Thank You Swans

This card is CASE'd from one in a papercrafting magazine I subscribe to (Cardmaking and Papercrafts) - the same magazine from which I got the papers, several of the stamps and dies used when making this card, and even the water embossing folder!!!

CARD FRONT:

• Structure: I started with a standard card base, then cut away the center of the card front, leaving just 1 1/2" borders top and bottom.  In its place, I added a piece of acetate, gluing it to the top and bottom borders.  To hide the glue on the inside, I cut 1 1/2" strips of card stock from the cut away piece and glued on the back side where the acetate attached to the border strips.
• Borders:  I created two borders.  For each one I cut a strip of the pink flowered paper (from magazine) and added it to the center of the plain white card pieces that were left top & bottom of the card front.  To the center of this, I glued narrow strips (again cut from the cutaway piece), that I had stamped with a border stamp (HOTP "Matching Borders & Focals" - masked off the last word on the stamp).  I colored the small stamped flowers in the border with one of my Scroll & Brush markers.
• Swan: The swan was stamped on a piece of white card stock & cut with the matching cutting die before being glued to the acetate (since the set includes a swan going the opposite way, I stamped the reverse image on another die cut piece of white card stock & glued it to the back of the acetate to hide the glue marks.  NOTE: I didn't actually place this swan until the inside of the card was finished so I could hide the swan that is behind it.
• Waterlilies: These were die cut - the lily pads from a turquoise glimmer paper, and the water lilies from white card stock.  I stamped the center of the coordinating water lily stamp over the die cut pieces & then colored the water lilies with the same marker I used for the smaller flowers in the borders.

INSIDE:

• Background: For the inside I started by cutting a piece of the swan paper (from the magazine) and gluing it in place so that the swans would be positioned the way I wanted to see them when the card was closed.  This actually left some white at the top and bottom, but I didn't care because I knew I'd be covering that part later.
• Water & Stamped Sentiment: For the water, I embossed several coordinating strips of paper using the embossing folder that came with the set in the magazine, and layered them as you can see in the picture.  The sentiment that I stamped on this "water" came from a Divinity Designs cut and emboss set called "Thanks for Everything". 
• Top Border: As you can see, I cut a strip from the same patterned paper used on the front of the card.  After gluing it in place, I die cut the word "Thanks" (from Divinity Designs) and glued it in the center.  To finish, I outlined it with a fine-line black marker. 

Here's a closeup of the inside: