Upbeet Birthday

I have an uncle with a rather dry wit and a love of puns & plays on words. His birthday is coming up next month, and I thought this card would be perfect. I contemplated putting party hats on the beets, but decided it would be a bit of overkill. :)

I cut a rectangle of white cardstock for my planter box. I applied Barn Door Distress Oxide ink to it, using the direct-to-paper method. I let that dry for just a bit, then stamped the Altenew "Wood Pallet Background" on it with Aged Mahogany Distress Oxide ink to give it an authentic woodgrain look. For the dirt, I cut a strip of white cardstock, and cut a roughly rounded edge on one long side with a pair of decorative edge scissors. I then applied Ground Espresso Distress ink to it, again direct-to-paper. I used my heat gun to dry the ink, then glued it to the back top edge of my planter.

To create the grass, I die cut 2 strips of Canson XL Mixed Media paper with Lawn Fawn's "Grassy Hillside Borders" dies. I inked the strip for the back grass with Shabby Shutters Distress ink, adding a touch of Crushed Olive Distress ink to the bottom. (Though I'm not totally sure the Crushed Olive was necessary, since it doesn't really show in the end.) I did the foreground grass with Crushed Olive, with a little Shabby Shutters at the top of the grass. Finally, I spritzed the pieces with water from a Distress Sprayer, and blotted them dry with a cloth to give them a bit of distressing.

I stamped the beets, from Lawn Fawn's "Rooting for You" set, with Hero Arts Grape Juice ink and the greens with Ranger Archival Leaf Green & Hero Arts Forever Green. For the plant poke, I stamped the poke itself with Old Paper Distress Oxide ink, and the "beets" word with Versafine Onyx Black. After die cutting all the pieces with the coordinating dies, I glued the greens to the tops of the beets with liquid glue. I ran a line of tape runner adhesive along the back of the planter box, and stuck my beets & poke to that.

I cut a panel of blue cardstock for my card front, and inked the upper part with Broken China Distress ink to give a bit of shading to my "sky." For the greeting, I used Lawn Fawn's "Smitty's ABC's" stamp set. I placed the card front in my MISTI, after adhering the background grass only, and used a curved Thickers Alignment Guide to help me place the first line of my greeting. (I got my inspiration from the "have an upbeet day" greeting in "Rooting for You.") When I had all the letters positioned correctly, I stamped them with Seedless Preserves Distress Oxide ink. I used a grid sheet to line up the letters for "birthday," & stamped that with Candied Apple Distress Oxide ink.

I ended up having to adhere my planter box a little lower than I'd initially planned, since the tops of the beets went over the bottom of my greeting--oops! But it still worked out fine. I used tape runner to adhere it in place, and then adhered the foreground grass over it. At that point, I realized that I could stamp faces on the beets after all, so I did that with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I also stamped the watering can with Candied Apple (to echo the red in the greeting), die cut it with the coordinating die, and glued it in place. Finally, I mounted my card front to a white A2-size card base.

I'm entering my card in the following challenges:

Dies R Us Challenge #114: "Use the Color Red"
613 Avenue Create: "Anything Goes" (not playing the twist)
Simon Says Stamp's Monday Challenge: "Add Some Red"
Creative Knockouts Challenge #284: "Birthday Wishes"