Happy Birthday, sweet Sister!

It was my sister-in-law's birthday this week and

I needed an extra-special card for her. Not only
does she herself make cards, but she truly does
appreciate the time and thought that goes into
all things handmade. I had sketched out this layout
from one of Jennifer McGuire's cards awhile ago
and knew it would be perfect for Tina's birthday.

Isn't it gorgeous?!?
Sorry, I know it's totally rude and lame to
gush over your own creations, but I just can't
help it. I'm in love with this card. Seriously,
it was very difficult to give it to my sister. Ha!!

Anyways, enough drooling. Onto the details.
I've been watching Jennifer McGuire's Holiday
Thinking Inking videos and wanting to try some of her
techniques. She is the queen of distress inks! So, for the
background, I inked up my Canvas background stamp
from SU! with Old Paper distress ink and then gave
it a good spritz of water with my daughter's spray
bottle. Stamped it onto the Top Note die (which I still
just traced and cut out from the negatives I had
scrounged from stamp club...yes, Margaret, I will
finally put that die in my next order! LOL!) and
then inked up the edges with Vintage Photo and
Walnut Stain. Love the detail and dimension it adds!
I then stamped the ledger from a Unity kit and added
the 'Celebrate' sentiment from PTI. Can you believe
the only stamp I purchased on this card is the Canvas
background? All the others were from goodies
I won....sa-weeeeet!!! Love that.

Always inspired by this awesome gal,
I coloured the flowers by sponging various
colours of ink directly onto the cardstock. For
the orange flowers I used: Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine
Tango and Really Rust and for the blue flower I used
Tempting Turquoise, Taken with Teal and Night of
Navy. I love how they turned out!!
To finish things off I added some rhinestones
and pearls to the centers of the flowers and
tied some twine around the top of the card.
I think this must may be my favorite card yet!
Did I mention it was hard to give it away?
Anyways, thanks for indulging me today! ;)
Hope you're having some lovely adventures
in your own crafty corner of the world.
xo