a birthday card

Good morning everyone.

I wonder where Tuesday went!  In the morning I had a Crochet workshop down at Daleside which went very well - then in the afternoon I cleared my desk of stamps & inks etc from some earlier stamping work. Afterwards I decided what other cards there were to make & sorted out the items for those.  Before you know where you are - Tuesday gone.

Today I am having a card making & card preparation day.  But I also have a photo for you of a recently made clean & simple birthday card;

On Monday I went to the Happy Stampers club meeting & one of our members was showing the masking technique.  Now most of us use this technique & sometimes those of us who show people "how to" ideas, forget that there are always newbies coming along.  So, it was quite refreshing to watch the techniques being demo'd again, & it set me off thinking of the way I had used it in the past & that meant that this card was born.

I used one of my shaped die cuts to cut an aperture in a spare piece of card, the centre will be very useful later for a topper for another card.

The aperture was placed over the square card & I brushed on 2 colours of Distress Inks (Crushed Olive & Stormy Sky).  I prefer using brushes than the foam as you get a softer hue.  The floral image was then stamped in black archival ink & because I keep clear embossing powder on my desk I can quickly emboss the image. I then looked through my DoCrafts Connoisseur Pens - these are felt pens with a brush one end & a bullet nib the other - & found almost matching colours to add colour to the image.  A little flower in the corner & a "Happy Birthday" completes the card.

I think I will be making more along this style in the months to come.

Now - back to my preparation & putting my things ready for the Mold meeting tomorrow evening.

'Bye for now.