Happy Birthday Balloons

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday challenge blog is celebrating their 6th birthday. So the theme for this week's challenge is, appropriately, "Happy Birthday." I decided to create a birthday card inspired by this card that Nichol Magouirk did.

I began by cutting a piece of bristol paper to 4x5.25". I die cut 3 balloons from Lawn Fawn's "Party Balloons" die set from that. Then I taped Hero Arts' "Arrow Pattern" stencil to the remaining background piece, and blended Shaded Lilac Distress ink over the stencil.

For the balloons, I blended Distress inks in Tumbled Glass, Spun Sugar, and Bundled Sage onto them. I placed Simon Says Stamp's "Falling Stars" stencil over the blue balloon, and sponged Peacock Feathers Distress ink over the stencil, in effect creating my own patterned paper. I did the same with the other 2 balloons, using Simon's "Falling Snow" stencil and Mowed Lawn on the heart-shaped balloon, and Hero Arts' "Triangle Pattern" stencil and Picked Raspberry on the round one.

To create the inlay, I glued a scrap of bristol to the back side of my background piece, and glued the balloons in place in the openings left when I die cut them. This gives one flat layer, rather than having each balloon be on top of the background and each other. Finally, I adhered the panel to a piece of teal cardstock, cut to the standard A2 size, and glued that to an A2 card base.

I die cut a banner from more bristol paper using one of Spellbinders' "Ribbon Banners" dies. With the paper still in the die, I sponged it with Spun Sugar. Finally, I curved one of the greetings from Simon Says Stamp's "Birthday Messages" stamp set, so that it followed the curve of the banner, and stamped it in Versafine Onyx Black ink. I adhered the banner to the bottom of the card front. I used foam tape in the middle, and glued the ends flat to the card, just to give a bit of interest. The finishing touch was to glue on some sequins from Doodlebug Design with Ranger Multi Medium Matte. I also added some shimmer to the balloons with my clear Wink of Stella glitter brush pen. I will be sending this card to Send a Smile 4 Kids.

I'm also entering this card in a2z Scrapbooking's April 2015 challenge: "Stencil."