Whiff of joy challenge #23

Prepare yourself for the best card you have ever seen - done by me. :)

I think I mentioned earlier that my fiancée asked me to make a card for his dad's 60:th birthday. I struggled because I wanted the card to be something I could be proud of and I wanted it to blow my socks off too - that's how I measure if it's good enough, lol.

The hardest part was to find a good image. I have so many cute stamps, images of Victorian women, animals etc, but nothing suitable for a guy. Then I came across this stamp from Whiff of joy and it was so perfect it was ridiculous. It conveys just the feeling I was looking for.

The next thing was what kind of papers I should use. I wanted to use bluish shades, but that is not my strong suit I must admit, so I was a bit worried. If I make something in blue I tend to make it cute somehow and I didn't want it for this card.

I started out by taking out the flowers. I had gotten them as a freebie when I bought other flowers. Good thing because I would have never bought them myself - not my style. Then I started picking out every paper that would match and was male enough. When I found the blue/lime/black striped paper I was in heaven because I noticed that the flowers had a whiff (pardon the pun, lol) of lime. And then I found this flowery paper that is in the background. It's dryembossed and looks so elegant. I didn't have any good blue paper so I went with the dark seafoam and decided on black and lime details. I had a pretty good green, but then I came across the PERFECT lime coulour. The only problem was I only had a smaller piece. But it was just enough! I just had a scrap left when I was done, so good thing I didn't make any mistakes, phew. The name and age on the tags is from a rubon alphabet. And I also found the perfect colourmatch for the jeweled brad. The black cardstock is bling embossed with a CB folder. Image coloured with promarkers. And it doesn't show that well, but the outer paper on the imagepiece is mirrorpaper. It shines very beautifully and makes the card even more festive.

I'm so happy with this card you can't imagine. I never knew I could make this kind of card I see around on my fav blogs. But now I know how it's done. I did soo many layerings, I think the card weighed 200g in the end, lol. The only thing I would have wanted is to layer the outer piece with lime cardstock, but I didn't have any extra, so that was the first thing to go.

I followed a sketch from the Whiff of joy challenge when I made this card. This week there is a GDT spot available so I figured I would enter. If I won't make it with a card like this I never will :)

So what do you think, have I outdone myself or what? It's awfully quiet in here, but I know you're lurking around, I have a counter so don't think you're invisible, lol.






This is the best photos I could get of the card since I finished it in the evening and the light was gone (it took me 2 days to make it with all the "big" decisions I had to make: Should the flower be a little more to the left or a little more to the right, twisted a bit more or not? You know the drill :D )

EDIT: I've got a question from Donna if I can do a card like this again. Hmmm... OF COURSE I CAN! :) Now that I know how a card like this is done and how much time I need to put in. Want to challenge me? Just bring it on ;)