Happy Birthday Shaker

One of my mother's assistants at work had a birthday today. They are celebrating tomorrow, however, because apparently no one remembered to bring anything! So this afternoon I made this card for her.

I'm also entering this card in Hero Arts' Makeover Challenge. I was inspired by this card, which I made last year:

I used the same balloon stamp with a tag, from Hero Arts' "Happy Birthday" set (now discontinued), but made it a shaker card instead.

I began by stamping the balloon on a piece of Strathmore Bristol paper in Ranger Archival Jet Black ink. After zapping it with my heat tool to make sure the ink was dry, I colored it with my Zig Clean Color markers. Because this would be behind all the shaker material, I didn't bother doing any fancy shading; just plain coloring. After cutting around the image, I set that aside.

I cut a tag from a piece of blue cardstock, and stamped my balloon image on that to use as a guide. Then I used my craft knife--ever so carefully--to cut the balloon shape from the tag. I adhered a piece of acetate to the back, and then applied 2 layers of foam tape, to give the shaker material room to move. That's when it got difficult.

Initially, I placed the sequins (6mm & 4mm Sparkling Clear by Pretty Pink Posh) & clear seed beads inside the window area on the tag. I realized--thankfully, before I adhered anything--that I would not be able to line up the balloon image very well with that arrangement. At least, not without X-ray vision, since the image would be face down! So I carefully poured the sequins & beads out, and piled them onto the balloon image, which would serve as my backer piece. Then I removed the release papers from the foam tape pieces, and carefully adhered it over the balloon. It worked--whew! :)

I cut the background panel with the scalloped rectangle from Mama Elephant's "Femme Frames" die set. (This set is no longer available by itself, but is included in this die set.) Then I adhered the tag to it.

For the greeting, I used the banner die from Lawn Fawn's "Stitched Journaling Card" set, with some partial die cutting. I cut the banner once from white cardstock, but didn't cut all the way to the straight end. Then I flipped the die around, lining up the top and bottom cutting lines with the cut lines in my cardstock, and ran it through once more, again without cutting the end. This gave me a longer banner, with the notched part at each end. I stamped the "Happy Birthday" from the same Hero Arts set in Versamark ink, then heat embossed it with Ranger Super Fine Detail White embossing powder. I inked over that with Blueprint Sketch Distress ink. I added 2 layers of foam tape to the lower part of the back, where it would overhang the tag, and glue to the part that would sit directly on the tag. Then I adhered it to the card.

To finish the card up, I inked around the edges of a piece of white cardstock, cut to 4.25x5.5", with Blueprint Sketch. After that dried, I adhered my panel to that, and mounted the completed card front to a white A2 card base.

I'm also entering this card in the following challenges:

Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Die Crazy"
A Blog Named Hero's "A Happy Challenge"
a2z Scrapbooking's September Challenge: "Shake It Up"