Inky 40th Birthday

Ever had one of those crafting projects where everything that can go wrong, does go wrong?  Yes, of course you have!  This was one of those kind of projects for me.

The only thing I knew when I started to make this card was how I wanted the number 40 to look.  The number stamps are by Papermania; I masked them off & used stamps by Paula Pascual to create the flower pattern.  So far so good, until I tried to remove the masks in the centre of the numbers - I'd used temporary spray adhesive by Crafters Companion and when I took the masks away, off came some of the surface of the card, too.  Not to be deterred, I used my craft knife to cut out the centre of the numbers.

Once that was done I still had no idea of how I wanted the finished card to look, until I spotted this gorgeous card with a really unusual layout.  My next problem was that I had no card to match the Memento Elderberry ink I'd used for stamping, so I dug out some Neenah card which I've found to be pretty much useless for everything & found that it's also pretty much useless for directly applying lots of ink to, as it dries very patchy.  Eventually I got it to the stage where I was happy with it, so I let it dry then ran it through my Cuttlebug with a Swiss Dots folder to add some texture.

I decided some bling was definitely required & this is where I had my final problem - the Papermania Adhesive Jewels that aren't.  Adhesive that is.  I eventually managed to find enough that were sticky and decided that I wouldn't tempt fate by trying to add anything else!

Stamps: Papermania Typography, Paula Pascual PPCSA6006 Simple Flowers, greeting stamp Personal Impressions PICSA6220 "Love is the Thread" by Sue Dix

Ink: Memento Elderberry