Reverse-Iris-Folded Cupcake Card

We celebrated my mom's 78th birthday yesterday, so I spent this past week making cards for my brother & his wife, our cats, & me to give to her. I made this card for my brother & his wife to give. I used a technique called "reverse iris folding," that I learned from this tutorial at Operation Write Home.

I chose my patterned papers mostly from Fancy Pants Designs' "Burlap & Bouquets" & Simple Stories' Sn@p "Color Vibe" 6x6" pads. The floral print & the polka dots are also from my stash, though I don't know who made them. I followed the directions in the tutorial, cutting the centers of each panel and folding those pieces back. I trimmed off the excess, taped the folded pieces to the backs, and layered the panels.

For the bottom-most panel, I stamped the cupcake from Technique Tuesday's "Turn 29" stamp set onto a scrap of white cardstock. I used Colorbox "Putty" Archival Dye ink, sine it's a light color & I wanted to color the cupcake with different colors of Marvy LePlume II water-based markers. After coloring the cupcake, I glued that piece to the back of the panel, centering the cupcake in the opening.

If you follow the pattern from the tutorial, the finished panel is narrower than an A2 card. So I added a couple of scalloped strips that I punched from blue cardstock with Fiskars' "Scalloped Sentiment" border punch to each long side. I also inked around the edges of the folded panel with Brushed Corduroy Distress ink, to give it a little more definition. Finally, I adhered it to my white card base.

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Monday "Anything Goes" challenge.