Spring Birthdays

Where did March go? Here we are at the last Thursday in March, which at the very least means we are officially into spring - scientifically if not yet in my backyard. So what better optional theme for today's new Seize the Birthday challenge than SPRING! 

Our toppings are always optional, but for me, spring colours or themes on a card offer a nice antidote to the snowbanks that right now seems like they will be here until July. :D At first I was going to do flowers - and not just any flowers, tulips! They epitomize spring! Then followed two days of tulip frustration. Layering stamps refused to layer, techniques refused to cooperate... you get the idea. Then I had a middle-of-the-night epiphany... spring peepers! Those little frogs that chorus in the evenings once it's warm enough to crack open a window. In real life, spring peepers are kind of... brown. Thank goodness this doesn't call for photorealism. 

I knew I wanted my frog to have a nice place to live, so I ink smooshed a background, first with tumbled glass distress ink all over, then broken china just on the bottom third. Once that was dry, I needed to find a way to add some wetland plants to separate the pond from the sky. I ended up using some tiny layering stamps from a couple of different floral sets, double stamping to get the varying shades of green. Then it was frog's turn - he was watercoloured with Zig markers. I cut his lily pad from a previously smooshed scrap of watercolour paper. For the sentiment, I had to surgically remove the "hoppy" from a sentiment so I could pair it with "birthday" from an entirely different set. Without the pun, there didn't really seem to be justification for making a frog birthday card. :D Finally, his spots and lily pad have some Wink of Stella for random sparkle. 

I'll add this card to the current Anything Goes challenge at Simon Says Stamp. 

Photography assistant

Having at last achieved a small amount of success making a card, I went back to one of my earlier tulip attempts. I had stamped some newsprint-patterned tulips over a cloud-stencilled background, but didn't like how much the clouds showed through the petals. (I had first stamped them on plain cardstock and decided they were boring. It was just that kind of card-making session, know what I mean?) Looking at them again, I realized I could add a bit more structure by shading them in with a matching watercolour pencil. This reduced the clouds showing through the petals while leaving the textural interest the newsprint pattern provides. 

It even worked out that I could use the current Paper Players challenge sketch, as I'd originally planned. 

Now it's your turn! You'll want to visit the Seize the Birthday blog to see all the pretty spring creations the design team made (bet there are more flowers than frogs...) as well as our current surprise party guest, Tenia! Dream of spring and join us! 

Supplies: (frog) Neenah white & Stampin' Up garden green cardstock, Canson watercolour paper, Paper Smooches A Little Lovin' & Birthday Buddies & assorted small layering stamps, Stampin' Up garden green & tumbled glass & broken china distress inks, Wow clear fine embossing powder, Spellbinders oval die, Marvy-Uchida corner-rounding punch, Scotch washi tape, Wink of Stella clear glitter brush marker; (tulips) Neenah white & Hero Arts cerulean layering cardstock, Memory Box Brioche patterned paper, Hero Arts newspaper tulips & Clearly Besotted Say What stamps, Stampin' Up garden green & tumbled glass distress ink, Stampin Up Stampin' Write markers, MFT clouds die