An Artist's Mind, A Crafter's Heart

One of my closest friends, and fellow paper-crafter, was having a birthday this January. Naturally I felt making a card was a requirement... although we have both slipped into the ease of just picking one up at the local dollar store, or where ever, some years... I know... shocking to think we would.

Well this year I felt her birthday was a perfect opportunity to make a card trying various tools and techniques that I have access to, but may not have played with yet, or not for some time anyway. It took me a while to put this together with so much variety of fun to be had... so I told her she better keep it till she dies!... which I hope is far into old, old, old age. Boy, she'll have quite a stack of cards from me by then if this trend keeps up.

So I used Stampin' Up (Tempting Turquoise) cardstock for my card base and a mat on the front, along with their (Lavender Lace) cardstock for my center background (which was dry-embossed using the Cuttlebug D'vine Swirl Embossing Folder with my Big Shot Express), and also for the embellishment that was made using a (Martha Stewart Punch Around The Page) shell design boarder punch. The Flower Stamp is also from SU.

I used a Patterned paper from K&Company for the bigger background and for the cake which was cut out using the Cricut (Everyday Paper Dolls - LOVE this one!). I used Versamark Dazzles and clear embossing powder to make the cake's icing look yummy! The Big paper flower is from BBP and the smaller green one is Imaginisce. The other two flowers are punched or cut. "Happy Birthday" is computer generated, while I hand cut the candles and accented with SU marker. The jeweled candle flames and jeweled flowers are (Forever in Time) from Michael's Craft Store. The mini lavender fabric flowers on the cake are cut from of "ribbon" of these that I picked up years ago, somewhere, on my many travels.

Good thing I only used these few varied techniques and tools or I'd still be writing out my descriptive info... lol.