Happy birthday, Mum!

It was Mum's birthday yesterday - and it is the first time she has celebrated her special day overseas.  A very kind friend shouted us to a Thai lunch - whilst Paul was left at home (at his own suggestion) to mind the babies. 

So with the best intentions, I made Mum a chocolate cake from a mix and a special birthday card, too.  I am very pleased to say that the card turned out better than the cake - I tried to take a few short cuts which backfired!  So whilst the cake is not up to presentation, it still washes down well with a cup of tea - but here is the card, which I am happy to show. 

Mum likes receiving my cards as a present, as she has lots of people to send them to and they are a relatively compact thing to post to Australia.  As she had already sorted through the cards I had here and chosen what she wanted, I decided to make her something new and a bit special. 

I started by using the freebie stamp from the cover of this month's (August 2011) "Craft Stamper" magazine by Polka Doodles - I usually do like the stamps, but admit that this is probably the first one that I have actually used!  I used a lot of the masking technique, to repeat the pattern to emulate a garden.  In a recent "Papercraft Essentials" magazine, there was a free stack of 6 x 6 paper called "Sweet Wishes" so I matched my Promarker colours to the background patterned paper.  I mitred the corners of the patterned paper, and tried to match up the stripes, so the patterns would meld smoothly. 

I had just finished stamping the banner (American Crafts "Birthday" stamp collection, bought in a bundle from QVC) when I smudged the black ink.  Major bummer!  So I then covered this and created daisy embellishments using my "Jane's Script" stamps by Woodware.  These clear stamps mostly consist of card messages, but they had these cute daisies to flesh out the mix of stamps. 

So lots of colouring in - but I really like the end result (even though it took me three days to do, grabbing spare snippets of time whenever I could).  It seems like that will be my way of crafting for the years to come!  All worth it though, it has to be said. I think the finished card is fresh and pretty.  Mum said it was a lot of work, but I know she likes it, too.  Only thing that matters in the end, isn't it?