My mom just celebrated her birthday, and today I’m sharing the card my family gave her.  I used the CAS – Colours and Sketches double challenge #27 as my inspiration for the layout and color scheme.  It’s been a long time since I’ve made a square card, so it was nice to work with that smaller size for something a little different (the card is 4.25″ square).  The card base is textured cardstock, but the texture unfortunately doesn’t show well in the photo.  For the darkest flowers, I inked the stamp with my red marker, then pulled off a bit of the ink with a tissue, and then ran the brush tip of the marker against the edges of the rubber to add a bit more darkness around the edges of the flower.  The lighter flowers are just second and third generation stampings – where I stamped the image again without reinking the stamp.  I hope that still keeps the card in qualification for the color part of the challenge.  For the small squares, I stamped the red flourish on white cardstock.  The white still looked a bit too bright against the card base, so I sponged some ink in the same color as the card base to tone it down.

I’m not going to embarrass my mom by putting her picture on here, but she said that her family made her birthday the best one she’s had.  I hope she has many more happy years!

Supplies:
Stamps: A Real Wild Poppy (Hero Arts); Filigree and It’s Your Birthday (Stampin’ Up)
Cardstock: Sahara Sand textured, Always Artichoke, Whisper White (SU)
Ink: Real Red, Sahara Sand (SU)
Other: Real Red and Always Artichoke markers (SU); standard circle and petite scalloped circle Nestabilities dies (Spellbinders); sponge