My cat made me do it! Seriously, I was trying to decide for which occasion I would create a card for our challenge and spied a piece of paper on the floor. It looked remarkably like something I had cut out and had put aside to use for a card "someday". We all do that, don't we? Well, putting it aside is one thing. Finding it on the floor is a totally unacceptable thing. I knew immediately who the culprit was, of course. My sweet, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth Khali had made another trip across my crafting table and, being the clumsiest (and cutest) feline I've ever met, had inadvertently pushed the cut-out onto the floor.
And that led to the creation of this Birthday card.
I love the "Happy Birthday" die but absolutely hate putting glue onto the die-cut. By the time you finish going from one end to the other, across all the lines and intricate details, the portion where you began has dried. But a few months ago I happened to have purchased a roll of Diecut and Bond. This is thin paper, double sided with adhesive. You put it onto a piece of cardstock, use your die to cut whatever design you happen to want for a card, and voila. The backing peels off and it sticks by itself. While I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to a lot of you, it was like magic for me and I will be using my more intricate dies a whole lot more from now on.
Oh, and that heat embossing on the red? It just looked so plain when I laid all the pieces out so I grabbed a relatively neutral background stamp (Crackle Paint) and heat embossed the pattern onto the red using my clear embossing powder. It gives it just enough interest without taking any real attention away from the sentiment and cute little squirrel, doesn't it?
You can see the heat embossing better from this angle. And, of course, the squirrel is clearly raised up from the stitched heart with Dimensionals. I love the way the card turned out, don't you?