Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today is my mom's birthday. She still claims it's her 29th birthday (making her 5 years old when she gave birth to me...hmm....)--I love her anyway! It's always a challenge to make my mom a card. I always want it to be perfect, and since she's an SU! demo too, it makes it difficult to try to come up with something new and different :-) Well, I decided to use Julee's Mojo Monday sketch for this card.

Here's the sketch:



And here's what I started with:



BORING!! My problem was that I used all new In-Colors on my card, but I have no ribbon to match (yet :-) ). I decided that I needed to add another color into my card that would match some ribbon that I already have. I decided to go with (what seems to be my signature color anymore) Chocolate Chip:



Ahh, much better :-) I just punched a second scallop circle from Chocolate Chip card stock and off-set the scallops to make a mat for the Tangerine Tango scallop circle. I was also having a hard time with the background to begin with. I really didn't want to go with the random Versamark image background, so I decided I'd try that same random scoring background that I tried on my Magnet Tin (see that post for more info). I think it turned out really nice. Finally, I'd been wanting to try this technique called "paper tole." I originally saw it on Dannie Graves' blog about a month ago and have been waiting for a chance to try it out. For this technique, you stamp the same image several times, then cut out parts of the image to emphasize that part. I also used Stampin' Dimensionals between each layer to make the image 3-D. Here is an closer picture:



Happy Birthday Mom!!

Stamp Sets: Embrace Life, Heard from the Heart (a new set in the Fall/Winter Catalog 2008)
Colors: Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss, Tangerine Tango (all new In-Colors for 2008-2009), So Saffron, and Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch (new in the catalog), scallop circle punches, circle punches, scoring blade on cutter