Happy Birthday Balloons

A Blog Named Hero is having a "Favorite" challenge. Use a favorite stamp, favorite technique, favorite color, etc. I used a favorite technique in my card: iron-off embossing. I just love the "how'd she do that?" look this technique gives!

I began by die cutting the largest of Simon Says Stamp's "Balloons" from a piece of masking paper, that I'd cut to 4.25x5.5". I then placed the negative of the mask onto the front of my white A2 card base. I stamped the Hero Arts/Basicgrey "Tiny Star Background" in the unmasked area with Versamark ink, and clear heat embossed that. Then, with the mask still in place, I inked over the balloon with Dusty Concord Distress ink. To further define the edges and give some shading, I went around with Chipped Sapphire Distress ink. Finally, I removed the mask, placed some copy paper over the top of the balloon, and ironed off the embossing with a hot, dry iron. The embossing powder remelted, and absorbed into the copy paper. I must say, this is the best I've ever done with this technique, since all the embossing came off the first time!

I die cut 2 more balloons from blue & yellow cardstocks, using 2 of the dies from Lawn Fawn's "Party Balloons" set. I also die cut the string pieces from the same set. I inked around the blue balloon with more Chipped Sapphire, and the yellow with Mustard Seed.

For the greeting, I used one from Hero Arts' "Happy Birthday" set, and stamped it directly on my card base, using Hero Arts' Navy ink. I glued the blue balloon directly to the card base, and popped the yellow balloon up on foam tape. Finally, I glued down the strings with my 2-way glue pen.

I felt the white space was a bit too bare, so I stamped one of the stars from the same set as the greeting, with Hero Arts' Butter Bar ink. I applied a coat of Glossy Accents to each of the 2 smaller balloons, and this card was finished!

I'm also entering this in Hero Arts' "Tic-Tac-Toe" challenge (Background stamp, Birthday theme, & Die cutting).