My First Slimline Card

I have been toying with trying a slimline card which requires thinking long and lean vs compact.  The current Inkspirational challenge is to make a slimline card, so I took that as my cue to take the plunge.  This cat and balloon stamp from Inkadinkadoo would give me a head start towards vertical thinking.  I don't really like the balloons on the stamp so I usually cover them up with paper balloons.  The Paper Players are running a color challenge featuring bright, summery colors: Melon Mambo, Bermuda Bay, Grannie Apple Green and Black (or white).  Now that I had my color scheme it was time to get to work.

I stamped the kitty and used the Stampin' Up balloon punch to cut balloons from paper in the challenge colors.  I wanted to sponge them with ink to give them some dimension, but unfortunately don't have those colors in Stampin' Up ink, so I used Picked Raspberry, Peacock Feathers, and Mowed Lawn Distress inks which were almost identical.  It took several coats to get the shading to show up as I wanted. Then I glued the Grannie Apple Green balloon directly to the panel, used thin foam tape to attach the Melon Mambo one and thick foam tape to attach the Bermuda Bay one, so each balloon is at a different level.  I used the birthday die included in the Gina K Designs Forever Flowers card kit to cut the word birthday and a stamp from the Lace Flowers stamp set also included in the kit to heat emboss the sentiment strip.  What I love about this particular birthday die is that there is no dot over the letter "i" that I need to avoid losing.  I used a border punch from EK Success to cut circles from the cardstock and arranged them along the bottom to draw the eye down and repeat the colors in another part of the composition.   

I plan to enter this card in the Craft Rocket Birthday and Seize the Birthday Anything Goes challenge.  Thank you for stopping by!  Until next time, Hansi