Good morning everyone. I am not at work until this afternoon, so I thought I would finish the card I started yesterday. As always, I gain inspiration from challenges, and – as always – I leave it to the last minute on many of them.

I have had the colours from Color Throwdown and the sketch from Freshly Made Sketches in my head since they went live……and yesterday got down to making the card. Well, after I had spent a good few hours at a craft show in Doncaster Dome, and bought even more goodies.

I started with a 6 inch square white card base, and added a slightly smaller navy layer, which I embossed with my Crafters Companion Textures folder ‘Rain’. I then die cut some pale pink card from Creative Expressions with  a Sara Davies Signature Collection die – an edger die from the ‘Together Forever’ range, which added the curved intricate edge.

After sticking that down to the top of the blue embossed layer, I added another blue layer which I had die cut the ‘Happy Birthday’ panel. Again – from Crafters Companion Create-a-card range. I think the light pink makes the sentiment stand out quite nicely.

I was thinking of gold for under the sentiment, but then I bought the Altenew stamp and die set yesterday – ‘Extra Special’ – and decided to heat emboss the main flower onto blue card with gold embossing powder, to act as the downward tag part of the sketch.

I then added some gold speckle dots – couldn’t resist – and stuck them all down on the card base. I stuck them all flat, with very little dimension, apart from the layers themselves.

So different from the most recent card of mine, as very little stamping – just the main flower element.

I photographed the card outside again – in-between rain and rain and rain – but still natural light. I’m not sure if the card came out very effectively, but I wanted to ensure you could see the shine of the gold embossing.

I was Skyping my sister in Quebec yesterday, and we were talking about backgrounds and natural light, and as it is summer (apparently) and natural light is here for longer in a day, I may try more techniques in the future. Perhaps adding some extra interest with dinner plates, or pieces of wood………or some of the items I have used to make the card.

I will be entering into the following challenges:

Freshly Made Sketches – sketch

Color Throwdown – navy, light pink, white, gold,

4 Crafty Chicks – Birthday

Just Us Girls – Die-cuts