Happy Birthday, Maria! ~ DJKASE #14; NBUS #117

Happy Sunday everyone~

And surprise! Happy Birthday, Maria! 

Today is the 50th birthday of my friend and uber-awe-mazing card artist, Maria F. of Riesling Mama. 

Cheers to you, Maria! May this be the bestest Happy Birthday!!

In her own words, Maria is a ~

"daughter. wife. mother. ex-financial analyst. english tutor. gardener. upcycler. cardmaker. expatriate. i live in rheinhessen wine country. and i hate lima beans and housework."

Maria is a native of Michigan USA. She moved to Germany over 20 years ago and she started her in blog in 2012. She is a well-respected and oft-publicized card artist, so if you aren't familiar with her work, prepare to have your Inspiration Meter pegged when you go to visit her!! And she's funny, too! 

As I am wont to do on these occasions, I have taken this opera tuna tee to copyliment Maria with a DJKASE of one of her cards. Again, it was an almost impossible task to choose just one card out of the dozens of her cards in my folder to CASE. In the end, I went with this one, posted over two years ago on March 5, 2012.

Maria's card

Now Maria does amazing works of art with designs that will often leave you shaking your head in admiration at how her creative mind works, yet the card I chose is a fairly simple OLC. I chose it because of the birds dressed in text and because I liked her sediment for our own party in her honor today.

It turns out I don't have the stamp she used of the texty birds, but I do have a bird die and I also have a few pages of actual book text that Maria sent to me quite some time ago. I've used a bit on unposted cards I've made, but I've always wanted to make a card specifically for Maria, using those book pages. Today is the day!!

And here is my DJKASE:

Darnell's card (DJKASE #14)

You will note that the bird on the left chirps German. She was made from one of the pages Maria sent me. The bird on the right chirps English. We are happily chatting and chirping among colored sequints and fun watercolored clouds. Even though I diluted the inks with water, the clouds were still a bit bold which I thought took away from the focus pocus on the birds, so I added a layer of swirly vellum to make them recede a bit.

I hope you are delighted with your birthday party, Maria, and that you are pleased with my card! It was an honor to DJKASE you! Thank you for your friendship and encouraging comments!

If you would like to join Maria's surprise birthday party, all you have to do is link up your card with the InLinkz button over on Shirley Bee's website, Shirley Bee's Stamping Stuff. Thank you, Shirley, for being the party headquarters!!

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The colors used in today's DJKASE card for Maria were taken from the current challenge at The Color Throwdown, so I'm linking my card there at the very last minute. Hold the door!

And the current challenge at The Card Concept is to make a birthday card, so I'm also linking my card there. My card is clean and layered (CAL) this time.

Finally, I haven't had a chance to play in one of my favorite challenges for a while and I'm happy that my card works for it this week because I made three clouds and used three sequints. It is Less Is More where the brief is to use "three of  something" on our cards and visit at least three other gallery participants. That's EZPZ and a whole lot of fun!

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Please remember to click on the challenge links for all the rules, sponsor, and prize information. I hope you can join in!

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New Friends Corner

I'm delighted today to introduce you to two more friends!

Tamiko McCurry (MEKOfoSHOW) of Miko's Spot. Tamiko has been blogging since 2012. She doesn't post often, but when she does post, it's sensational! She is not only a card artist, she is an artist, period. Her creations are out of this world to me!!

Lynne Mizera of Scrapbook Lynne's. Lynne blogged a few times in 2010-12, but she really took off in 2013. She is a fun-living, fun-loving, multi-talented, and published card artist. Her creativity is enjoyed by several design teams, as well as her readers!

Your visits to these ladies will be fun and inspiring. Thank you, Tamiko and Lynne, and welcome to the Playhouse!

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Enjoy your day!  No, seriously, enjoy.  LITS!* 

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to leave a comment and/or join as a follower! Please let me know you came by, so I can be sure and return the flavor! 

  

 

*Life Is Too Short!

Project Details
Paper	Lifestyle Crafts letterpress; unknown vellum
Stamps	Friend: Hero Arts "Thank you for Being My Friend"; Birthday: SU "Moving Forward"
Ink	SU brilliant blue, perfect plum, and Bermuda bay; water brush
Accessories	Die: Spellbinders "Bird Sanctuary"; sequints from Neat and Tangled; sponge dauber;  pop dots

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