Happy Purrthday

I must admit, I haven't been doing much crafting lately. I spent the past week doing a massive reorganization of my stamps & dies. I have been intrigued by Jennifer McGuire's system, but felt mine was working well enough. I finally decided, though, that I was tired of searching through all my dies (stored in no particular order) to find The One I wanted. So I took the plunge, and refiled all my stamps/stamp sets & dies in clear pockets. I broke everything up into a small group of categories, rather than having it all under "M" for miscellaneous. It was a bit of an ordeal, but I think well worth it. I'm still trying to get used to my new system, but hopefully it will be better in the end.

That being said, I finally made a card yesterday! Kristina Werner's cat, Mannie, who is almost as famous as she is, due to his frequent audio appearances in her YouTube videos & on social media, has a birthday coming up. Last year, she put out a call for birthday cards for him, and I happened to mark the date on my Google calendar. I noticed that notation again this year, so decided to make him a card:

I die cut a balloon from watercolor paper, using one of the dies from Simon Says Stamp's "Balloon" set. This was actually my second attempt. I cut the first out of bristol paper, but it just wouldn't take the watercolor as well, so I switched to watercolor paper. I found a picture of Mannie that Kristina had posted on Instagram, and used that as my reference to paint his face on the balloon. I painted and cut out ears, and glued them to the back of the balloon.

I also die cut 2 other balloons, using patterned paper from Crate Paper's "Party Day" 12x12" pad. I cut a length of coral-colored embroidery floss, and separated it into 3 groups of two plies each. I tied those around each balloon. Finally, I glued the 2 patterned paper balloons to another piece of patterned paper from the same pad, that I'd cut to 5.5x8.5". For the "Mannie" balloon, I took a page from Jennifer McGuire's book of tricks. I cut a piece of 2mm-thick fun foam slightly smaller than the balloon, and glued it to the back. Finally, I glued that in place on the card front, overlapping the other 2 balloons.

For the greeting, I cut a strip of bristol paper, and used Lawn Fawn's "Riley's ABCs" and Versafine Onyx Black ink to stamp the "Happy Purrthday!" on it. Then I cut it into a banner shape and applied foam tape to the back. I wanted the balloon strings to wrap around the banner, but the spacing of the letters didn't work out. So I punched two small holes above and below the "u," and threaded the strings through that, behind the greeting. After adhering the banner to the card front, I knotted the strings, and finally tied a bow with more floss above the banner. All that was left was to write an inside greeting, and adhere the front panel to the card base. Hopefully Mannie will love his card! ;) Oh, and I did refrain from putting any catnip inside! LOL

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday challenge: "All Creature Great & Small."