Happy Birthday All Star

I am still on the masculine theme. This card just evolved while I sat at my scrap table. I had this card with It's A Guy Thing pattern paper sitting on my desk, so I decided I would start with it. I had two little holes pierced towards the bottom, so I decided to cover them up with a piece of New England Ivy cardstock that I distressed with Cocoa ink. Hmmm! What do I do next?

I cut a piece of Barn Red cardstock and decided I would use my Cuttlebug embossing folders. I chose Tiny Bubbles to match the circles on the pattern paper. After I embossed it, I distressed it by rubbing the Cocoa pad over the embossed bubbles. Wow! All I could think of were basketballs, so I took my Let's Play Ball stamp set and stamped a basketball over the bubbles and cut them out. Now, I needed to make a sports card, so I decided to make a Birthday sports card.

I pulled out my SPORTS stamp set and saw the "all star" sentiment. I stamped it with Cocoa ink on Bamboo cardstock and anchored it with edge anchors. I used Bamboo brads instead of using the same color as the anchor. Okay, now how could I get Happy Birthday on the card without it looking like two sentiments sitting on top of each other. Hello! I could use my solo letters and the Happy Birthday stamp set.

I stamped the "h" and "b" in Bamboo ink on Bamboo cardstock, so the sentiment "HAPPY" and "BIRTHDAY" would show up in Barn Red. As I had said before, I don't like light colors without a border, so I ran my New England Ivy marker along the edge of both the solo letters. The letters looked bare on the card, so I added New England Ivy designer ribbon to the 'h" and placed the basketballs around the card on pop-dots. This made the balls jump off the card.

I didn't think I liked the card at first, but now I do. It is fun to start from scratch and just keep adding to a card until you feel it is done. It is scarier to do this, because you don't have a pattern or format to follow. It does get your creative juices flowing. Hope you like!


Have a great weekend and Happy Stamping!