Enjoy Your Special Day!

Materials:

• Glossy Cardstock
• JustRite Stamps & matching dies (Grateful Heart Vintage Labels Two)
• Black detail embossing powder
• Smooch inks (Ocean Soul & Lucious Lime)
• Aqua Painter
• Patterned Paper (from Rosemary & Thyme paper pack - HOTP)
• Teal and Aqua cardstock
• Green glimmer paper 
• Cutting Die - Elegant Labels Four, Gold Labels Four
• Outline Stickers
• Black StazOn Ink
• Sentiment Stamp (JustRite Vintage Rose Medallion)
• Embossing Ink
• Fine Black Embossing Powder

Method:

1. Create focals for front & inside of card as follows (I started with a pre-fab where I had already had done the alcohol ink and heat embossing with black):  Die cut the shapes first.  Then using alcohol inks (Stream & Opal Mixative) on the felt covered aplicator pounce all over the glossy side of the cardstock to create a nice mottled background.  Stamp with embossing ink & heat emboss with fine detail black embossing powder.  Color with Smooch inks.  For the flowers, just add color along the shaded areas, then brush over it with the aqua-painter water brush to create the look you see here.  Similarly for the inside focal, add color around the sentiment and then use the aqua-painter to lighten and shade a bit (see picture below).
2. Create matted layers with teal, aqua, green, and patterned paper.  Note 1: When matting a piece this size, I usually use a die and cut out a shape from the inside of the mats that will not be seen anyway.  (For the teal, I just happened to choose the die from Elegant Labels Four and then decided it would make a great mat for my focal!). Note 2: The patterned paper was from a 6" x 6" pad of paper - and the space I wanted to cover was longer than that.  I cut the width I wanted, then cut the length in half horizontally.  This allowed me to place the paper where I wanted it, knowing the gap would be covered by the strip of teal I ran across behind the focal.
3. Before I added my matted focal, I realized much of that teal mat would be hidden behind the focal, so took a Gold Labels Four die and cut out the center, embossing it and setting it aside to be used inside the card.
4. After I had the front put together, I realized I really wanted a sentiment.  I remembered some outline stickers I had with a rounded "Happy Birthday" and decided to use that.  Unfortunately, it was silver and I wanted black.  I usually cover outline stickers with alcohol ink if I want a different color, but I didn't have black alcohol ink.  I suddenly thought of my black StazOn ink pad.  I just rubbed it across the sticker before removing it from the backing page.  Worked great!  For the word "Mom", I used a JustRite stamp with embossing ink and black embossing powder.
5. For the inside, I used the sentiment I had prepared and matted it in much the same way as I had the one on the front of the card:

There you have it - a quick and easy card thanks to making those focal elements ahead of time!