Happy Birthday...

This is the third & final card I made for my mom's birthday. This one is from the cats. She'd seen the image from Jane's Doodles on this card I'd made for Send a Smile 4 Kids, and just fell in love with it. So of course, I figured I had to make a birthday card using it! Thankfully, her birthday is in October, so the pumpkins make sense. And I just changed the witch's hat to a party hat by using blue & orange and adding polka dots.

I began by choosing this sketch from Operation Write Home:

I did increase the size of the panel & greeting strip slightly, just to give me a little more "real estate" to work with.

I printed the image onto a piece of Strathmore Mixed Media paper. I colored it with watercolor pencils, using a damp paintbrush to blend the colors. I added a light wash of Pumice Stone Distress ink under the cat & pumpkins, just to help ground them a little better.

Inside of card

I created the greeting & inside text in Photoshop. I also created the cats' "signatures" with that, and added a little paw print by each cat's name with one of the custom shape tools. I printed the greeting on a scrap of textured green cardstock, and the inside text onto a blank A2 card base.

To finish the card front, I adhered the focal panel to a piece of patterned paper by The Paper Studio from my scrap stash, and glued the greeting below the cat. Finally, I added a few Doodlebug Designs sequins, using Ranger Multi Medium Matte to glue them.

I'm entering this card in Simon Says Stamp's Monday "Anything Goes" challenge.