Grunge Birthday

Today’s card was completely inspired by Dena over at The Creativity Cave. She posted an absolutely gorgeous butterfly card yesterday made with the Timeless Textures stamp set from Stampin’ Up!®. Since I already owned that set and had never used it, I knew right away that I wanted to CASE her card. What does CASE mean? Well, that depends upon whom you ask. I’ve heard Copy and Share Everything, Copy and Selectively Edit, Copy and Steal Everything, etc. Personally, I prefer the first two options. When I CASE, I generally find three or four things from the original card design to incorporate into my design.

Here are the things I “borrowed” from Dena’s card for my CASE:

• Textured border on my main panel
• Tone-on-tone ink and paper (Tip Top Taupe in my case)
• Focal image in the center upper third of the card
• Thin matted layer on the main panel (I used Blackberry Bliss)

To create the main panel, I used Tip Top Taupe ink on a piece of Tip Top Taupe cardstock. I used several different stamps from the Timeless Textures stamp set as well as the scattered dots stamp from the Gorgeous Grunge stamp set. I did a combination of first and second generation stamping to get a nice variety of color depth.

For my focal image, I used the layered rose stamps from the Picture Perfect stamp set. I stamped the first layer on white cardstock in Rich Razzleberry using second generation stamping. I used Rich Razzleberry again for the second layer, but didn’t stamp off first that time. For the final detail layer, I used Blackberry Bliss which added lots of depth to my image. I did the same thing with the leaves using Pear Pizzazz for the first and second layers, then using Old Olive for the final detail layer.

Once the ink dried, I fussy cut the rose and leaves then applied a generous coat of Wink of Stella to them. I attached the leaves to the rose using glue dots then adhered it to the panel with Stampin’ Dimensionals. I adhered the panel to the Blackberry Bliss mat, then to an A2 top-folding card base made from Very Vanilla cardstock. Since I was using very thin mat layers, I used liquid glue for that step to give me some “wiggle room” time to ensure I had everything lined up squarely.

For the inside of my card, I used the birthday sentiment from the Happy Birthday, Everyone hostess stamp set. Isn’t it gorgeous?!! I stamped it in Blackberry Bliss ink on a Very Vanilla panel. I also added the flourish from the Timeless Textures stamp set. Since I wanted it to be a very soft look, I stamped off on a piece of scratch paper five or six times before stamping the flourish on my Very Vanilla panel. Once again, I created a very thin mat layer using Blackberry Bliss cardstock.

I was having so much fun creating this card, I decided to decorate the envelope as well which is something I don’t do very often. Once again, I used a couple of different stamps from the Timeless Textures stamp set to create my border. I did everything with second and third generation stamping using Tip Top Taupe ink on a Very Vanilla envelope.

Before I wrap things up, I really want to thank Dena for the inspiration from her beautiful card! Definitely be sure to stop by her blog and check it out. She even has a video showing how she made it! I really need to try that whole process video thing at some point, but I’m scared! LOL

I’m entering this card in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge – the current theme is make your own background.
• Global Design Project – the current theme is a sketch challenge.
• Just Add Ink – the current theme is a color challenge (Rich Razzleberry, Tip Top Taupe, Blackberry Bliss)
• StampNation – Challenge #195: Backgrounds