The Star of My Life

 

Most of the cards I make for my husband are of the more romantic variety, so I don't have to worry about designing a masculine card, but to me, his birthday calls for one.  I don't know about y'all, but I struggle with masculine cards.  Fortunately he has two hobbies, astronomy and cooking, which gives me some direction.  For this year's card I went with a star for astronomy.

I started by blending Tranquil Tide, Night of Navy, and Blackberry Bliss inks from Stampin' Up on white cardstock.  Then I sponged on Champagne Mist shimmer ink by Tsukineko over it to give it a gold shimmer that is not that visible in the photo, and set it aside to dry.

Next I cut a 5.5 X 4.25 piece of copper foil paper to use as a mat. To conserve specialty (in other words, expensive) paper, I used the So Many Stars dies from Stampin' Up and a die by Simon Says Stamp to cut the stars and sentiment. Once the inked panel was dry I positioned the die cuts to fine tune the composition, moved the copper star, and cut a medium sized star out of the inked paper under it. I cut a second mediumd star from scrap paper and popped it in the negative space, so the surface would be smooth. I used a stamp from the So Many Stars set to emboss the filigree pattern in copper on that medium star.  After stacking the stars I attached them to the background, rotating the star so that the Night of Navy and Blackberry Bliss points were backed by the opposing colors.  This helped the inked star stand out.  Of course, I had to finish the card off with a sparkle in the center of the star.

I am entering this card in the Watercooler Wednesday Occasions Challenge, the Just Add Ink Challenge to make a card for a guy, and the Seize the Birthday Challenge with an optional topping of adding gold.  So why did I use copper foil paper instead of gold?  After applying a gold shimmer to the background, I found that the copper stood out better and had more of a nighttime feel to me.

Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi