A Sweet Niece's Birthday in Early October!

One of my sister's girls is an Army wife and is far removed from home while her husband is stationed in Georgia.  I know how difficult it is to be so far from home, so I wanted to send her a homemade card to let her know that her Auntie was thinking of her and remember her birthday.

I have always loved the Authentique Grace papers that I bought last spring.  I went to a card class hosted by Misty Bradley (Rock, Paper, Scissors) while visiting my mother and made several of her cards during the class.  One, in particular, was a favorite of mine, and gave me inspiration for my card.  I decided to case the layout and the patterned papers as I was running late getting Shauna's card made.  But, as those of you who know me well, I can't just copy something; I have to add my own twist and creativity to most things I do.

I changed the cardstock matting to browns instead of grays, made the "word" mat a bit smaller, and the card size a bit bigger. I re-positioned some of the layout elements just a tad to accommodate the slight paper size changes made. I made my bow a double loop and re-positioned it a bit and added some pearl embellishments.   Though the original card used a "ticket" sentiment, I wanted a different sentiment word and color.  I scanned some of the tickets on my Authentique sticker page and dropped the gray-green Sweet ticket into PaintShop Pro, re-coloring it to a soft golden background to bring out the gold in the paper.  Now, I was much happier, plus Sweet fit a birthday card for a sweet niece much better.  I decorated the inside of my card with similar paper layers and home-made corner embellishments and I was done!  I hope Shauna likes my take on this card.

Recipe: Georgia Pacific-white cs. Core’dinations-Coffee cs. Authentique Grace patterns: Beauty/ flowers, Sweetness/ Words, Foundations/ Sweet Ticket (background changed to Gold). Hug Snug/ Brique seam binding ribbon. Sizzix Sizzlits Vintage Doily die. Recollections half-pearls/ Copic E74.