Branch Birthday Wishes

I made today’s card for the Backgrounder Blitz at Cornish Heritage Farms (today is the sketch challenge):
I learned a great technique from this post on Gina K.’s blog. Instead of just using pens to color these types of images, she actually inked the whole image with an inkpad first, and then colored with her markers. It sure saves some time!!

I took one of the images from Kim Hughes’ Silhouette Blooms II (from CHF of course!) and inked up the whole thing with Pretty in Pink ink, stamped on a piece of scrap white cardstock and set aside to dry. Then I inked up the stamp again with the PiP ink, and this time I colored the branches with my Close to Cocoa pen. After stamping, I set this one aside to dry as well.

I then cut out the entire 2-color branch image, and then only 2 of the flowers from the scrap image. Because I thought foam tape would be way too thick to pop up such tiny flowers, I punched 4 1/8” holes and used 2 each to pop up the flowers. It gives them just the right amount of dimension.

Even though all that cutting was a little crazy, I really love how this card turned out and may make more!

Other materials used: Grid Paper Backgrounder, sentiment from Silhouette Blooms II from Cornish Heritage Farms; Pretty in Pink cardstock and all inks and pen from Stampin' Up!; ribbon from May Arts; Stickles glitter glue; long scalloped rectangle Nestabilities.