Birthday Bird

 Hello!  Here's a card I made for my dad's birthday.  I had been mulling over different card options (masculine cards are so tricky, aren't they) and nothing was really coming to mind. I did a few trials of a stamped image on inky paper and it wasn't really "coming together".  Then, that wonderful mysterious creative inspiration came into my head - what about a blobby bird card?  Hmm...what about a karate bird!  So I sketched one on my scrap paper and it was so cute.  Probably the cutest one - that's always how it is - the first sketch is the best. Anyway, that bird was just standing there and karate is really about the movement, isn't it.  So I thought, what about the bird breaking a board (pretty impressive to see your dad breaking a board with his bare hands).  So I drew the bird breaking a board.  Then more of that wonderful mysterious creative inspiration came into my head - the bird shouldn't be breaking a board, he should be karate chopping a birthday cake!  So I redrew it again, this time with a birthday cake.  Like usual, I watercoloured the image with Tombow markers and accented the picture with Stickles (Cranberry for the icing, Yellow for the flames, and some Black Diamond for the belt -ssh probably not regulation Shotokan black!)

I mounted the image on Night of Navy paper, then matted it on some citron (precious hoarded citron, only for special occasions like a father's birthday), then arranged some Basic Grey patterned paper (from the June Bug collection).  The sentiment (Papertrey Ink) is stamped in Blue Iris Color Box Fluid Chalk ink.  The paper is all edged in Hero Arts Wet cement (sentiment also edged in Blue Iris).

The second picture is the inside of the card, with some scraps of the paper from the outside on it.  I added an inside panel so that the writing would be easier to contend with on a navy card.  The sentiment on the inside is one of Heather's Stamping Haven stamps (should be available from Frog's Whiskers Ink if you are looking for it), and is stamped in Blue Iris ink too.  I liked this for a birthday stamp - and it's very suitable for this particular recipient (and probably sender too!).

Thank you for stopping by!  Hope you got some time to stamp this weekend too!