Happy Birthday!

One of the challenges I thought I couldn't do for "Hope You Can Cling To" is called "Mom's Faves." The challenge: have the kiddos make something mom would like. My difficulty? My only "kiddos" are 3 cats. While they are sweet and all I could hope for, I wasn't about to let them into my supplies to make a card! ;) But I poked around in the forum thread, and a couple of other people had similar issues, i.e. not having children or grandchildren around. So someone suggested making something OUR moms would like. I knew then exactly what I wanted to do!

When my mom first saw "Bosko" by Jane's Doodles, she fell head over heels in love with him. (I got Bosko as a digi image, but he is only available in this clear stamp set now.) I think it's mostly the expression on his face. He's really meant for Halloween, but since that is past now, I decided to see if I could make a birthday card.

I chose Sketch #64 from Operation Write Home's collection:

I had to do a little "digi surgery" to make this a birthday card. In Photoshop, I first cut out the spider hanging down beside Bosko. I also added the greeting from Bugaboo Stamps, and flipped Bosko horizontally to make the design work. Then I printed it on a piece of 140 lb. Canson XL watercolor paper. I used my Inktense pencils to color Bosko, making him look something like our youngest cat, Barney. I also colored his hat to look more like a party hat than a witch's hat.

Bosko comes with 2 pumpkins behind and on either side of him. But, since this is a birthday card, I decided to cover them up with gifts. So I went through my sticker stash, and found a set of OLLLLD Mrs. Grossman's gift box stickers. They are actually for Christmas, but I thought these two looked generic enough to work for a birthday. I trimmed them down a little, since they were rather tall. I also cut the background around Bosko, so I could slip the presents in behind him on either side. I think it came out pretty well!

For the rest of the card, I cut a piece of patterned paper from my scrap stash to 4.25x5.5", and adhered it to a white A2 card base. I mounted my main panel on top of that. Finally, I threaded a large yellow button with a piece of 1/8" wide teal blue ribbon, and tied that in a bow. I glued the button to my card with some Ranger Multi Medium Matte, and daubed a little medium onto the bow to help keep it from coming untied. When I showed it to my mom, she really loved it! But I told her, it's going to MD Anderson--she can't keep it! :) (She does have her own card I made with Bosko, as a birthday card to her from her "grandkits" last year, so I don't feel guilty about not letting her have this one! LOL)