Belated Birthday Card

What do you do when you get an idea for a birthday card but have to wait on an order of stamps to arrive before you can make it? Why...you put extra effort into it so your friend doesn't care that it came late.

The stamps are from Chelsea Gardens-Scrapbooking (NOTE: items in italics linked for your shopping convenience). I stamped the flower base in Crystal Blue, the leaves in Willow, and the flower centers and banner in Black. To color the flowers and leaves, I used a dark Prismacolor pencil to fill in the white space then added shading with various colors until I was happy. I also added shading to the banner with gray pencils.

I'm no artist, but I've studied the techniques of people who are. On the flower, I colored darkest at the center and under each fold of the petals. On the leaves, I colored darkest near the stem and lighter at the tips. Here's a close-up shot:

Although the pictures make the flowers look quite blue, they are actually more purple. I chose the blue base and purple pencils to give another layer of color. I hand-cut all of the images with my Micro-tip Scissors then set them aside while I worked on the card background.

To get my scalloped and stitched border, I used a die from My Favorite Things with Whimsy Fundamental Paper. The MFT die cuts the center out but I wanted to keep it, so I just glued it back inside the frame on my card base. Because I was so late getting this in the mail, I decided against a strict birthday card. Instead, I cut my friend's name using the Block Letter Thin Cuts. (NOTE #2: The current Seasonal Expressions catalog features coordinating Block Number Thin Cuts. You don't want to miss out on them, so order before the retire!) I traced around the letters with a thin black marker for added emphasis.

The "Happy" and "Day" come from the recently retired stamps set Happy to be Friends.

I'm going to end with an unusual plea. Many of you are waking up to news of the government shut-down. What that means for my household is that my husband keeps going to work but won't get paid until Congress passes a budget. We still have to pay our bills and fill our refrigerators, however. If you are able, please support anyone you know who is in this situation and - like me - has a side business (but only if you don't already have a consultant. Please, please, please don't take business away from them.). If you have a CTMH consultant already and would still like to support me, here's the link to my author page for those of you who like Inspirational Historical Romance. Thanks!

Until next time,
Becca