Special Birthday - Stampin' Up! Special Reason

 I'm trying to get this one in under the wire for the Card Concept Challenge 64.  I've never played along before but my stamping friend Jennifer Timko is on the Design Team and I thought it would be fun to play along with these talented ladies!

  I love the pink, black and gold elements from the inspiration photo and the frilly flower so that's the direction I went with!  I need to replenish my birthday card stash so I went with that for the sentiment.

   I stuck with the Special Reason stamp set and coordinating Stylish Stems framelits for the die cuts and stamping.  I layered everything up from the Whisper White base, Whisper White cardstock embossed with the Softy Falling embossing folder.  A small square of the retired gold printed vellum brings a small pop of gold.

  Some black ribbon and black die cut leaves bring in the black from the inspiration photo and make the Flirty Flamingo pop.  The sentiment is also embossed in gold and was kind of small so I wanted to give it more weight so I added the black stamped frame die cut.

  Way back in the day Stampin'Up! sold a Versamarker.  It's basically a dual tipped marker that has Versamark ink in it.  It was a great tool for adding just a bit of embossing using freehand coloring.  We no longer have it in our catalog and I was surprised that it was still juicy when I was trying to figure out how to jazz up my large flower.  After inking the flower stamp up with Flirty Flamingo I used a sponge dauber to add a little bit of Watermelon Wonder to the edges.  After cutting it out with the matching framelit I thought it looked a bit bare.  First I thought about just pressing the edges of the petals into the Versamark pad to pick up the gold embossing powder but then I thought it would be kind of messy and uneven as well as get all over the nice even white edge of the die cut.  The Versamarker is the perfect solution.  I wish we still sold it!  I also used it to color in the center of the flower so I could have my gold there as well.

  

  Thanks to the Card Concept Challenge for the fun inspiration!

  Thanks for looking!  Did you stamp today?

Stamps: Special Reason

Ink: Basic Black, Watermelon Wonder, Flirty Flamingo, Versamark

Paper: Whisper White, Flirty Flamingo, Basic Black, gold printed vellum (retired)

Accessories: Soft Falling e.f., Stylish Stems framelits, corner rounder punch, gold embossing powder, Versamarker, black stitched ribbon (retired), dimensionals, gold thread