Purple Hydrangea Birthday Card

I finally had the opportunity to go visit my mom. I was SOOOO ready to craft with her after almost a month of constant work on our rental. Though I can appreciate flexing very rusty home repair and maintenance skills periodically, I really missed crafting! This is the first project I worked on. I started out creating two busy backgrounds and this one was the better of the two.

This background consists of the following:

• Balmy Blue circles from Beauty Abounds
• Soft Sea Foam branches from Very Versailles
• Crumb Cake text from Very Versailles
• Gorgeous Grape hydrangea stamped three times from Beautiful Friendship
• Basic Gray sentiment from Beautful Friendship

Whew, and that was just the background. I had intented this to be a #simplestamping project but when I stamped the sentiment in Basic Gray, it came out too light, getting lost in the purple hydrangeas. I spent quite a bit of time salvaging the sentiment using gel pens in black and white.

The sentiment came out well enough, but by then I knew it would need more dressing up than a simple stamping card.

The focal layer was sponged with Crumb Cake and the edges distressed with snips. A very thin Gorgeous Grape distressed mat was added behind and both were popped up on a Crumb Cake sponged card base.

The card was finished off with Gorgeous Grape die cut lace, Very Vanilla scalloped lace trim, and a couple of brass trinkets.  

I really love shabby chic style of cards, I find them a joy to make. Isn't it funny how certain styles of cards are more satisfying to make than others? I sure wish I had inked the sentiment in black, it would have saved me alot of time.

I am entering this project in the following challenge:

• SUO Challenges #SUOC226 - Birthdays