2 Challenges and a Birthday

Have now began on the cards for March's birthday. This is one for my daughter's boyfriend's mum - Rosemary - with the inspiration coming from two sources. The initial inspiration came from Simon Says .... Photo Inspiration Challenge - a photo of a red rose. My second source of inspiration came from Sketch & Stash Challenge 28.

How did I put my inspiration to use. Well, when I saw Simon's Say red rose, I remembered a red blossom decoupage set I downloaded a week or so ago. The blossom was designed by a wonderful cardmaker and designer - Jak Heath - who continually amazes me with her wonderful cards and who regularly offers freebie sheets to her followers. The backing papers apart from the red one also downloads from Jak. The red one was one I downloaded a long time ago is from Funky Fairy and which I have never used.

I couldn't think how to layout the backing papers and blossom until I saw the sketch over at Sketch and Stash. Although many challenge blogs seem to use square cards for their sketches I frequently adapt the sketch to a different base card.

So putting the card together, the base mat is 'butter iced dot'. The darker dotted paper is called 'creme anglaise dot' and which I have matted onto Funky Fairy's red velvet. All the mat edges are edged with a red pen. The two circular mats have been made using a plain circle and an inverted scalloped circle from nestabilities. To finish of the topper the blossom was cut out and the edges curled upwards and layered using foam pads. To make the black centre stand out I covered this layer of the blossom with glossy accents. The 'happy birthday' sentiment is a peel off coloured with a red peel off colouring pen.

Thanks for popping by.