A Special Birthday Celebration

During Kate's Birthday Celebration week at I {heart} Papers last month, she challenged us to make a "special" birthday card. Coincidentally, Lynn Mercurio shared the technique for making easel cards in her weekly Try a New Technique Monday challenge at Splitcoast Stampers.

My best friend Marsha's mom, who has been my kids' and my own Grandma Berman for the thirty years that Marsha and I have been friends, will be celebrating her 99th birthday next week. Can you think of anything more "special"? This was the perfect opportunity to make a wonderful card for "Grandma B". I can share it here because even though she has always kept up with the times and still has plenty of spunk, computers are something she has never had any interest in so I don't envision her surfing the net and finding it! Whew! By the way, this picture of Marsha and her mom sitting in our garden was taken in early spring.

Easel cards are fun cards that open to form their own "stands", revealing a greeting or other decorative elements. I stamped and embossed the birthday greeting on the card base and embellished it with an ombre rose flower that holds the lower edge of the card when the card is open and on display.

I modified the dimensions to make a 6 inch square card with some wonderful fall themed paper from My Mind's Eye's "Fall in Love" glitter stack. I used the large grapevine wreath from Stampington and embossed it in brown on brown and embellished it with a wired ribbon bow, Prima flowers finished with Kaiser half pearls, one of Kate's ombre rose flowers, a vintage button, and some punched leaves that have been inked and lightly distressed. The stop on the easel base is another of the ombre rose flowers.

The glittery flowers are part of the original paper design but the darker image in the center of the wreath is a a tone on tone embossed spray of butterflies and leaves.