An October Birthday Card by Anne Thompson

I needed just one more birthday card for October, so I combined some of my favorite stamps and dies on this one.

I used a Sweet Corn notecard as the base and began by embossing LEAF COLLAGE die 99800 onto the left front of the top-folded notecard. (Clicking on the titles in blue will take you to the Memory Box catalog website.) Then I went to work assembling the other pieces I needed.

I die cut the STITCHED FARM PUMPKINS 99882 twice from Mango Distressed Dots paper and layered them together.
I die cut PERKY HAPPY BIRTHDAY 99761 twice from white cardstock and layered them together.
I die cut the PINPOINT DOUBLE FRAME 99765 twice, once from Squash Distressed Dots paper and once from white cardstock and trimmed the white frame down a bit. I placed the white frame in the lower righthand corner of the notecard and glued the squash dot piece in the center opening.
I stamped some of the leaves and flowers from the GARDEN SKETCHES CLEAR STAMPS SET CL5204 on white cardstock using Archival Jet Black ink. I colored the leaves with a Prismacolor bright green pencil. I overstamped the flowers using stamps from the Garden Sketches set, one flower in Hero Arts Butter Bar ink and the other in Spiced Marmalade Distress ink. I then die cut the images using the coordinating GARDEN SKETCHES DIE SET 32204.
Next I added "Happy Birthday" onto the dot rectangle inside the Pinpoint Double Frame.
Then I adhered the Stitched Farm Pumpkins to the left of the rectangle using foam dots.
I used a glue pen to secure the leaves to the card in the top center of the frame. I used more foam dots to place the flowers clustered in the upper right and overlapping the frame a bit.
As I finished typing this up I looked back at the first picture in the post and the card again, and I added a tiny white pearl to dot the "i" and some yellowy ones in the flower centers. Now it is really done.

Even with what looks like a lot of work, this card came together quickly. I really love the dimension that is added by embossing the die onto the card front and the use of foam dots to raise images.

With November approaching and two craft fairs to participate in I have really got to get to work on more Christmas cards, tags, packaging ideas, and ornaments. I'll be sharing some of those with you next month.

Happy Crafting!