite number[1] wasn’t available, I went with another number I like quite a lot: 18. Karen then informed me that the 18^th of each month would become “my” day on the YNS blog. She never asked why I picked 18, and I’ve never told her. Until now.

It’s not a terribly complex: my birthday is on September 18^th. In other words: Happy Birthday to ME!!!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t receive a ton of birthday cards. I get a few each year from my stampy friends, but a lot of ‘em are like me – they make cards, but getting them actually sent off in time for a birthday… well, that requires an entirely different skill set. Because of my own time management/organizational issues, I more than understand why my mailbox doesn’t overflow[2].

Most of the time, my birthday gifts or acknowledgments come with a variation on this theme: “There’s no way I can possibly give you a card that compares to the ones you make. So why bother?!” Seriously, I’ve received two gifts (a fabulous red purse from my sister-in-law and a gift certificate for a massage from a dear friend) already[3] with those very words scrawled on note cards! I totally get that. I wouldn’t give a wood-worker a figure I whittled or a potter my attempt at a vase or ashtray. Even though cards are much more ubiquitous than your average craft item, I imagine it must feel just as strange to give a card to a stamper if papercrafts aren’t in your wheelhouse.

Instead of bemoaning my fate, I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own birthday card, just for me. Wanna see it? Okay, twist my arm…

I can tell you unequivocally that this card is 100% me, and at the risk of sounding egotistical[4], I’ve gotta tell you: I love it! Let me count the ways:

1. I used the adorable Bubbly Fun Fhiona image. There are few things in life I like better than a nice warm-to-hot bubble bath. Showers are utilitarian; baths are comforting. There’s something almost primal about a bath, like being a child once more, enveloped in the warmth of being taken care of (instead of being the caretaker, as most of us are in adulthood). I think that’s subconsciously a reason there are so many images of girls in bathtubs in the stamping industry. And, not surprisingly, I think I own most of those images! One can never have too many bathing stamps, in my humble opinion, and this one of sweet Fhiona? Quite possibly the cutest of ‘em all.

2. The pink and green color scheme. As articulated in The Official Preppy Handbook[5], pink and green is the preppiest of color combos, and therefore near and dear to my preppy little heart.

3. See the pink bathtub and pink gingham “wallpaper” in “my” bathroom?

(Because this card is for me, I’m working off the assumption that’s me in the tub, not Fhiona…) I lived in several different homes when I was growing up, but the house my family was in for the longest and that I remember best had a bathroom with a pink tub and sink, a pink tiled floor, and wallpaper with a repeating pink metallic cherubs. I LOVED THAT BATHROOM! And I am determined to have another pink bathroom before I die[6].

4. The patterned paper: gingham & paisley. Gingham + paisley = me to a T. As I type that, I’m thinking to myself “Oooh… ‘Gingham & Paisley’… that would be a good name for a blog.” THAT’S how much I love gingham and paisley, in anything. Particularly patterned paper and shirts. Gingham and paisley are my go-to prints; never out of style and never too trendy – always just right.

5. I love ribbon, and this particular ribbon is by one of my very favorite companies, Doodlebug Designs. Everything Doodlebug puts their name on – from paper to embellishments to ribbon – delights me. Karen and I share this love for Doodlebug, and fortunately you can find lots of Doodlebug products in the YNS store.

6. Though there are several layers on this card, it’s doesn’t have a whole lot of ‘extras’. Sure, there’s a little bling (a girl’s gotta have a little bling, don’t you know, and if she can have pearls bubbling out of her tub, I say “Why not?”), but it isn’t embellished within an inch of its life. I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself a ‘clean and simple’ stamper, but I’m also not terribly complicated. I like a little depth and dimension, some texture, and a doodad or two, but then I’m done. Not exactly sure what one might call my style, but I think this card is representative of it.

7. Finally, if I were to show you the inside of my card, you would see it’s blank. I know it’s popular among many stampers these days to decorate the inside of their cards. While that’s pretty to look at on blogs, I find it highly impractical. A decorated card interior leaves me with little room to actually write a message to the recipient. As you might have noticed by the length of this blog post, I’m a bit too chatty for merely “Love, Carole.”

So tell me: if you were to make a card just for you, what would it look like? What kind of image would you use? What would your color scheme be? How would it be embellished? What would it need to feature to scream “This Is ME!” Leave a comment on this post and tell me all about it. If you do so by September 25th (when Karen will draw a random winner), you’ll be eligible to win this month’s CCC Prize Package, a Bubbly Fun Fhiona stamp and a package of Doodlebug Birthday Celebration Boutique Brads. Good stuff, no? 🙂

Before I leave you, I’ll let you in on a little secret: you don’t need to wait for your birthday to make a card just for you. If you feel like you need an excuse to indulge yourself in this way, I’ve got one for you: you can use MY birthday as your reason. Nothing would make me happier on my special day than to envision you creating something you love, just for you.

See you next month on the 18th!

xo, Carole