A Lovely Daughter's Birthday!

We celebrated my daughter, Michele's, birthday yesterday so we could all gather as an entire family to mark her special day.  Michele's request for the day was that it be casual and relaxing.  A simple day of lounging on the deck, pizzas to munch, favorite beverages to quench our thirst, family games (both board and lawn games) to play, and banana split extravaganzas, including all the toppings imaginable as a finale.  With these notable facts in mind, I came up with just what I wanted to do for her birthday card.  A card depicting a banana split!

I found just the right digital image I wanted to use, and as I did earlier this month for my friend's card, I grouped all four images together into one, using PaintShop Pro.  I sized all my images to their appropriate sizes and then grouped them.  As before, it took a bit of work with the images as they were all different dpis and sizes and rotations.

My next step was to decide on the papers for the card.  I decided to use a technique called Angled Background, which I have not used in over a year and one-half (last on my husband's birthday card published Feb. 2, 2014).  I found a pretty little flowered paper by Echo Park in reds, pinks, greens and a tiny bit of yellow.  I decided that this would be the piece to build from and found four other papers to blend with it.  I chose two shades of cardstocks by Stampin' Up: Strawberry Slush for the cardbase and Gumball Green for the next layer.  For my third layer under my angled background papers, I used a red glitter paper.

Knowing the paper colors made it easy to then choose the Copic Markers to use on my banana split digital image.  I used a bit of Crystal Effects on the cherries and some puffy white Flower Soft on the whip cream.  I'm pretty happy with the way it all turned out, and I think Michele will be thrilled!

One of my signature cardmaking styles is to always create an inside decoration to coordinate with the outside design and complete a little verse that fits the occasion for the card being given.  Michele's card is, of course, no exception; therefore, my final step was to do just that.  It is finally completely done and ready for your inspection. . .see below:

Recipe:  Cardstocks: Stampin' Up - Strawberry Slush, Gumball Green (both retired), Red Glimmer.  Pattern papers: Echo Park - This & That/ Wooden Nickel Red Floral, Hello Spring Floral (back) ; My Minds Eye - Find Your Wings/ Up & Away (back), Nostalgia/ Scallop Paper.  Digital images (online freebies).  Spellbinders dies: Ovals, Lacey Ovals, Circles, Scallop Circles.  EK punch: Scallop Photo Corner.  Copics Markers.  Stampin' Up Pearls: copic colored.  Stash: Ribbon, Lace.  Homemade "flower soft" w/ styrofoam shavings. Computer-made sentiment and inside verse.  Font: Gisele Script/ Bold.  Technique: Angled Background strips.  Size: 5-1/2" x 6".