Seize the Birthday: Tic Tac Toe!

It's time for a new Seize the Birthday challenge: Tic Tac Toe! Here is the grid: 

Of course, if none of these options appeal to you, we love to see any birthday card in our link-up. And I will admit, it took a while for me to find a trio I felt completely comfortable with. Just like our last challenge, I began a first card, got stuck, made an entirely different card, then went back determined to make something of my other start. :D 

My first completed card uses the lower left to upper right combination of large sentiment, flowers, and one image: 

With only one image, I wanted a big one, and this Uniko gerbera is one of my bigger flowers. I stamped the flower outline and the sentiment at the same time... and although it was a humid day, I took a chance and used black sparkle embossing powder. My clear sparkle powder is pretty, too, but I wanted to really emphasize the black, particularly in the sentiment. Then I used sponge daubers to colour the fill-in stamp in the two different inks. I added a bit of pencil shading, mostly to the stem and where the petals meet the  calyx. Finally I added a generous coat of clear sparkle marker to the petals. You can even see some of the sparkle in the close up photo! 

I'm adding this card to the current Uniko challenge: In My Garden. I think with the red I might even have the hot summer colours option. ;) 

For my first-that-turned-into-second card, I went upper left to lower right: birds, flowers, stencil.  

To start this card, I gathered a whole bunch of inks and sat on our deck making all kinds of layered birds, some of which even worked! :D (Interesting thing about layering stamps: when they're longer and thinner, as this bird is, and they get stored imperfectly for a period of time, they're even harder to line up than usual! So the final layer of the bird, for the head, wing and tail, gave me even more difficulty than usual.) After making my other card, I came back to this and stamped and die cut the branch and flowers from the same set. My stencil is blended with the same blue inks as I used on the bird. I'm going to enter this card in the current Anything Goes Wednesday Challenge at Simon Says Stamp. 

The StB design team and our current surprise party guest Jen have all played tic tac toe to great effect! Make a card and join the fun! 

Supplies: (gerbera) Neenah white cardstock, MFT Dots & Stripes Neutral patterned paper, Uniko Gerbera & Studio Katia It's Your Birthday stamps, Versafine onyx black, Catherine Pooler rockin' red & SU garden green ink, Ranger ultra fine black sparkle embossing powder, Prismacolor pencils, Spectrum Noir clear sparkle brush marker, fun foam; (bird) Neenah white & (?) blue cardstock, Hero Arts Color Layering Bird & Branch stamps & dies, Savvy Stamps Happy Birthday stamp, Altenew Caribbean sky, sapphire, blush & crimson, Simon Says Stamp intense black & Memento espresso truffle ink, Carabelle Studio Mosaīque stencil, Marvy-Uchide corner-rounding punch