Lavender & Yellow

Today's card started with a magazine that I have eagerly been awaiting.  I signed up for it way back in January - and yesterday my first issue finally came.  Anyway, It had a lovely set of stamps/dies/embossing folder that I look forward to playing with.  Before I got to that, however, I pulled out the free papers that were included in the magazine.  They were mostly Easter designs, and I don't make many Easter cards, so I was trying to decide what I would do with them.  After pulling them out of the magazine & starting to cut them apart, I realized the papers had been printed in such a way that if I didn't want to use the blatantly Easter papers, they had printed the other sides in pastels that weren't Easter themed.  Yay!

I started working on what I could do with them and found things in my stash that would go with all but this lavender & yellow.  I suddenly thought of a stamping swap I had participated in awhile back.  Looking through the options, I came across this lady that just begged to be colored in lavender & yellow.  I don't know who made the stamp, since it came in a swap & I lost the paper that said, but I think it was the perfect thing to set the card front off right.

CARD FRONT:

• Background - I covered the card front with the patterned paper & then cut the corners with a corner rounder.
• Focal - I colored the stamped image with watercolor pencils & a water brush.  I rounded the corners & drew a dark purple line around all edges with my watercolor pencil - then pulled the color toward the image with my water brush. Then I matted it on a yellow piece of card stock.  I discovered I really wanted to see more of the patterned paper, so cut a piece just smaller than the focal paper - so the dark purple edge would show all around it.  I used a scalloped oval die (Spellbinder's) to cut the aperture & glued it in place over the focal.  Then I went around the scalloped inner edge with my watercolor pencil.
• Sentiment - from an old scrapbooking set in my stash

INSIDE:

• Border background - bottom & top of the card I added patterned paper & a smaller piece of the yellow card stock (as you can see), rounding only the outer edges of the paper/cardstock.  
• Sentiments -To the bottom border, I added a couple of sentiments I had from a Hunkydory Whopper Topper pad (Cute & Cuddly). Then I stamped a sentiment from a HOTP stamp set (Birthday Cheer). I finished it off with a little gold Smooch ink for the candle flames.
• Embellishing - I finished the inside with a flower made using Heartfelt Creations Blazing Poppy Stamps & Dies (& their Floral Basics shaping mold) that was held together by a small yellow brad.