Balloons=Birthday

There are some cards that are so easy for me to come up with designs for. Flowers, obviously. Baby cards are usually pretty simple. But when I am given the challenge of a birthday card for a non-girl, (aka MEN haha!) I am inevitably stumped and have either resorted to giving the excuse of not having time to come up with a card (yeah, I know, I know) or debasing myself and purchasing one at the store. (The horror...)

BUT PTI came out with this birthday cover plate die a couple of releases ago and I am IN LOVE with it. Between the cover plate, the stamp set, and the coordinating dies, birthday cards for non-women (ha) will be much more of a cinch!

To start, I die cut the Paper Clippings: Birthday cover plate from watercolor paper twice. I then used my Zig markers in shades of aqua and pinks/purples to color and shade the die cuts. Easy peasy. I'm thinking primary colors for a little boy's birthday would look super cute with this, too. Maybe black and gold for an "over the hill" birthday. Pastels for a baby birthday. SO many options! 

After coloring and shading things the way I wanted them, I added some Spectrum Noir sparkle pen to the balloons, the stars, and the frosting on the cake layers. After coloring and glossifying the die cuts, I cut two more layers of the Paper Clippings die to adhere behind them and give dimension to the card front. 

Now, for the background. I used my brand-spanking new Clarity Stencil brushes for the backgrounds, and let me tell you, those things ROCK. I have always struggled with ink blending... I start out going for very subtle color and end up with a very deep, vibrant panel, because those little foam circles inevitably leave a smudge somewhere un-hide-able on my panel, thus forcing me to deepen the color to blend it out. Can you say frustrating? In steps these handy dandy stencil brushes. I was able to blend a subtle halo of color around the edges of my card base so quickly... it was a miracle. I laid my die cuts on top, decided that even with the beautifully subtle blending that the background still needed a little something, and decided to add some bokeh-ish balloons. I used the Orchid and Minted ink collections from The Ton Stamps for the balloons, stamping the deepest shades off once before stamping on my card base. The aqua (aka boy) card also had some silver stars from the Paper Clippings Birthday stamp set added amongst the balloons.

These cards and subsequent blog post is brought to you by the fantastical 30 Day Coloring Challenge. This challenge seriously sparks my creativity, and I'm so freaking happy it's back, and so freaking sad that it's only 30 days. #sadface. 

I have more cards to share, so I will be back in a day or two! Cheers! :)