Sweet Stampin' ~ It's Our Birthday!

Hey crafty friends, today, I'm sharing a card I made for my lil' sister. She's coming over from the States for Christmas with her beautiful family and we will celebrate her while she's here, so I've made this birthday card to give her while she's in New Zealand. I shared the colouring for this a while back on my Crafty Kiwi Mama Facebook Page. I was so happy with how it turned out. I love this image and it reminded me of my little sis. So I tucked the colouring away with the intention of turning it into a card for my sister. 

I bought some fun shaped card bases recently and the size and shape of this colouring I'd done was such a good fit for this card shape. So I hand trimmed the image panel to fit the card base, leaving a small border all around, so I could add some patterned paper to frame the design. I hunted through my patterned paper to find something that would work with and elevate the image and I think I found the perfect design. I love how the colours of this Spellbinders paper work so beautifully with the image. This is a big 12x12 page from their Storytelling Adventure Prints paper pack. There are lots of other lovely papers in the pack, but this I think is my favourite.

 

Our theme this time at Sweet Stampin' is Birthdays, because it happens to be our 16th birthday! So I wanted to make sure there was a sentiment to celebrate both my sis and the challenge. I hunted through my stash for something really heartfelt and beautiful and do you know, I think I've identified a hole in my stash!! I have birthday sentiments but they're funny or quirky, not quite what I was looking for! But I did find a lovely sentiment in a much older Simon Says Stamp set called Sketched Flowers. I believe this set was designed by Kristina Werner. I stamped the sentiment in VersaFine Clair Baby Pink, which worked really well to complete this design. I toyed with doing the sentiment in black, thinking the pink wouldn't be bold enough, but I'm so glad I followed my instincts, because my sister adores pink and she's going to love this. I think it ties the paper in really nicely too. 

This beautiful image, I do not have a stamp name or artist for, it was a free gift from Kit and Clowder. But I adored this image, because it so reminded me of my sister Becky. I've coloured the hair and eyes reminiscent of her. I've shown the progress in the hair colouring, adding layers to deepen and add lowlights. I've also added the Copic Colours used. The close up on the eyes was after I'd added C0 and C00 to the corners of the whites. Adding a touch of cool grey to the whites of the eyes softens them. The blue of the eyes was done with Copic Markers B69, 66, 63 and 60. Thanks for popping in to visit friends, if you have any comments or questions about his make, feel free to leave me a comment below and I'll do my best to answer quickly. Have a beautiful week. Hugs, Wends xoxo