Birthday Card for my Hubby

My hubby’s birthday is on Tuesday, and I am so glad that Mr. Mojo and Mrs. Muse have decided to return from their unexpected long holiday and come to my rescue, so that I could make him a mixed media card! He has been so brilliant over the past months and I want to show my appreciation for him in every way that I can.

I am still taking baby steps creatively, and didn’t want to take on a huge project, so I thought it would be good to use some of the things in my stash to make his card. Here is the finished card.

Last year I had a session making alcohol ink backgrounds on the backs of some A5 fliers we’d picked up at the county show (I love recycling!) – they were on shiny paper.

I also embossed some co-ordinating pieces of card to go with each background.

For this card I chose the background using gold, silver, copper and pearl mixatives. This one had a nice co-ordinating card which I’d embossed with the Cuttlebug folder “Diamond Plate,” which is good and manly!

Rummaging through my stash, I found the Friendly Plastic gear wheels and other hardware that I’d made some time ago. These were painted with black gesso which makes a good base for adding gilding wax.

Also in my stash I found a few tissue paper hearts that somebody sent me once in a collection of die-cuts, and I chose one in a colour appropriate for this card, to lay down as a background under the embellishments, adding some gilding wax lightly applied with my finger.

Finally I made a faux porcelain sentiment for the card. You use UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) for this technique, building up the layers – I had several printed oval shapes  with “Happy Birthday” printed on them in a suitable font in my stash from a previous project. I used Versamark and my heat gun for this, and unfortunately it made the card curl a bit; I think it would probably distort less if one immersed the whole thing in UTEE in the meltpot, so I must remember this next time I use this technique. (Last time I started with a thicker piece made from several layers laminated together, and I think that distorted less.)

Here are some detail shots of the card.

For the “metal” hardware, I used a mixture of silver, gold and copper gilding wax. Of course, the metallic appearance doesn’t pick up too well on the photos.

On the above picture you can see that I have also applied some glass bead gel medium using a palette knife, and lightly applied some gold gilding wax with my finger, for a bit of added texture and to tie the design together.

I have had the large “blue steel” gear wheel in my stash for ages – I think it was a die-cut, and I cut it from a piece of card from Cadbury’s Dairy Milk chocolate box! It has a lovely metallic shimmer to it. Across the bottom I added some glass bead gel medium with a palette knife and lightly rubbed this with gold gilding wax.

The inside of the card. I can’t remember where I got this sentiment stamp – it is part of a set of clear stamps I bought when I first started, and I didn’t keep the packaging. I don’t like clear stamps as much as rubber ones, and have only a few.

I inked the inside of the card, and the edge of the card base on the front, using Gathered Twigs distress ink and an Inkylicious Ink Duster. The card front was matted and layered with some brown cardstock. The Friendly Plastic embellishments were stuck down with Pinflair gel glue; the heart was attached with regular matt gel medium, and the large gearwheel with Scotch Quick Dry adhesive, and the remainder of the elements with my ATG glue gun. The faux porcelain sentiment was attached with two small brads through the matting and layering before I stuck that down onto the card base.

There is a lot of texture and thickness on this card! It’s a good thing I have a large supply of very heavy white cardstock for card bases or they’d never hold up, the amount of stuff I always put on my cards!