I’m celebrating today with one of my lovely blog friends … Happy Birthday, Chriss!! Wishing you a wonderful day full of good things (including cake!) and a year ahead filled with fun and laughter! I made you this (which is winging it’s way to you) …
For those of you who don’t know, Chriss’s blog is called Botantical Café (and it has pages of fabulous inspiration … go see … and wish Chriss a Happy Birthday!) … and given such a name, I chose a flower from Papertrey‘s Friendly Flowers as the main image for her card. In addition, today is 5 November … and there’ll be some of you who know the date as Bonfire Night … an evening celebrated in the UK with fabulous firework displays lighting the night sky across the country. How’s that for a celebration, Chriss!! To my eye, these graphic flower shapes are similar to fireworks exploding (in a very ordered fashion, of course!), and that influenced my choice.
They were stamped with Distress Inks onto a white card panel, and I watercoloured them using a refilled Wink of Stella brush (*see below). Once they were dry, I stamped the centres with Versamark, embossed them in silver, and added a couple of layers of Glossy Accents over the top. A silver fine line pen was used to add a touch of shimmer to the outside circles of dots, and the right side of the panel was trimmed out. On another panel, I Versamark stamped and heat embossed the Papertrey sentiment in silver, dry embossed the stripes and attached the panel flat to the base card. The firework flowers panel was popped up on foam dots over it. Here’s a close up showing just a hint of the shimmer …
As well as being inspired by Chriss‘s blog name and birth date, I was also inspired by …
Muse – Vicki’s fabulous card below – I focussed on the circle shapes, the blues and greens, and using a panel of flowers.
AAA Cards – Play With Watercolours – my WOS watercolouring of the flowers.
Virginia’s View – All Things Metallic – what’s a firework flower without some silver shine?
SSS Monday – Good Ol’ Days – it’s an age since I used dry embossing (second entry).
* Jennifer McGuire had a great tip on her blog the other day for using the unused glittery residue left after a WOS pen has run out. If you unscrew the brush and take out the black valve in the reservoir, the pen can be refilled little by little with water (ask me how I know it should be a little at a time!). Put it all back together again and the WOS brush can be used for shimmery watercolouring! It worked a treat (after I cleaned up!) … I marked the top of the pen to identify it as a refilled one (I have another!)
Planning a little blog wandering later … see you then! Meantime, thanks so much for coming by, your visits and comments are always a joy. Anita 🙂
Vicki’s Card
Anita this card is beautiful and I love your color choices. All of your cards have a unique softness.
What a beautiful creation, Anita!!!! And so cleverly worked out with the flowers and the fire-works for your friend’s birthday!!! I love the embossed stripes coming from underneath the flowers – it looks beautiful!!! And your flowers/fire-works are so lovely – love the colours and the silver centres and the shine you have added!!!! Love how you have ‘ordered’ the flowers/fire-works!!! Great card, Anita!!!
Absolutely fabulous! The flowers do have the look of fireworks especially with all your gorgeous colour and sparkle! I love the embossed panel, such a cool idea and your cutting out is so neat! xxx
Wow! just beautiful Anita! Gorgeous colors and I love the creative embossing on the side!
Oh, my sainted aunt, Anita, you really rocked my world with this number! It’s a “can’t-stop-staring-at-it” kinda card! Brilliant, truly!! Sweet Chriss is going to be so chuffed that you gave her a shout-out on her birthday!! Hugs, Darnell
Fantastic, fun take on this week’s Muse. And despite the CAS feel, there’s so much there to catch your eye – sparkle and shine! Wonderful! So glad you joined us this week!
If I love this tons, and I do…how much more will Chriss love this?! Just beautiful. Perfect colors, perfect embossing, perfect design, perfect stamping….everything is perfect! LOVE THIS. You so rock! bisous, bisous. xoxo
Oh so gorgeous Anita!
This is so beautiful! I love your style and this is no exception, Anita! I love the embossed background and added silver shine! So glad that you join the fun over Virginia’s View “All About Metallic” Challenge!
Simply stunning my sweet friend! I love those beautiful colored pin wheels and that embossing on the side…WOW!
This card is so wonderful and unique – it’s so you! It’s also a great take on the Muse!
beautiful card, anita… love the embossing down the side…a very unique touch!
You’ve put a lot of elements in this wonderful birthday card, Anita. The striped embossing really stands out against your colorful “flowers” with their silver dots and centers.
Your card is just gorgeous, and you are brilliant for catching so many challenges with one card, and yet the card is simply CAS perfection. I never would have thought to use those flowers like you did, and it is such a great idea.
What a lovely card Anita, its a CAS beauty, the half embossed panel is such a great idea, and looks so striking!
This is such a beautiful Birthday card, Anita! I love how the flowers resemble fireworks, and I love how you added sparkle and shine! I’m sure Chriss is going to love it, too!
Hope you had fun at the fireworks on Bonfire Night!
Fabulous design and I love the story behind it.
I saw this tip from Jennifer the other day, what a brilliant idea! I’m just waiting for mine to run out, its been going forever. I’m really gobsmacked with this card, there is so much going on that I love I don’t know what to say…..its perfection! The colours, the embossing, the stamps themselves, I love it all. It would be in my ‘Top Ten of Anita’s Wonders’ (although you’ve been making so many good ones lately I’ll need to change it to ‘Top Twenty’….). Gorgeousness!! We celebrate Guy Fawkes here in NZ and Max was very lucky to have been given two large boxes of fireworks for his birthday today. They are pretty exciting to watch but there are so many things that can go wrong. Been a lot of house fires/injuries over past few days due to them so think this might be the last year the public can buy them. Its for the best I think but will miss the hand-held sparklers!!
So gorgeous – fireworks, indeed!!… happy birthday, Chriss! Anita? you have two WoS??!!
Super fun inspired card! Thanks for joining in at Muse and AAA~
My goodness, this does look like fireworks! Love the embossed lines as well. Love the card Anita and a happy birthday to Chriss! Hugs, Brenda
Clever, clever, clever “split panel” design – especially popping up one side wit foam dots. Fireworks – definitely – love the colors! This is a great way to use the embossing folder that we bought (mine is still in the package!)
Thanks for the tip on getting more mileage out of Stella!
The overlapping pattern, looks so fabulous with the embossed edge !
Whoa! A stunning beauty of marvelous proportions here, Anita! All the comments you’ve received so far speak volumes about how ‘can’t take my eyes off it’ beautiful this is. I’ll just say, I second what everyone else has written, and I’ll add “winner, winner” for not only the challenges but for brightening Chriss’ day, and ours. Love it…
Hugs~c
Most Fabulous! Thanks for linking up with the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog! – Ashli 🙂
Such a gorgeous and clever card Anita – I love your design! Hugs xx
What a super design! Love the silver accents and the layout of the flower-stamps! Putting this on another panal makes it so much fun to look at! Hugs, Gerrina
I love that you combined two different textures! Looks really cool!
Fabulous card Anita 🙂
Anita, this rocks! I love the touches of sparkle and the awesome embossing!
Cute! I love the dimension added with the embossed stripes.
Congrats on the honorable mention. It is well deserved.
Such a fun birthday card! Thanks for joining in at AAA Cards this week.
What fun circle images, so glad you could play along at AAA Cards
This is so much fun Anita! Love the colours and so many challenges!