Happy Birthday for Cutting Cafe, Inspirational CS and TPE

Regina over at the Cutting Cafe has just released a new download, and I am going to be using this one such a lot - it's the happy birthday sentiment done in 40 different ways - they are just gorgeous, plenty of space around them when you print as well, so you can cut them with nestabilities etc. Here, I used the happy birthday background printable stamp, then used the sentiment off one of the sheets in the download. I chose this one, because with an almost monotone card, I wanted the lettering to really stand out.

The edges of the panels were punched with Martha Stewart chequerboard border punch

The flower was cut freehand in a very random way - I didn't even draw it in pencil first - out of a K & Co paper, and the edges inked with black. I then cut a circle and sort of snipped almost down to the centre all the way round, then popped a punched black circle in the middle and curled the snippy bits up over a pencil

a close-up of the sentiment, you can see the tiny happy birthday background too....


I was only sent this download a couple of days ago, and couldn't wait to try it, so was delighted to see that on The Pink Elephant this week, the challenge was to use your favourite colours - how could I resist?
I made the card using the sketch on Inspirational Card Sketches, so two challenges in one card here

I have an apology to make, been a bit dozy about putting awards on the blog, lots of very kind people have sent me these, which I really appreciate. I had carefully made a note in the old-fashioned way (paper and pen) of all the names, links etc etc, and was planning to do a post with them all in one place. Now the paper has gone AWOL, and I just haven't got time to trawl through back posts to find them again, it would take a day that I just can't spare. So hugs to everyone who thought of me and abject apologies for not posting them. One of these days I may even start using the computer as my notebook instead of these scraps of paper that keep getting lost - then again, maybe not.