Happy Birthday to Me!

 Happy Sunday, Y'all! Well, at the stroke of midnight tonite CST, I will turn 65 years old. Since I was born on Leap Year Day in 1956, my technical birthday is only a split second on off-years, lol, but I always insist on celebrating on the last day of February every year, even though somebody always needs to tell me it should be March 1. No, I'm a February girl. My birthstone is Amethyst. I was not born in March. In truth though, the older I've gotten, I'll celebrate it all dang week if you need me to, so I'll take birthday wishes happily on March 1, but some celebrating is going down today for sure. :-)

So, the 7x7" Deco I am sharing with you is my birthday gift to myself, to display for our family celebration. I began creating it the first of the month in hopes that I could display it today. I used a My Besties image, several different dies, multiple colorants and a few different paper brands, plus some stash items including the gold and the white Vic scrap borders, metal frame and the 3 rhinestones.

A photo taken to show the dimension. The base is a 7x7" square of Recollections 110# card stock. I layered on a sheet the same size of Prima Moon Child. (I began planning this deco the same day as I began planning my Fairy card from the previous post, so both use Moon Child, and both took all month to make, lol. I also colored a lot of the elements during our power outages.)

Here's a close-up of my Pisces sign that I made with an old silver frame with brads on the back. I found it in my stash whilst hunting for metal embellishments (AJJ wanted metal this month). I had a gold and copper thing going on here so I just smooshed the frame into my Versamark pad and then heat-embossed it with Stampendous Frantage Vintage Antique Gold powder that has little specks of black in it. LOVE how aged it came out! I used Spellbinder Labels 17 dies to cut two labels out of black-gold and gold metallic stash papers and then pushed the brads through and bent closed. I fussy cut the Besties word out and centered it in the frame. Voila!

I also wanted to show this gorgeous Spellbinders Anchors Away die cut, out of the same black gold card as the sign, but look how it shines when the light hits it. The detail is what I love. I love the square chains too. 

Aren't all these die cuts pretty? They are all painted with Smooch Inks, which are like metallic nail polishes. I used Whimsy and Art Impressions dies to get all you see here.

I colored this beautiful Pisces Bestie with Promarkers and then accented her with various metallic gel pens before fussy cutting her. She's popped up on Dimensionals and is floating with her fishies.

I snapped this photo in case you wanted to see the beginning collage before the kitchen sink was loaded on, LOL. I used some Karen Foster sand paper cut with a Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Border die. Then I used a very old Sizzix Sizzlit Strip die to cut some waves out of some Magenta water droplets paper that matched the Moon Child base paper pretty well but gives the background a little wavy action.

I am really happy how it all came out. As usual, I have lots of extra bits left unused, but my motto is better to have too much than not enough! 

And here she is displayed in my little art corner. Thanks so much for dropping by. Hope everyone is having a nice weekend. Until next time, stay well and craft on! XOX

MY CHALLENGE PLAYLIST:

1.   Art Journal Journey Feb: Heavy Metal -- Host Valerie writes: "I am hosting this month with the theme of 'heavy metal', which is not so heavy as it sounds! Your journal pages should contain something related to metal - metallic paints - as I have used here, gilding flakes, rust, perhaps a picture of something made from metal, steampunk elements or a quote about metal - silver, gold, bronze, old iron, rust - the choice is yours."  I've used metallic paints on all the sea life (Smooch Inks); Pisces silver metal frame that I heat-embossed with antique gold powder and has a gold leather paper mat; black gold metallic card stock that was used to die cut the frame back and the anchor; gold Vic scrap around the perimeter of the deco; and metallic gel penning on the My Besties image..

2.   My Besties Brazil Feb. Challenge: AG -- I've used ZODIAC BESTIES IMG376 PISCES image

3.   Outlawz Color Tuesday 2/23-3/8: Use 3 or More Colors + Opt. Doily -- Option not played this time, but I used all 5 colors  

4.   Double Trouble #77: Layer It On -- #2/4 Thing 1 Only (5 layers, I think...maybe 6!)  

5.   Time Out Challenge #182: 7th Birthday Celebration -- Celebrating my birthday and being a Pisces  

6.   TTCRD 2/23-3/2: AG -- #1/2

7.   Colour Crazy Craft Challenge Week 7: AG with Colouring -- Used Promarkers, gel pens, Smooch Inks

8.   Passion 4 Markers #580: Feminine -- Used Promarkers to color the Bestie image

9.   Shopping Our Stash #439: All About Family -- 13 chals max  This is made for my family celebrating my birthday and for me being a Pisces

10. NBUS Challenge #23: AG with Never Before Used Schtuff -- First time to use my Whimsy Build an Ocean die set and I'm in LOVE! Also first time to use my MFT All the Feels die, Art Impressions Beach Mini Dies and my ancient Sizzix 13-inch Sizzlet Strip Swirls and Waves.