Card | Happy Birthday

This time of year is a bit of a whirlwind of holidays for our family - all three of our birthdays, and our wedding anniversary, take place within less than a month. That keeps me busy making cards! So I thought I'd share with my readers a copy of the card that I designed to send to my husband.

Happy Birthday card

All of the papers on this card are from the 6x6 paper pad of BoBunny's new Country Garden collection. I adore that collection! This card combines a few of my favorite elements that were included in the collection: the distressed background papers that look like torn newspaper, the striped paper that has stitching, and the grid on the yellow paper.

I also used one of the tools that I can't seem to function without lately: the Martha Stewart Doily Lace Border Punch. I can't remember who it was, but I owe big thanks to whoever it was recommended that as a pick on the Paperclipping Roundtable!

The technique of cutting a strip from a piece of striped patterned paper is one of my favorites to use. Layering the same floral stamp using different tones of ink is something I've started playing with lately that I am starting to really love. The stems on the flower stamps were actually longer than the length to the bottom of the paper strips across the card, so when I stamped them I laid a piece of scrap paper across the card underneath the area where the paper strips are, to serve as a mask and protect the bottom area of the card.

This same blueprint could be used to create a variety of cards...I look forward to playing with it with some of my other stamps for cards for other occasions!