Happy Belated Birthday to My Sister

My sister takes the most exquisite close up pictures of flowers.  I call her the Georgia O'Keefe of photography, so there was no question that Close to My Heart's Someone Special stamp set was the one to use for her birthday card.  Nevermind that her birthday was three weeks ago...

I started with the flowers.  My original thought was to stamp the base flower with Thistle dye ink and then stamp the shade layer with Gypsy pigment ink and emboss it with Clear Detail powder.  As I was pulling out inks I decided to also try Pixie as the base for a flower or two.  The Thistle and Gypsy flower was darker than I had imagined it would be and the Pixie and Thistle combination did not have as much contrast as I liked.  On a whim I tried Gypsy on Pixie which turned out to be my favorite.  I love playing with base and shade flowers and cannot wait to show y'all the new set coming out in September!

While I was at it I embossed the sentiment as well.  Next I made the card front following this sketch from Try Stamping on Tuesday:

The Background and Texture paper is from the long retired Babycakes paper pack, but Zoe would work well, too.  If you miss having a baby themed paper pack you have only a few more weeks to wait because there is an adorable baby themed pack in the new catalog. I attached the darker flower using thin foam tape and the leaves and lighter flower with regular foam tape.  To finish of the front I used a bit of Slate Diagonal Ribbon and some Purple Glitter Gems from a long retired Workshop on the Go.  If you like glitter gems, you are going to love the new embellishments.  

With the front of the card done it was time to work on the inside.  I figured embossing the inside flower would be over kill so I stamped some using regular dye based ink for both layers.  Interestingly, the Thistle layer in dye ink showed better against Pixie than the Thistle in pigment form did.

I had to modify the sentiment from the You are Loved stamp set:

This month Heart 2 Heart Challenges is throwing a Birthday Bash and the challenge over at Seize the Birthday is to use embossing of some sort, so I plan to enter this card in those challenges as well.  Thank you for stopping by!  Now why don't y'all head over to Heart 2 Heart, Try Stamping on Tuesday, and Seize the Birthday to see what others have made.  There is even still time to enter the Heart 2 Heart Challenge if you are so inspired.  Until next time, Hansi

Materials used, all Close to My Heart unless otherwise noted:

Paper:  Babycakes (retired), Pixie, Thistle, Whisper, and Colonial White cardstock

Ink:  Thistle, Pixie, Gypsy, Sweet Leaf, Ponderosa Pine (soon to be retired), Olive (retired), with Gypsy and Slate pigment inks

Stamps:  Someone Special, You are Loved, and Holiday Tags

Embellishments:  Purple Glitter Gems (retired), Slate Diagonal ribbon (soon to be retired), Clear Detail powder