Texture

I love to use different textures and layers on my cards. While I do create the occasional minimalist card with fewer than 3 layers, they're not so common and usually not my favorites. I love color, gems, pearls, ruffles, embossing, all that fun stuff! This card represents a lot of that for me, and I love how it turned out. I had this piece of Graphic45 paper laying around, just enough for a card, so I started with that.

I wanted to do a birthday card because I was getting pretty low on those, so I looked through my stamps and found a long neglected set of Verve Stamps that I like. I stamped, colored and cut out the balloons and then realized that I wanted to use that bright green ribbon so I made a bow. I thought I might as well make some crepe ruffles, so got that out and decided on a Kraft cardbase and got to work.

The die cuts were just in my "misc card items" box, so I grabbed those and stamped the sentiment. I wanted an interesting punched edge on the card, so I did that too. Then I decided that the ruffle needed a scallop at the bottom, so I added that in.

LOL, see how this is going? I guess what I want to say is that this card just made itself! I really didn't have a grand plan, things just tumbled out of my head and stuck onto the card - and I like that. :)

Last of all, I put on the mismatched gems and pearls. They were mostly left over from other projects, and this was a good way to use up the stragglers.

Well, if you've made it this far in my rambly post, congrats! You deserve a bowl of ice cream, so don't feel guilty about it. Really, I have that power to grant it to you.
Thanks for taking a peek ♥