Happy May !!

Wow, already? It's May! I clearly remember psyching myself up to make Valentine cards like it literally was yesterday. And yet, it was 3 months ago. If Time truly marches on faster as we age, then I'd better face it: I'm old! {winkwink}

Today I'm sharing a card made for a girlfriend's birthday. While I often use card sketches, they're usually never current sketch challenges. Today's is an exception. Last week, while deciding how to design this card, I was doing my blog reading, saw Freshly Made Sketch #234, and thought, that will do quite nicely!

Here is the scan of my card:

And here is FMS Sketch #234:

I also used 2 of the required colors in the Fripperies and Butterflies monthly challenge, Garden of Colors (I chose the pink and blue):

And I also used a Technique Junkies dry embossing technique called Depressed Frames. I was supposed to use an embossing folder but put in my cardstock face down so that the embossing would be depressed instead of raised. I was then supposed to sponge color across the surface, and the depressed parts would be lighter.

I used a Paper Studio folder called Tiny Stars, but for that vertical left hand strip on the sketch I decided to use an embossing folder strip in the normal orientation (embossing raised).

This was my first time combining 2 folders (both shown below):

 And it went without a hitch, overall. I got the balloons embossed straight but the stars went just a tiny bit crooked on me. That's okay, I call this card pleasantly imperfect (my balloon coloring is also a bit sloppy, even though I tried hard to be perfect).

Before embossing, I stamped the cake image (I used Avery Elle's Bring On The Cake image and sentiments) on the smooth card stock and colored it (I used various marker types and my white Uni-ball Signo). Then, I embossed. Next step was to cut out a frame mask to cover the image, sponge the ink, remove the mask and voila, the image is "framed" in white. I cut a Spellbinders Labels 5 nestie out of post-it paper, covered my image and went to town. But when I removed the mask, I had problems. The mask pulled up just enough of the image's color to make it look splotchy weird and I couldn't correct it, so I quickly stamped and colored another cake and adhered it right on top of the original one. I was happy I'd done this because the white gel penning looked a bit bad on the original image (it is hard to put a good solid outline on an embossed surface). This was a variation on the technique, but I think it was needed to get a decent result. And I must share with you this bit of serendipity: it wasn't until I was finishing the card that I realized the balloon strip also had tiny stars on it!

As always, a big thank you for visiting me and leaving me a hollah. Hope your first May Monday is marvelous! xoxo