Spring Basket Birthday

Today's card was inspired by the sketch challenge @ PCC235 and by the Spring themes @ the heARTful stamping challenge, the oh-la-la: Spring is in the Air  challenge & the Great Impressions monthly blog challenge.

My Grandma's birthday falls pretty close to Easter this year, so I went with this pretty spring basket stamp from the *free* Fun Stamper's Journey Bloom This Way mini catalog gift with purchase Bloom Benefits ATS stamp set called "Happy Eggster" (Bloom Benefits are free with a $50 order)...only available through March 31st. 

I have been using this Old World Mat Stack paper pad from DCWV quite a bit lately -I just love the variety and the colors/patterns are very much a vintage style that I love. The size is great -I just trim a tiny bit off the long side and the part that I end up trimming off the short side always ends up inside my card -really ties it all together nicely. I used a white A2 size top folded card base and punched the circle from scrap after stamping the basket with Black Licorice ink. I rubbed the Ballet Blue mini ink pad along the edges of the circle to give it some definition too.

My Grandma is a very talented crafter -she sews, knits, crochets and has made scrapbooks and cards with paper, ribbon and stickers for as long as I can remember. The skinny, light blue Offray ribbon actually came to me from her crafty stash during her last move, so I am being sure to put it to good use, lol! The Scrapper's Floss I used to tie a knot through the teal button I chose from the selection shown above and the mini glue dots will hold the button onto the card front.

I ran a piece of kraft cardstock through my embossing machine in the Basket Weave folder to create the dimension on the left side of the card and tied the ribbon around it before adhering it to the card front with my ATG gun. Choosing  blue and teal scraps of textured cardstock from my stash, I trimmed them down into thin strips that are about 3/8" wide and stamped Happy Birthday on the right side of the blue one. I used the large scallop scissors to trim the left over piece of patterned paper that I adhered to the inside of my card -see photo below.

 I colored the image with Spectrum Noir pens and one BIC marker (for the green leaves and flower stems) and lightly sponged more of the light blue ink around the basket. I layered the focal circle on top with foam squares for a bit of dimension and the final step was layering clear rhinestones on top of the Sparkling Clear Sequins Mix from Pretty Pink Posh and adhering them to the card front with CTMH Liquid Glass.

And the inside...

This card is all ready to go out in the mail in a few weeks -hopefully by then it will have begun to feel like Spring here in south-central Pennsylvania, lol!