WWC157 - Heidi's "All About Occasions" Challenge

It's my turn to host the challenge this week and it's an "All About Occasions" challenge.  What fun!  There are so many occasions during the year.  Wouldn't you know it, I had a birthday card in mind.  That has to be one of the most frequently celebrated occasions of the year.  After all, everyone has one--birthday, that is.

What's a birthday without a bit of whimsy thrown in?  I've been dying to use the Party Pandas stamp set which I received free with my qualifying order (it's Sale-a-bration time--Woo Hoo!)  But I kept reaching for other newly purchased stamp sets.  Well, all that changed with this card.  I reached for those Pandas and introduced them to ink.

So where's the whimsy, you ask.  I did my usual mix and match bit with my stamp sets and added some fun from the Birthday Memories Suite as well.  Guess what!  That cute little girl and her friend, the Panda, are going to a birthday party.  Are you ready?

Don't you just love it?  I used the matching framelit to cut the little cutie from the Birthday Memories Designer Series paper.  Yes, they work on the patterned paper as well as on the stamped images.  Bonus!  I also used the framelits to cut out those party hats and the little gift which her friend the Panda is carrying.  The clouds?  They're from the Up and Away thinlits set and that wonderful red foil "celebrate" is another free Sale-a-bration item, the Celebrate You thinlits.  The background is just a watercolour wash using Soft Sky and Pear Pizzaz.

But there's more fun inside!  Why just use one Panda when you can use two, after all?  And the Panda inside the card is an especially talented little guy.  He's taken five of the cupcakes (all fussy cut) and is showing off his juggling skills by keeping them in the air.  I've made the inside a "pop out" so that our friend the Panda is standing away from the card and I've added a carefully cut "tree" of window acrylic to his back so that the attached cupcakes appear to be hanging in the air.

I decided to keep the background pale and neutral by adding a piece of Soft Sky cardstock and then the die-cut Happy Birthday (using the Happy Birthday thinlits) in Very Vanilla.  Any more fuss behind our Panda and those sweet cupcakes would not show up as clearly.

And there we have the complete inside of the card.  I hope you love it as much as I do.

I hope you'll check out the wonderful creations by the other Watercooler Artists at our Watercooler Wednesday Challenge.

I'm also entering my card into the following challenges:

Crafting From the Heart #194 - Anything Goes

Pammie's Inky Pinkies Challenge #1806  - Anything Goes