Online Card Class -- Card 4 (and Friends with Flair!)

After all my cards based on the first day of my online card class, Stretch Your Stamps 2, I'm skipping ahead to Day 3 -- alphabet and sentiment stamps! I do have some great panels that I made from the second day of background stamp lessons, they just haven't made the leap to any finished cards yet. In the meantime, I combined the techniques of Debby Hughes and Stephanie Klauck to create a cheery birthday card:

I started with three die cut clouds on which I stamped "birthday" randomly. In hindsight, I also could have stamped first, die cut second, but I'm not sure if that would have made much difference. I sponged around each cloud -- perhaps a little too much, they're pretty stormy for birthday clouds! Then I cut the hill and tried to randomly stamp "happy"... nope. Needed the stamp positioner for that. Sponged around the edges of the hill with green, and the white panel is sponged with a light blue for the sky. Finally I stamped the happy sun, embossing the orange rays with holographic embossing powder. Isn't art great? You can put the sun in front of the clouds if you want. :D 
With the sentiments doing a lot of the work on this card, I'm linking up to Unity's Friends with Flair -- I haven't joined in for ages! Hope you'll come back tomorrow to discover the newest Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers challenge. Have a great weekend! 

Supplies: white & textured orange American Crafts cardstock, Unity stamps (from grab bags) & Simon Says Stamp Color & Sunshine stamps, Memento teal zeal, new sprout, bamboo leaves & dandelion, Colorbox mango tango & tumbled glass distress inks, holographic embossing powder, Memory Box small cloud dies, Paper Smooches Borders I dies, pop-dot tape