Happy Birthday Mom!!

Today is my mom's birthday, and I wanted to wish her the very best Birthday, I love you so much Mom!  We don't live near, well we do, but not near enough to swing by and give her a big Birthday hug.  She lives in Southern California, and I live in Arizona, so I had to wait until today to post the Birthday card, in order to make sure that she got it first.

 Gift cards tucked in:

Unfortunately, I have to say I'm guilty of dragging my mother into this hobby of mine.  She started off small, and now half of her bedroom has been claimed by this addiction of paper crafting.  It's really fun to share this hobby with someone close to you whom shares the same passion and excitement for paper and card making tools.  So I knew gift cards to Michaels and Joanns would be the perfect gift, and we all know after long hours of shopping, we can sure work up an appetite, that is where the other gift card will come in handy.

I got the instructions to create this card from Pink Buckaroo Designs, Erica created this very easy tutorial of what she called Gift Pocket wallet.  She has posted on her blog two examples of how you can use this, and I automatically thought the gift card one would come in handy.  The stamped image I used is from The Cats Pajamas, isn't it adorable?   The  inspiration came from their gallery, however, for my balloons, I used a Hero Arts clear stamp set called Wonderful Birthday, stamped each balloon onto a different type of patterned paper and cut the image out.  I colored the image using Copic markers, I then used an atyouspica in clear to add some sparkle to the stars and the gifts (I did this after I took the picture, sorry!)  The pattern paper I used was from the 12 x 12  K & Co Wild Raspberry paper stack. 

For the clouds, I cut them using a Papertrey ink cloud die, I then added Stampin' Up glitter in dazzling diamonds.  The balloons are attached to Cotton candy pink baker's twine.  The textured card stock used for the card base and scalloped envelopes is from Stampin' Up  in Pink Piroutte.  And last but not least, the button brads are from Making Memories.

I also wanted to comment that the reason I haven't been blogging much is because I've been keeping myself busy making invitations for a Sweet Sixteen birthday party.  A friend of my Mom's asked if I could make 60 invitations for her daughters birthday party and I quickly jumped at the opportunity.  Although, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into, until shortly after I started cutting into the paper and seizing everything up.  Here's a little glimpse of what  my assembly line looked like during the process.  I'm about 90% done, and I couldn't be happier!

Thank you so much for stopping by!