Happy Birthday Cake

I created this birthday card, inspired by the current challenge at Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday challenge blog, for Operation Write Home. For the design, I used OWH's Sketch #105:

I first embossed a piece of purple cardstock with the Hero Arts "Dot Swirl" embossing folder by Sizzix. I decided, instead of the three 1/2"-wide strips in the sketch, I would make them slightly wider banners of different lengths. So I cut 5/8"-wide strips from three different patterned papers from my scrap stash. I glued them to the embossed panel, letting the tops of 2 of them hang off the upper edge of the panel. When I had them placed right, I trimmed off the overhanging parts of the strips.

I stamped a birthday cake image I've had for a long time onto white cardstock, using Colorbox's "Putty" Archival Dye Ink. (Sorry, but I don't know who manufactured the stamp.) I then colored the image with regular colored pencils. (No Inktense pencils this time!) I die cut & embossed it with one of the dies from the Spellbinders Standard Circles Large set. I adhered that to the embossed panel, over the banners.

For the greeting, I stamped the "Happy Birthday" from Lawn Fawn's "Grand Greetings" set in Versamark ink on vellum. Then I heat-embossed it with American Craft's Zing Purple embossing powder. To adhere the vellum to the card front, I put small dots of glue on the back under the embossed letters. I also wrapped the ends of the vellum strip around the back of the card panel, and glued them down.

The vellum strip still wasn't stuck down as much as I wanted, so I ended up punching three stars with the Recollections 5/8" star punch from the same yellow patterned paper I'd used for one of the banners. I glued them down to the card front, overlapping the vellum strip. Then I coated them with my clear Wink of Stella brush marker. When that dried, I went over them with Glossy Accents to seal in the glitter and give them some shine. Finally, I adhered the whole panel to a standard A2 card base.

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Happy Easter and/or Sweet Treats" challenge.