Welcome, Baby Ava

Happy 4th, everyone! Hope you're enjoying a wonderful holiday celebration with family and friends.

In addition to holiday goings-on, I've found a little crafting time these past couple of days. That's a good thing since I had a baby card to make -- a card for the brand new granddaughter of my dear friend Linda.

stash blue and green cardstock; various Distress Ink core papers; Neenah Soler white
computer-generated original sentiment
MFT Up in the Air image, stamped in Versamark black onyx and colored with Prismacolor pencils
shaker fill: Pretty Pink Posh sequins, cardstock circular shapes cut using Paper Smooches botanicals 2 dies
shaker opening: SU and Spellbinders circle dies; acetate: bargain buy scrapbook page protector
Stampin' Up baker's twine; Recollections pearls
adhesives: Scotch ATG; foam backing; Zig 2-way glue pen; Zots glue dots

This card was inspired by the current CAS-ual Fridays Tic-Tac-Toe Challenge. (I just love their tic-tac-toe challenges!) For my card, I chose the shaker card, rainbow, add texture combination.

Once I decided on the challenge combo for this baby card, I decided to go with a hot air balloon with a rainbow-heart banner.... because I just can't get enough of this little elephant on its hot air balloon ride... and a formerly-owned-but-new-to-me cloud embossing folder.

• My first step was to stamp the hot air balloon image, using masking to place the baby elephant and heart banners in just the right place. I then colored the image using Prismacolor pencils. (And, I have to say that I'm really proud of the way this coloring turned out. I still consider myself new to coloring and have yet to venture into the Copic world. LOL ) Next, I fussy cut out the image -- because, after all, we retired gals have to watch our wallets.  :)
• Using the cloud embossing folder meant that I needed to find just the right shade of blue paper for the sky. After I choose the paper, I printed out the sentiment (on this same paper), cut out the circles from 2 layers of foam backing, adhered the sentiment paper and foam layers -- taking care to carefully position the sentiment inside the circular opening.  

• Since it was getting kinda late, I decided this would be a nice breaking point... but took a minute to lay out what had been accomplished so far. To my dismay, I realized I was making a baby blue boy card for little Ava. Oh, my! Definitely time to step away and regroup... hoping for dreams filled with how-to-fix ideas. 

• Luckily, inspiration came just in time to save the day. I decided to add a little girl layer of paper behind the baby boy blue paper. After trying several colors, I went with Distress Ink dried apricot: a PERFECT solution!!!
• Next steps included embossing the clouds and creating the shaker fill by mixing sequins and die-cut small circular shapes (cut from various colored cardstock.) I added these bits of color to the mix to tie the mix back to the colors in the balloon's rainbow-colored banner.
• The last step involved deciding on finishing touches. Truth be told, this took far longer than it should have. Nevertheless, I decided upon just a little twine and a few petite pearls for two reasons: 1) I didn't want to add anything that competed with the little elephant, his colorful balloon, and that fun shaker fill, and 2) because of the shaker element, I needed to add elements that didn't add any additional bulk.

So, here it is. Hoping it's CAS-ual-Friday-worthy... but positive it's a perfectly delightful way to welcome baby Ava. 

Parting Thoughts

If you find yourself with any crafting time between now and tomorrow evening, there's still time to play along with us at Words 2 Craft By.

Have a happy and safe 4th celebration. And, until next time, thanks for stopping and happy scrappin'!